Rebuking the Pharisees. . .

Matthew 21:23-46 (Jesus rebukes the Pharisees)

“By what authority are You doing these things? Who gave You this authority?”  This is from those who were charged to prepare the people so that when the Father determined the time was ripe and sent forth His redemption, they would be ready to receive Him who comes in the Name of the Lord.  They had already turned on John the Forerunner, despite his obvious popularity and success.  They had already decided that Jesus was not helping but hurting and had to be dealt with -- even if it meant innocent blood on the hands of the guilty.  It may not be pretty but it was prudent, even expedient, that one die to preserve the way of life for the many.  This was not God talking but unbelief.  Jesus calls out unbelief wherever He finds it.  Even worse than unbelief which owes the rejection, the Pharisees took the easy but damning way out.  "We don't know."  Those who ought to have known the Scriptures and that they testify of Jesus the messiah were now left to the lie that they did not know.  They were not so uncertain about rejecting John the Baptist and tainting his work.  They were not so uncertain about marking Jesus as a problem that had to be dealt with.  But they could not even admit up front their rejection.  "We just don't know."  Jesus did know and still does know.  Open your hearts to Him who already knows what He will find there.

 Almighty and everlasting God, grant us by Your grace so to pass through this holy time of our Lord’s passion that we may obtain the forgiveness of our sins; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

1 Prepare the royal highway;
    The King of kings is near!
Let ev’ry hill and valley
    A level road appear!
Then greet the King of Glory
Foretold in sacred story: Refrain

ref Hosanna to the Lord,
For He fulfills God’s Word!

2 God’s people, see Him coming:
    Your own eternal king!
Palm branches strew before Him!
    Spread garments! Shout and sing!
God’s promise will not fail you!
No more shall doubt assail you! Refrain

3 Then fling the gates wide open
    To greet your promised king!
Your king, yet ev’ry nation
    Its tribute too should bring.
All lands, bow down before Him!
All nations, now adore Him! Refrain

4 His is no earthly kingdom;
    It comes from heav’n above.
His rule is peace and freedom
    And justice, truth, and love.
So let your praise be sounding
For kindness so abounding: Refrain

 

Cleansing the temple. . .

Matthew 21:12-19 (Jesus cleanses the temple)

He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver.  or so says Malachi chapter three.  The promise took a bit of time in coming but it did.  Jesus entered the temple to cleanse what had become tainted so that the promise of God's House might be fulfilled.  

Malachi addressed the restoration of the worship life of the people of God by the messenger of the Lord whom He sent to fulfill the promise.  In this way Christ purifies the priests although Jesus fulfills these words of promise in a way that no one could have expected. He walked into the Temple scene amid  people who were bustling in the outer court of the temple, known also as the court of the Gentiles.  This was to be a place for the nations to meet with God in worship, praise, and prayer.  That could not happen.  Instead of a house of prayer, Jesus found a thriving commercial business taking care of the selling of the sacrifices and exchanging money for a fee to pay the Temple tax.  It had become the consuming focus of the Temple -- the real purpose of the temple forgotten and lost amid people trading, buying and selling off of one another all the while taking advantage to make a profit off of things required.  What was Jesus to do?  In righteous anger, He drove them all out of the Temple and its courts.  He did not merely command them to leave but overturned their tables and their seats (Matthew 21:12), keeping them from getting back to business.  All the while He addressed them with the prophet's voice, “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it a den of thieves!” In Isaiah 56:7, God prophesies through the prophet that His house will be called a “house of prayer for all nations.” 

Almighty God, grant that in the midst of our failures and weaknesses we may be restored through the passion and intercession of Your only-begotten Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

You strode within the Temple, Lord,
Where merchants vied for gain,
And cried, “Your wares corrupt God’s house,
This place of prayer profane!”
With corded whip and fiery wrath
You put God’s foes to flight.
They could not bear the searching beam
Of your unshielded light.

The temple of your body, Lord,
They crushed when you were slain;
But after three days’ sleep in death,
God raised it up again.
And now you have a dwelling place
On earth, in all its lands.
Your people are your temple, Lord,
A house not made with hands.

Make ev’ry heart your temple, Lord,
Each life a holy place.
Forgive the sins that flaw your plan,
Your patient work deface.
In love that does not shrink from truth
These temples purify.
And then in mercy, Lord, remain;
Your Spirit’s gifts supply.

Come, visit, Lord of righteousness,
The Church that bears your name.
Drive out our fear and unbelief,
The pride that is our shame.
Renew the life we share, O Christ,
In love and prayer and praise.
Then send us forth, our strength restored,
To serve you all our days.

 

Palms or Passion. . .

As we begin Holy Week, there is a perennial debate among Lutherans over the Sunday which was called Palm Sunday and now is called Passion Sunday.  I must admit that it is a curious one for me.  When I grew up the majority of Lutherans I knew had confirmation on Palm Sunday.  Instead of Jesus riding in on the back of a donkey, a row or two of finely groomed young men in the first real suits and young women in their white, lacy dresses were assembled for the rite Luther loved to hate -- confirmation.  So we did not hear much of Jesus entrance into Jerusalem amid palms and hosannas nor did we pay much attention to what was coming later in the week.  It meant one thing to us -- no more catechism class!  Yeah!  The two hours on Saturday mornings sitting quietly except to repeat memory work would finally come to an end.  Who could not be happy about that?  It was, at least in our minds and the minds of our relieved parents who saw us finally finished, a much more important occasion than what happened in the Gospel. So maybe this has soiled my perception of the argument in favor of palms and tilted my sympathies toward the passion over the palms.  I cannot say that I am objective about this but I am not without appreciation for the argument which changed the day.

Some complain that the reading of the Passion overshadows the rest of the week and renders the individual stories of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday superfluous.  I disagree.  We do have palms and hosannas -- where they belong in the great procession that enters Holy Week by following Jesus through the crowds to the cross.  We do pay attention to the grand welcome in which the Savior came to His appointed destiny humble and mounted on a donkey.  But we do this in the context of the larger outcome.  Jesus did NOT come for the crowds or the accolades or the welcome.  He came for the cross.  In the past the palms gave us a glory moment which was not Jesus' primary glory.  He came for the glory of the cross.

Yes, I agree.  It is cumbersome to read the whole Passion story in one fell swoop.  It is long.  It taxes the skill of the reader and the listener.  But such is the weight of these words that we at least once in Holy Week hear it all -- from beginning to end -- before we explore the smaller stories inside the big one.  Yes, it does kill the surprise ending but the Church and those who have gathered to celebrate the day already know the surprise ending -- we know He dies and we know He rises again.  This is exactly why we come.  To hear it all again -- the old story retold again, not for dramatic effect, but because this IS the Gospel. 

So sing All Glory, Laud, and Honor and wave the palms and shout the hosannas.  But make sure that on this Sunday everyone knows where this goes -- to the cross.  And don't forget to sing one of the great Lenten chorales (O Sacred Head, A Lamb Alone Goes Willingly, etc.) or one of my personal favorites, No Tramp of Soldier's Marching Feet. 

Every day in every way better. . .

The beautiful image of progress is indeed alluring.  Every day in every way we are getting better.  No one would deny that this is what we wish, what we hope to believe, and what we expect.  But is it true?  Can anyone realistically say that we are getting better and better as individuals, as families, as neighborhoods, as communities, as nations, and as a world?  

It is true, of course, that there are different ills, different sins, different problems, and different vices in every age and time.  They are not exactly the same but they are not exactly unique either.  Modernity has always brought with it its own slant on the age old sins of the commandments.  They are more often only more complicated than before and with more problematic consequences than before.  Those consequences are usually the increased numbers of victims and casualties we face because of this thing call progress.

We are pitiful in our defense of progress.  We point out with glee to the terrible things of the past that were once acceptable or tolerable or even promoted.  Slavery and misogyny are the typical things we name as areas in which we have made progress.  And we have.  But with this progress has come with a host of other problems which were never envisioned when race and sex caused some to be unfairly oppressed.  Our own willingness to accept and promote the death of countless millions in the womb while contemplating how to make death simply a choice for those who want it, when they want it, and painless to boot.  What about the increasing numbers of people who have given up on marriage or children and those who enter marriage and exit with impunity?  What about the promise of social media and its end result of cyber bullying and the incredible portion of its capacity devoted solely to porn?  What about the hopes placed in artificial intelligence and our seeming inability to distinguish between what machines say and do and people say and do?  What about the progress of technology that has come at what kind of cost to us -- costs in relationship, loneliness, and depression.  What about the grand expectations of the UN and world arenas designed to prevent or stop wars and the state of war and conflict that is literally all over the globe?  What about the attention given to the environment and climate change and the way we seem to use more dangerous and toxic minerals and elements without a thought to what to do with them when we are finished with them?      

There is no promise of improvement to the future.  In fact, the whole perspective of the Scriptures is just the opposite.  Things are not getting better.  Things are not improving at all.  The world is in a death ward spiral down.  It is not in an upward movement toward a better world but a world marred by sin and death reaching down further and further into this abyss.  That does not mean every part of technology is bad or every part of life is crap but it certainly diffuses the idea that we should have hope in our ability to sort out the past in the future and make it better.  We are not here to simply warn the world of this regress but to speak hope to the hopeless.  That does not pin such hope on a date in the past but on the one who alone can redeem the future with a new heaven and a new earth, one raised up through death to a life death cannot overcome and one in which the terrible cycle of sin and failure are finally ended.

One acquittal, one conviction. . .

Finland’s Supreme Court has acquitted Päivi Räsänen for her 2019 Bible verse tweet but Räsänen and Bishop Juhana Pohjola were found guilty in 3-2 decision for expressing their beliefs in a decades old church pamphlet  It was a narrow 3–2 decision, but the Finnish Supreme Court has agreed that disagreeing with the sacred tenets of gay marriage and LGBTQ+ rights is a criminal act guilty of hate speech. So after twenty years of legal wrangling, Räsänen has been criminally convicted for publishing the 2004 pamphlet for her church, along with Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola. The conviction is for “making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group”. The Supreme Court unanimously acquitted Räsänen for her 2019 Bible verse tweet.  Räsänen was previously unanimously acquitted on all charges by two lower courts. 

The long serving parliamentarian and former Minister of the Interior has been convicted for “hate speech” under a section of the Finnish criminal code titled “war crimes and crimes against humanity”. The medical doctor and grandmother of twelve was tried in early 2022 and again in 2023 for expressing her beliefs in a 2019 tweet, which included a Bible verse, in addition to a 2019 radio debate and 2004 church booklet.  

After the prosecutor appealed for the second time, the Supreme Court, which heard the case in October 2025, has now ruled on two of the three original charges: concerning the tweet and the church booklet. The Supreme Court was not asked to rule on the radio debate as the prosecution did not appeal it, so Räsänen’s acquittal for the debate stands. 

“I am shocked and profoundly disappointed that the court has failed to recognize my basic human right to freedom of expression. I stand by the teachings of my Christian faith, and will continue to defend my and every person’s right to share their convictions in the public square.” stated Päivi Räsänen after receiving the judgment.

“I am taking legal advice on a possible appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. This is not about my free speech alone, but that of every person in Finland. A positive ruling would help to prevent other innocent people from experiencing the same ordeal for simply sharing their beliefs,” added Räsänen.  

This is one profound example of how far the so called Christian Europe has deviated from its roots and how orthodox Christianity has become that speech which is no longer tolerated.  So much for freedom. 

The rebellious teenager. . .

There is hardly a stereotype more common than the rebellious teenager who has come to reject everything of the parent and disown his own family.  Curiously, that might be the apt description of the state of the university today.  Everyone knows that the Church all but invented the university but the truth is that today it has all but divorced itself from the Church that gave it birth and a home for most of history.  You could take that one step further.  The university has become such a secular institution -- without respect or place for the Church -- that it cannot allow even token colleges who wish to own and live out their Christian identity.  That is surely the state of things today and it is also true for Lutheran universities who are hardly a realistic competitor for the big names in higher education.  It is also the dilemma for those institutions since they are tempted in both directions -- one which honors their Lutheran identity and is consistent with their Lutheran faith and one which minimizes both so that they enjoy the cache without being committed to all its articles of faith.

The reality is that a school like Luther Classical College is small and less than a blimp on the radar even for Lutheran schools.  The reality is that it is hard to imagine that Lutheran universities would ever begin to look like Hillsdale even though they drool at the prospect.  We do not have the history or the money or the reputation to make that possible.  So what does the Lutheran university look like?  That is the question plaguing every historic Lutheran college today.  What does that look like?  There are Lutheran identity statements which are engaging and positive but it is not the theory that is the problem.  It is living out this idea every day and finding good faculty and interested students to make it all possible.  Underneath the skin of all those decent Lutheran colleges is the desire to be in the big leagues, to become a world class institution and not simply a world class Lutheran institution.  That is the temptation.  We may not be able to play in the big leagues but we would like to be respected by them and appreciated for who we are and what we do.

Roman Catholic universities have surely bought into this desire.  Consider what I posted not long ago about Notre Dame.  It is not alone.  Nearly every Roman Catholic college and university has not only been drawn to the light like bugs on the back porch but has been willing to sacrifice much of its theological baggage and doctrinal fidelity to get the dream.  Honestly, I have trouble remembering the names of any Roman Catholic institutions of higher education which have actually traded the dream for fidelity.  Maybe you can supply some of the names to help me out on this point.  It is not just that these schools do not foster the Roman Catholic mission on their campuses but they seem to be working very hard to undermine that mission.  

Some of it is the employment of non-Roman Catholic faculty, staff, and leadership.  The lottery for big names who might give them secular credibility and attract the diminishing number of young people in our nation is hot.  So what if they do not own the doctrine or support the Roman Catholic mission or, even, contradict it?  Academic freedom demands you have some naysayers to argue against such things, right?  And what is the critical mass here?  How many faculty who dispute your doctrinal identity are enough and how many are too many?  Somebody once said a little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump... or something like that.

I wonder if it might be easier if we gave up the illusion that the Lutheran University is a mission to the unchurched students and world.  Oh, of course, that happens but that is and never was the reason for the Church to establish universities in the first place and it is not the reason why we Lutherans began our colleges.  All of those rationales were internal.  We needed church workers and we valued those church workers as teachers of the faith as well as pastors.  So we began a school in which the mission was to provide such church workers, especially pastors.  Has that changed?  Is that mission now replaced by preparing medical professionals, lawyers, engineers, and a host of other valuable people and occupations with a hint of religious education thrown in?  It does seem like the small numbers of church work students means that no one can really admit that this is the primary mission of nearly all of our schools.  What is the mission?  If we are a religious version of a secular school doing the same things that secular school does but with a twist, that is pretty expensive to provide and pretty expensive for the student.  Is that a credible mission?  Can we afford it?  Is it worthwhile?  Rome must be wondering the same thing.  They have so many more institutions to worry about and so many more schools to monitor to get it right. 

Anyway, those are some of the things I wonder about.  Will the rebellious teenager ever come back home and be happy to be there?  I can hope so but my record of predicting things is so pathetic.  We can pray and I suspect there are many praying with me.

Nine months to Christmas. . .

Today is March 25 so Merry Christmas!?  Don't get it?  Well, today is the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary.  Nine months from today, Jesus' birth will be celebrated.  Oh, sure, you probably have been sold the bill of goods that says that Christmas is some sort of pagan holiday that was taken over the Church to shut down the heathen and fill the gap with something more spiritual.  There are those who continue to spew the old saw that Christ is little more than a baptized version of a Roman, pagan winter solstice celebration. The false history, long ago debunked, is that the Church did not know what to do with this pagan celebration of the "sun" god and so it “Christianized” the celebration to given the recently converted pagans their day back but with its focus on Jesus instead of Saturn or Sol or whatever other pagan deity was associated with the switch from shortening days to longer ones.

The early Church did not celebrate Christmas much -- this is true -- but that was because the focus was centrally on the resurrection of Christ from the dead (Read what Paul wrote to the Corinthians).  This was the big deal -- dying and rising.  Easter remains the Queen of Seasons even though the marketplace has not done to Easter what it did to Christmas.  The date of Christmas was fixed not by pagan celebrations but by the passion and death of Christ.  In the West the date calculated was March 25 (in the East they used and still use a different calendar system).  March 25 was the first date fixed because at the time of Christ it was commonly held that prophets died on their birth or conception date. It’s the idea of “integral age,” as scholar William J. Tighe has noted in such detail. The Annunciation of our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary is liturgically celebrated on March 25, the date of Christ’s conception through the Word spoken by Gabriel and enacted by the Spirit.   In addition, you can read of the theologically-important connection between the womb and tomb in the work of  John Behr in The Mystery of Christ.  So because Christ died on the same date of the Annunciation (his conception), then Christmas Day has to be exactly nine months later OR March 25.

But this is not the only reason to interrupt Lent with this wonderful day of rejoicing.  For Blessed Mary is the first Christian (pondering all these things in her heart after consenting to the will of the Lord).  She is our own best example of faith under fire, of trust where eyes and experience say "no".  She is our mother in the faith and from her we learn what it means to believe the Word of the Lord (which came to her with more than an inconvenient message and one that challenged everything she had come to know and believe of life).  On this day we rejoice to stand with her before her Lord and ours, in whom we have forgiveness, life, and salvation.

Let me close this day with a little paragraph from Augustine from On The Trinity:

For He is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also He suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which He was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which He was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before nor since. But He was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.

 

Liturgical without ceremony. . .

While reading of the decision of a former head of an Anglican seminary to enter Rome, I came across his apt description of how he was raised.  He said his upbringing in a Christian home was that of "using the Book of Common Prayer, liturgical without ceremony, earnest and lengthy in its preaching, sacramental but Protestant.”  It occurred to me that you could remove the Book of Common Prayer and insert The Lutheran Hymnal and it would exactly describe my own childhood in the faith.  I suspect that there are many who might agree.  

While I am not saying that this is awful or the worst context in which Lutheranism is expressed, I must admit that it ended up not being all that compelling.  "Liturgical without ceremony" was exactly how the Divine Service was conducted growing up Lutheran in the 1950s and 1960s -- at least the four times annually when the full Divine Service was held.  Of course, the "dry" Mass hastily concluded after the offering and prayers with a benediction and dismissal was conducted in exactly the same "liturgical without ceremony" manner.  It was decent and in good order but it was also clear to me that this was a form which was followed because that was who we "Lutherans" were but not because this was essential or flowed from our Confession.  We simply did what was in the book with little fanfare.  Again, it is not that this was terrible but was it really who we were as Lutherans?

"Ernest and lengthy in its preaching" was what I heard from the pulpit.  The sermons were generally based on a series of preaching texts popular at the time and thus distanced the sermon from its context within the liturgy and encouraged it to stand on its own, apart from the rest of the Divine Service.  Indeed, it was as if the rest of the liturgy was either unrelated to the sermon or simply the preparation for it but, in any case, the sermon was clearly the main deal.  The preaching was generally very earnest.  It may have lacked some in passion and delivery but not in content or form.  I was regularly preached into the faith in very large forty minute segments each Sunday.  They were Biblical and confessional yet often oblivious to the liturgical year (except in the high and holy Sundays).  They were doctrinal and expressed to, if not convinced, the hearer of what we believe, teach, and confess.  Notably absent were sermons about baptism, the Eucharist, or confession and absolution.  These things, presumed by our Confessions to be the realm in which the Christian lived out his life of faith and his calling in Christ, were largely treated tangentially -- even when the text mentioned them explicitly.

"Sacramental but Protestant" also resonates with me.  It was obvious that we held to Sacraments but more in theory than in practice and life.  We were not expected to cling to the promises made in water, bread, wine, and a voice in confession the way we clung to the Word of God but we did believe in those things.  Sort of like those who believe alcohol consumption is not bad and might be fine but who drink seldom.  We agreed in theory to their worth and value but Sundays were meant for preaching and the Eucharist was always an "add on" to the Service of the Word.  Again, this is not the worst one could experience but it was not exactly the faithful vision confessed in our formative documents or even in Luther (overall).  Protestant was clearly who we were.  We would stand with the Methodists and Presbyterians and Evangelical Covenant people but we were noticeably uncomfortable around Roman Catholics.  We envisioned ourselves less as the evangelical catholics of the Augustana than a type of typical Protestant who had a peculiar Sunday morning habit.  We were warned against going to a Roman Catholic Church but we were also cautioned against going anywhere that was not us (the jurisdiction included here).  Yes, we did regard ourselves as the original and most authentic Protestants but Protestant just the same.  

The problem with this is that it lacks a compelling identity.  Worship simply becomes worship, divorced from Confession and maybe even at odds with it.  Doctrine becomes theory that is held rightly in the mind but not prayed in the liturgy.  Protestant means that we can be other kinds of Protestant and not sacrifice what we believe, teach, and confess -- like the Lutheran who becomes a Baptist and consoles himself that their high view of Scripture and inerrancy balances out their rejection of baptismal efficacy.  And that is why so many Lutherans who marry Protestants assume that their conversion to another form of Protestantism does not mean all that much.  I fear that this is at least part of the reason for the many defections from Lutheranism over the years although not entirely responsible for them.  At least that is the view from one who grew up "liturgical without ceremony, earnest and lengthy in its preaching, sacramental but Protestant.”

Let us die with Christ. . .

Sermon preached for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 22, 2026, at Grace Lutheran Church.

Every now and then the disciples actually stumbled upon the truth.  When that happens, it is wise for us to pay attention.  So when the sisters send word to Jesus that Lazarus whom He loved is ill but Jesus appeared to do nothing, they were relieved.  After all, by this time everyone who was anyone knew that there was a price on Jesus’ head.  Jesus Himself appeared to minimize the seriousness of the illness by saying that “this will not lead to death.”  Everyone was happy.  Nobody had to die – not even Lazarus.  Until he did.

Then, when Lazarus had already died, Jesus got a wild hair about heading to Bethany to be with Mary and Martha in their grief and being glad He die not go earlier but now will wake the dead.  In exasperation, Thomas mouths off with the most profound statement he had ever made.  “Let us also go that we may die with Him.”  Now just maybe Thomas had gotten a shot of the Holy Spirit in that moment because what Thomas said became a promise in the mouth of Jesus: “I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in Me even though he die, yet shall he live.”  And they have become a litany in the words of St. Paul.  “If we have died with Him, we will also live with Him.” And, “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”  

Lets take that one step further.  These words must be your own confession as well.  They are the words of a people brought to baptismal waters to surrender the life that is marked for death so that they may take up the life that death cannot touch.  They are the words of a people who meet God first at the step of the altar to confess their sin and unworthiness before approaching the altar with anything to give to or ask of Jesus.  They are the words of a people who come to a table set with bread and wine to eat of Christ’s flesh and blood, proclaiming His death until He comes again.  These are the words of a people who go to the cemetery watching the body be planted in the earth and truly expect to see the dead again.  ndeed, that is why we are here – to die with Christ.

It may seem an odd thing to say but it is the most profound prayer of the faithful.  Let us die with Christ, let us die for Christ, let us die in Christ.  The whole shape and purpose of Lent is to proclaim that there is life only for those willing to die with Christ, to die for Christ, and to die in Christ. In a world filled with  people who want to be spiritual without being religious it makes no sense.  In a church with crucifixes and crosses everywhere, it’s the only thing that makes sense.
We are here to die with Christ.  It begins in our baptism in water when quite apart from anything we say or do, the Lord claims us as His own, complete with all our sins and flaws.  He even claims our sins and failings as His.  He cleanses us not symbolically but in water that really washes clean to the soul.  His blood has become the fountain with the power to cleanse what no amount of good works and good intentions could ever do.  Lent is traditionally a baptismal season – a time when those to be baptized are instructed and a time when those already baptized are refreshed in what it means to be the baptized people of God.  We have died the fearful death with Christ so that the terror of death is over.  Death is not a friend but it has become a tool in the hands of our Savior, a door through which those whom He has made righteous may enter into eternal life.  Baptism may not be a necessity for those who never have the opportunity to be baptized, but it not optional for those who do.  We are baptized with Christ, His presence in the water like a magnet to draw to Him all our sins and even our death.

We die with Christ every day.  The baptismal life rising up from the waters of the womb of our birth from above gives us a new identity.  Every day we die with Christ and rise with Him to live the new life of holiness, righteousness, and purity.  Every day we surrender to Him the sins for which our blood cannot atone but His blood has, once for all.  Every day we fight against the desires of the flesh, the temptations of the world, and the enticing schemes of the devil.  It is not easy.  It would be far easier to go with the flow and fade into the background of the world, accepting its values and purpose over that of Christ.  It is not easy and we will certainly fail but His forgiveness lifts us up from the dust of that failure and gives us hope to try again, living the sober, upright, self-controlled lives a people who have been set free from their bondage to others to live only for Christ.

Let us die for Christ.  That means counting the cost of discipleship.  That means not running when we discover the momentary pain of denying our whims and desires and beating down the flesh to be faithful to Christ alone.  No one said it was easy and Jesus did not ever say it would be anything but a fight and a struggle to walk worthy of Him.  But that is what we do.  Let us die for Christ.  Sometimes that is not even metaphorical.  Christians die for their faith.  They die because they stand too close to Jesus in a world that loves all things in moderation – even faith.   They die because we have real enemies who can take our lives but not our soul. The world is not our home or our friend.  It can offer wonderful gifts, blessings, and comforts but hidden within is too often the cost of discipleship.
There are martyrs for the faith every day who give up something more than a favorite food for Lent.  They surrender their lives for the sake of Him who surrendered His for them.  We dare not as if this does not happen anymore.  It happens for most of us in the home, in the workplace, in the marketplace, on the internet, in the public square, as well as the heart.  But for some it still happens when death is the cost of discipleship.  Let us die for Christ.

Let us die in Christ.  At some point in time the Church stopped talking about a Christian death.  It was conveniently forgotten from our prayers and so it was hidden from our life as well.  The prayer was to die well, to die a Christian death, to die in Christ.  When we stopped praying like this, the inevitable happened.  Death became something we thought we might tame, something we might welcome, and something we might even control.  Let death hold off long enough so we can do all the living we want and it might not be so bad.  Let death come to relieve us from suffering it might be a friend.  Let us choose death when living becomes too much for us and it might be the answer.  Thanks be to God that Jesus does not think like we do.  He came to swallow up death for us so that we would never befriend death or try to tame it or even choose it when we are tired of living.  He came to die so that we who live in the valley and under the shadow of death might have death overcome for us once and for all.  

Let us die in Christ.  That is our prayer.  A lifeless child in a weeping mother’s arms or a father buried by his wife and kids or someone cut down in the prime of life or one whose faith shows the marks of age and the scars of many battles in life.  We die in Christ by dying in the faith, trusting that death is not the end, and with the hope of Christ’s resurrection to spur us on toward our own joyful resurrection.  The Church manifests this hope by putting a body in the ground and telling the mourners that it will not stay.  Christ will raise that body and transform it like unto His own glorious body and death will be erased forever.

This is what Mary confessed to Jesus.  “Yes Lord, I believe You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is come into the world.”  Dying with Christ, for Christ, and in Christ.  That is our only hope.  What happens to those who die with Christ, for Christ, and in Christ?  A voice booms, “Lazarus, come forth.”  This was the miracle to prefigure the greater miracle of our Lord’s Easter triumph.  But hidden in the man whose hands and feet were bound with linen and whose face cloth wrapped around his features is the prototype of Christ’s resurrection and ours.
So let your prayer today be with Thomas.  Let us die with Christ, for Christ, and in Him.  The Lord’s expedient death to tie up loose ends has become the powerful death to end the reign of death itself.  The enemies of God made their plans more urgent to kill Jesus and He taunts them, “Bring it on.”  He knows that to kill death He must die.  What are we to do?  As the baptized people of God, forgiven of their sins, and fed upon the bread of life, we are not afraid of what the world can do to us.  “Bring it on.”  For you know that for you to live, you must die with Christ, for Christ, and in Christ.  In the end you are losing nothing and gaining everything.  Thomas got it right.  Let us die with Christ.  

    If we have died with him, we shall also live with him;
    if we endure with him, we shall also reign with him;
    if we deny him, he will also deny us;
    if we are faithless, he remains faithful – for he cannot deny himself. 
    (2Tim 2.11-13)
Amen  

Beware. . .

Matthew's section of the Sermon on the Mount chosen for Ash Wednesday has always troubled me.  Oh, I get it.  I am not as stupid as some might assume.  But is that the text we need to hear on Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent?  “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 6:1)  Here we are plastering ashes in the shape of a cross on the forehead on the foreheads of God's people and Jesus is warning us against it -- or so it seems.  Certainly there is enough in Jesus' words to fuel those who do not like the practice.  Is practicing our righteousness or piety really a problem today?

I fear that piety and righteousness are exactly the things that are missing from Christianity today.  Even in Rome, not eating meat on Fridays, fasting, making confession, giving alms, the rosary, and a host of other historic practices that once were nonvenomous with being Roman Catholic are on the decline and have become remarkably absent from the faithful.  Lutherans have always been accused of having an invisible piety and seem to accept nearly everything in moderation -- perhaps even sin.  We have lacked some of the historic practices we inherited from Rome and in our haste to prove we were not Roman have distanced ourselves even from some of the things that Jesus commended and even Luther thought good.  If we fast has replaced when we fast and you could say the same about a host of other practices of our piety.  So do we need to hear words of warning against a public piety on Ash Wednesday?  I wonder if we need to hear the opposite.

It has become amazingly easy for us to separate what we believe about Jesus from what the Scriptures say about morality.  We live in such compartmentalized lives in which faith lives conveniently in a box away from want, desire, or much of everyday life.  Perhaps we need to hear something else from Jesus.  Maybe we need to hear Jesus call us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him.  Maybe we need to hear Jesus call us to hear and heed the voice of the Law and to honor, respect, and obey the order God established for our lives.  I am not sure we are as much in danger of believing our good works or piety saves us as much as we are in danger of lacking any real piety at all.  We no longer presume that the Bible has much to say about our choices and we presume that God is less the counter of good works than the senile old Santa who will give us everything in the end.  

The words of Jesus are not wrong.  Nobody but a fool say that (or a heretic).  The question I am raising is about what we need to hear now, at this point in the scheme of things.  Piety is not our problem.  Good works are not our problem.  Our problem remains connecting the faith we profess with our lips to every aspect of our lives.  We need to find a piety and some righteousness worthy of the faith we confess.  We need to rend our hearts, to be sure, but a little rending of our garments in our world of accommodation to desire in all its forms and a presumption that truth is only as big as our preference or judgment would not hurt.  We struggle to find a Christian lens to see the world, a Christian worldview worthy of the faith that is so easily on our lips.  We love to tell God how much we love Him but we struggle to let that love order our desires and our days.  

This Lent is almost over.  I know I am late.  But the whole of Lent is heralded by the readings of Ash Wednesday.  At least part of those words ought to be a reminder how important piety is to faith.  It can never pay the price for our salvation or contribute anything to our redemption but it can demonstrate to the world that we do not speak with words only but also with works that testify to those words.  Jesus warns us against doing the right things for the wrong reasons but we need to be encouraged to do the right things as well.

Unsocial meals. . .

Eating was once a most cherished social event.  You ate and drank with people.  You did not eat or drink alone.  It was that way so long I cannot point to its beginning and it has survived through all kinds of ruptures in our social fabric -- including wars.  But it is on the decline.  Oh, we still eat -- just not together and often from bags of food we pick up on our way home or have delivered to us in our solitude.  There is the state of things.  We tend to live rather solitary lives and it is evidenced in the one thing that is almost universally seen as a communal act, something shared with family and friends except when it is impossible.  Food is love, after all.  We all know that even if it is more in memory than in personal experience.

The food is not simply fuel needed for the body but an occasion for us to connect with others.  Babies receive not only the nourishment from their mothers but a life connection that is no less important than their mother's milk.  Meals tend to be the place where most conversations in the family take place.  Parents talk to each other and their children and children talk to their parents.  Questions are raised.  Interests explored.  Advice sought.  Encouragements given.  Information shared.  The communal state of the meals extend beyond the family table but the family table is the most central place where these things take place.  Eating is supposed to be a social act.  The fact that it is increasingly a solitary activity may illustrate why worship is also less a place where we are together than simply a place where we plug in to get what we need from what is offered.

If we no longer feel the need to eat together with family or friends, then the social dimension of worship is also probably something we no longer think we need.  Instead we want it brought to us.  Uber Eats may not deliver Word and Sacrament but it seems the online mirrors of what takes place in person in the sanctuary is doing just fine in bringing to us what we used to go together to get.  Indeed, the communal acts of speaking together the words of the liturgy and singing together the songs of the ordinary and the hymns of old are no longer as essential to our lives as Christians as they once were.  We seem to prefer listening to opening our mouths.  We have become spectators even at the meal that begs us to be there and to join in the eating and drinking.

Though never primary, Church was always a place for friendship and relationship.  Boys found prospective wives and girls found prospective husbands among those who gathered with them in the pews.  Families knew each other and supported and nurtured their sons and daughters as they began to form their own new families.  In days gone by people's lives and friendships were centered in the Church.  It was that way for me and it is still that way.  The deepest friendships of our lives revolve around the Church where I served for more than 32 years.  It is not that they are the only relationships we have but Church means friendships and relationships that extend beyond the pews.  Perhaps that no longer the case for some -- even for many.   There is something sad about this.  Tragic.  But there is also something wrong with this.  Our solitude is not healthy.  

Everyone knows how important family, friendships, and friendly relationships are to our physical and mental health.  If this is true for adults, it is true in spades for children.  Eating together around the dinner table with family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances is important.  There is nothing more helpful to the social needs we have than an occasion in which we are gathered around a meal, lovingly prepared, with conversations as rich and fulfilling as the food itself.  We have chosen not to eat together and we have forgotten how to talk to each other.  It is no reason that we have problems.  For what it is worth, Uber Eats is experimenting with remote control deliveries which will further isolate us from one another.  Figures.

Feeding the Papal Trump-like ego. . .

I have had occasion to listen to a recent debate between Elijah Yasi and the Eastern Orthodox apologist Alex Sorin over the claims of the papacy and the witness of the early fathers.  The gist of it all is signaled in the opening salvo by Alex Sorin who claims that much of what was said of Rome and popes was also said about other major sees and their occupants was “empty honorifics.” I cannot resist the way that some seem to feel the need to stroke the ego of Donald Trump with the same kind of empty honorifics that Alex Sorin says were employed to stroke the Roman ego.  As a Lutheran I would love if such a thing could be proven.

Anyway, Alex Sorin has rather boldly said that, “for almost every quote [in the early Church] exalting Rome, there’s a corresponding quote to other major Sees.”  Let me unpack that.  In other words, for every church father or church council that seems to interpret Matthew 16, John 21, and Luke 22 as referencing St. Peter and his successors in Rome, you can find the same said about Antioch or Jerusalem or some other ancient see and its leaders.  So what Rome claims to apply to them exclusively until the end of time, there is the same kind of language applying to some other see or leader.  If it were true, this would kind of prove the Lutheran claim (as well as the Orthodox one) that all of the ancient councils and fathers were merely stroking an ego and not insisting that Rome had a unique claim to primacy.  This would imply that their words were mere flowery flattering language that was, for all intents and purposes, without any real meaning at all.  As one commentator put it, if everyone is the supreme and divinely instituted head of the Church, then no one really is.  It would certainly help the idea of a conciliar structure over a papal one.

As much as I would like to believe this, I am not really convinced that this is the case.  I certainly do believe that the claims of Roman exclusivity and the papacy are overblown by Rome and that these developed over time and were not there or even hidden there from the beginning and yet I do not quite believe that every ancient see and its bishops were spoken of in exactly the same way.  It is pretty clear that Rome became the first among equals in a way that other ancient sees did not.  That said, as a Lutheran I would emphasize the equals part more than Rome every would.  

Although it is not an uncommon thing to say, Rome today is centered in the papacy far more and very different from previous eras in history.  Francis spoke a good line about synodality but never actually practiced it and appeared to this Lutheran to be far more the dictator who neither sought nor paid much attention to the bishops or the cardinals who were supposed to advise him.  Vatican I and the aftermath of Vatican II have mightily elevated the papacy to the point where bishops have become mere lackeys of the pope rather than occupants of an office with some authority.  Those who have used the authority they have today have used it mostly to be an irritant to everything traditional in doctrine, worship, and practice rather than to be the guardians over the flock in their care (a certain Bishop Martin of Charlotte seems to be a fair example of the kind I am talking about).  It is this that I wish more would focus upon today.  Bishops have become more functionaries of the pope and administrators than teachers and shepherds.  Popes the same except to the ninth power.  

Having a bishop is no guarantee of orthodox belief or practice.  Only an idiot says otherwise.  But neither is not having a bishop a guarantee of anything (except perhaps disdain for apostolic custom and Biblical order).  Having a pope is no guarantee of orthodox belief or practice either.  Francis is our most recent teacher of this truism.  Yet again, not having a pope does not guarantee more orthodoxy either.  My own longing is not for a pope who might be a convenient symbol for Christianity and the Church but for real teaching bishops who act truly as shepherds and who value orthodoxy not as a hindrance or constraint but the pure freedom that the Church was meant to enjoy.  At this point, those arguing for or against Roman primacy or the papacy might at least admit that Christianity continues to bleed because we have had too few of those kind of leaders and suffer the continued want for men of courage and integrity and a catholic identity, rooted in Scripture and living tradition that has and always will surround it.  So it seems to me that all the effort put into trying to prove or disprove Roman primacy and the papacy might be better spent raising up better than administrators but true bishops and shepherds to oversee the flock of God. 

Man up. . .

Man up once meant to tough it out and just do it.  My father lived by this motto.  He worked until just weeks before he died, on this date, just before his 88th birthday.  In fact that is just about all he ever did.  He worked in the business he built.  He worked for his congregation.  He worked in the community.  But under it all, he worked for me, my brother, and my mom.  Don't get me wrong, he was not perfect.  He had plenty of flaws.  But he excelled in modeling the faith and a generous spirit (too often at odds with the well-being of his business and his family's security).  He did not get many breaks in life but he did not brood on this injustice.  He did plenty of things for people who did little in return (including me) but he was not bitter.  He just got up every morning and read in his Bible, Luther's Catechism, sometimes the Book of Concord, always the Portals of Prayer, and prayed.  It was before breakfast or work or anything else.  As a child I sometimes watched him.  As a teenager I wondered why he found it all so compelling.  As a man I wished for the same kind of unflinching dedication and devotion.

On this day we recall St. Joseph, Guardian of our Lord.  His life is rather sparsely sketched out for us in Scripture.  The debate rages between those who see him as a young man and those who insist he was older, perhaps a widower, when he considered putting Mary away quietly before the Spirit called him to take her as his wife and care for her son as his own.  I have my own opinions, to be sure, but there is one thing unmistakable.  He is the model of the faithful father figure.  When the Lord spoke, he listened.  When the Lord directed, he did what the Lord said.  But most of all, he made sure that Jesus grew up in the synagogue and in the temple.  Faith was not peripheral to Joseph and not to his household.  Whatever else, the Lord knew he had entrusted His only Son into the care of a man of faith.  Not perfect, mind you, but a man of faith.

I say to men unsure of their responsibilities or unwilling to surrender their independence or uncertain whether the rewards of being husband and father are sufficient to fill your life -- man up.  Men have gotten a bad rap lately, much of it well deserved, because we act like immature boys.  We snicker at life and its real responsibilities like little boys giggling over somebody's stinky fart.  We treat women like toys and then toss them aside when we tire of them.  We easily forget our duty as dads to the children we have fathered but then abandoned.  Look at society.  Look at the numbers of children who have no Joseph in their lives, no men who will do what is right when it is neither easy nor popular.  Where are the men?  Why do men find it so hard to man up and do what we were created to do?

Every Sunday I look out in my congregation and see young men with babies -- some of them in the army only month from or months till deployment.  I see them bring their wives and sons and daughters to church and it gives me hope.  I know the men my sons have become and my daughter married and I am encouraged.  It may not be popular and it is certainly not yet a movement, but I can see men like Joseph who hear and heed the Word of the Lord, who love their wives more than themselves, who care for their children as gifts from God. 

We need young men like this in a world in which men have become old adolescents whose lives revolve around their technology and toys.  To those who have floundered in their roles as husbands and fathers, it is time to repent and rededicate yourself to doing your best for them.  To those fearful of becoming a husband and father, it is time to trust the Lord and become like Joseph, an honest and decent and godly man.  To women who have decided they cannot wait for men to be men, it is time to give some of those men a chance to be men, not for them but for you and for your children.

On every St. Joseph's Day since 2015, I think of my dad who died March 19, 2015.  And I pray that I am the kind of man he was.  And I pray that men will reawaken to the noble character of their calling as men, for the sake of their families and for the sake of their church and for the sake of their communities.  It is time for all of us men to simply man up.  The only success that matters is faithfulness.  It will be remembered when all other accomplishments and sins are forgotten.  The one enduring thing is the well done of the Father.  We know so very little about St. Joseph but perhaps we know just enough to inspire us to be better men.

The soft heart of Lent. . .

I have pages of quotes from things I have read.  Not all of them are listed with the source or the author and so, while I will leave this unattributed here, others may remind me where I stole the words.

“The nature of water is soft, that of stone is hard. But if water ceaselessly falls drop by drop, the stone is worn away. So it is with the word of God. It is soft and our heart is hard; but the one who hears the word of God often, opens his heart to the fear of God.”

While we might presume that the heart and center of Lent is the unrelenting and unbending weapon of the Law, the reality is that God's Word, even the Law, is more like the soft water described above.  But it would be foolish to presume that because it is soft, it is not powerful.  And yet it would be wise to recall that the human heart is not soft at all but hard and calloused.  It is, however, not quite immune to the power of this seemingly soft Word.  That is what Lent works to teach us every year as we pass through its weeks on our way to Easter.

In order for that soft water of God's Word to have its impact upon us, we must be regularly connected to it.  Regular and faithful church attendance is expanded during Lent and Holy Week as the weekly rhythm is enhanced to mid-week services, added prayers, additional devotions, and acts of charity to accompany for the formal repentance.  The faithful are tuned in even more to the voice of God's Word during the six weeks of Lent along with the part of the ordinary missing from the liturgy and the added hymns to remind us of both our need of redemption and its cost to Jesus.

I have often suggested to folks unsure if they believed to keep attending worship services, keep reading Scripture, and keep praying.  It is not simply that these are effective when we are most confident and faithful.  No, they are effective because it is precisely these regular drips of God's Word that wear down the hardness of our hearts.  We learn from God's mercy to kneel in repentance and we learn from His forgiveness to be forgiving.  That is also part of the rhythm of Lent and reflective of its soft heart in the voice of God's Word that speaks more often and to more effect to us.  The frozen coldness of our hard hearts is softened and melted not by an overwhelming fire but by the constant warmth of the God whose love and mercy truly do endure forever. 

Impossible to imagine. . .

I read not long ago that almost one in three pregnancies in the U.K. now ends in abortion.  Let me say that again.  One third of all pregnancies are ended.  Some 300,000 a year.  What is even more alarming is that the rationale for all of these aborted babies is not strictly economics but the growing numbers of women in the U.K. who cannot imagine themselves to be moms.  In other words, the pressure is not external but internal.  Along with the obvious lack of respect for the sacredness of life and the casual way that women have chosen to kill the child within their bodies before it becomes too big to notice, there is this.  These women cannot imagine themselves to be moms -- there is no longer any aspiration to be or joy in the prospect of motherhood.  It has become something dreary and dreaded.  When did that all happen?

That is, of course, one of the reasons why immigration is important in the U.K. and throughout Europe.  The birth rate of the population is dismally small and certainly not enough to replace those who are there so the immigrants are essential both to the economy and to the health of the society.  The urgency for children has been eased by the more elite ideas of a global village and the exchange of children from the places where the elites presumed them to be overcrowding to the places where they are needed.  In 2023, when there were nearly 300,000 abortions, there were just 591,072 live births were recorded in England and Wales. The birth rate gap has been plugged by immigration. It is a shocking.  Since 1968 there were 10.9 million abortions in the U.K. who were replaced by 10.7 million immigrants to the U.K.  In other words, the U.K. does not need women to become moms and the women seem glad to accommodate this lack of need.  

We all know that marriage has become an unpleasant and increasingly unwelcome responsibility which can easily be ignored by women who do not want to be wives and moms and by men who do not think they are needed to be husbands and dads.  That is the bigger factor behind the U.K. statistics.  In the space of a few generations what was once the social structure that under girded every institution and aspect of ordinary life has become something unnecessary and undesired.  In the same space of time, abortions become routine and normal but something else became exceptional and odd.  That is even larger than the terrible and tragic numbers of abortions in the U.K. and something that cannot be fixed by legislation, tax benefits, or even subsidy.  Think of the homes in which the children who are being born are growing up and what they are learning.  Think of the good lessons and examples lost and the wrong lessons and examples being passed down not simply to the children but to the generations to follow.  Think of how the decline of Christianity in the same period has helped to fuel the fires of destruction that have literally undone all about marriage and family and children which previous generations had passed down -- at least until the 1970s and beyond.

Oddly enough, the largest abortion provider in the U.K. is actually called the British Pregnancy Advisory Service!  Like the American industrial provider of the same, Planned Parenthood, it is clear that pregnancy and parenthood are the last things on the minds of these agencies and the women who use them.  Along with this, the ethical dimensions of both abortion and marriage/family have been pushed to the side of things while other things have taken central place.  What was designed to be exceptional has become normal and what was designed (at least by God) to be normal has become exceptional.  That is how far things have come for our special friends across the sea and the trend is unmistakable both in Canada our neighbor to the north and the more liberal states in the US.  

The cost of accommodation. . .

As I think about the last twenty years of change, it occurs to me that the it was not so much about the progress of the left and those who champion LGBTQ+ rights as much as it is about the accommodation Christianity has afforded this progress by remaining silent or actually appropriating the changes.  I doubt that it was as simple as some think and I may have thought at the time.  It was not merely the fact that this alphabet soup coalition had control of the media and entertainment industry and gradually a political party.  There is something more to all of this.

Think about this.  Merely 20 years ago, then President Bill Clinton was trying to make good on a campaign pledge to allow homosexual soldiers to serve openly in the military.  Then there was no thought to actually achieving something approaching legalized gay marriage.  Then came the revolution that made all of these things not only possible but settled.  It was achieved not by some grand game plan on the part of the promoters of all of this but by the fact that Christianity had long ago given up a real worldview for a compartmentalized view of faith, sex, life, and a host of other things that may or may not relate.   

While a person's attitudes on moral issues have proven to be strong predictors of religious engagement and affiliation, it turns out that religious engagement and affiliation have turned out not to be such strong predictors of their stand on moral issues.  That is at least as much the reason for the fast lane to normalization that the whole LGBTQ+ has enjoyed as the strategy and effective follow through of the advocates for the change.

Although I have long advocated for a complete Christian worldview instead of the kind of fragmented issues that may or may not relate to each other, this has clearly been the soft underbelly of Christianity.  The problem is that for too many Christians, there is no real relationship between who Jesus Christ is to them and what that translates into with respect to the burning issues of sexual desire, gender identity, marriage, and family issues.  There may be some correlation but not enough to influence or dictate how faith defines a stand on moral issues.

While mainline Protestant churches have been far more accepting of homosexuality and sexual liberation in general, they are not the only ones.  Evangelicals have also been remarkably silent or overtly tolerant of the the gay position on thing.  Even Roman Catholics have their problems with the lavender mafia and the Fr. Martin's who have been vocal advocates for making some sort of accommodation or acceptance of the direction of culture.  Oddly enough, no one seems to have noticed that these have not alleviated the stark membership decline so many of these churches have suffered and may well have encouraged that decline.  The odd thing is that people do not simply find a church which promotes their more liberal views when they disagree with Scripture and tradition on these moral issues, they simply drop out of church altogether.

What I am saying is that a Christian worldview in which all of these issues were coordinated and connected is not some luxury for us but key to our survival as the Church and to our ability to influence and give witness to the world around us.   Sex was a problem in Eden and sex was one area of influence early Christianity had on the world around them.  Now it turns out that sex is an issue today as well -- indeed, it might be a fairly big issue when faith and values seem to conflict with Scripture because Christians have found a way to box things off away from each other in order to find some sort of reconciliation with the world.  The real challenge Western Christians face now is whether or not they are going to lose Christianity 's profound doctrine of salvation over their willingness to disagree with the Bible on moral issues.  The death of Christianity may well be predicted in the way we become more comfortable with the world's position on moral issues and the way we distance ourselves from what the Bible actually says.

In a world of noise. . .

It is no secret that we live in a world of noise, constant noise that prevents silence or a single voice from intruding.  Some of it is beyond our control.  The sirens in the day and night, the sounds of engines roaring or brakes squealing, the ordinary background of work and pleasure that fills the neighborhood and the city happen without our consent or our desire.  Some of it is within our control.  The TV or radio or sound tracks that we turn on to prevent us from being alone or being forced to endure silence have become automatic.  Even Church is not without its noise.  Again, some is forced upon us with screaming babies and footsteps on the floor and conversations hushed or loud and phones that seem intent upon being noticed in the very place where they should not be.  

Sometimes it might seem downright rude to intrude upon the silence even further with so many words spoken, notes played, and words sung.  Why can't we simply live in silence at least, as Jesus said to Peter, for an hour or so?  But I would suggest that the songs of faith that we lift in liturgy, hymn, chant, and choral works are not noise at all.  They are, I would posit, the most glorious sound of all.  There is nothing that fills the ear and the spaces of our lives like the sound of voices in chant and song, hymn and choral voice.  Not everyone of us is into music like I am but even those who do not consider themselves singers can hardly label the sounds of sacred music in worship as noise.

As Lutherans, sacred music is not a competitor with the liturgy but an essential part of it all.  It is a formal component of liturgy and there is not much I can say about a completely spoken liturgy without benefit of hymn or chant or instrumental music.  In a world too filled with noise, sacred song has the power to lift our hearts and souls to heaven. The ministers of music are true stewards of the holy art of music and song in sacred form and they help all the people of God to “sing and make melody to the Lord with all of the heart” (Eph 5:19)  One of the really sad things that has taken place is the ‘downgrading’ of sacred music and the replacement of the sacred music with contemporary songs that form a playlist of preferences instead of the wonderful song that joined all voices into one before the Lord.

Microphones and canned music may be considered necessary to us today but they can be simply sources of noise in worship rather than enhancers of the sacred songs of liturgy and hymnody.  The architecture of the churches once worked to make such electronic agents unnecessary but I fear today they only make these artificial noisemakers more necessary.  I well remember moments in which the sounds of sacred song filled the spaces.  Miserere is a setting of Psalm 51 by Italian composer Gregorio Allegri. It was composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII, probably in the 1630s.  It was supposed to be used exclusively in the Sistine Chapel during the Tenebrae services of Holy Week.  Perhaps it would still be obscure would it not be for Mozart, who, as the story goes, committed its sound to memory and wrote it out so the rest of the world could enjoy.  The whole mystique was enhanced by this unwritten performance tradition. Written for three choirs, two of five and four voices respectively, with a third choir singing plainsong responses, it is probably the most recognized and enduring examples of polyphony.  I heard this sound rising up literally from the choir and compelling our souls to look with them to the heights of God';s mercy and grandeur.  That is not noise.  It is, along with the songs of the ordinary and hymns, the sounds that live in the presence of God.  Thanks be to God!  

Is there something wrong with taking it slow?

As everyone knows, the Church is generally a decade or three behind culture and society as a whole and this is certainly true when it comes to technology.  This is evidenced by the fact that most congregations presume that social media equates to Facebook and the relatively poor state of affairs with most online presences.  Normally this is simply a minor thing.  Lags are not always as bad as we are made to think.  But in one particular area of things, it might seem that the Church is trying to jump the distance and forge ahead of where others are not so sure we should go.  At the very point people are beginning to question the value of online education and its effectiveness as the primary tool of learning, there are so many voices insisting that online is the only way for the Church to go.

I wonder if there is something wrong with taking it slow in this avenue of technology.  According to many across Lutheranism, this is just plain foolish.  I would suggest that it is the path of wisdom.  There are ample reasons for the shift to online education for clergy.  Cost is the big factor, of course.  It is a whole lot cheaper to provide and to participate in online classes.  Both the providers and the students are understandably attracted to anything that would reduce the cost of training to become a pastor.  But money is not the only reason and it should not in and of itself rule the day.  Yet money is the drumbeat of nearly everything in this conversation.  We should not require people to endure the financial burden of residential seminary education and we should not require the people to cover the cost for them when there are less expensive alternatives.

The other thing has to do with the cost of time.  While similar to the cost in dollars, the cost in time is a little different.  There are the factors of moving and uprooting family for he time spent in seminary, the problem of an educational cycle still rooted in an agrarian time frame when summer was off to work in the fields (yes, even for a seminary this applies), and finally the whole idea that you have to wait for four years to do what you are being prepared to do.  The cost to the family is one thing but some suggest there is a cost to the Church to wait so long for those who are being formed for the pastoral ministry to begin practicing that ministry.  Indeed, the SMP option as currently ordered provides for just that -- on the job training as people doing the work from the beginning of their training to do that work.

Finally is the issue of context.  The world is all about context today.  It is as if no one is or should be trained for the pastoral ministry and instead is being trained for a specific pastoral office in a specific place.  It seems that a good segment of the Church does not want the training to be general at all but very specific, as if the congregationally raised up and trained pastor is the best of the best.  An online path to pastoral formation allows the context to continue while the training is being accomplished.  There is no doubt that many think that this is optimal and that too much time is being wasted in preparing people for generic places that do not actually exist.  Context is everything, remember.  Along with this is the whole idea that pastors squander too much time in getting to know the places where they serve and that it would be better if they were already familiar with that context, indeed, the products of those contexts.

It would be foolish for anyone to immediately dismiss these arguments for online pastoral training.  But it would be even more foolish to presume that these are the primary and pivotal factors that should define how we form men to be pastors.  In fact, if what was being conveyed is merely information, online training would be the obvious choice.  There are other things involved here.  Along with the information that is being given to the student, there is also something being conveyed to the Church by the student during the process of pastoral formation.  The students must be judged not simply on their academic prowess but on their suitability to be pastors.  This is a judgment made not by a few but by many -- both the academic concerns and the pastoral suitability.  The whole faculty is given the charge to know the candidate and to as a whole discuss the man's suitability before commending that same man to the Church.  How this happens on a primarily online setting seems to be given little conversation.

One of the things I am most concerned about is the localization of pastoral training and how it leads to a localized judgment regarding the pastor's suitability.  The more we reduce the numbers of those involved in this and the more local those who render this judgment, the less the ministerium belongs to the whole Church and the more it belongs exclusively to the congregation.  While some in Missouri might laud this congregational focus, it makes me entirely uncomfortable.  I am not all that Waltherian and am pretty sure that the more we lean in this direction, the less need or requirement there is for the Synod at all.  Training of pastors and the custody of the roster was and remains one of the most important reasons for the Synod to have been formed and to continue to exist.

Lastly, the obvious thing is that we have not had a deal of time nor concentrated study of how well online education is doing.  The SMP program was purposefully designed not for the man in the early twenties but for those with life experience and congregational experience.  The concerns of the larger educational world about the effectiveness of the screen replacing the classroom remains an issue that needs to be addressed.  I am no expert in this area but I am sure we have such individuals who can help us figure it out.  Along with this, we also need to look at the loss of collegiality that a common experience with common teachers has long provided the Synod.  Again, I am no expert but we already lament the loss of the junior college/senior college and seminary experience has had upon the ministerium so we ought to smart enough to consider that such a change would have untold consequences in a shift to online training.

So what is the rush?  Take it slow.  We once sang in mocking the Church, Like a herd of turtles, moves the Church of God; brothers we are treading, where we've always trod....  Is that so bad?  More and more I am learning the wisdom of taking things slow.  I hope and pray the Church is listening to these concerns.