Smearing with the name Luther. . .

It seems that some Roman Catholics use the name of Luther to smear those with whom they disagree.  You can read it all here.  Robert Mickens, a radical Vatican II style Roman Catholic, has taken Francis and Benedict to task for their medievalisms (including promoting confession).

No, he called the presser to offer details about two events that are taking place in the next several days leading up to Lent. Both of them are aimed, fundamentally, at one thing — getting people to go back to confession, a practice most Catholics gave up a long, long time ago. 

Well, good luck, fellas.  Pope Francis is popular and influential, but it’s unlikely that even he will be able to spark a revival in a practice that most Catholics know (correctly) is not essential to their membership in God’s household.

His nemesis, Fr. Zuhlsdorf, called Mr. Mickens a Lutheran for his comments.  He sees him channeling Luther (who rightfully condemned the abuse of confession in which the Gospel, the absolution, was minimized and the emphasis placed upon the satisfaction).  I consider one of the greatest plagues on earth whereby you have confused the conscience of the whole world, caused so many souls to despair, and have weakened and quenched all men’s faith in Christ. (Luther’s Works Vol 34.19).  The problem with that quote is that it is ripped out of context to make it seem as if Luther were condemning confession in general and not the specific well known and well attested abuses.  Of course, you can find a juicy Luther quote about nearly everything and it is tantalizing but not reflective of what Lutherans believe, confess, and teach.

Normally I find Fr. Z an interesting read and agree with him regarding many of the problems in Rome today but his knowledge of Lutheranism is sorely lacking and his smear using the name of Luther mistakes an honest rebuke for the abuses of private confession (which Lutherans DO affirm and practice) for the whole idea of private confession (which the radical Protestants reject).  It just goes to show you that Roman Catholics are just as mixed up about Luther as they are often mixed up about their own church and its teaching.  Sadly, I wish the same could not be said of Lutherans!  The best solution for all churches is for their people to be thoroughly up on what their churches believe, confess, and teach and why.  That is the start not only of more orthodox and faithful Christians and their churches but true ecumenism (versus the watered down kind of stuff that usually parades as ecumenism).

For that matter, I am not sure any real Lutherans are wont to welcome Mr. Mickens into their communion.  Malcontents are often more trouble than they are worth and it seems that Mr. Mickens has just as much trouble with things catholic as things Roman.  I will say that nearly every Lutheran I know would agree with his distaste for relics of any kind.  They hurt more than they help the cause (now, we surely ought to be remembering the saints, giving thanks to God for their witness and faith, and following their example of faithfulness under duress but we ought to love them enough to let their bones rest in the grave even as we await with them the resurrection of the dead).

Playing with words. . .

Walther, one of the spiritual fathers of the LCMS, insisted that Article VII be included in the constitution of Synod:

In its relation to its members the Synod is not an ecclesiastical government exercising Legislative or coercive powers, and with respect to the individual congregation’s right of self-government it is but an advisory body. Accordingly, no resolution of the Synod, imposing anything upon the individual congregation is of binding force if it is not in accordance with the word of God or if it appears to be inexpedient as far as the condition of a congregation is concerned.

 There were those who wondered if Synod had any real purpose since it had no power or authority over a congregation.  Walther himself confronted such concerns in 1848:

Perhaps all of us, the one more, the other less, are filled with concern by the thought that our deliberations might easily be unproductive; I mean the thought that, according to the Constitution under which our synodical union exists, we have merely the power to advise one another, that we have only the power of the Word, and of convincing. According to the Constitution we have no right to formulate decrees, to pass laws and regulations, and to make a judicial decision, to which our congregations would have to submit unconditionally in any matter involving imposing of something upon them. Our Constitution by no means makes us a consistory, by no means a supreme court of our congregations. It rather grants them the most perfect liberty in everything, excepting nothing but the word of God, faith, and charity. According to our Constitution we are not above our congregations, but in them and at their side.

 It is here that some have presumed a radical congregationalism in which the congregation is supreme and Synod is little more than a cooperative structure for the sake of some common purposes.  So we hear much about the Synod's power merely to advise with the congregation determining whether or not such advice is salutary in its own self-understanding or even perhaps conscience.  Such matters were not at all what was addressed either by Walther or the early voices of Synod.

Advisory was clearly a term applied to the congregation's right of self-government.  The Synod cannot tell a congregation how to direct their offerings, the shape their church building must have, or impose itself in the ongoing governance of the congregation's life.  Synod was created in the backdrop not only of Stephan but in the backdrop of a German territorial church that had arbitrarily decided the differences between Reformed and Lutheran no longer mattered.  Advisory was clearly a term chosen in view of the perceived authoritarian nature of Stephan and of the union church in Germany and not a term to prevent creed and confession from reigning supreme among those who called themselves Missouri.

The power of the Word is no small power and each congregation was not given the right to decide for itself what that Word said.  This was in the backdrop of a confessional renewal in which Word and Confession were rightfully seen as not only public witness but the articles of faith to which all who were members of the Synod were clearly accountable.  The members of Synod did not possess individual conscience to go against the Word and the Lutheran Confessions -- not in faith nor in practice.  Such would violate the unity and create an impossible situation in which there was no unity at all.  If the Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions bound us, then Synod was no longer merely advisory but had the power to challenge dissent and, absent repentance, to remove members who violated Scripture and the Confessions.

The word expedient has been often seen as a way out of those things for which a congregation or other member of Synod might disagree.  Expedient means convenient and practical; if a parish did not have a school, then a synodical resolution regarding a school would be inexpedient.  But inexpedient cannot be applied to doctrine or practice that flows from doctrine.  A parish cannot decide that it is inexpedient for them to practice close(d) communion or to reject the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar.  Inexpedient means the resolution cannot apply.  For example it is inexpedient for a congregation to apply the Synodical resolution to weekly Holy Communion if they do not have a Pastor there to preside at the Lord's Table but once a month. There is no ground in this term for a congregation or Pastor to say "I don't think that doctrine would work here so I am going to ignore it."

The Synod's unity is no small thing and we live at a time when there are constant fractures of our walking together and many seek the comfort and consolation that Synod is only advisory or that each parish can decide if a resolution is expedient for them or not.  Perhaps since the 1960s and 1970s some have sought cover for their dissent after Synod's own procedures did resolve in their favor.  Perhaps we have all learned to distrust and therefore ignore centralized authority.  In any case, the kind of advisory body and the nature of what is expedient or not did not mean a radical congregationalism that would render structure of the LCMS into a glorified Lutheran version of a Southern Baptist national structure.  We do not merely cooperate.  We are united in doctrine and practice.  We try in every case to work together and do not automatically presume otherwise.  We are accountable to each other and we are open to the supervision of those on whom such supervisory office is conferred.  Period.

Some fear a "glacier like" movement to reinvent the Synod as a hierarchical body.  Look around you.  Is this fear real?  We are more diverse in practice and in faith than we have ever been -- so diverse, in fact, that many wonder is membership in the Synod actually means anything at all with respect to doctrine and faith. As Synod President, Walther himself acted to remove pastors and congregations when the situation required.  The difference between the situation in Walther's day and today is largely one of size and relationship.  We are big enough that no one of us knows what goes on everywhere.  In terms of relationship we sometimes forget that the chief role of the Visitor and District President (officers of Synod and not representatives of a local constituency) is to supervise doctrine and practice and not merely counsel, put out fires of conflict, or raise money.  Synod has worked hard to maintain a careful balance between Synod and its inherent powers granted by constitution and by-law and the congregation's right to self-government.  The balance has hardly shifted but the stresses on that unity are certainly trying their darnedest to tilt it toward a radical congregationalism in which districts are representative of their congregations and Synod is merely an amalgamation of districts cooperating in certain areas.  That is certainly not what Walther envisioned!

At least that is the individual position of this member of Synod.... 

Problems in education. . .

There is an elitism in education that suggests that education is better than physical, hard work and better than family for whom one labors.  It is as if the enlightenment of the mind has replaced the salvation of the soul.  It presumes that education is freedom but in reality the educational institutions and elite control the ideas and carefully distinguish between that which is acceptable and that which will not be tolerated, what dare not be thought, or said, or taught!

In such a model, vocation is not a worthy cause but a constraint that chafes against the freedom of the individual.  It is difficult to speak of vocation as a gift, a purpose, from the Divine, ordained so that we might know who we are and do what is noble (whether or not it's value or wisdom is recognized by others).

True education does not provide a safe place where one is insulated from things found offensive or hurtful.  True educational campuses are dangerous places where the natural self-inclined life is stripped away and where one is forced to encounter ideas that challenge what is easy or comfortable.  But can such an education still be found?

Students demand power over the purveyors of ideas as well as the ideas themselves and thus the order in education is revered.  Administration and faculty have capitulated not only to the threats of students but also to the expectations.  In everything except perhaps technology, the educational offerings of classes as well as the content of the classroom defers to the god of personal preference.  So, for example, labor of hands and back are demeaning things to be avoided and even still oriented paths have surrendered to the theoretical over the practical.  We graduate nurses with degrees who begin work on hospital floors without actually having given a shot, started an IV, etc. on a real person -- to name but one area.

The centrality of the individual and the primacy of preference have led to diluted degrees as well as grade inflation while those with the requisite sheepskins to certify their erudition have no marketable skills that allow them to earn a living in their field and are limited by a lack of general liberal arts to the most narrow of fields of knowledge and expertise.  The marketplace is no longer impressed with degrees or resumes and the employer has come to view employees more as liabilities than assets.

Church schools were once the harbingers of traditional liberal arts where subjects like rhetoric, logic, language, and literature taught the uninitiated the mystery of thinking so that they might engage the highest wisdom, the fear of the Lord.  Now church schools have gladly followed every educational trend and fad in pursuit of a shrinking student population and the presumption of relevance, spending as much as the rich secular universities on the amenities at the expense of the core.  In the meantime, their religious tradition has become mere legacy or the idea that maybe their values are slightly more lofty than their more worldly competitors. Where, however, church schools engage their students with the fear of the Lord at the beginning of wisdom?  Even Lutheran colleges and universities are not sure to equip their students for the noble task of living out Luther's Table of Duties.

Work is a gift of God complicated by sin but not destroyed nor robbed of its generosity.  Labor is still a noble task and its fruit is not merely paycheck or personal gain but family and neighbor.  My father, a plumber, often wondered why the doctor was so highly valued for his care over the internal plumbing of the body while his job caring for the plumbing outside the body was considered menial. In either case the disrepair was serious and life threatening.  He was  not a college graduate but attended a trade school, learned as an apprentice to wire, plumb, repair, etc...  He was no genius in the normal sense of that word but he was incredible wise in character and work ethic.

I do not mean to suggest that there was ever a pristine moment in history in which education and labor were in perfect harmony but I do seriously fear the future of a view of individual freedom, elitism, self-centeredness, and smugness that seems to be the direction of so much in modern education -- it cannot be  sustained either morally or economically!

I have little impact in the realm of the premier universities of the ivy league and those who follow them but I do raise my voice and plead for church colleges and universities to stop, think, and listen before they head off the cliff and become mere imitators of the elite schools.  We who claim eternal wisdom ought to offer something different, something better, and something that enables our students  to honorably fulfill their baptismal vocations (and not merely to fulfill the same selfish goals and ideas with a thin veneer of churchly respectability).  We have a chance to resist the impulse to be the same and to be new again, true to the Scriptures and to the authentic wisdom of the Word made flesh -- not merely as Bible schools but as great and grand places where truth does not change and lives are truly free.

Vulgarity goes Main Street. . .

The other evening, an otherwise pleasant evening, was spoiled when I decided to see what I had missed in the Republican "debate" -- I missed nothing and everything.  I missed nothing in that it was the ever predicable spectacle of assertions, denials, attacks, and responses.  I missed everything because it appears things hit a new low.  Apparently the whole thing has devolved into an eighth grade school yard contest.

Donald Trump assured American voters Thursday night that despite what Marco Rubio had suggested, there was "no problem" with the size of his hands -- or anything else.  "Look at those hands, are they small hands?" the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination said, raising them for viewers to see. "And, he referred to my hands -- 'if they're small, something else must be small.' I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee."

Rubio in recent days revived a decades-old old insult, mocking Trump for having relatively slight hands.  "He's always calling me Little Marco. And I'll admit he's taller than me. He's like 6'2, which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5'2," Rubio said in Virginia on Sunday. "And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can't trust them."

The level of vulgarity that Americans will tolerate has taken whispers into shouts, subjects that were once argued about by insecure and fearful boys into the conversation of those who would presume to lead the most powerful nation on earth.  Trump is not as fearful as what the whole silly season has become -- America's new reality show naked and uncensored...  a populace willing to give Washington the middle finger instead of working to elect people of character and wisdom...   My concern is why we as a society tolerate such crude and childish things as we seek to place a candidate into an office which has grown exponentially over the last eight years, both in influence and power!  This debate is, unfortunately, a mirror of our own choices, our own judgment about what is right and fitting, and the level of our own conversation.

I am with the Dowager on this.  Vulgarity is no substitute for wit.  But I would go her one further, it is neither a substitute for character, wisdom, and ideas, either.  But the only ones who can put a stop to this are those who cast their vote.

I am saddened that the whole thing has become a joke of a choice between a socialist who wants big government to be bigger, a feminist who believes it is her turn and who has a tenuous relationship with the truth, a man whose ego is bigger than the debate stage, and a couple of others who have gotten down and dirty in a contest in which we will all surely lose.  Brothers and sisters, pray for our nation, those who seek election, those who govern, and for a citizenship who will demand a nobler character of those who would lead us....

On Dreaming and Doing. . .

"Some men see things as they are and say why; other men see things the way they could be and say why not..."  Words something to that effect were spoken by John F. Kennedy, later by his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and most famously in the eulogy to RFK by his brother Ted Kennedy.  They were originally the words of George Bernard Shaw in  Back to Methuselah, Act I.  If you had to read some of the plays of Shaw at some point or another, you might find out that these words were placed by Shaw into the mouth of the serpent speaking to Eve. 

That last point is hard on me.  I am a dreamer.  I was once described as a speeding train while the folks around me were cattle grazing on the pasture.  By the time they heard the train coming and looked up, the train was gone.  I am not sure if it was meant as a compliment or not but I get it.   Sometimes I leave people behind because my mind and words move too quickly to allow the hearers to catch up with me.  I have found it a distinct problem that I have wrestled with for most of my adult life.

Now there is nothing wrong in dreaming.  There is nothing wrong with being a dreamer.  The worlds needs dreamers.  But how easy it is to live in dreams and forget the moment.  How easy it is to settle for dreaming and end up only with plans and nothing done.  And this is precisely why it was into the mouth of the serpentine Satan that Shaw placed these words.  Man dreamed in the garden and it did not take much more than one quick opportunity to dream of life without or apart from God and to find that he had dreamed death's curse upon us all. 

One of the other dangers of being a dreamer is that you miss so much.  You miss the heroic figures and actions of people, largely anonymous, who daily manifest their faith in lives severely tested and tried by trouble, temptation, and turmoil.  Think of the mom who daily orders her life around the routines of the household, of chores that are never finished, of endless duties that cycle on and off.  Moms cannot afford to dream if dreaming means exchanging their heroic service to husband and children for life in a world of what ifs.  Think of the dad who daily returns to the workplace, leaving home and family behind, for often tedious repetitive tasks of which only a paycheck can inspire.  Dads cannot afford to dream if dreaming means forgetting those for whom he makes the sacrifice of labor and work.

So I take this pause from my dreaming to remember with thanksgiving my mom whose daily duties of house and home provided me with the heroic gifts of good food, clean clothes, a comfortable dwelling, and encouragement to do and be your best even when no one is looking.  I leave my mountain top for the valley in which my dad labored the whole of his life for the sake of others and for not much earthly gain -- while I misunderstood him and falsely presumed that his work was a choice instead of love.  I take a moment from the clouds to recall how my brother has lived his life around my parents, my hometown, the civic duties of fireman and EMT, and allowing me to dream of great things that turned out to be smaller than his heroic service.  I hope, if you are dreamer like me, you also will pause to remember those who lived and still live their lives doing.  And thanking God for them!

As we made our way down the Transfiguration mountain and through Lent have trudged the slow walk to the cross, we ought to recognize that God's presence is not tied to what we might become but who we are.  He loves us as the unworthy, ordinary, sinners that we are and loves us enough not to leave us in our sin and death.  Our Lord's life is not some dream world but harsh reality of a people who rejected Him even when He came to suffer in their place and die their death.  He suffered to release from suffering a a world captive to sin and its new normal of death.  God is not in the mountain only but in the valley.  He reveals love not in eloquent words but in the deeds done upon the cross.  Faith is not an escape from reality but the only way to confront the painful reality of sin, guilt, shame, suffering, and death -- of lives filled with joys that will not endure under the threat of death that always seems the victor.  We see with eyes not some dreamy utopia of what might be but the radical new what is of blood that cleanses us from sin and lives reborn from death to eternity.

I know I will always dream.  I pray that I may not forget the doers who tolerate my dreaming.  I pray that I may remember always the God who meets me not on the shifting sands of what might be but on the hard surface of what is (because of sin and death)...

Just say no. . .

Although the number is not high, it is no longer “exceptional” to have priests turn down an appointment as bishop, according to Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

Speaking yesterday about the annual course his office sponsors for new bishops, the Cardinal was asked about rumours that more and more priests are saying they do not want to be a bishop and declining an appointment even when the Pope, on the recommendation of Cardinal Ouellet’s office, has chosen them.

Read the whole story here. . . 

I am happy to report that there is little chance I will ever be a bishop (Lutheran or otherwise) and many of you are breathing a sigh of relief about that fact.  I am not even sure I want to be a Senior Pastor (but that is mostly about age, something I cannot do much about).  But it appears that I am not alone.  There are those who are following William Tecumseh Sherman's dictim:  "If nominated, I will not run.  If elected I will not serve." I respect that.  Being a bishop (or even a District President, for those of the Missouri variety who eschew the episcopacy) is hardly a plum job.  You get all the responsibility with not much direct authority and every kind of complaint imaginable.  I have great respect for those who humbly accept and do the job well but for every one like this there are mediocre candidates and even less than mediocre men who serve without much distinction.  It saddens me that such is the case.  We need good strong bishops (DPs for the weak stomached among us) who do not merely listen but lead, who do not merely administer but minister, and who do not merely talk but teach.  That said, when a man knows he is not that fellow and does not believe it is God who is calling him, the one who declines is wiser beyond his years.

All in all it is an angry time in America.  People are angry for all sorts of reasons (the Trump phenomenon is certainly due to the pent up anger and frustration of many).  It is also a troubled time when being correct is not enough to prevent you from being assaulted from all sides.  It is a time when authority is demanded and authority is rejected.  I have never aspired to the office and am pretty confident that I possess neither the temperament nor the requisite wisdom and patience for the job.  For that matter no one has suggested I did.  But I have the greatest respect for those who do and also for those who know they do not and so decline.  It is the best of times and the worst of times -- really.  We need a few good men.  In the parish and to serve the episcopal responsibilities the church requires.  Pray for them.  Pray for those who will be asked, elected, and installed.  And pray for your pastor just the same.

More goofiness. . .

This is a very long image, to be sure, and I generally do not post such large images but it is about the only way to get what David Haas, one of the several very popular pop song writers for Roman Catholic worship, has to say about ministry.

First problem is the generic term ministry.  I have a friend who met a pastor who spoke of his BBQ ministry.  I have serious questions about whether or not this is a ministry even though right now I am pretty hungry for either grilled or smoked meat (both of whom generally fall under the moniker BBQ).  Ministry has become a catch all word for the things we like to do, the things we think we do well, and the things we want to do.  Lutherans should not fall into the trap of speaking so vaguely.  Ministry is Word and Sacrament and ministers are those who have this office by ordination and who exercise it by call.  Rome is even more specific in its terminology so the whole subject is, well, goofy.  Ministry is not some generic term but specific to place and people, and especially to the means of grace!

Second is the romantic idea of coaching people into the faith, of walking with them on their journey with Jesus, of listening to their heart language, and of endless conversations made up of questions mostly without any concrete answers.  We Lutherans have such foolishness in our midst as well.  Just the other day a member handed me a PR piece from another (so-called) Lutheran parish in our community.  It was sent supposedly to new people (or at least those with new addresses) and promised the same sort of open minds, open hearts, open hands, open truth idea Haas is talking about above.  It presumed that Jesus was all about questions and not so much about answers or truth and it ridiculed churches with convictions and held the sending congregation up as a people for questioning minds who love to talk.  Uh, yeah, we love to talk (at least I do) but the Gospel is not about our talk or our opinions or our questions.  It is about the fact of Jesus' incarnation, suffering, death, and resurrection (previewed by the prophets and witnessed by the disciples) for us and for our salvation.

Half of these are just so goofy they need no comment.  Choosing absence so God can show up?  Gag.  Not about reading Scripture but becoming the living Word?  Either goofy or heresy?  Your pick.  Oh, well, as long as there are spirituals who don't want to be religious, there will be enough folks who resonate with a Christless Christianity without fact, conviction, doctrine, or creed.  Sadly, there are already too many who like this kind of fluff.  But it does not seem to appeal so much to the younger folks who are looking for substance and truth.  Thanks be to God!

Hemeneutical democracy. . . NOT

Richard Beck wrote a fascinating post about his work consulting with denominational and non-denominational leaders working on a response to the same sex issue.  He wrote:

Here’s the situation, I told the group, you have to own the fact that you are Protestants (as am I). Which means that you are never going to land on an uncontested “biblical view.” Protestants have never agreed on what the Bible says. Just look at all the Protestant churches. Underneath the conversation about the “biblical view” what you are searching for is a hermeneutical consensus, the degree to which your community can tolerate certain hermeneutical choices.
Stretch the hermeneutical fibers too thin and the consensus snaps. People can’t make the leap. The view is deemed “unbiblical.” But if you keep the changes within the hermeneutical tolerances of the community the consensus holds and the view is deemed “biblical.”

His conclusion is extrapolated by Rod Dreher here:

what Protestant churches and organizations are really doing in these [contemporary] debates [about same-sex marriage] are trying to find out if its membership wants to change, and if so, how much change will it accept. The truth is, says Beck, is that Protestantism is a “hermeneutical democracy,” in which the individual consciences of believers determine what is true and what is false. This, he says, is the “genius of the tradition,” and having to do all this “relational work” is a key part of what it means to be Protestant. The Bible doesn’t speak for itself; it has to be interpreted, and for Protestants, that means that everybody gets a vote. 

In other words, Biblical means what we deem it to mean and usually that means what the folks in the pew will stomach.  Surely this has been the weakness of Protestantism for half a millenium but it should not be the problem for Lutherans.  In fact, this is why I do not believe it is at all accurate to include Lutheran among those who fit under the generic heading of Protestant.  Yes, the radical end shape of most of Protestantism, certainly of all non-confessional Protestantism, is that the individual, reason, and the democracy of what people will tolerate at the moment has become the chief means of defining what is Biblical.  Indeed there is little mechanism within the non-confessional groups to resist such an outcome.

But not for Lutherans!

Lutherans insist that the principle of the Reformation is the refusal to depart from catholic doctrine and practice -- that everything deemed new to the Reformers was in essence ancient and catholic.  So our Confessions spend as much time with the church fathers as they do Scripture, making sure that we get it.  We are not a democracy of voice or vote and the definition of what is catholic and Biblical is not a fill in the blank left to those at the time to complete.

Martin Chemnitz, the second Martin of Lutheranism listed seven different types of traditiones which Lutherans not only grudgingly accept but wholeheartedly subscribe to…

1. Scripture itself, i.e. the things that Christ and the Apostles preached orally and were later written down. Then follows:
2. the faithful transmission of the Scriptures;
3. the oral tradition of the Apostles (which by its very nature must agree with the contents of the New Testament canon);
4. the proper interpretation of the Scriptures received from the Apostles and “Apostolic men”;
5. dogmas that are not set forth in so many words in Scripture but are clearly apparent from a sampling of texts;
6. the consensus of true and pure antiquity;
7. rites and customs that are edifying and believed to be Apostolic, but cannot be proved from Scripture.

This well completes what Augustana left as almost a footnote -- we have not departed from any catholic doctrine and practice.  Show us and we will correct ourselves.  In fact the charge against Rome was that it had innovated, departing from Scripture and the catholic tradition over and over again to invent what had not been.  While it is surely true that Lutherans have not defended or even articulated this very well over the years, this is the lens through which we view our Confessions, tradition, and what it means to claim something as Biblical.  Novelty, creativity, and spontaneity are  not qualities highly prized among Lutherans.  That said, we have for too long been dissatisfied with this aspect of our Confessional witness and identity and have acted like those who get to decide what is Biblical, what is Lutheran, at the moment.

Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide, as Pelikan so aptly noted.  The past may not have veto but has a vote that carries at least as much weight as the moment.  As Chesteron put it, "Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead."  Lutherans are fully conversant and comfortable with this (except those whose itching ears have led them to believe and act more like the Protestants.  Protestantism has eliminated one pope in favor of everyone being a pope while Lutherans refuse a papacy while allowing that catholic doctrine and practice -- THE tradition -- with Scripture is pretty close to our papacy and is certainly our magisterium for sancta mater ecclescia.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Sermon for Lent 3C, preached by the Rev. Daniel Ulrich on Sunday, February 28, 2016.

Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Lk 13:3, 5).

          We’ve all heard it asked before.  We’ve contemplated it ourselves.  As we watch the nightly news, as we read the headlines on the internet, as we talk with co-workers around the water cooler, we wonder at its answer.  WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?  This question is usually one of the very first ones asked when tragedies strike.  When the unthinkable happens, we want to know why.  Why they always happen to good and decent people? 

          This question is a difficult one.  People have been wrestling with it for thousands of years.  However, this isn’t really a good question.  As one of my seminary professors liked to say, this is a wrong question, because it is a question that is built on false assumptions.  

          First, it assumes that life is governed by Karma, the idea that you get what you deserve.  If you’re good, then life will reward you with good things.  You’ll be blessed with happiness, health, and wealth.  But, if you’re bad, if you’re selfish and unkind, then life will punish you with bad things.  Your life will be filled with all sorts of difficulties, disappointments, and struggles.  

Karma comes from Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, but it’s made its mark here in the west.  It’s even influenced the way we think about God.  When bad things happen, we assume God is punishing us for specific sins.  This is what the people in our Gospel reading today thought.  

They came to Jesus and told Him about people who were killed by Pontius Pilate, their blood mixed with their sacrifices.  Obviously these victims were being punished for their sins by dying such a horrible death!  But what did Christ say?  He asked, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.  Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?  No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Lk 13:2-5).  The victims of Pilate and those who died in the tower collapse weren’t being punished for specific sins they had committed.  They weren’t greater sinners than anybody else.  

We like Karma because it makes sense.  We can understand it.  It’s only fair that you get what you do.  We like it because it puts us in control.  If we’re good and do right, then we’ll be rewarded.  We’ll have earned the blessings we get.  We can make God give us good things by being good, by being outwardly righteous.  

Of course, this is a false assumption.  We see that life doesn’t work out like that; you don’t always get what you deserve.  We all know of good and honest people who’ve suffered great tragedy, and dishonest people who seem to have it all.  God doesn’t reward and punish us for what we do. 

The second assumption that this bad things to good people question makes is that there are actually good people. We all like to think that there are good people in this world, people who are considerate and who put others before themselves, people who genuinely want to always do the right thing.  And we can point to people like this.  They obey the laws, the help neighbors out when they’re in need, they consider others and their feelings, the donate money and volunteer hours.  We see their good works and consider them good.  We look at those sitting in the pews next to us and we know they’re good; they’re in church after all. 

But do these things make us good people?  Before men they do, but not before God.  Our “good” outward actions don’t make us good people in God’s sight.  Nothing we say or think or do makes us righteous before God.  The prophet Ezekiel spoke God’s Word saying, “The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses…and the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins” (Ez 33:12).   The good that we do counts for nothing before God.  It can’t cover our sin. 

All of us have fallen short of the glory of God.  Every day we sin, and we sin much.  All of us can l point to unrighteous actions.  We’ve all hurt the feelings of loved ones.  We’ve abandoned responsibilities given to us.  We’ve said words that aren’t perfectly uplifting.  We’ve had vengeful, hateful, and lustful thoughts.  Even our motivation for doing good things have been tainted with selfish desire.  Before God, no one is good.

          Finally, the last false assumption of this difficult question is that God doesn’t know what He’s doing.  This is the ultimate form of idolatry.  It places us in God’s place, above Him.  We think we know more than God.  We think we could manage life and creation better than Him.  If God really knew what He was doing, He wouldn’t let bad things happen.  He wouldn’t have allowed Pilate to kill those Galileans, and He wouldn’t allow terrorists to attack.  He would’ve kept that tower from falling, and He would keep natural disasters from destroying communities.  He wouldn’t let those who we think are innocent suffer, especially young children.  We’re like the people of old who say, “The way of the Lord is unjust,” but in reality, it’s our ways that are unjust (Ez 33:17). 

          When tragedies occur, we feel like God’s abandoned us, that He’s punishing us.  This is the farthest thing from the truth.  Even when the bad things happen, God is still with us.  He is still faithful and merciful to us. 

          He mercifully calls us to repentance.  God hates sin, but He doesn’t delight in the death of a sinner.  As He said through His prophet Ezekiel, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ez 33:11).  God doesn’t want us to continue in our sin, on the path to destruction.  He wants us to turn from it and repent.  That’s why He allows tragedies to happen, so that we might see the punishment that awaits are sin and be rescued from it. 

          Remember what Jesus said in our Gospel, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Lk 13:3, 5).  When people came to Jesus and told Him about Pilate’s victims, Jesus explained that this tragedy wasn’t a sign of God’s punishment and judgement of the specific sins of the people.  Instead, this was a sign of God’s judgement on all sin, on all our sin.  All tragedies, whether they’re tragedies of violence, natural disasters, terrible disease, or anything else, they’re a judgement against the world’s sin.  But God mercifully uses these tragedies and bad things to call us back.  He allows them to happen so that we’re reminded of our personal sin and our need for a Savior, a Savior who mercifully intercedes for us and saves us from our sin. 

          When the people came to Jesus, He told them a parable.  It was a story about a fig tree that didn’t produce any fruit.  The owner of the vineyard told the vinedresser to cut it down, but the vinedresser pleaded with the owner.  He asked for more time, to let the tree be for another year so that he could work on it in the hopes that it would produce fruit in the future.  This may seem like a strange story to tell immediately after hearing about a mass murder, but it fits with Jesus’ words. 

          This parable is a story that illustrates God’s patience with us.  Like the fig tree, we don’t produce the good fruit that God expects.  He comes and comes and comes and we have nothing to offer.  All we have is our sin, and like the tree, we deserve to be cut down.  We deserve to have towers fall on us; we deserve to have our blood spilt and mixed with our sacrifices; we should suffer all sorts of temporal punishments because of our sin.  But thanks be to God, because of His mercy, we don’t.  This punishment we deserve is stayed by His hand, and instead, He punishes His Son, so that we might be spared, just as the fig tree.  We’re spared so that we might repent, so that we might flee from our sin and trust in God, receiving His gifts of forgiveness and everlasting life in Christ.

          Jesus is the only truly good and righteous person to ever live, and yet He suffered the ultimate bad thing for you.  Sentenced to death under Pontius Pilate, Jesus suffered God’s full wrath and judgment against sin.  Even though He was innocent, He took your punishment on the cross.  He did this willingly, so that you wouldn’t have to suffer this death.  He did this out of perfect love for you.  He had no alternative motive.  This was a perfect sacrifice.  God gave up His Son so that He can mercifully forgive you your sins, so that He can mercifully give you everlasting life through water, through word, and through bread and wine.  Even though we don’t deserve it, God is still faithful to us.  He still mercifully loves us and doesn’t want us to die.  He wants us to live with Him forever, and that’s why He sent Jesus Christ to be your Savior. 

          When we look around the world, we see a lot of bad things happening.  We look at our friends and family and we see them suffering.  We look at our lives and point to tough times and we ask, “WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN?”  They happen because we live in a sinful world.  But even when tragedies strike, God still loves you and is faithful to you.  He uses these bad things to call you back in repentance, to call you back to Him, so that you might escape everlasting death and have eternal life in Jesus Christ.  In Jesus name…Amen. 

A Lenten foreplay. . .

One of the losses of the three year series of lessons has been Pre-Lent.  It is mostly forgotten by those who never knew what it was in the first place.  Maybe that includes too many of us.  I do not miss them greatly but I do appreciate them now more than when I grew up with them.  So, a little late, I thought a little explanation might be in order for those who have forgotten the Gesimas.

The invention of Pre-Lent for the Western calendar is not clear but it was clearly borrowed from the Eastern or Byzantine calendar.   There the paschal season of the Church is preceded by the season of Great Lent, itself preceded by its own liturgical preparation. Great Lent is heralded by the five Sundays before its beginning, Pre-Lent. Perhaps Gregory the Great picked up the idea for Pre-Lent from Constantinople. When he returned from his visit there and was elected pope, he made some liturgical changes which some have described as Byzantinisations.

Since the 6th or 7th centuries, seventy days before the celebration of Easter was set, including both Pre-Lent and Lent, the preparation for the Paschal feast. This season of Pre-Lent, or often simply described as the time of the Gesimas, has Sundays marked with their numerical name:  seventy (Septuagesima), sixty (Sexagesima), and fifty (Quinquagesima). They symbolically refer to the days respectively before Easter though it is a symbolic numbering and not an actual one.

The forty days of Lent represent the forty days and nights that Our Lord spent in the wilderness, the forty years which the People of Israel spent in exodus, and a host of other significant references to forty in the Old Testament.  The seventy days before Easter, which adds Pre-Lent to Lent, parallels the Babylonian captivity of seventy years.  Though in actuality there are 63 days, Dom Prosper Guéranger explained that “the Church, according to the style so continually used in the Sacred Scriptures, uses the round number instead of the literal and precise one.”


This Pre-Lenten season then awakens the Church to the real urgency of Lent --  to the classic time of conversion and catechesis, baptism and confirmation, repentance and right relationship.  It was Paul VI said these Sundays act as the bells that summon the faithful to the church.  Perhaps, we may never know the actual origins but this is what we have.  The faithful are bidden to prepare for the great preparation, for the Lenten fast and almsgiving, repentance and devotion, that will prepare them for the great and holy day of Easter and its restoration of Alleluia in the joyful expression of the Resurrection of our Lord (and with Him our own hope of glory).