Inequality Act. . .

Rainbow Equality Act

As you have heard by now, the House has passed Pelosi and Biden's so-called Equality Act which is little more than a gutting of previous legislation (going back to the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964) and the sacrifice of religious freedom for the sake of the LGBTQ+ crowd.  I cannot for the life of me understand why feminists are willing to sacrifice female athletes and parents ready to sacrifice children upon the flimsy science of gender dysphoria.  I cannot understand why someone who considers himself a devout Roman Catholic would support such a catastrophic assault on religious freedom -- a constitutional right, by the way, in case anyone has forgotten.

Though the bill claims its purpose is to “prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation, and for other purposes,” the "other purposes" means the restriction of the free exercise of religion protected by the Bill of Rights.  Second, the rest of the bill makes clear that this act really means to end all discussion about gender identity, to prohibit any disagreement on this topic and to outlaw those who would retain the traditional biological distinctions and categories of male and female.

The Act presumes to redefine any use of the term sex (gender) to exclude biology and place it squarely in the realm of individual feeling or preference.  Further, the Act expands the scope of  “public accommodation” to include anywhere people gather outside a private residence.  Finally, the Act precludes any right of religious freedom and any protection to religious liberty with respect to these categories and definitions.  Why does this matter to churches?  By defining public accommodation as any  “place of or establishment that provides exhibition, entertainment, recreation, exercise, amusement, public gathering, or public display”; and “any establishment that provides a good, service, or program, including a . . . food bank, service or care center, [or] shelter,” parishes hosting community groups, religious primary and secondary schools, and every other religiously affiliated institution is liable to be sued or compelled against their constitutional religious liberty to conform to the provisions of this Act.

Those who thought that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) provided religious exemption and cover for religious institution should be warned that this Act specifically provides that RFRA “shall not provide a claim concerning, or a defense to a claim under” it.  If it becomes law, the future of religious liberty will be permanently constrained and the danger to churches and their affiliated agencies cannot be over stated.

So write your senator and take up your pen to write against this not Equality Act.

Christ the center. . .

One of the great struggles is how a culture seemingly Christocentric, at least on the surface, could so quickly devolve into a secularistic mess in which the most basic values of gender, marriage, family, and life itself could become questions.  Although there are perhaps countless reasons, one worth looking at is the decline in worship -- not simply in how many attend worship services but the very content and nature of what passes for worship and liturgy today.

For most of its history, America was overtly religious, that is, overtly Christian.  Communities did not merely tolerate religion but welcomed churches, believing them to be salutary and beneficial for the entire community and not simply for the congregants.  Political candidates lauded their religious affiliation and worked hard to establish an image of faith and piety.  Most of that has passed.  Now the fact that a president went to Mass prior to his inauguration is something newsworthy and noteworthy.

Our culture has witnessed the decline of its Christocentric from at least the 1960s.  At the same time, we have witnessed the further individualization of our culture and every aspect of our lives.  From the music of our individual playlists to the very nature of religion itself, individualism has taken charge.  With that has come the increasing reliance upon and confidence in technology.  All of these things have conspired to make our nation more secular now than at any other time.  At the same time, we have seen religion and worship, in particular, transformed to reflect less and less the transcendent culture of God and more and more the immanent culture of our lives and our times.  There is less sacred in sacred liturgy than ever before.  Is this a coincidence or is this connected?

Liturgy and culture are related.  How may not be quite so easy to figure out and some may insist that they merely parallel each other but I am not so sure.  When the forms of the liturgy were deemed too complex and too focused on the transcendent, the work of the 1960s was to minimize mystery and emphasize reason and understanding.  While on the surface this may not be a bad thing, it undermines that which is at the core and center of sacred liturgy -- God's mystery experienced in earthly elements. The once commonly accepted hermeneutic of continuity that lived from the rich tradition of the Church's life and worship gave way to experimentation and a desire for something new -- not just a new form but something new every Sunday morning!  Tradition began to be viewed as a prison and the job a liturgical renewal the release from captivity to the past.  From Vatican II through the various forms of liturgical renewal among other churches, Lutheran, Episcopalian, etc..., the pressure was on to reinvent who we are as a Church and what we looked like on Sunday morning.  Whether this merely followed the radical rebellions of the 1960s and 1970s or encouraged that protest, the end result was that the melodies and texts that had served the Church for so long suddenly disappeared and with them a generation or two of people.

Protestants of a non-liturgical stripe had preserved an order that framed what happened on Sunday morning.  Soon, however, their format gave way to new and invented forms that tended to mirror more the Pentecostal and Charismatic.  What had been a predictable rhythm from Sunday to Wednesday to Sunday was influenced more and more by the growing Evangelical shape of entertainment worship in which music was performed and the focus more on emotional engagement rather than Biblical teaching.  This was not without influence on liturgical churches attracted to the form and content less by conviction than by the desire to mirror the statistics of its success.  I well remember the equal disappointment when a Roman Catholic went to Mass only to find the words similar to what the Lutherans had been saying for years and the Lutherans that they were not quite as unique as they thought they were.  In the end, it became the occasion for another division and the so-called worship wars became a fight over who the Church was and what she believed.  While all of this was happening, the culture of the nation was moving away from religion, the numbers of nones growing faster than anyone might have believed a generation before, and the numbers in worship dropping all the way around.  Was it a coincidence?

Where the liturgy was once the encounter of an incarnational God who visited His people with sacramental grace hidden in the appearance of the ordinary, now the mystery was gone and those in charge seemed to be happy to focus on mankind rather than on the things of God.  The language of worship changed from the eloquent and the lofty to the political and mundane.  At one point an experimental liturgy in my own church body began with the words we are here because we are men.  Worship has become big business with music and media creating superstars and an entrepreneur's dream.  Culture is hungry but not for Scripture or for the traditional forms of doctrine and liturgy.  Instead it is hungry for preference, individualism, and feelings which have triumphed over truth.  Religion has become a mere choice or preference to be chosen the way one shapes the screens that dominate our technological lives.   Some may be yearning for what was lost but overall the liturgy and culture have both found their way to an individualistic view of truth, morality, and hope.

Just as God had to reinvent His people by the mighty acts of His deliverance, so will we need to rediscover what it means for God to be God, for us to be men, and for hope born of a death that ends death and a life strong enough to endure forever.  The preaching and teaching must be drawn again from Scripture and not from experience or desire.  We must learn again the vocabulary of sin, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration.  We must realize that what we have in common with those who went before us and those around us is suffering and that we proclaim a God who is strong enough to suffer for us and in our place.  From God's long suffering saving will and purpose we learn to be patient and to endure in hope, trusting not in ourselves but in the God who died that we might live.  Key to this is to re-establish the separation of the profane from the sacred, the worldly from the churchly.  This must happen not only in what happens on Sunday morning but in where it happens.  Reverence is what is missing from much of modern worship and it is reverence that is needed before the Church is subsumed fully into secular culture.  Music is part of this transcendent ideal and the Church will need to stop mirroring the sounds of popular culture in the sanctuary if she is to be distinct and set apart for God and His glory.  The future of a revitalized Christianity and the nation that will be profoundly affected by this renewed Church does not lie with accommodation or inculturation but with a distinct culture, identity, language, music, and art.  When we realize this we may be half way on our way to the future God intends.

The hardest person to convince is yourself. . .

We have all known for a long time that it is difficult to convince yourself to do what is good, right, and salutary.  None of us wants to go on a diet, engage in a regimen of regular exercise, work hard at our jobs, marriages, and families, or a thousand other things generally good for us.  The same is true when it comes to confessing our sins.  Who among us delights in admitting the worst about ourselves is the truth about ourselves?  I know I don't.  We excuse and justify and ignore in order to preserve us from the indignity of saying the words a poor, miserable sinner.  But saying those words are the key to receiving the unfettered mercy of God who forgives the sinner, reclaims the lost, restores the unworthy, and rejoices with all of heaven over just one in whom humility and faith win out over pride and unbelief.

In the same way, however, the hardest person to convince of the rightness of something we neither like nor desire is yourself.  Whether it is waking up and preparing yourself and family to be in the Lord's House on the Lord's Day or singing the hymn you do not enjoy or praying for as long as 30 seconds or reaching into your wallet to give to the Lord the tithes and offerings that are His due, we are hard to convince.  Even when the cause is just and right and we know it in our minds, we fight against it with our hearts.

We are now eleven months from the day when COVID 19 became a regular part of our vocabulary, when churches were under the threat to shut down or limit their numbers to 10 or less, when we shuttered businesses and hid in our homes in fear, and when lived in fear of our neighbors and the folks who sit in the pews with us.  It was hard to convince some of us that the threat was as real as some said but it has proven even harder to convince many of us that even with this threat we can gather safely around the Word and Table of the Lord.  We have become captive to our fears and also to our habits of not being together in the Lord's House.  It has got to stop.

In my parish we have less than 100 people in a building that seats 400 and yet some inside we cannot social distance far enough and are staying home from worship.  We have a masked service in which 30 people are in a space that seats 400 and still some balk at attending.  We have masks at every entrance and hand sanitizers throughout the building and every other pew roped off, but still people are sure that it is not safe to gather therein.  We have had less than 4 cases known to have come from contact in the church building over 11 months with literally thousands in worship, Bible study, Sunday school, and every other usual activity but some insist upon saying the church is full of COVID.  Pastors have emailed and called and visited any who wish to be visited and still there are those who will not come and do not want us to come either.  We have seen some of those folks heading into Wal-Mart or out of Kroger or at gas stations or a hundred other places where people go to do the essential business of life but they cannot or will not come to Church for in-person worship.  While some of those who are staying away are faithful in prayer and the financial support of the congregation, many of those are people we have not heard from for months and about whom we know little.  It sometimes seems to be exactly the way some wish it to be.

Your pastors plead for you to come or to allow us to come.  While there have been times when God's people have had to go without the benefit of His Word preached or the Holy Sacrament of His Body and Blood, this is not one of them.  We can, if we want, hear the word with ears that listen to what our eyes see and we can, if we desire, receive the Lord's Body and Blood and still be safe.    It is not a choice we have to make between safety and being in God's House and receiving His gifts.  But even if we choose not to attend, the consequences of our choice will linger on in us.  Having once given up the habit of preparing and heading our to the Lord's House on the Lord's Day, we will have to relearn this habit again at some point in time or else we will surrender more than a presence to the demons of corona virus.  Having once learned to live our lives from week to week without coming together in the Lord's House, we will have to relearn not only what we are missing but why it matters.  Having taught our spouses and children that Sunday is just another day, it will not be easy to teach them anew that Sundays we gather in Church before we do anything else.  Having once turned on a screen and watched worship as a spectator from afar, it will be hard to see the need to be there in person or to recall what it is that we are not getting at home before a screen.

We say what we are doing is to protect our lives and the lives of those around us.  But the one enduring fruit of this pandemic will be a smaller number of people gathered in most churches and more names on a list of those who once were numbered among us.  In this, we will have failed whatever test such an affliction might bring.  For if the result of the pandemic is a weaker and smaller Christianity, how can we not say that this was the devil's work and we his willing co-conspirators.  I say this not because I want it to be true but because I fear it will be true and it will be the truth we passed on to our children.

Chaplains to the front. . .

Some years ago when our hospital was purchased by a business and a community medical facility became a commercial enterprise driven by profits, the hospital chaplain who had served this institution was let go.  In a business venture designed to produce revenue and return for shareholders (as well as monumental profits for the CEO), there was no budget for a man whose job seemed to contribute little to the health care mission.  Years of volunteer chaplains long on intention but woefully short on the kind of pastoral care provided by the full-time hospital chaplain have proven the importance of this man and this institution.  Now the COVID pandemic has proven how important a hospital chaplain is to the overall mission of providing a full measure of care to those sick and those dying.  Where hospital chaplains still exist (usually in not-for-profit health care conglomerates), the need and benefit of these chaplains was never in doubt.  Now that we look back on the many who died alone in hospitals without benefit of family or local clergy at their side, we understand how important these chaplains were and are.

I would like to take just a moment to remember the work of those who were able to supply pastoral care to those at their worst and to be with those who were dying.  I salute them.  I wish there were more.   I have the greatest respect for them and for their advocacy on behalf of the pastoral care that is also a central part of the overall healing mission.  I miss the phone calls that once regularly informed me that a member was hospitalized and desired care and lament that this age of privacy works best to keep the pastor from knowing the needs of his people and supplying them.  I remember the many times when I was not able to be with an individual or family when death came near and loss left them broken and alone.  I rejoice at the times when the chaplain's wisdom and experience helped me to know what was going on and gave me a step up to answering that need with the wisdom of God's Word and the healing grace of His Gospel.  I know from my wife, a nurse of more than 40 years, how much the hospital chaplain contributed to the difficult times when families faced the worst possible diagnosis and the patient had to face a hard choice.  Not to mention are those times when family stresses proved too difficult for the medical staff to handle with the care given to the patient and how the chaplain served that family as well as the patient.

I hope and pray that those who review the history of COVID will remember how important the hospital chaplain was when there was a chaplain and how much better things could have been if there had been more.

It is time to say it again. . .

There are those, some of them even read this blog, who love to condemn any practice they don't like as Romish and the pastors who do them as Romish. There are those who would like to think that a liturgical minimalism is the piety most in keeping with conservative, confessional Lutheranism. They know that I disagree. Maybe they do not know that CFW Walther also disagreed. I am indebted to Pastor Will Weedon for first posting this and am happy to repeat it every other year or so. Just so that we do not forget! 

C. F. W. Walther was the first president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, the President of Concordia Seminary, and the pastor of a number of parishes in St. Louis. The following is from an editorial he wrote for the predecessor of our periodical The Lutheran Witness:

Whenever the divine service once again follows the old Evangelical-Lutheran agendas (or church books), it seems that many raise a great cry that it is “Roman Catholic”: “Roman Catholic” when the pastor chants “The Lord be with you” and the congregation responds by chanting “and with thy spirit”; “Roman Catholic” when the pastor chants the collect and the blessing and the people respond with a chanted “Amen.” Even the simplest Christian can respond to this outcry: “Prove to me that this chanting is contrary to the Word of God, then I too will call it “Roman Catholic” and have nothing more to do with it. However, you cannot prove this to me.

If you insist upon calling every element in the divine service “Romish” that has been used by the Roman Catholic Church, it must follow that the reading of the Epistle and Gospel is also “Romish.” Indeed, it is mischief to sing or preach in church, for the Roman Church has done this also . . .Those who cry out should remember that the Roman Catholic Church possesses every beautiful song of the old orthodox church. The chants and antiphons and responses were brought into the church long before the false teachings of Rome crept in. This Christian Church since the beginning, even in the Old Testament, has derived great joy from chanting... For more than 1700 years orthodox Christians have participated joyfully in the divine service. Should we, today, carry on by saying that such joyful participation is “Roman Catholic”? God forbid!Therefore, as we continue to hold and to restore our wonderful divine services in places where they have been forgotten, let us boldly confess that our worship forms do not tie us with the modern sects or with the church of Rome; rather, they join us to the one, holy Christian Church that is as old as the world and is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Der Lutheraner (Vol. 9, No. 24, p. 163, July 19, 1853)

 

Lead us not into temptation. . .

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent, preached on Sunday, February 21, 2021, by the Rev. Daniel M. Ulrich.

               Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “Lead us not into temptation.”  It’s an odd thing for us to pray because we know God tempts no one (Jas 1:13).  Recently, the Pope approved changing the wording of this petition to “Do not let us fall into temptation,” so that it apparently will make more sense.  It’s true that God doesn’t tempt us, but we still need to pray this petition, a petition Christ Himself gave us to pray.  We need to pray it every day.  We need to pray it multiple times a day, because temptation will come our way.

               Temptation is inevitable.  Talking about temptation, St. James said “when it comes,” not “if it comes.”  The devil is alive and he’s out there, prowling around like a lion, looking for someone to devour (1 Pt 5:8-9).  He wants to tempt you away from God, and too often, we don’t even notice it. 

               When we think about Satan and his temptations, we often think about those “big” sins.  We think he’s out there trying to create complete and utter chaos, anarchy that’s lived out in theft, abuse, fornication, and murder.  We picture devil worshipers cloaked in black gathered in secret underground temples with stone altars for ceremonial sacrifices, at least, that’s how it’s portrayed in the movies.  But that’s not how the devil tempts. 

               Satan isn’t looking for active worshipers.  He couldn’t care less whether or not you bow your knee to him.  What he wants is for you not to bow your knee to the Lord.  And if that means you get to live a peaceable life, never aware of his temptations and sin, never knowing how much you need the forgiveness and life of Christ, well then, so be it.

The devil tempts with small things.  He tempts with things that look good and innocent.  He tempts through the world and culture around us.  He tempts by questioning God’s Word, twisting it just enough, convincing us that God wants us to be happy, that He wants our desires and wishes to come true.  Just look at how he tempted our first parents.  He didn’t try to convince them to murder each other.  He simply asked a question and spoke a lie.  “Did God really say…?  You won’t die.  You’ll be like God.”  That’s his M.O.  That’s what makes resisting temptation so difficult, it doesn’t look like temptation. 

St. James wrote, “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (Jas 1:14-15).  It’s our wants and desires that Satan tempts with.  And we all know how easy it is to convince us of something that we want.  Satan doesn’t have to twist our arms.  We willingly give in.  We can’t say, “The devil made me do it.”  No, we did it; we do it.  We give into temptation.  We trade the truth of God’s Word for the lies of Satan.  But not Christ.  He endured Satan’s temptation and tricks and He overcame them.  He had to, because we can’t. 

It’s easy to miss it, but did you catch what the Spirit of the Lord did immediately after Christ was baptized?  Listen again, “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.  And [Jesus] was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan” (Mk 1:12-13).  The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness where He’d be tempted.  Christ’s temptation was part of God’s plan of salvation.  Jesus had to be tempted.  He had to stand where the first Adam fell.  God tempts no one because He allowed Himself to be tempted, so that He could defeat the tempter for you. 

Christ endured temptation for you.  He stood against Satan in the wilderness for you.  He overcame the devil’s twisted lies for you.  He did this so that He could take your sin upon Himself, so that He could sacrifice His righteous life for your sinful one, so that He could shed His innocent blood to redeem you from sin and death, so that He could rescue you from the devil’s claim, so that He could claim you as His own through the waters of Baptism.  By Christ’s victory on the cross, with the help of the Spirit, with the forgiveness of sins, with the gift of faith, with the truth of God’s Word, you can confidently endure against Satan’s temptation; knowing you belong to the Lord.

               But this doesn’t mean life will be easy.  This doesn’t mean trials won’t come your way.  St. James encourages us by saying, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him” (Jas 1:12).

There will be various trials that we face as Christians.  Nowhere in Scripture does God promise us an easy life.  We’ll endure difficulties, maybe even more so than unbelievers.  Not only do we endure temptations, but we also endure testing, and these aren’t the same things.  Temptation comes from the devil, the world, and our sinful nature.  Satan attacks us hard, trying to lead us away from God, that’s the purpose of temptation.  But testing comes from God, and the purpose of it is to lead to God.

Tests aren’t easy, otherwise they wouldn’t be tests.  It’s difficult to endure, but these are good and for our benefit.  They’re for the strengthening of our faith, like the testing of Abraham. 

We have a difficult time understanding this test from God.  Why would God tell Abraham to sacrifice his son, his miracle son of promise conceived and born in Abraham’s and Sarah’s old age?  This doesn’t make sense, and I think it’s safe to say that at the time, it probably didn’t make sense to Abraham either.  And yet, this test revealed something.  It revealed how the Lord saves us.  God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son, but He did spare His.  God the Father gave up His Son so that He could have us. 

By faith, Abraham trusted in the Lord.  He didn’t have to understand it.  He didn’t have to know what God was thinking.  What he knew was that God was faithful, and somehow He’d do what He promised to do through Isaac.  And that’s how it is for us.

When we go through the trials of testing, we don’t always understand it.  It’s hard and we ask why: Why did I lose my job?  Why did I get that diagnosis?  Why did that young child suffer in that way?  Why are all these natural disasters happening?  We don’t know these answers, but we know that the Lord is faithful.  We know that He gave up His Son for us.  And because of that, by faith we know He’ll give us that crown of life that He promised through His Son.

               We endure trails: temptation and testing.  Temptation comes from Satan, the world, and our sinful nature, but testing is from the Lord.  Both are difficult, but we're not alone in them.  The Lord is with you, giving you the strength to endure, strength through His Word, strength through His Sacraments, strength through your brothers and sisters in Christ.  Filled with the Holy Spirit, you are enabled to remain steadfast, holding fast to your Savior.  In Jesus’ name...Amen.