tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63296005040169688882024-03-19T03:48:25.151-05:00Pastoral MeanderingsThe Random Thoughts of a Lutheran Parish PastorPastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.comBlogger7575125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-3532021260947125242024-03-18T06:00:00.003-05:002024-03-18T06:00:00.137-05:00Jealousy does not become you. . . <p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ffiles.sundaysocial.tv%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F04%2FV4.26_Post.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=b7b0d16e9127c10509f88cb8622705f48aab858a10ab413f20a35d6c5cb5760a&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ffiles.sundaysocial.tv%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F04%2FV4.26_Post.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=b7b0d16e9127c10509f88cb8622705f48aab858a10ab413f20a35d6c5cb5760a&ipo=images" width="256" /></a></i></div><i>Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent (B), preached on Sunday, March 17, 2024.</i> <br /><p></p><p>The king is not even crowned before people are vying for position. James and John live up to their nickname, the Sons of Thunder. Jesus is talking about the crown He will wear – not a crown of gold adorned with jewels but one of twisted thorns but no one is listening. They hear king and kingdom and crown and they think only of grasping a share of the glory for themselves. They do not get the King who is come not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Are we any different?<br /><br />We take the ways of the world and incorporate them into the way we think God works. So like the parents who fight teachers so their children can get ahead without doing the work, we are jealous for our place in the kingdom and our portion of the glory pie. Who cares if you are on the right or left hand of Jesus or in the nose bleed seats of heaven. If you are there, is that not enough? But, sadly, it is not enough. We try to work God the way we work the system here on earth and to figure out the easiest way to glory. It sounds terrible, doesn’t it? None of us would ever admit to having those kind of jealous feelings but that does not mean we do not have them.<br /><br />Maybe it is too much to expect a people so rooted and planted in this world and in the ways of this world to think and behave differently when it comes to the Kingdom of God. Maybe it is too much for fishermen with smelly and calloused hands to think past how to get ahead of your competitors in the marketplace and get the ways of Jesus. Maybe it is too much for us to leave behind the well worn ruts in the path of getting ahead at the expense of others to presume that we get the cross or understand what God’s love is. Maybe we are too wedded to right to recall that love is gift and not the reward for merit.<br /><br />If we were Jesus we would have smacked them down hard. But Jesus does not. He is shockingly kind to them and patient beyond all expectation. They could not have known what the were really asking but that does not mean they were so far off either. They believed the Lord had a kingdom even if they failed to see His crown had thorns. But they would drink from His cup and be baptized with His baptism of suffering. Maybe they did not realize what they were asking but that would not prevent them from sharing in what Jesus would drink and be baptized. James was first and John the last. One died quickly in martyrdom at the hand of Caesar and the other slowly, watching his brothers in the faith give up their lives for the Lord.<br />In the economy of God’s kingdom, the king ends up the slave of all, the slave ends up the heir, the strong become weak, the weak become strong, the first are last, the last are first, the confident doubt, the doubter believe, the victors lose, the losers win, the masters serve, and the dead live. It is no wonder that James and John did not get it. None of us do. We are daily blessed with mercies new that we do not deserve and once for all with salvation unearned by those who benefit from it.<br /><br />The Lord is not angry with James and John for their arrogance. He is a good Lord and a generous Savior. His mercy endures forever so it can endure a moment of bald greed from disciples who should have known better. Jesus even forgives the rest of the disciples who are offended that James and John thought to ask what they had all wanted for themselves. They all wanted what we want still – our place in the Kingdom, our moment in God’s Son, our fifteen minutes of fame, and a little glory to make up for all the crap life shoves your way. They did not know what they were asking for or how to ask for it but at least they asked. <br /><br />We live in a world which no longer wants to be with Jesus or share in His glory. In our world, the glory is being the doubter or the skeptic. Whatever the weaknesses and shortcomings of James and John, in their heart of hearts they wanted to be with Jesus through difficulty and in glory. Give them that, at least. What of you and me? Will we drink of Jesus’ cup or turn up our noses at the prospect of serving God and others in His name? Will we embrace the baptism of suffering or will we choose an easier and less painful path to glory? The answer to these questions you and I are now writing by what we believe, how we live out that faith, and what values accompany us into the Kingdom of God.<br /><br />Maybe James and John were fools but they continued to serve the Lord, preaching and teaching right up until their death. Maybe James and John were filled with thoughts of pride and ambition but the glory they sought included Jesus and did not exclude Him. What about you and me? Do we serve without counting the cost or do we count the cost of serving too high? Are we faithful or does our faithfulness wear out as soon as it begins to cost us something? Are we fools for Christ or just fools? <br /><br />Let James and John be an example to us. Their bravado and their foolishness was not hidden behind a pious exterior. They were glad to be fools for Christ. Christ died for them. He rose for them. He forgave them. He worked through them. They waited upon the Lord even when it was made clear to them that at the end of their waiting no seats of glory on the right or left were Jesus to give. They were happy to have whatever the Father ended up giving them. The glory of salvation was all the glory they needed. This little incident only reminded them of that.<br /><br />We are fools for Christ with them. We look at water and see in the font the womb that gives us birth to everlasting life. We hear a pastor stand in front us and say “You are forgiven” and we believe it. We hold up a book in gold plating believing that it speaks God’s Word to us. We open our mouths to receive bread that is Christ’s flesh and the cup of His blood. We pray trusting that God will give us the right answer even it is it not the one we want. We open our wallets to surrender the money to the Lord. We walk out the door with the blessing of God on us and believe that will carry us through week and right back here.<br /><br />Jesus comes for sinners and if you are one, He is your Savior. That is what shocks us most of all. God loves us not with the tenuous love that will give up as soon as we screw up but with the enduring love that forgives and restores us as often as we need it. You know what would be great? If when we open our eyes in heaven and see that James and John are on the right and left of Jesus – not because they asked but because the Father willed it. For then we would know why we were there.</p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-25543208193060793942024-03-18T06:00:00.001-05:002024-03-18T06:00:00.137-05:00Bet you have never heard this. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fwjscnopdw0231.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=7c466a92144dff46af1d545e2bea4f06ae7f5628e640654a6436d3e9b31c933e&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fwjscnopdw0231.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=7c466a92144dff46af1d545e2bea4f06ae7f5628e640654a6436d3e9b31c933e&ipo=images" width="480" /></a></div>Typically Lutherans are sensitive about ceremonies. Though Lutherans are much more comfortable on the whole with the recovery of ceremonies lost over time, it is still not uncommon for Lutherans to complain that this or that is <i>too Catholic.</i> I get it. I am old. I grew up in a Lutheran congregation that was particularly sensitive in this regard. They did not apply the label to the tolling of the church bell during the Our Father or the Verba Christi and would have been highly offended if someone had said it but they definitely wanted to make sure that people did not mistake them for what they were not.<p></p><p>The old joke is that if identical twin boys, one a Roman Catholic priest and the other a Lutheran pastor, walked down the street in clericals, any Lutheran worth his salt could tell them apart and knew which was <i>his </i>guy and which was not. I have not seen much evidence of the truth of this but I take it at face value. Lutherans can smell a Roman without too much trouble. At least they think they can.</p><p>Oddly enough, however, when have you ever heard a Lutheran turn up his or her nose at something and dismiss it by saying <i>That is too Protestant?</i> Of course not. You have never heard this. While it does not take much to violate the smell test against those things <i>too Catholic</i>, no Lutheran I know would ever complain that something was <i>too Protestant</i>. Lutherans are quick to accuse Reformation era practices and the very words of Luther himself as being suspect. Luther, after all, must have had a bad day when he said we ought to make the sign of the cross. He surely did not mean to tell us we should do this. Maybe we could if we really wanted to but most Lutherans know they don't want to, right?</p><p>So that is my point. The complaining style Lutherans are always on the hunt for things <i>too Catholic</i> but they have yet to find something too Protestant. If you don't believe me, look at how hard it is to convince folks that adding back into the rubrics the catholic practice of our past and throughout the ages is legitimate and authentic. But we Lutherans will accept every liturgical free for all borrowed from the Baptists and the non-denominationals and gladly affirm that this practice is thoroughly legit. It just might be that we really do not know who we are....<br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-12412328150336179402024-03-17T06:00:00.000-05:002024-03-17T06:00:00.138-05:00Curious. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.catholic.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FAdobeStock_30529370-e1548908888811-900x900.jpeg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=35227e096fe40609b87e008e6703295ea231999a355918259653dff09623cf8f&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.catholic.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FAdobeStock_30529370-e1548908888811-900x900.jpeg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=35227e096fe40609b87e008e6703295ea231999a355918259653dff09623cf8f&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>While I am in no way desiring to challenge the significance of the Common Service for American Lutheranism, the reality is that this does not represent one stream within Lutheranism but a conglomeration of several, perhaps many streams of liturgical tradition and practice. It is certainly an improvement over what went before among the Lutherans in America and it is a laudable achievement no matter what. Yet, it is, to a certain extent, an invention. It was created at a time when Lutheran congregations in America had degenerated into a liturgical identity that was alien to our Confession and more reflective of the religious culture around them. Except for the Missouri Synod and its German liturgical norm, American Lutheranism looked more American than Lutheran. We should all be grateful for the accomplishment of a norm that was and remains distinctly Lutheran. It lives on not simply in the Common Service of 1888 but in the forms produced by the Lutheran version of the liturgical movement. To deny the kinship is to be blind to the relation between what was produced in the 1960s and 1970s and what went before it. Nevertheless, the Common Service tradition is less than 150 years old and strives more to a consensus of the various versions than a reflection of what ought to be normative. The failing of the liturgical movement within Lutheranism was its refusal to fully unpack what went before and to be more influenced by the liturgical movement of Rome.<br /><p></p><p>In any case, what I find curious is that those so adamant that the Common Service tradition is the most authentic liturgical face of Lutheranism are also those who insist that the one year historic lectionary is the only authentic pericopal system for Lutheranism. The odd thing here is that the historic lectionary is decidedly older than the Common Service. It could even be said that the Common Service tradition is a baby in comparison to the age and breadth of the historic lectionary. Neither, however, were dropped down on tablets from on high and both represent a particular choice or decision for what we will use. I might add that the version of the historic lectionary most used is that from the Lutheran Service Book and that in and of itself is neither pristine nor without editorial change. Perhaps the work of the Lutheran Missal Project represents the most comprehensive view of Lutheran history and practice when it comes to the historic lectionary. It will be interesting to see the finished product and to see how this impacts both the present and the future going forward.</p><p>What I find most interesting is that both the Common Service and the historic one year series of readings appointed for the Church Year seem to be most concerned with <i>Lutheran</i> versions and practice. I suppose that there is no avoiding our own concern for our own history. Yet the concern for the Confessions is not quite so narrowly applied. The Augustana claims no less than the catholic consensus of doctrine and practice (which includes church usages such as the liturgical form and the lectionary). If we applied the same rationale for choosing the historic lectionary with its antiquity well prior to 1517 to the Divine Service, we would surely find some things in the Divine Service a challenge or a problem. Not in the least here is the issue of the canon of the mass. Here I would mention two things. One is the placement of the Our Father prior to the Words of Institution. The other is the distinct lack of any formal thanksgiving or Eucharistic Prayer. Indeed, one of the things that is most confusing about switching services in a hymnal such as Lutheran Service Book is exactly that -- the change within the canon. Divine Service 3 has the Our Father and then the Verba Christi without any formal thanksgiving (except the Proper Preface). Divine Services 1, 2, and, to a certain extent 4, have prayers in which thanksgiving for the saving work of Christ takes prominent place. Divine Service 3 is clearly out of sync with the liturgical forms and practices before Luther and Divine Services 1, 2, and 4 show a more organic development with the liturgical tradition prior to the Reformation. I will not go into a discussion of ad orientem but it could be part of this debate as well.<br /></p><p>In the end this is probably not a burning question in the minds of most. We have surrendered to the idea of diversity to the point where many see no issue here. I am certainly the odd man out in bringing this up. What I would suggest is that those who insist upon the antiquity of the historic one year lectionary should reflect a bit more on the disconnect in the canon between the Common Service and what went before and what has come after. I would also suggest that if antiquity is a prime consideration in favor of the historic one year lectionary, the same should encourage us Lutherans to revisit the issue of the Eucharistic Prayer (which does not have to be the Roman Canon with the objectionable parts Luther removed). The reality is that Lutheranism has not formally addressed the topic of why there cannot or should not be a Eucharistic Prayer in the canon -- only why some of the words of the Roman Canon were found unfaithful. Therein end my rambling thoughts for today. . . <br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-12451281656621708152024-03-16T06:00:00.001-05:002024-03-16T06:00:00.135-05:00Behind the veil. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsjs-highland.imgix.net%2F_bioPortrait%2F249463%2F40EC2FFA-D42C-45B4-8608-A1888B669EDE.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=8b125ac68688ece2ee137f15a3d29013434e253771b94f3068ca2f6bb66eaa52&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsjs-highland.imgix.net%2F_bioPortrait%2F249463%2F40EC2FFA-D42C-45B4-8608-A1888B669EDE.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=8b125ac68688ece2ee137f15a3d29013434e253771b94f3068ca2f6bb66eaa52&ipo=images" width="300" /></a></div>The practice of veiling images and crucifixes is sometimes viewed as a way of hiding them from view. In reality, the opposite ends up happening. Veiling crucifixes, statues, and images tends to draw the eye to what is there. The veils are thin and do not quite hide anything. In fact, the veiling tends to heighten our senses to the presence of the crucifix, statue, or image and to make us more aware of them. <p></p><p>In the Middle Ages, especially in Germany, the images of crosses and saints were also covered from the start of Lent. The custom of Lenten veiling was common by the tenth century in England (e.g., Aelfric of Eynesham, the <em>Regularis Concordia</em>), and mirrored the practice of Europe dating from at least the ninth century. In the 1600s, Rome limited the veiling to Passiontide (from Palm Sunday on). Some associate it with the Gospel text for Passion Sunday, which speaks of Jesus hiding himself from the people (John 8:59). </p><p>Since Lent is an unfolding of the journey to the cross, I find it more logical to veil at the beginning of Lent, from Ash Wednesday onward, and then to remove the veil on Good Friday. Perhaps we might explain the veiling as a means of training us to perceive the glory of the Cross a glory not obvious to us except by faith. It then makes it even more profound when we view the unveiled crucifix on Good Friday and hear, “Behold the wood of the Cross, on which was
hung the salvation of the world.” In another sense, the glory of the cross is not overcome by but rather made clearer in the light of the Resurrection.<em> </em></p><p>Of course, some readers will get their dander up and insist we do not have to veil anything. Who says we do? But it is a very helpful custom. The cross is veiled to the disciples and Jesus unveils it step by step until Good Friday when it is fully exposed. In this small way, the veiling in the churches mirrors what is happening in the appointed readings and draws even more attention to the death by which life is come into the world. Something to think about during Lent...<br /></p><p> </p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-72286379784551167072024-03-15T06:00:00.000-05:002024-03-15T06:00:00.241-05:00When Sunday is merely the weekend. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lovethispic.com%2Fuploaded_images%2F131690-Happy-Weekend.gif&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=c35d7a579242417fb07c3a1c58de844b83d24836815d89ba2c15370a1fc75022&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="700" height="160" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lovethispic.com%2Fuploaded_images%2F131690-Happy-Weekend.gif&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=c35d7a579242417fb07c3a1c58de844b83d24836815d89ba2c15370a1fc75022&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>The proliferation of Saturday worship services is thoroughly understandable. People have lives and plans and if you want them to include worship, you have to find a time that they can fit it into their busy schedules. Sunday is no longer the Lord's Day for most Christians but merely one day of the weekend. How many of us think of Sunday as the day of our Lord's resurrection, the first day of the week, the eighth day of the new creation ushered in by that resurrection of our Lord? Instead, Sunday is just part of the weekend. It is not even a day reserved for family but has become a typical work day for doing the weekly shopping, laundry, cleaning, yard work, etc. In addition, it is the "me" day we have claimed for us -- to sleep in, to do what we <i>want</i> to do, and to be freed from the ordinary routines of the work week. This is even more true of Sunday than it is of Saturday. Weekends are thoroughly understandable but are we missing something here? A very long time ago Pope John Paul II lamented this situation: “Unfortunately, when Sunday loses its fundamental meaning and becomes
merely part of a ‘weekend,’ it can happen that people stay locked within
a horizon so limited that they can no longer see ‘the heavens.’” <p></p><p>Couple this with the penchant for transferring week day holy days and festivals to Sunday and we have minimized to the extreme any demand upon the people's time and attention. No more Epiphany on January 6 or Ascension Day forty days after Easter or Reformation on October 31 or All Saints on November 1. We do not know our calendar anymore. We reduce the liturgical obligation to Sunday alone and then transfer Sunday to a time when people are less busy with other things in their lives, Saturday late afternoon. We no longer expect anyone to arrange their schedule around the Lord but have turned our Savior into a beggar who must plead with people and bargain for their time. As I am often reminded, time is more valuable than money and we have done our best, it would seem, to reduce the time the Lord lays claim to down to a minimum. Then we wonder why there are so many empty pews!</p><p>This past Christmas was a pain. I know it just as about every Lutheran pastor I know also knew it. We had the regular schedule of services for the morning (Advent IV) and then several Lessons and Carols for Christmas in the afternoon, ending with the Divine Service at 8 pm. Then on Monday, Christmas Day, we had the Divine Service at 10:45am. I preached six times over two days (four different sermons). Was it worth it? To answer that you must place a judgment and value upon the Lord's Incarnation. I think you already know my answer. We have a proliferation of Christmas services largely because of the space issue both in the building and in the parking lot. Sadly, if it were not for the many who only show up on Christmas, we could have boiled the Christmas services down to one. Where are the faithful? I am happy to meet the new folks who showed up for the first time and visitors who were new to our congregation on Christmas Eve but if the ordinary crew for a Sunday morning <i>and</i> the Christmas only folks had all come, we would have been packed for every service. We were not. </p><p>But this is not simply about Christmas. It is about the way that Sunday has faded as the Day of the Lord and become merely one day of the weekend and all weekends belong to us. If anyone, even God, expects us to disrupt our schedules, they have another thing coming. We will worship when and if it is convenient to us and we have nothing better to do. I wish this were only a Christmas problem. It is not. Sure, I know that folks are traveling and working and have to get the kids into bed at a decent hour. I am a parent. Our family had the same things to wrestle with just like parents do today. The reality is that worship competes against an abundance of options -- most of which are likely more entertaining than what happens in the Lord's House on the Lord's Day. But if we cannot get the faithful to come, how can we expect those new to the faith to learn the habit of the Lord's House on the Lord's Day? </p><p>Something to think about for us all...<br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-34226498265745333862024-03-14T06:00:00.001-05:002024-03-14T06:00:00.154-05:00An interesting ratio. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedievaleurope.mrdonn.org%2Fpopead3.gif&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=6d80df6dadd017f510e49023cee96922f90454495ba959bb23e4a7b2f19f9b97&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="432" height="400" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedievaleurope.mrdonn.org%2Fpopead3.gif&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=6d80df6dadd017f510e49023cee96922f90454495ba959bb23e4a7b2f19f9b97&ipo=images" width="288" /></a></div>I read this and found the ratio rather startling. According to the most recent figures found, there are 5,340 Roman Catholic bishops worldwide. At the same time, there are some 400,000 priests worldwide (a number declining rather than growing). Of course, some of those must be retired. However, it is a shocking thing to think that Rome has one bishop for every 75 priests. That is a very fat level of middle management given the governance structure of Rome. It would seem that instead of merely closing parishes, Rome needs to close up some dioceses and to figure out where to put some of those bishops who are doing, well, who knows what. They could be helping with the numbers of parish priests not being replaced by new ordinands.<p></p><p>Of course, this is probably not true only of Rome. Lord knows, the Episcopal Church is rather top heavy as well. If you added in those serving in some middle level bureaucracy in many church structures you would probably find a similar ratio. Of course, most of these judicatories are not suffering as much as Rome the decline in the numbers of priests overall. In any case, it does not bode well for Rome's future. Maybe instead of complaining about folks who reject the papal direction today they could actually try to serve the needs of the folks whose parishes are being shuttered for lack of clergy. </p><p>Could it be that the high numbers of clergy not serving in parishes and the high number of bishops is symptom of the common ailment of Christianity? In other words, we value the administrative work of management over the Word and Sacrament ministry of pastor with his people? Could it be that we also have come to depend more upon our earthly wisdom in the form of planning, marketing, and administration over the promise of God to be where two or three are gathered in His name around His Word and Supper? At least in Rome's case, such a high proportion of bishops to priests only underscores the general incompetence of the managers in that body -- given that they have their hands full with everything from blessing same sex couples to rooting out clergy sex abuse to preventing people from either celebrating or attending the wrong mass. It appears that permanent deacons total 541. Well, that will help with the problem! Oh, well. Not my problem.... <br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-78299877057310448232024-03-13T06:00:00.001-05:002024-03-13T06:00:00.138-05:00A silent witness. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rockonlocke.ca%2Fdf_media%2FW1siZiIsIjIwMTkvMDUvMjQvMDkvMTgvMzAvNTJjOWE0YWItMzkzMi00YjNhLWI5OTQtZGI0MGEyYWIxMjVhL3dlYjMtY2hpbGQtY3Jvc3Mtc2lnbi12aW5jZW50c2FuY3R1YWlyZS1sb3VyZGVzY2lyaWMuanBnIl1d%2Fweb3-child-cross-sign-vincentsanctuaire-lourdesciric.jpg%3Fsha%3D8428ab7cd89174da&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=92a16938a216c86d0e0d2caa04df52046ed2511dc479a41a086e8011cf9009f8&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="472" height="200" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rockonlocke.ca%2Fdf_media%2FW1siZiIsIjIwMTkvMDUvMjQvMDkvMTgvMzAvNTJjOWE0YWItMzkzMi00YjNhLWI5OTQtZGI0MGEyYWIxMjVhL3dlYjMtY2hpbGQtY3Jvc3Mtc2lnbi12aW5jZW50c2FuY3R1YWlyZS1sb3VyZGVzY2lyaWMuanBnIl1d%2Fweb3-child-cross-sign-vincentsanctuaire-lourdesciric.jpg%3Fsha%3D8428ab7cd89174da&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=92a16938a216c86d0e0d2caa04df52046ed2511dc479a41a086e8011cf9009f8&ipo=images" width="400" /></a></div>A while ago I was on a trip alone and was eating breakfast in a hotel. It was a busy place with many airline personnel staying at this same hotel which was across from a major airport. As I bowed my head to pray before eating, I made the sign of the cross. This simple gesture encouraged a conversation with my server who asked if I was "Catholic" and it gave me an opportunity to unpack more than I would without her question. It became a long conversation and she kept coming back to the table. Eventually, I gave her my card, wrote on the back the address of a Lutheran congregation I knew which was close to where she lived and left it at that. Weeks and weeks passed and I thought very little about it until an email from the server announced that she was receiving instruction at that parish and was on her way to becoming a Lutheran. She had come from a Baptist household and fell away as a young adult and then got burned out on the promises of a big box evangelical church. She did not even know she was looking for a church until she saw me make the sign of the cross. I take no credit in this and it was her initiative to follow up on my small suggestion but it occurred to me that this whole thing began with a small and ordinary gesture -- the sign of the cross.<p></p><p>“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33 </p><p>We tend to presume that Jesus is referring to full explanations of what we believe and why but His words are made in the context of ordinary lives and people doing ordinary things which reflect what we believe. Praying before meals in public and making the sign of the cross constitute two of the more routine things Christians tend to do but often not in public. Why not? People are watching. This is not the kind of surveillance which is sinister but reflective of the hunger people have for real truth, a faith built upon fact and truth, and a hope which will not disappoint. I believe the world is ripe for such a witness and yet at the same time tired of the words. They are looking for people who practice their faith in ordinary ways, even in a matter of fact sort of way. They are looking for ordinary faith manifested in ordinary people. That is certainly me. And in this small way, it affected my server -- encouraging her to pursue the faith and find a home church. Was she a Christian before our conversation? Probably. But she was not in church, not hearing God's Word preached nor receiving the Sacrament of the Altar. Now she is. So let me encourage you with this small story to be public in your faith even without words. Show reverence, modesty, humility, and holiness. Pray with the accompanying gestures of the faith. It will not earn you your salvation but it does speak with a still small voice that folks are listening for. Don't be afraid. Do not be intimidated. The sign of the cross is also very Lutheran, by the way. If you don't believe me, read what Luther wrote in his catechism.<br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-753501743268327802024-03-12T06:00:00.000-05:002024-03-12T06:00:00.139-05:00Getting rid of imperfect children. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fracinebible.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F05%2Fimperfect_banner.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=39577675d2e3486a159789aea8b04e5389833fd42803f213468ed6e2c603a789&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="800" height="120" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fracinebible.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F05%2Fimperfect_banner.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=39577675d2e3486a159789aea8b04e5389833fd42803f213468ed6e2c603a789&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>Only a fool or an idiot would argue against the racist eugenics of folks like Margaret Sanger and others. Their positions have been discredited but that has not tarnished the reputation of Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice organizations among the liberals and progressives. We have gone from those who sought to promote the right characteristics in our children to those who want to get rid of imperfect children (no matter how you might define imperfect). <br /><p></p><p>There was a time when it had seemed the West was moving away from the more crass forms of eugenics but that day had come and gone. Now, the same have come around and appear to be embracing eugenics not simply in part but the whole. You may have read my thoughts here about the growing rarity of children with Down syndrome. That is not because we have eradicated the cause of this birth defect. Is is, rather, we have made it normal to kill them in the womb. Nearly 90% of children diagnosed
with Down syndrome in the womb are aborted. This has made abortion seem the kinder or more noble response to birth defects and, in fact, <span>abortion activists in the US are using disabled or
sick children as a reason why abortion, feticide, must be legal, widely available, and free. There seems to be no attempts to hide the worldview of these liberals and progressives which insists </span><i><span>We need abortion to be legal so we can get rid of imperfect children</span></i><span>.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></p><p><span data-ccp-props="{}">Wrongful death lawsuits are now accompanied by wrongful life lawsuits. Parents and mothers, in particular, are suing for the <i>failure </i>of abortion to kill the child. This actually happened in 2019 when Planned Parenthood was indeed sued for a failed abortion by those seeking to recover damages in the form of the costs of raising said child. </span><span>In the same year, it was reported that an Australian couple </span><span>sued an ultrasound clinic</span><span>
for its failure to diagnose and inform them of the Down syndrome condition of their child before birth. If they had only known, they would have aborted her. In the UK a woman sued the government after she found out she could have aborted her now four year old daughter. </span><span> Now it has been reported that an Austrian “doctor will be forced to pay out tens of thousands of dollars
to parents angry their child was born with a disability, and they were
not given the chance to have an abortion.” The couple was expecting a <i>perfect</i> baby but were outraged by the birth of a daughter missing a limb and with other defects that would not affect normal life but did offend the parents expecting a perfect baby.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span><span> T</span>he Austrian Supreme Court ruled that this little girl should not have been born.</p><p>Eugenics <span class="kY2IgmnCmOGjharHErah" style="-webkit-line-clamp: 3;"><span>is from Greek εύ̃ (eû) 'good, well', and -γενής (genḗs) 'come into
being, growing') and means a set of beliefs and practices that aim to
improve the genetic quality of a human population or </span></span>“good birth” — ensuring that only those deemed worthy are allowed to be born. The claim that some children have been “wrongfully born” is the logical outgrowth of eugenics and to sue for compensation means that the courts will determine who should be born and who should not. For those who may think that this is far removed from the US, consider that First Lady Jill Biden <span>chose to invite Kate Cox to the State of the Union -- a woman whose particular merit was discovering she w</span><span>as pregnant with a disabled baby, denied an abortion, and is considered a political martyr for her trouble. Indeed, the goal of the modern pro-choice movement is to get rid of imperfect children as well as unwanted. Sadly, there is no real standard to define what constitutes either imperfect children or unwanted and so that will remain the nebulous domain of those who feel they have been so wounded with either. I write this as a grandfather of a special needs child who is my special joy.</span> </p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-61639608987270511302024-03-11T06:00:00.003-05:002024-03-11T07:49:02.335-05:00The Spirit blows where He wills. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-qgkhrHdbyBw%2FVlI0ZZmVlnI%2FAAAAAAAAEXA%2FmVmQZ45tS3M%2Fw1200-h630-p-k-no-nu%2FIMAG0567.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=7e26efb98c458c31efc7061fc389cbe3688fb17f71c6762c7acec28232bb0a2e&ipo=images" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="800" height="168" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-qgkhrHdbyBw%2FVlI0ZZmVlnI%2FAAAAAAAAEXA%2FmVmQZ45tS3M%2Fw1200-h630-p-k-no-nu%2FIMAG0567.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=7e26efb98c458c31efc7061fc389cbe3688fb17f71c6762c7acec28232bb0a2e&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div><p> <i>Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent (B) preached on Sunday, March 10, 2024.<br /></i></p><p>One of the most shocking things about the Gospel is that God does not love who we love because we love them. In our conversations we are forever influencing others by whom we like or do not like. We presume that is enough. We are good judges of character. We have good instincts. We are fair minded folks. But God does not need our help to determine who is fit for the Kingdom. In fact, He out and out refuses that help. We are not the judges; like everyone else, we are the judged.<br /><br />Nicodemus was guilty of the same sin we are. He thought he could predict and control God and in particular the Spirit. That is what we want to do. We think we are helping God though none of us ever thinks we are hindering Him in His saving work. We think it helps if we prompt God on what He ought to do and those whom He ought to save and when He ought to be saving them. But the Lord does not cede control of the work of the Gospel or the Spirit to you or to me. Nor does He work on the schedule we give Him. The Lord works on His own timetable to accomplish His purpose when He chooses. Nowhere is that more true than with salvation.<br /><br />How hard it is for us to hear this! We think that we can improve upon the Word and the Sacraments. We think that we might have learned some business strategies from the fast food giants and mega retailers of this world or from the experts in marketing and advertising to which Main Street pays attention. We presume that you can condense success down to a methodology. But what God give us is nothing of the kind. Instead He gives us the unthinkable. The Spirit blows where He wills and the Gospel is God hanging on our cross.<br /><br />Nicodemus was in the presence of the Son of the Most High God but it did not help. Instead, he had questions and even reasons why God’s way would not work. He was staring right square into the face of the Savior of the world but could not see the obvious. We are the same. We try to credit the power of decision and minimize the Holy Spirit. We think that the Gospel needs our help when we need its help. We think that the cross needs to be replaced by something more profound or welcoming. We think that we need to understand God in order to believe in Him. What fools we are. God’s response is what condemns us. The Lord mounted on a cross. That is what will save the world and save you and me. Not gimmicks or marketing strategies but the Word of the cross.<br />God so loved the world that He did not ask us who we thought a savior should be or what salvation should look like. Instead He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. We expected God to condemn us but the Lord over all things came to save us. Like Nicodemus, we are still trying to wrap our hearts around that.<br /><br />Scripture says God’s ways are not our ways. We hear that all the time but nowhere are the words more profound than with how He saves who He saves. We want a God who is reasonable and whom you can reason with. We want a God who has come to sort out evil from good and not a God who loves all sinners. We want a God who enables us to save ourselves and not a God who saves us apart from anything we decide or do. We want a God who saves by some means that we can accept and not a God who raises up His only Son on the wood of the cross. The Spirit blows where He wills, our Lord said to Nicodemus and boy did He mean it.<br /><br />For God so loved us is understandable but not a God who loved the whole world. For God to give His Son to lead us home in triumph is understandable but not a God who accomplishes victory by means of suffering and death on an instrument of shame and derision. For God to save those who cleaned up their lives and at least tried to be holy is understandable but not a God who asks only faith from us and gives us the Spirit to make even that possible. God plays no games. This is not a joke or even theoretical to Him. This is practical and the most serious of business. And in this business of salvation, God is the expert and you and I are the amateurs.<br /><br />We want a God who will condemn our enemies and give hell to those we do not like. We want a God who will hide our sins while exposing the sins of others. We want a God who rewards our efforts with salvation and who punishes the people we cannot stand no matter how good their efforts. Nothing is as confounding to us as the God who lifts up His Son upon the pole of the cross and calls on everyone to look upon Him with faith and be saved.<br /><br />What is amazing is not that Nicodemus did not get it. What is amazing is that God actually loves Nicodmus despite how wrong he was about God and His kingdom. What is amazing is not those who are not saved but that any of us is saved. None of it makes sense to us and God is not trying to make it sensible. It is the scandal of faith and the scandal of the cross. Repent. Believe. Obey.</p><p></p><p>What God looks for from Nicodemus and from each of us is not our consent or even our assent. He certainly does not ask for our understanding or comprehension of His purpose or ways. What He asks for from us is this. Faith. The moments where we look up to the cross in wonder and blurt outloud: Jesus died for me. The aha moments of Christian faith are not breakthroughs of understanding or comprehension but the amens of faith to what is outlandishly generous, lavish, extravagant, and merciful.<br /><br />Jesus died for sinners of which I am one. You are trying to crack the mystery of the Trinity or to unlock the secret of how creation came to be or explain why some are saved and others not. None of that is yours to know or comprehend. All you need is right there in John 3:16-17.<br /><br />“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Where faith clings to those words, the light dawns and salvation is come. Thanks be to God!</p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-62600958743015045902024-03-11T06:00:00.000-05:002024-03-11T06:00:00.130-05:00LEGO model coming soon. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.rebrickable.com%2Fmedia%2Fthumbs%2Fmocs%2Fmoc-24774.jpg%2F1000x800.jpg%3F1558834771.0403953&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=ec2b6c6d03be2bf6b575061a94e5070f9213f6aecc77e0d3751308a47eb403f1&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.rebrickable.com%2Fmedia%2Fthumbs%2Fmocs%2Fmoc-24774.jpg%2F1000x800.jpg%3F1558834771.0403953&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=ec2b6c6d03be2bf6b575061a94e5070f9213f6aecc77e0d3751308a47eb403f1&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>Having two different sizes of an unofficial LEGO set for Kramer Chapel of Concordia Theological Seminary, I was piqued by the idea that LEGO has announced a new architecture set for 2024: Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral. Apparently LEGO is making an exception for producing religious and specifically Christian themed sets all to honor the reopening of Notre Dame after its devastating fire.<br /><br />The nearly 4,400-piece set is ready to hit shelves on June 1 and will be priced at $229.99. The iconic landmark will be joining sets such as the Himeji Castle, the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid of Giza, but few or no actual religious sites. The LEGO set will be released approximately six months before the expected reopening of the historic cathedral in Paris. Of course, this has not stopped people from producing their own sets (as I have noted several times in this blog).<br /><br />The Notre Dame Cathedral will also be the largest architecture set created by LEGO. Currently, the Taj Mahal and Himeji Castle are the largest with slightly over 2,000 pieces each. However, the new set is significantly smaller than several of the LEGO Icons such as the 9,000-piece Colosseum and 10,000-piece Eiffel Tower.<br /><br />Recently LEGO has begun to release only one new architecture theme each year. In the past, multiple city skylines or famous landmarks would be released throughout a given year. Now, builders are focusing on recreating one iconic location at a time with an increased attention to detail. At $230 you may want to start saving up your pennies now....<br /><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-83434521127532281782024-03-10T06:00:00.001-05:002024-03-10T06:00:00.135-05:00The purpose of clothing. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F80%2F15%2F65%2F801565bad9c4248c24e1d689e024eedc.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=1daac6e7d34fbca2664cd7e91b885c201a7157dcb5a301174210fd94fa21d42a&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="627" height="320" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F80%2F15%2F65%2F801565bad9c4248c24e1d689e024eedc.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=1daac6e7d34fbca2664cd7e91b885c201a7157dcb5a301174210fd94fa21d42a&ipo=images" width="251" /></a></div>Those who know me know that I am always overdressed -- at least according to the times in which we live now. But it is not simply a matter of dressing up instead of down. It is also remembering the purpose of clothing. Clothing does not exist to make us comfortable but rather to make us presentable. I fear we have forgotten this or rejected it, if indeed we did remember it at all. From the People of Walmart websites to the ads that adorn everywhere we do (physically or digitally), we live in a world in which this wisdom is largely overlooked. We dress stupidly, erotically, and dumpy in our pursuit of using clothing as one more means of self-expression. Somewhere along the line, we forgot that our clothing should at least not make us look worse than we do without clothing.<p></p><p>I know I am out of step with the times. If I had my way, male teachers would wear shirts and ties and female teachers would wear dresses. Yes, I am that kind of a curmudgeon. Doctors would look the professionals their degrees say they are. So would business people. Don't forget pastors. What is true for the professional class should be true for all of us. We ought to wear modest clothing at all times but clothing which makes us look good and not like the slobs we might be underneath our duds.<br /></p><p>This should be even more true of Christians. Sometimes I think we should come up with a People of Christianity website to showcase the more strange and self-serving outfits people wear to the House of God. Let me note here I do not advocate for a dress code but neither do I suggest that dressing down for God is a good or laudable reflection of the inward attitude of the heart as we enter a church building. If we are wearing our best, that is fine but if we are not wearing our best, why not?<br /></p><p>You might be surprised to note that John Cassian (John the Ascetic!) began his <em>Institutes </em>describing the<em> </em>life of the desert Fathers in Egypt, with a discussion of appropriate and inappropriate clothing. Even
monks must dress to fit their vocation, for the monk will be known like
the Prophet Elijah, “by the description of the character of his
clothing.” John Cassian suggests that we are sacramental beings who express ourselves outwardly in
our demeanor and in our choice of clothing. If these manifest our personality and even our
character then they ought to reflect as much honor and dignity as we possess. Cassian said the habit or vesture of the monk should “aim at modesty of
dress as well as cheapness and economy.” Clothing achieves its
objective by meeting our needs—not only by keeping us warm but also by reflecting the principal of modesty and humility. We need to work to make ourselves presentable before each other and most certainly before God.</p>
<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2018%2F07%2F100400632.jpg%3Fquality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%26w%3D640&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=ffb77e558de67638fb1241946812064cf18e7f04b944d8524dc74260c254bbeb&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="533" height="320" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2018%2F07%2F100400632.jpg%3Fquality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%26w%3D640&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=ffb77e558de67638fb1241946812064cf18e7f04b944d8524dc74260c254bbeb&ipo=images" width="213" /></a></div>While it is often presumed that modesty is for women, it is a principle also for men. St. Francis de Sales wrote of this in his <em>Introduction to the Devout Life</em>: “St. Paul expresses his desire that all
Christian women should wear ‘modest apparel, with shamefacedness and
sobriety;’—and for that matter he certainly meant that men should do so
likewise.” St. Francis gives more explicit guidelines: “Always be neat, do not ever
permit any disorder or untidiness about you. There is a certain
disrespect to those with whom you mix in slovenly dress; but at the same
time avoid all vanity, peculiarity, and fancifulness.” The saint also tells us why modesty matters and the principle is familiar. “Purity has its source in the
heart, but it is in the body that its material results take shape.” In other words, what we wear on the exterior expresses what is in the interior of our lives -- or at least what should be.<p></p><p>Dare I say it? If you look like a slob, do not be surprised if you are treated like one. Your clothing ought to make you look better than you are. I remember the old series on TV <i>What Not to Wear.</i> While I did not always agree with the hosts on what the person should be wearing (or spending on clothing), it was not surprising why that person ended up on the show in the first place. The clothing did not accentuate the positive but certainly did draw the eye to the negative. So don’t dress like a bum. Don't dress down for work and social engagements because it simply says you don’t really care. Dressing up honors the people around you as much as it does you. You don’t have to end up at the opposite extreme of vanity. You definitely do not have to be a fashion hound to look presentable. Dressing well is often very simple. Don't dress to entice the opposite sex. Modesty befits our call not to lead others into sin. In the end, ask yourself i you are honoring God by the way you dress -- especially in church. There really was something to the old adage of Sunday best. We could do far worse than to follow the example of our great-grandparents.<br /></p><p></p><p> <br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-44761426991712146182024-03-09T06:00:00.001-06:002024-03-09T06:00:00.135-06:00Courtroom and sanctuary. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwbdg.org%2Fimages%2Fcourtroom_08.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=054d270324e9ff362ca5fd0ce58a73460d2990d874e3d14fcba42a23b43a6c9e&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="266" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwbdg.org%2Fimages%2Fcourtroom_08.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=054d270324e9ff362ca5fd0ce58a73460d2990d874e3d14fcba42a23b43a6c9e&ipo=images" width="640" /></a></div><br />Although I am certainly not the first or only person to have noticed the resemblance between the arrangement of the typical courtroom in America and the worship space of a liturgical church, it still amazes me. How interesting it is that in the sacred duties of justice, the architect chose to lay out a pattern and form which bears striking resemblance to a Christian congregation! It is hard not to believe that those who design the traditional American courtroom were oblivious to or were not inspired by traditional sacred architecture. <p></p><p>The central focus of the Church building is the altar, flanked by pulpit and lectern. So it is that the central focus of the courtroom is the raised desk where the judge sits, flanked by the pulpit of the witness stand on one side and the stenographer's desk on the other. As the Church may have choir on one side or both, so the jury tends to sit as a sort of choir in judgement, so to speak. Just as the altar rail marks the distinction between the public space and sacred space of the clergy, so there is a rail or partition of some sort in the courtroom to demarcate where the visitors sit and where those who are somehow directing the legal process are placed. There are assisting clergy in the chancel and lawyers to prosecute and defend within the sacred space of the courtroom's chancel. There are assisting clergy such as acolytes and torchbearers and thurifers and such in the Church and bailiffs and deputies within the courtroom. In fact, the public seating of a typical courtroom gallery may even be pews instead of chairs and so reflect the nave of the Church even more. The judge wears robes and the assistants to the judge also wear the distinctive clothing of their offices -- no different that the chancel and the clergy of different rank in the Church. The bar is the line of demarcation for the professionals and so the altar rail delineates where those who have offices serve. There is even a reredos behind the judge's desk which reminds us of the reredos behind the altar. Often even sacred art adorns that space just as it does in the Church.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.5woHNPIYnjztyLgAR7RUZgAAAA%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=5dd03b827179fb17ef6812c38ab43ebe876668fcb5cacb1249a88305e8e677bb&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="323" data-original-width="463" height="323" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.5woHNPIYnjztyLgAR7RUZgAAAA%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=5dd03b827179fb17ef6812c38ab43ebe876668fcb5cacb1249a88305e8e677bb&ipo=images" width="463" /></a></div>Which inspired which? I suspect that there may be bit of both but the Church has clearly contributed to the design of the legal space. It would not be wrong, however, to presume that the Church has learned something from the sacred space of the law as well. Have you noticed what I have? What do you think of it the commonality? Is it fitting and normal or eerily odd to you? <br /><p></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-82823639579658491732024-03-08T06:00:00.001-06:002024-03-08T06:00:00.140-06:00A generous spirit. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcalvarynow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F11%2Fsermons-joyful-generosity.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=aa15ba0647c6e11f6df8961c759499a38d53af89bc7a2442905c5a916fe996d2&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcalvarynow.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F11%2Fsermons-joyful-generosity.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=aa15ba0647c6e11f6df8961c759499a38d53af89bc7a2442905c5a916fe996d2&ipo=images" width="400" /></a></div>I often describe the Divine Service where I serve as a generous formality. Let me unpack that statement. We have folks who cross themselves and those who do not. We have folks who bow and those who do not. We have folks who kneel and those who do not. We have folks mirror the fuller ceremonial they see at the altar and those who do not. Lutherans are generally loathe to make rules about folks must or must not do when it comes to matters of ceremony. I think we have a rather generous spirit toward those whose piety if more ceremonial and those whose piety is of a simpler nature. I am not at all sure that the generous spirit is well-understood or appreciated.<p></p><p>Let me take one example. Luther says in the Catechism that we ought to cross ourselves. But Luther does not say we must. The reality is that those who do tend to bother those who do not more than the other way around. I would plead for a generous spirit. Some are new to it all and have not yet developed a comfort level with the ceremonies they see in the Divine Service. Others have been Lutheran long enough to recall when it was less common to see and experience the fuller ceremonial (and, indeed, the Divine Service itself was less frequent!). Either is fine. We dare not bind the conscience except where God has demanded us to bind it -- on either side of this equation. To forbid a fuller ceremonial is the same problem as demanding it.</p><p>To be truthful, I am not in the least apologetic for the fuller ceremonial I model at the altar. It is not the practice of my preference as presiding minister but my role and purpose to model before the congregation the fullest range of what is rightfully <i>Lutheran</i> and retained of our catholic identity. Pastors should not get to impose their preference upon the congregation anymore than the congregation should impose it on them (or others). But if people do not see the fuller ceremonial modeled, they may conclude that it is somehow less authentically Lutheran. Our Confessions go to great pains to insist that we are fully catholic in doctrine and practice. But only a fool would admit that we have not been as faithful in this as we ought.</p><p>I grew up with some things that would be easily considered too catholic for some. The church bell was intoned during the Our Father and the Words of Institution. Women were not generally seen by the altar even during the clean up after the Sacrament. The attitude was decidedly somber and solemn by both pastor and people. There were no jokes from the pulpit or smiles on the faces in the pews. The people took pains to note that they were walking upon the holy ground of God's presence and this was something not to be taken lightly. But no one ever explained to me the whys or whats of what we did.</p><p>Hopefully the brief explanations in the worship folder and the many references in Bible study help to rectify this fact. Our people tend to have a greater understanding why I genuflect during the consecration than I had about the intoning of the bell growing up. Some would say that is not who they are. But, of course, we who stand before the Lord who speaks in His Word and serves us from His Table must acknowledge that this is a very special privilege God has accorded us. It is worth asking if God had in mind a real knee bowing or just a thought in the mind when St. Paul directed every knee to bow and tongue confess Jesus Christ as Lord. No, we are not all at the same place in life nor in our spiritual lives. There is still room for a generous spirit which welcomes the fuller while not demanding it and which willingly places preference at the bottom of the list of things which would define our practice. </p><p>A very long time ago when we were considering whether kneelers would be added to the pews in our new building, someone took great pains to let everyone know they did not like kneelers and were voting against them. I did not argue with them. What I did ask is why their preference should prevent those who chose to kneel from exercising theirs? In the end, this is the point. It may be a little disconcerting to have people's piety look different from your own within the Divine Service but a generous spirit will not make too much of this. As far as I know there is nothing wrong with nor is there any confessional ground for restricting the fuller ceremonial. In fact, our confession insists that we can employ the full ceremonial so long as it does not conflict with Word of God or obscure the Gospel. This does not mean that every preference must be respected but it does require on every side a generous spirit. We put words in our Lord's mouth when we presume His challenge of externals alone requires no externals at all. What our Lord is urging is consistency of faith and practice but the judgment remains the Lord's and has not been delegated to us. One more reason for a generous spirit.<br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-1264593399341475092024-03-07T06:00:00.001-06:002024-03-07T06:00:00.254-06:00De-accessioning. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.artemundi.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F04%2Fdeaccessioning1.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=f8f6416c1d1c626b862d9fabd1047c1d6740c4af26903f4bb82ca2d19714a651&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="214" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.artemundi.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F04%2Fdeaccessioning1.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=f8f6416c1d1c626b862d9fabd1047c1d6740c4af26903f4bb82ca2d19714a651&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>Alas I have obtained that period of life in which I must begin to thin the books on the shelves since I have fewer feet of shelf space in which to inhabit. As I carted off 14 very large cases of books to my seminary alma mater, I was struck by what I was parting with and what I was keeping. I had thought I would be pulling the older books from the shelves and, as the librarians might put it, de-accessioning them from my library. In the end, it turned out to be just the opposite. First to go were some of the last to be purchased (or given) for my library. The keepers were inevitably older volumes -- first printings of what are now out of print (except for those who print "on demand." In this I find myself at odds with what is happening in many if not most libraries across the nation. <br /><p></p><p>Libraries today seem intent upon getting rid of most of their older books (“de-accessioning” them). How odd it is! To replace those volumes which have stood the test of time only to replace them with books whose value no one can tell seems lunacy. Yet those who peruse used book stories will find countless tomes once considered standard. You may purchase them cheaply enough but it seems not that many want them anymore -- at least those outside of my own circle. How sad it is that our children and grandchildren will not even know the names of the historic works we once devoured along with our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. In their place they have books that hit the best seller list but which are likely not to outlast their first printing.</p><p>Of course, they are being rejected precisely because they may be found offensive by the generation of people offended by just about anything and everything. These volumes do not reflect the prejudices of the day and do not herald the causes in vogue in the moment. Surely this could be their greatest values! </p><p>I sometimes quote movies in my classes and have often quoted <i>Princess Bride </i>and <i>Ferris Bueller's Day Off </i>only to find that my hearers have not even seen these films. What a loss! In an age in which video games are common culture and even high culture, we could do worse than spending a few hours on some of these old titles. It might be different if I found that the substitutions for the past were noble and worthy but that is precisely the point. What have we gained by replacing the great authors of all time with books that have had only a few moments in the limelight? Could it be that we are artificially raising their visibility by making them required reading in our schools? I am currently looking for a copy of the old film <i>A Room with a View.</i> A great Merchant and Ivory production, I had it on VHS but seem to have forgotten to pick it up on DVD. Oddly enough, you can find the worst things on streaming services but seldom can find gems like this. Could it be that what is popular is also bland and even depressing? If you want to find something good to read or watch, take a look at what libraries across our universities and communities are casting out from their collections. De-accessioning might be good news for those who desire to accumulate a more timeless literature or film for their library.<br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-30639182340231396972024-03-06T06:00:00.001-06:002024-03-06T06:00:00.135-06:00Singing is with you forever. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cuchicago.edu%2Fcontentassets%2F8622ee65a9e84ae9ab7c72657ce22ea8%2F1200x630_kapelle_fall_concert-6.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=67b3c7d733ae6ba46343e48d686b48a90be11776df2ff5bede9130250c194f47&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="800" height="210" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cuchicago.edu%2Fcontentassets%2F8622ee65a9e84ae9ab7c72657ce22ea8%2F1200x630_kapelle_fall_concert-6.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=67b3c7d733ae6ba46343e48d686b48a90be11776df2ff5bede9130250c194f47&ipo=images" width="400" /></a></div>Today we welcome the Kapelle, the large choir of Concordia University Chicago, who are on their spring tour. They will sing at both Lenten services (Vespers at 5 pm and Evening Prayer at 7 pm). I can well recall more than fifty years ago when I went out on my first choir tour from St. John's College in Winfield, KS. Indeed, every choir tour and choral group I have enjoyed over the years remain among my most cherished memories.<p></p><p>In an age in which sports seem to have taken over the mind and heart of America, I would suggest that few of those who play in school, summer, or traveling leagues will every find a job there or earn their income from these sports. Enjoyable they may be but it is likely they will retain a memory and not an active participation in their favorite sport. That is not true with singing.</p><p>Those who sing pray twice -- no matter who said it! The choral experience will benefit every singer for the whole of their lives. Learning to exercise your voice according to the rules of the musical staff and the baton of the conductor is among the most important and blessed talents you will ever learn. Sadly, that is not quite the case today. We have judged singing to be routine or unworthy of our time and instead apply to other causes what once was the joy of our hearts.</p><p>The parish I serve is often described as a <i>singing</i> congregation. I suppose they are. We have a very talented choir, cantor(s), and instrumentalists who lead the congregational song. We have a very large pipe organ (some are always complaining that it is also too loud) to accompany this song. But the singing assemblies I think about are the chapel at Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, and the sound of hundreds and hundreds of male voices not shy at all or the choirs of St. John's, Concordia Senior College, and the Seminary. I well recall a choral vespers at the Senior College when then organist Joel Kuznik had every stop on the mighty Schlicker on and was working the manuals and pedal feverishly but by the chancel you could hardly hear the pipes for the sound of many voices. Singing stays with you all your life. You will literally never stop singing or the opportunity to sing -- especially true of Lutheran Christians! </p><p>My advice is to make sure your sports interests do not overwhelm the love of and participation in the music of the Church -- especially for those in our universities. Wow! God will sing me to heaven I am sure. How can I keep from singing? Come to the services tonight and learn anew the joy of choral music, liturgical chant, and congregational song. I know the Kapelle will not disappoint us!<br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-60522001719777697942024-03-05T06:00:00.001-06:002024-03-05T06:00:00.140-06:00A less coherent vision. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.illustrationhistory.org%2Fimages%2Fuploads%2FCrusader_Bible-1240-detail.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=fffc20667a90068506d568715d983a9d717703a38b95c64677c4eebadb2666d4&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="700" height="197" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.illustrationhistory.org%2Fimages%2Fuploads%2FCrusader_Bible-1240-detail.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=fffc20667a90068506d568715d983a9d717703a38b95c64677c4eebadb2666d4&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>There is probably not much of medieval history and culture that anyone would warm to in this present age. We have outgrown our past and have little patience or stomach for it. Nowhere is this more true than when the educated and erudite modern man looks back in time to the period once deemed the <i>Dark Ages</i>. We are loath to ascribe to the medieval period much of any credit for anything and are quick to blame the period for all the things we still find wrong with mankind, society, culture, and religion.<p></p><p>C. S. Lewis in his work <i>The Discarded Image,</i> would surely raise an issue with our dismissal of this period. In speaking of that period, he wrote: “The human imagination has seldom had before it an object so sublimely ordered as the
medieval cosmos.” In contrast to the chaotic and illogical views that dominate this age, the medieval period offered a reasoned structure occupied with intelligences at every level. In many ways, it was a structure constructed like a building, aiming for the highest point but not content to allow the lower regions to be deprived of their own order and definition. Lewis would suggest that it was an elegant structure and perhaps would complain about the opposite for the world in which we live and the order we have assigned to it. It could be that the medieval period was inherently religious, its people religious, its thinkers religious, its artists and artisans religious, and its worldview religious and that this was part of the ordered nature of every aspect of this time. If one were to agree with this, the lack of religious thought and its thinking on every level of our secular world is at least partly to blame for the deterioration of our ordered existence. </p><p>People in the Middle Ages, Lewis believe, actually felt that
</p><blockquote><i>the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the social hierarchy on
Earth were dim reproductions of the celestial hierarchies. The pageantry
and ceremony which they indulged in to the utmost of their powers were
their attempt to imitate the modus operandi of the universe; to live, in
that sense, “according to nature.”</i></blockquote><p>Certainly the heirarchies of the earth are even dimmer in this modern and secular age, suspicious of pageantry or at least skeptical of assigning anything more than whimsy to its ceremony and ritual. Yet what is most profoundly missing today is a coherent worldview. The ordered structure of medieval thought and life has been replaced by anything but order. It is worse than chaos. It is a complete disordered view of life and our place within that life. The random and unreasonable have become the unassailable deposits of truth for which neither fact nor history nor reality dare intrude. Personal authenticity as deep and wide as one individual have been left to bear up the full weight of every structure of community and society -- only to prove that this personal authenticity is completely deficient to provide the koinonia of common values and a common truth. So it is precisely community that is lacking in the structures of this age and the fruit of this defect is the profound sense of loneliness and longing that inhabits every level of our order and it is this that deprives us of the sense of belonging that we both yearn and disdain at the same time.<br /></p><p>From the calendar to the seasons to rulers to the lowest workers to the Church in which life was consecrated, the medieval structure breathed out a sense of consoling order for times and people who needed it. Now we find ourselves without consolation amid a sea of conflict, dispute, isolation, and suspicion. Are we better off than the medieval order? You decide. But I think you know where my sympathies lie. <br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-86128683593188257502024-03-04T06:00:00.002-06:002024-03-04T06:00:00.152-06:00Where is our zeal?<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fasanefaith.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F01%2FJesus-Cleanses-the-Temple.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=a6d26c858bf0f165ffc34bd6b3e4eb59c9d07cbd7670eea9d00a1c1b40cc45cc&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fasanefaith.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F01%2FJesus-Cleanses-the-Temple.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=a6d26c858bf0f165ffc34bd6b3e4eb59c9d07cbd7670eea9d00a1c1b40cc45cc&ipo=images" width="260" /></a></i></div><i>Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, preached on Sunday, March 3, 2024.</i> <br /><p></p><p>It may be hard for us to imagine that David in all his glory found himself alone. Jesus quotes David from Psalm 69: “For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face. I am a foreigner to my own family, a stranger to my own mother’s children; for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me. When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn; when I put on sackcloth, people make sport of me. Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of the drunkards” <br /><br />In a world where secret sins are left secret, David’s public demonstration of his repentance for the sin of Bathsheba and Uriah is shocking. What would possess a king to admit the sin no one knew but God and His prophet? David was zealous for the Lord even when this zeal cost him dearly. Sitting in sackcloth and ashes before the nation, David knew that his only future lie with the Lord. He prayed for God to cleanse his soul from sin and create in him a new and clean heart. Where everyone else would have let the scandal lie hidden, David wore the ashes of his repentance before the world. Most of us do not get that kind of zeal.<br /><br />Jesus comes to the Temple and found it to be cesspool of deception and lies. The business of God’s House had ceased to be about sin and forgiveness and it had become a marketplace for an easy righteousness in which you paid off God and did what you pleased. The money changers and market that replaced a people at prayer consumed Jesus. Even His own disciples did not understand why Jesus was so upset. Why did it bother Him so? It was routine, the ordinary business of the Temple as it had been for years. Everyone had grown accustomed to it and even the faithful were not scandalized by it. But not Jesus. He could not allow a market to replace the sacred space where God called sinners to repentance and where God bestowed forgiveness for their sins.<br /><br />We have no such problem today. It is not because churches are not marketplaces for just about anything and everything. They are. Churches program people to death with all kinds of things that have little or nothing to do with the Gospel. The problem is not that we no longer grieve God with our hijacking of His house and His purpose. No, our problem is that we have no zeal for the things of God. We are not scandalized by what churches have become anymore than we are scandalized by what the Gospel has become. We just go with the flow. We live under the radar. We turn a public confession into a private faith that no one can see. Jesus’ problem was not with the Temple but with what the Temple had become. No one seemed to mind that God’s message had been replaced by voices of the status quo. Now do you know why we have a problem today?<br /><br />Look around you. Christianity has become a feel good faith in which it is not about right or wrong, sin or death, but about feeling better about yourself and squeezing as much as you can out of this mortal life before surrendering to death. The voices that are raised to object to calling sin good and good sin are castigated as hate speakers. Those who would honor God’s creation of marriage and the gift of family are called narrow minded and judgmental. Those who insist that God’s Word is not open to individual interpretation or adjustment to better fit into the world today are called antiquated and treated as bigots. <br /><br />There is not much zeal for the Lord’s house left. Even the so-called faithful Christians are regularly absent from worship. Bible reading and study has become optional to us. Churches care more about the comfort and approval of people than they do the work of the kingdom and God’s approval. This is what we wrestle with. We wear what feels good to us and do not dress up even for God. We snicker at off color jokes just like everyone else. We give God what we think we can afford and not what He is due. We let our kids decide if they want to go to church or be instructed in the faith instead of honoring this as our duty to them and to God. This is the sad state of affairs in American Christianity today. Our congregation is better than most but every week half of those who say they belong are absent from the Divine Service and two thirds are not in Sunday school or Bible study. Zealots are extremists and nobody likes extremists. We like the Lutheran idea of moderation in all things – even sin. No, zeal is not our problem. Who would find us a zealous bunch? Would the world around us? Would Jesus? <br /><br />The point of this is not simply to make us feel bad – though it would not hurt us to admit the obvious and confess it. No, the point is this. God IS zealous. Zealous for you and for your salvation. Jesus is offended by the scandal of the Lord’s House not because He feels slighted but because as long as the things of this life are the focus of God’s House and His work, the gift of eternal life will remain hidden and the Gospel will be silent. The end result of the Temple takeover by business is that not only were the people not ready to receive Jesus when He came but they resented everything He had come to do. They were ready to exchange His gift of eternal salvation for the things that made them happy in this life.<br /><br />The true zeal for the Kingdom is not concern for ourselves but for the Kingdom of God. It is His kingdom and His righteousness that is the beating heart of God’s House. It is Christ and Him crucified that is our hope. It is the new and everlasting life that we look for and now our fair share of the good things of this mortal life. The world may not love the zealot but God does. He wants us to be zealous about the Gospel lest the cross be obscured and we are left in our sins. He wants us to be zealous about worship because there is where our Lord continues to distribute the fruits of His redeeming work. He wants us to be zealous about His Word because that Word bears the fruit of faith and sustains that faith by the power of the Holy Spirit. He wants us to be zealous about confessing our sins to one another and forgiving each other in His name so that there is no distance between us. Matthew 18 is not simply a reconciliation process but a value statement of the importance of forgiveness in building and sustaining us a people together in Christ. He wants us to be zealous about missions because Christ died not for the few but for all and that He seeks all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Zeal is marked by temple tables overturned and arms stretched out upon the cross. Zeal is God’s love for us. Zeal should be the mark of our love for Him. Amen. <br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-54143364858301653112024-03-04T06:00:00.000-06:002024-03-04T06:00:00.151-06:00Distance. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fyalibnan.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F06%2Fwhite-house-police-1024x576.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=3062deeef0a2fb809f5d51dd71e12c5bf359144559425dfcaf7b538d4bf35015&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fyalibnan.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F06%2Fwhite-house-police-1024x576.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=3062deeef0a2fb809f5d51dd71e12c5bf359144559425dfcaf7b538d4bf35015&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>Whether we admit it or not, we are very far removed from people in charge. Our government, political, business, and religious leaders are largely inaccessible to us. Sure, we have email and snail mail but we all know that many hands filter what is received on the big desks. Besides that, such leaders are surrounded by security details designed not to let anyone into the circle. I wonder if this lack of access has some influence over the rage in folks who resort to violence. I also wonder if this distance has come to be normal even for the ordinary folks in the course of their regular lives. It was not always this way.<p></p><p>It was said that Abraham Lincoln regularly received unscheduled visitors who had something on their chest. When was it that the last President of the United States received drop in visitors from among the hoi paloi? You cannot even get in most buildings in Washington without an appointment and a ticket. I recall when my family visited the capital city of our republic and walked in and out of nearly all public buildings -- even the White House. We walked into the offices of one of our state senators. We talked to all sorts of people. My brother even approached Jesse Jackson who was dining at a table next to ours in a restaurant. That seems aeons ago now.</p><p>Now most of us treat our homes the way the security detail treats the White House. Nobody gets through. We do not answer our doors to strangers nor do we pick up our phones when called by numbers we do not recognize. I understand why we do it. I just wonder what the impact of it all is upon the psyche of the nation as a whole and each of us as individuals. The screen has become the buffer zone between us and the world and we have all become, to a large measure, inaccessible. The inevitable phone queue seems more designed to make us give up and send an email than to wade through the endless hurdles to finally get to a real person (although where that person may live and work might shock and surprise us).</p><p>Worse, we have come to believe the idea that God is just as inaccessible as the bigwigs around us and even as each of us. We have presumed that God lies hidden, behind some great closed door, until we call upon Him or summon Him. We find this distance rather convenient since it means that such a hidden God is hardly in a position to find fault with our moral choices or second guess our flawed decisions. Distance may be troubling to us in some ways but it is also convenient when it leaves us to be who we want to be and do what we want to do -- without some deity looking over our shoulder.</p><p>Strangely, we are in the season that celebrates not the distant God who cannot be approached by the God who is near -- who has come into our world of space and time wearing the same flesh and blood we wear. The incarnation of our Lord is above all the intrusion of the distant God into our everyday lives and into the very fabric of our being. God is with us. That is the promise of His name. We cannot lose this God or forget about Him when it is convenient. Bidden or not, this God is present. Yet the other miracle of Christmas is that this God is come not for judgment (at least not yet) but to save. He has come full of mercy and with grace sufficient to answer the guilt of every sin, the long dark shadow of death, and the prison of our selves. He has come to set us free not so that we do not need Him but so that we might be free to depend upon Him and receive what He freely gives with faith and joy. Because He is near, salvation is near and heaven nearer than when we first believed.<br /></p><p>I fear that we have normalized our isolation to the point where there is no real comfort in the nearness of God. Besides all of that, we sort of like telling our story our way without a God who knows the exaggerations or departures from truth. That is, after all, the appeal of meeting God on our terms. In the end it is a comfortless choice. Truth can be fearful when it strips away all pretense and convenient distance but it is only truth that can bestow real comfort. God really does know us and love us.</p><p>We all complain that nobody in the West Wing knows how real people live. Nobody across the halls of power in Washington knows us or all that much about the shape of our lives. They don't know the real cost of groceries or the toil of jobs we endure to support our families. We know that the Jeff Bezos of this world have never waited for a slow hand in the self-check aisle or wondered if they could afford braces or wrestled with juggling medical procedures against high deductibles and the maze of the health care system. Maybe it is even unreasonable to expect them to know these things. But the shocking thing of all is that God does -- from the arrogant judgments of nosy neighbors to the rejection of a city to the betrayal of intimate friends to the innocent suffering for the guilty to the tears of grief in loss to the cold darkness of a tomb. He knows. Better He cares. Best He has come to set us free from these prisons and to bring the captive home to Him. Thanks be to God!<br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-78217084305650546952024-03-03T06:00:00.001-06:002024-03-03T06:00:00.137-06:00The plan restored. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.focusonthefamily.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F01%2FAdobeStock_62751546-1-scaled.jpeg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=5efc953c20c9a7fedd585c4046406b75963109a28fd867fc931247cff75d0009&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.focusonthefamily.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F01%2FAdobeStock_62751546-1-scaled.jpeg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=5efc953c20c9a7fedd585c4046406b75963109a28fd867fc931247cff75d0009&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>Only a fool would deny that traditional marriage is under attack and has been for a long time -- certainly long before same sex marriage or any other modern ideas took root. There are always those who love to point out the fact that marriage was not exactly a walk in the park for the patriarchs and kings of Israel. They had more than one and, in a few cases, many wives. Is it not all an evolution to a new idea of what marriage is? Is not marriage always changing? It might be worth a brief review.<br /><p></p><p><span style="color: black;">The Book of Genesis records God’s plan for marriage -- a plan set forth from the very beginning of creation. In this plan of God, marriage is defined as one man and one woman in a stable, lasting, fruitful relationship of mutual support and fidelity. When God said, <em>It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable helpmate for him </em>(Gen
2:18), He is certainly not changing His mind upon the goodness of all that He had made but acknowledging that creation itself was not quite complete. It is also worth noting that the word used in Genesis is “helpmate,” not life-partner, soulmate, love of my life, or any of the other romantic images we tend to use first before helpmate today. </span></p><p><span style="color: black;">Adam is sent on a learning expedition. Naming all the animals instilled in Adam his first awareness that there was none like him. Animals were never intended to be and are not suitable companions according to God's own design. So God puts Adam
in a deep sleep and fashions from his rib a woman, Eve (<em>cf</em> Gen 2:21). In His wisdom laid down before the beginning of creation, God knew what He would do and what was needed. The suitable helpmate for Adam whom God created was a
woman -- not another man like Adam for friendship but one to enable him to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. From the beginning it was a one man and one woman deal. Scripture makes it clear that this marriage was created to be a lasting union. The man shall “cling” or "cleave" (Hebrew דָּבַק = dabaq) to his
wife and the two shall become
one flesh (Gen 2:24). This also places sex itself within a particular context. Amusement and pleasure that define our intent today was not the intent of God. There were to be fruitful and
multiply (Gen 1:28). </span></p><p><span style="color: black;">Sin was not without its impact upon marriage just as it impacted the image of Himself God had placed upon man in creation, illness, death, conflict, violence, hate, etc... For marriage, the impact of sin was in the desire for another not your spouse, polygamy, and homosexual relations. </span><span style="color: black;">While homosexual relations were specifically spelled out for condemnation as was adultery, it might seem that polygamy—especially among the rich and the rulers—received a pass from God and His prophets. But it is foolish to presume that God's silence meant approval of the practice. In fact, we can see from the track record of those who practiced polygamy that it was nothing but trouble -- even to jealousy and murder! In the same way, while God may have permitted divorce because of the hard hearts of the people (cf Matt 19:8), God never wavers from His plan of a lifelong union of husband and wife nor does he approve of divorce. Permitting something and approving of it are quite different -- a nuance often lost upon society as a whole. Furthermore, the practice comes into Judaism through pagan cultures -- another warning sign!<br /></span></p><p><span style="color: black;">Reading in Matthew’s Gospel, we note in the words of Jesus a return to the words and intent of Genesis. Our Lord is loud and clear in affirming God’s original plan and excludes divorce. <i>"Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, unless the marriage is unlawful, and marries another woman commits adultery" (Matt 19:8-9). "Have you not read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate" (Matt 19:4-6).</i><br /><br />The Lord has not come to tinker with marriage or to direct its evolution but to restore what was broken and lost. Our Lord affirms that marriage is of one man and one woman in a stable, lifelong, fruitful relationship of mutual support and fidelity. Furthermore, He offers to the marriage a gift to apply to the places where trust is broken, where the marriage bond is broken in words or in deeds. That gift is forgiveness. While there may be reasons to permit divorce, this is not the default or automatic path for those who suffer under such reasons. In fact, the most profound grace that Christ can give to marriage and to those married is that these do not have to result in divorce. Repentance and forgiveness can repair and restore what was broken.</span></p><p><span style="color: black;">Though we live in a time in which the presumption is that traditional marriage is but one version of marriage now fading in the wake of no fault divorce, same sex marriage, polyamory, and every other distortion of God's intent, Jesus puts on the brakes. Marriage is what God created it to be. Man was created for woman and woman for man. Sin can make it infinitely more difficult for us to live within this bond but it cannot destroy it or steal from God what He created and gave to us. This is what St. Paul so eloquently elaborates upon in Ephesians. Even more than an extended discussion, St. Paul does one thing more -- he likens God's plan for marriage to Christ and the Church and so ennobles this relationship to its fullest image and grace.</span> <br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-82734614296617726902024-03-02T06:00:00.003-06:002024-03-02T06:00:00.131-06:00Theology does not help the bottom line. . . <p><a href="https://t.e2ma.net/webview/g32bun/8a9a26f09e8335a53b15c0ad06317119" target="_blank"></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdehayf5mhw1h7.cloudfront.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F1317%2F2021%2F08%2F10134404%2FValparaiso-University_Getty_Education-Images-689x460.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=75b980e2ad45594bfda24d45d32b1fa8dd9cc4d16b2eec1157a7e9dff537b907&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="689" height="214" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdehayf5mhw1h7.cloudfront.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F1317%2F2021%2F08%2F10134404%2FValparaiso-University_Getty_Education-Images-689x460.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=75b980e2ad45594bfda24d45d32b1fa8dd9cc4d16b2eec1157a7e9dff537b907&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>In an unsurprising move, Valparaiso University has decided to end the theology major and minor. It is one more sign of Valpo's drift away from its roots and, some would say, its raison d'être. Although reassuring words were said about required theology courses continuing, the reality is that there is no guarantee that they will. The decisions are being <i>market driven</i>, so they say. In reality it is not simply the market that drives such decisions but the values within the institution itself. That illustrates another reality. The values and mission of the institution are themselves not anchors nor directions but positions for the moment and all are subject to marketing factors. What is profitable will define what the institution is and what its mission will be.<p></p><p>While this is sad for Valpo and those affected directly by this decision, it has been a very long time since that university was more than a faint shadow of its former self. Long gone are the heady days of O. P. Kretzmann and the chapel is no more the beating heart of that school than its commitment to theology, ministry, classical languages, Western civilization, and the humanities. The school is in danger of becoming what most private universities are in danger of becoming -- <i>vo-tech for white collar professions. </i>It is this that has killed the dreams of a Christian university not simply for Valpo but for institutions of the LCMS as well. How do you finance what you cannot sell?</p><p>The emptiness of the culture around us is revealed in higher education in a variety of ways. On the one hand education seems unable to insist that there is any truth but the personal truth of the individual. On the other hand, education seems indebted to the sacred tenets of woke American culture. We do not want to educate as much as we want to train people for professions and we do not want to educate because we do not value objective truth all that much anymore. As parents we are reaping the blessings of years of telling our children they are special, they are smarter than any other generation, they can do whatever they want, they do not have to be accountable to anyone but themselves (read that their feelings), and they are not responsible for anything but being true to themselves. How can education survive in such a context?</p><p>In many respects, we are witnessing the slow death of the liberal arts university and of its curriculum. As regretful as this is, what we are replacing this with is even more lamentable. We churn out people with useless degrees in nonsensical disciplines like gender studies. The day is coming when we might begin to really appreciate those who graduated with an art history degree -- their education might be a tad bit more useful than the navel gazing that passes for university studies. When pop culture and pop cultural icons become more important that theology or classical languages or rhetoric or logic or humanities, the university has finally capitulated its integrity and revealed the actual worth of those pieces of paper its graduates are supposed to hand on a wall.</p><p>So say goodbye to the once vaunted protections of tenure. Faculty will end up being contractual employees whose standing must be annually renewed based upon enrollment and the financial viability of their teaching areas. Furthermore, you can guarantee that the workload will also increase as universities try to get as much bang for their buck as they can. Of course, you can be assured that the areas which will not be cut include the sports programs. Even the universities are following the illusion that sports generates funds to help pay the rest of the university's bills and so their jobs will be secure (even if their own hold on those jobs depend upon $ and wins). The once coveted tenure track positions of colleges and universities may have lost some of their luster.</p><p>In the end, even Ivy League schools know that the pool of potential undergrads gets smaller every year, the appeal of online alternatives increases every year, and the once lucrative masters markets are drying up as well. No matter what St. Paul said, you cannot be all things to all people. The time will come sooner rather than later when private and Christian colleges and universities will have to figure out what they can do well and jettison the rest of their offerings in pursuit of a narrower identity and mission. One can only hope that the Christian (and Lutheran) identity will not be ditched but will actually be the guiding principle behind their institutional identity and not simply a mailing list of past donors and a legacy statement to place prominently on their website but conveniently forgotten in practice.<br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-35526146701798565192024-03-01T06:00:00.001-06:002024-03-01T06:00:00.156-06:00Controvered articles of faith eventually find solutions. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F98%2F5f%2F6f%2F985f6fa5ea6dc2f455a4da9a41071a1f.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=fcde01bfc833a77eecc664c0876071c33b815c4daa82072ca23eef761722c68e&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="800" height="182" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F98%2F5f%2F6f%2F985f6fa5ea6dc2f455a4da9a41071a1f.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=fcde01bfc833a77eecc664c0876071c33b815c4daa82072ca23eef761722c68e&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>Bishop David Preus (of the then American Lutheran Church) said that "there will always be some issues arising to the surface that will require serious, open theological debate. . . The history of our churches indicate that such controverted articles generally find solutions. . . We think the same will happen with . . . the doctrine of inerrancy, women's ordination, and membership in ecumenical organizations." That was in 1981. Although it could hardly be called revolutionary, his wisdom has largely proven correct.<p></p><p>The solution for the doctrine of inerrancy is to have a Scripture which is supposedly true with regard to matters of our salvation but filled with myths, legends, falsehoods, and errors about other things. In the end you have a Bible in which we are left to decide each for ourselves what is truth and what is not. The problem with this is that the marker varies by the individual and the times. Eventually, hardly anything will be left of the truth of Scripture except the most minimal and common wisdom that is not unique to Scripture at all. That is certainly the position of liberal Christendom.</p><p>The solution for women's ordination is for everyone to adopt it -- either by having their own female pastors or by making it no barrier to altar and pulpit fellowship. The end result is to have no real standards for who is a pastor and who is not. Effectively that is what has happened to generic and mainline denominations so far. Within the ELCA you cannot even hold to fidelity to the spouse (gay or not) since cohabitation and non-marital relationships are not condemned. In the end, the door to the ordination of women has either by default or intrinsically allowed the removal of nearly every standard of morality that the Scriptures held as requirements for those to be ordained. And conservative churches have their own history in this by lessening the stigma attached to divorce and remarriage of those who are not LGBTQ+.</p><p>The solution to the ecumenical question has been to presume that common associations do not quite extend to every association. In other words, if you are in fellowship with a church that is in fellowship with another church you are not, this has no real consequence or meaning for you. But how that can this be? In the end, everyone regards every association with the meaning they wish it to have and thus no association means the same thing to everyone. For the ELCA this has meant the denomination is more comfortable with non-Lutherans than it is with Lutherans with whom they disagree. What a strange circumstance!</p><p>I guess what Bishop Preus meant was that everything is moving on a path toward liberalism and it just takes some longer than others to get there. While that is certainly of no comfort to Missouri Lutherans, it is certainly the reality of Protestantism as a whole. Sadly, even Rome is not far behind.<br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-77907650779864814042024-02-29T06:00:00.002-06:002024-02-29T08:13:45.417-06:00The hidden losses. . . <div class="separator"><p style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" class="aligncenter wp-image-18662 size-large" height="261" src="https://ministrywatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/UMC-PHOTO3-1024x670.png" width="400" /></p></div><p>According to reports the once United Methodist Church has lost about 25% of its congregations and members since 2019. While it is easier to trace where the congregations ended up, it is more difficult to sort out what happened to the people in them. Here is the graph of the congregations:</p><p>You can see that, predictably, the highest number of congregations leaving is in the South. All of this is interesting, perhaps most interesting is that the disafilliating congregations have a 5% higher median worship attendance. This should be enough to refute the idea that those leaving are mostly small congregations.</p><p>Hidden in the stats is the rather alarming realization that people are also leaving and many of them not for another Christian congregation. This is what happened when the the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America all adopted more aggressively liberal and intolerant social postures -- especially with regard to the LGBTQ+ agenda. The numbers of congregations that broke away was smaller than expected but the numbers within the congregations that stayed and those that left diminished. In fact, just looking at the ELCA alone, you have witnessed the numbers drop from a reported high of 5.2M members down to less than 3.5M members yet you find that the actual numbers reported by the LCMC or NALC denominations formed by those departing cannot account for much more than 500K of those. So what happened?</p><p>The dropouts from American churches probably outnumber those who show up. While Missouri certainly felt the loss of some 120K folks who established the AELC (which later merged into the ELCA), those numbers did not really show up for years. Once they did, they were accompanied by an even larger contingent of people who simply stopped coming. The gulf between those who claim membership and those who attend has widened in Missouri just as it has within the more liberal denominations bleeding off members and people (though not quite as dramatic).</p><p>The reality is that we are not doing a very good job of keeping the folks we have. Or, might it be that we really did not have them in the first place? Certainly this is true of youth. Those who were counted but whose family attendance was spotty found it easier to drop out than those whose attendance was vigorous. That is the other side of things. Have we lost faithful members or fringe members? We should be sad about both but it might help us stave off the losses if we discern the difference here. The reality is that those who are fully onboard with the church's confession and teaching and actively and regularly participate in the life of the congregation assembled around Word and Sacrament and who are involved in the congregation's life of catechesis and service are so much less likely to drop out than those who are not. Rigorous catechesis is important but so is regular encouragement to faithful weekly worship and to participation in some avenue of the Church's life beyond Sunday morning.</p><p>The problem of hidden losses is not unique to the progressive side of Christianity even though it is more likely to be manifest to those who have lowered their standards of membership and who do not regularly review who are members. In this we all need to repent of our failures to keep tabs of those who once were faithful -- both pastors and parish leaders, to be sure, but especially their brothers and sisters in the pew. Back door losses are the bane of Christianity (and that includes all flavors!). If we receive new people without addresses such losses, we are not being faithful.<br /></p><p></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-29681399166081409052024-02-28T06:00:00.001-06:002024-02-28T06:00:00.127-06:00A word no one uses. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.fsoqF8WlyRe2YB-ek9flaAAAAA%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=f3bf4a4554dc34047354512db84f152033d614b3eb59130b049460de7f95e080&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="400" height="230" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.fsoqF8WlyRe2YB-ek9flaAAAAA%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=f3bf4a4554dc34047354512db84f152033d614b3eb59130b049460de7f95e080&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>In the Scriptures using older translations you might encounter the word withered to describe a crop or a plant or a limb or a spirit or even a life. Some 50+ times the Bible uses a variation of the word wither. We have outgrown that usage and replace it with what we consider to be kinder and more sympathetic terms. I wish we would go back.<p></p><div class="vg-sseq-entry-item ">
<div class="vg-sseq-entry-item-label">According to the dictionary, wither means<span class="dt hasSdSense"><span class="dtText"><strong class="mw_t_bc"> </strong>to become dry and sapless, as in </span></span><span class="dtText">to shrivel from or as if from loss of bodily moisture OR </span><span class="dt "><span class="dtText">to lose vitality, force, or freshness as in the </span></span><span class="ex-sent first-child no-aq sents">public support for the bill is <span class="mw_t_wi">withering. </span></span>It is from the Middle English <em class="mw_t_it">widren</em>; perhaps akin to Middle English <em class="mw_t_it">weder</em> weather. It is not the oldest of words but it is freighted with context that is helpful to us and our understanding.</div><div class="vg-sseq-entry-item-label"><br /></div><div class="vg-sseq-entry-item-label">Sin has caused us and our lives to wither. We have become dry. We have lost the vitality of life and now live in the shadow of death. Our lives are not fresh but have an expiration date on them. We are like the plant that withers without moisture and so we are from birth drying up until only the dust from which we came will remain. In Mark's Gospel, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand. The hand becomes the mark of evil or sin. Having such a withered hand would disqualify the man from certain vocations (especially that of a priest). Jesus acts then in mercy not merely restoring the hand but the life of the man and thus removes the mark of evil from him. It is a miracle of restoration. What happens outwardly to the hand, happens also inwardly to the heart as faith replaces unbelief and trust overcomes suspicion and doubt. This was no accidental encounter but the revelation of the Kingdom and of who are Lord is and why He has come.</div><div class="vg-sseq-entry-item-label"><br /></div><div class="vg-sseq-entry-item-label">In so many ways we live in a time when things have withered even more. The dry and shriveled lives we live despite our vast technology are increasingly obvious. We are isolated and alone. We have knowledge but without real understanding. We have potential but more often it is wasted or abused in evil. Think here of the stain of pornography, vulgarity, and hate that almost consumes the internet. We have become content to manage symptoms without ever considering that there might be something more. Witness the way we medicate ourselves instead of rooting out the causes of depression or mental illness. It is a therapeutic process which allows us the false idea that managing the symptoms is the same as healing. A pain killer may indeed dull the pain but it does not end the cause of it. So the end result of our withered lives is that we content ourselves with distraction that would make us forget our disability or entertainment which would give us some laughs to balance out the loss or we make withered the norm and wholeness the exception.</div><div class="vg-sseq-entry-item-label"> </div><div class="vg-sseq-entry-item-label">As we make our way through Lent, one of the things we need to confront is this ability to become comfortable with our misery and thus embrace what is withered as the best we can expect and all for which we dare hope. It is easy to forget that Jesus has come for all that has been withered by sin. He has come to restore what has been left dry and empty. He has come to restore that which is no longer vital or powerful or fresh. We do not need to settle for accepting sin as the default or defining away our pet sins as normal and even virtuous. Christ has come to reach out and touch what is withered and dying. He has come with grace sufficient and mercy abundant. No one in their right mind would hide their withered hand or limb from the One who had the power to make it whole. So we do not hide our sins but admit and confess them. We own them all so that He can restore us through the grace of absolution. But it all begins with the admission that we are withered, dry, dying, and dead in trespasses and sin. Lent is not about getting by or finding a way through but bringing our withered bodies, minds, and spirits out into the open where Christ is. We cannot surprise Him. For such withered people and their lives He has come. But He can surprise us. We extend to Him withered souls and bodies robbed of the vitality God intended and marked for death and He does the unthinkable. He gives them back to us whole and with them a future without end. If we would think like this, perhaps we would not find Lent such a somber season after all. For hidden in the confession is the affirmation of faith that knows what God does with our sins. He forgives them and restores to us a clean and clear conscience that we might fulfill His purpose and bidding. This is why for Christians, such repentance and forgiveness is not merely a season of forty days but the daily cycle of our Christian lives. God is good.<br /></div><div class="vg-sseq-entry-item-label"> <br /></div></div><span class="dt "></span><p> </p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-86289067442611265232024-02-27T06:00:00.001-06:002024-02-27T06:00:00.143-06:00No shortage of hubris. . . <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.anquotes.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F03%2FQuotes-about-Hubris-1600x832.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=976882029f81d005bdf8665c8b9c3059ee400a07ca5cc3718d4af551f56b3094&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="800" height="166" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.anquotes.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F03%2FQuotes-about-Hubris-1600x832.png&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=976882029f81d005bdf8665c8b9c3059ee400a07ca5cc3718d4af551f56b3094&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></div>There seems to be no shortage of and no end to the hubris that presumes we are so much smarter and well-informed today that we cannot possible hold to what those who went before us thought and believed about the world, where we came from, and what is true. In this context, these things are no longer anchors but boats moving to and fro on a current of change. In another conversation the statement was made by one Lutheran to another that the strides made linguistically, culturally, and historically within the last couple of centuries require us to change our understanding of who we are, where we came from, and what is true. While this is especially true with regard to the Bible, it is no less true of just about anything and everything else.<p></p><p>Of course, we are not alone in such arrogance and pride. It is the failure of every generation to defer to the past any authority and to insist that newer is better, that we are more educated and erudite than our forbearers. While it is certainly true that our knowledge has expanded, the implicit conclusion of such hubris is to believe that this expansion negates and omits what went before. Among some this could be applied to arguments in which some would insist that you believe the science while at the same time positing the science to a momentary postulation and ignoring the weight of evidence of history. Among others it is the constant attention to exception and the substitute of exception for the rule or norm of a time or position. Among Christians, it is the common fallacy that we know more about God's Word than those who went before us and therefore cannot be bothered by the statements of Scripture except, perhaps, those directly related to matters of salvation. Neatly dividing the Word of Truth is no longer then about Law or Gospel but about sorting out the myth, legend, poetry, and falsehoods from the one truth. But that is the point, isn't it. Who gets to decide which are the myths, legends, poetry, falsehoods, and truth in the Scriptures? Who decides which words belong to God and which belong to man?</p><p>The goal and end result is then not to better understand or know the Scriptures but to be able to omit or erase or diminish portions of those Scriptures that offend against modern sensibility or individual conscience or conviction. Thus the goal of such hubris all around is to elevate the individual, the reason of the individual, the feelings of the individual, and the moment of the individual above anything and everything else. And how is that working for us? Well, look around. With churches arguing over which words we ought to pay attention to and which words do not belong in the mouth of God, Scripture is left with little authority and even less power. It is what we make it to be. The same can be said for history, science, and every other division of human knowledge and culture. Nothing is what it is -- everything is what we make it to be. And if we do not make it to be anything, then it is nothing. The only problem with this is that eventually it comes right back to us. And the nothing ends up being me. <br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329600504016968888.post-4760272415594040082024-02-26T06:00:00.003-06:002024-02-26T06:00:00.145-06:00Get behind me, Satan<p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwp.production.patheos.com%2Fblogs%2Fsickpilgrim%2Ffiles%2F2017%2F09%2Fd531397937.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=ef21bf0fada53bcbef2bcc651e3f0e8c7c63661ca95aa56946e913c92015a92f&ipo=images" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="676" height="211" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwp.production.patheos.com%2Fblogs%2Fsickpilgrim%2Ffiles%2F2017%2F09%2Fd531397937.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=ef21bf0fada53bcbef2bcc651e3f0e8c7c63661ca95aa56946e913c92015a92f&ipo=images" width="320" /></a></i></div><i>Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent (B), preached on Sunday, Februar7 25, 2024.</i> <br /><p></p><p>The famous Peter principle is that everyone will rise to the level of their incompetence. It is a terrible truth that admits that when we are at our glory, we are also the most vulnerable. For this reason then, the failure of Peter and the occasion for the Lord’s most biting condemnation is very bit as important as what Peter got right by claiming Jesus is the Son of the Living God.<br /><br />Jesus warned Peter and His disciples of this before. You have your minds on the things of men and not on the things of God. That describes Peter to a T. Maybe even everyone in this room. The things of man are the things on which we plan and connive. The things of man are the things that well up inside of us and begin to define who we are despite our good words about belonging to the Lord. The things of man are the things the world also values just as the world does not leave much room for the things of God so our hearts have small space for the things of God and plenty of room for our wants and desires.<br /><br />Peter is no fool. He heard the Lord. The Son of Man shall suffer many things, be rejected, crucified, die, and on the third day rise again. Peter knew that what was the future for Jesus was probably his own future as well. Who wants that? But before you condemn Peter, look into the mirror of your own soul. You don’t want that either. No student is above His teacher. Peter could read the writing on the wall. He may have thought he was protecting Jesus but he was also protecting himself and his life from the pain and suffering that Jesus seemed entirely too comfortable with. Set up a tent on the mountain top but do not venture in the valley of the shadow. Is there anyone here who does not get this? Of course not.<br /><br />Peter is looking for an easier way. So are you. So am I. None of us wants pain or suffering or sacrifice. None of us is good with loss. We are really good at pretend – at playing the game of life more with the what ifs than what is. We are really good at playing at happiness. The purpose driven lives we live are driven purposefully at avoiding what happened to Jesus happening to you and me. That is why the Christian life is hard. We value our happiness more than holiness. We want pleasure more than faithfulness. We want a God who understands even more than a God who forgives. We want to hold onto our bitterness and anger rather than forgive. We want to increase the distance between our enemies rather than forgive them as God has forgiven us. We want the bird in the hand of a good life now even more than we want a perfect eternal life. <br /><br />We think that the purpose of this life is to get what we want. Like Peter, we are not quite ready to risk all trusting Jesus. Meanwhile the Holy Spirit is working in us to see the cross as the path for our own lives, to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, to repent of our sin and to forgive as we have been forgiven, and, most of all, to live in fellowship with our Father through His Son.<br /><br />Jesus’ life is no tragic opera. He does not lose anything. Instead He gains everything. The Gospel is not some fairy tale but the love of God exposed for the world to see and the call for the loved by God to love God as He has loved us. In the end, Peter would drink the cup of suffering and be baptized into a painful death. What Peter did not see was that God would raise him up to everlasting life and that the moment of suffering would give way to an eternity of peace.<br /><br />Jesus is happy to go to the cross not because He likes suffering but because He loves you and me. Having been given faith by the Spirit working through the Word and baptized into Christ, He gives to each of us the opportunity to know and to return such love. To love Him back with all our mind, body, soul, and all that we have. Don’t be afraid. The Lord is committed to us no matter what the cost. Let us rejoice in this but let us also learn to be steadfast in Him, fearing not what the world can take from us but trusting in what only God can give to us.<br /><br />Peter is not such a bad guy. Neither are you. We are human. More than that, we are sinners. But God loves sinners. He loves them not with the weak love that would do anything to preserve Himself but with the strong love that would pay any price and do any work that would save you and me and deliver us to everlasting life. He will not betray us even though we betray Him over and over again. Sometimes that means even calling us Satan and telling us to get behind Him. But you can be sure of this. The Lord is not acting out of spite but purely out of love when He calls us to surrender our attachment to the moment in order to hold on to eternity by faith.<br /><br />When Jesus recounted how He was to be betrayed into the hands of sinners, suffer, die, and on the third day rise again, He was not speaking a lament. Instead if was the most profound love story of all. The God who inhabits our flesh in order to die for our sins, who cleanses the temple so that it might cleanse sinners, and to lay Himself upon the altar of the cross without any thought of a ram to rescue Him. This God fulfills all that was demanded of us so we might be declared holy.<br /><br />Satan’s problem with Jesus is not that He is the Son of God or righteous or incarnate or willing to die on the cross. His problem is that Jesus does all of these things out of pure love for sinners. The very same sinners the devil had counted on as his own. Jesus problem with Peter is that Peter was not willing to be saved if saving him meant the suffering and death of Jesus. But without this suffering and death, Peter would belong to Satan.<br /><br />In the end we are in the same dilemma. Part of us is embarrassed by a Gospel that is born of suffering and death and yet without it we would not be saved. What ties all of this together is this. Those who are ashamed of Christ and of His Word in this life will find that Jesus is ashamed to call them His in the life to come. So, what will it be?<br /><br />Like Peter, we are tempted to believe that sin is not so bad that it would require a Savior to die but Jesus insists it is either a Savior who dies or we have no Savior at all. The world is evil and dying and so are you. Jesus refuses to mince words over a bruised ego. We need to be just as resolute. The cross is the most profound statement of God’s love for sinners. In order to benefit from that cross, we must admit we are sinners. Without the cross, there is nothing and we still belong to Satan. Which Christ do you confess? <br /></p>Pastor Petershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10653554256101480140noreply@blogger.com0