I am avant garde. . .

All things are new again, from skinny neck ties to long play records.  So I was watching the Synod's video on preaching, aptly called Preach the Word, when I noticed that the high tech video and graphics were using an image of a dusty chalkboard and a font designed to look like the uneven lines of chalk on a chalkboard.  At that point I lost touch with the speaker.  I grew up with black chalkboards, the real ones made of slate.  I remember when we graduated to the green boards that were almost like chalk boards.  I recall when big newsprint (later white paper) sheets came in giant tablets and you could rip them off and mask tape them to the walls.  I remember when the first white board showed up.  I recall seeing the first digital white board that printed a copy of what you wrote or emailed it to the folks you wanted to see it.  I recall when PowerPoint was fresh and new and not the tired, predictable, old format we now accompany with a yawn.  So, when I saw that video and saw that the digital imagery had drawn deeply into the past to the old black, dusty chalkboard, then I knew the future had circled all the way back to the past.

But that is exactly how it goes. What is old and forgotten becomes new again.  Just wait long enough and you will see it all again.

Pietism and Rationalism came along and robbed us Lutherans of our identity on Sunday morning, shifting our attention from the Means of Grace to our feelings and redefining faith as knowledge instead of trust.  Lutherans became embarrassed over their liturgical identity and looked longingly to the Christians around them (first the mainline and then the evangelicals).  We are still fighting the age old battles against a head faith that looks for reasoned explanations and the heart faith which wants to feel good.  But in the mean time, we have left ourselves confused and a mess on Sunday morning.  Nobody knows what they will find in a Lutheran congregation on a Sunday morning.  And the people who call for a restoration of the Divine Service are called radicals and the people who think contemporary music means singing the sounds of Peter, Paul, and Mary find themselves as dated (and stale) as yesterday's news.  Non-liturgical churches are finding ways to act liturgical at the same time some folks among Lutheranism are trying their darnedest to act as if Lutheranism were not liturgical.

Chalkboards are in again. . .