Children. . . bane or blessing

Martin Luther would not feel at home about many things that have become common place among Christians today.  He would not understand the aversion to children that has become rampant in our culture and whose echo has become the norm from many churches.  On the one hand, Luther never knew contraception as it has become today - cheap, easy, and private.  On the other hand, Luther would also not understand the technology to undo what many have worked so hard to do -- prevent children -- and create children as the ultimate designer accessory.  But Luther would not have been alone in this shock.  Calvin would be shocked, too.

Aversion to contraception was the norm until the 20th century.  In fact, no church approved contraception until 1930 and every church condemned contraception until that year. In 1930 the Lambeth Conference of Anglicans first gave cover to contraception.  No Protestant reformer or theologian prior to that year gave sanction to preventing pregnancy.  Since that year, contraception has steadily gained approval until modern day when nearly every advance in the science of it has been matched by a theology suggesting that it is the only responsible choice.

Read Luther in his own words:

Today you find many people who do not want to have children. Moreover, this callousness and inhuman attitude, which is worse than barbarous, is met with chiefly among the nobility and princes, who often refrain from marriage for this one single reason, that they might have no offspring. . . .  Surely such men deserve that their memory be blotted out from the land of the living. Who is there who would not detest these swinish monsters? But these facts, too, serve to emphasize original sin. Otherwise we would marvel at procreation as the greatest work of God, and as a most outstanding gift we would honor it with the praises it deserves. (Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 1-5, 1536; Luther's Works, vol. 1, 118; commentary on Genesis 2:18)

The rest of the populace is more wicked than even the heathen themselves. For most married people do not desire offspring. Indeed, they turn away from it and consider it better to live without children, because they are poor and do not have the means with which to support a household. . . . But the purpose of marriage is not to have pleasure and to be idle but to procreate and bring up children, to support a household. . . . Those who have no love for children are swine, stocks, and logs unworthy of being called men and women; . . . (Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 26-30; Luther's Works, vol. 5, 325-328; vol. 28, 279; commentary on the birth of Joseph; cf. Luther's Works, vol. 45, 39-40)

But the greatest good in married life, that which makes all suffering and labor worth while, is that God grants offspring and commands that they be brought up to worship and serve him. In all the world this is the noblest and most precious work, . . . Now since we are all duty bound to suffer death, if need be, that we might bring a single soul to God, you can see how rich the estate of marriage is in good works. (The Estate of Marriage, 1522; Luther's Works, vol. 45, 46)

You will find many to whom a large number of children is unwelcome, as though marriage had been instituted only for bestial pleasures and not also for the very valuable work by which we serve God and men when we train and educate the children whom God has given us.  (In Ewald M. Plass, What Luther Says, an Anthology, two volumes, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, Vol. II, #2834)

Nobody in their right minds wants to bring up contraception in churches today.  It has become normal to prevent pregnancy and all kinds of reasons are given to suggest that the only responsible choice is to plan the family and therefore prevent pregnancy until it fits the plan.  What is missing in all of this discussion is an evaluation of the plans of people and whether or not their plans are based upon Biblical and legitimate reasons.  It sounds positively medieval to the modern mind that children would always be welcome to a marriage and a family.  It sounds positively misogynistic to suggest that women should not be in control of their own bodies and that choices have to be made.

My point in all of this is not suggest that we dismiss out of hand every decision not to have a child.  Even natural family planning provides a means as well as a rationale for limiting when to have a child and when not.  My point is how easy it is for us to leave far behind what we once believed as normal and how adaptable Christianity has been to advances of the technology that has made things like contraception quick, easy, and cheap.  In the space of three or four generations the first nod toward contraception has become the only reasonable, rational, and responsible opinion.  In the space of three or four generations children have gone from blessing to bane.

The big question is why we are so susceptible to the changing opinions of the world around us and why we are always changing our minds instead of changing the minds of the world around us with the Word of the Lord?  Contraception is but one of many issues in which Christians have surrendered their once inviolable convictions in order to better fit the landscape of our changing world and its values.  The change has come quickly and has become normative for most Protestants and even for a goodly number of Roman Catholics whose official stance is one of the few holdouts to wholesale Christian caving to contraception.  This is not simply one issue but as an issue is tied to many aspects of morality.  Unless we begin to recognize how we have changed our tunes and why, we will find Biblical doctrine, theology, and morality eaten away by the voracious appetite of modernity to chart its own course and make its own decisions independent of God and His Word.

The Light to endure delay. . .

Sermon for Pentecost 23, Proper 27A, preached on Sunday, November 12, 2017, by the Rev. Daniel Mills Ulrich.

    We say it every week.  After the sermon we confess our faith in the words of the creed & we say Christ will come again.  Our risen & ascended Lord will come on the Last Day to judge the living & the dead.  When this day will be...no one knows, so we need to be ready.  We need to watch & be wise so that when He does come we’ll enter the everlasting feast He’s prepared for us. 
    The people of God have always known that Christ would come on the Last Day.  Job confessed that he’d see the Redeemer on that day.  On the Mount of Olives, Jesus’ disciples asked when that day would be.  They wanted to know what signs would precede His second coming (Matt 24:3).  Jesus warned them saying, “See that no one leads you astray.  For many will come in my name saying ‘I am the Christ,’ & they will lead many astray” (Matt 24:4-5).  This warning Jesus gave so that His disciples would be ready to withstand foolish false teachers, men who spoke against God’s Word. 
    As Jesus’ apostles went out proclaiming the Gospel, they talked about Jesus’ return.  The people of Thessalonica were waiting for Christ's return, but they had a question about it: what would happen to all the faithful who’ve died before that day?  Paul assured them those saints wouldn’t be forgotten.  In the epistle he writes: “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, & with the sound of the trumpet of God.  And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, & so we will always be with the Lord.  Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thess 4:15-18).  The day Christ comes again, we’ll know it.  There’ll be no mistaking it for any other day.  The dead in Jesus will be raised, the faithful still living will join them in the clouds, & all will enter into the everlasting feast that Jesus’ has prepared for us.  All the faithful will receive their salvation in full.  But...we don’t know when that day will come. 
    We want to know so we can mark our calendars, but Jesus is clear, no one knows: not the angels, not even Christ Himself.  Only God the Father knows...so we need to be ready for it now.  We need to be encouraged to endure any delay.  All of this is done through God’s Word.  You’re made ready for Christ's return and encouraged to endure any delay by God’s Word preached & received in the Sacraments. 
    Jesus talked about being wise and ready for the last day with His disciples in the parable of the 10 virgins.  This parable takes place in the context of a wedding, so to understand it, we need to know a little about 1st century Jewish wedding tradition.  Before the wedding day, there was a time of betrothal; & during this time the bridegroom would make ready the home that he & his bride would live in.  Once everything was ready, the bridegroom would travel to the bride's house with his attendants.  Once he got there, the bride with her attendants would come out and they’d all parade to the new couple’s home where the feasting began. 
    The 10 virgins in the parable are the bride’s attendants, bridesmaids.  Five were wise & took extra oil for their lamps, & five were foolish taking no extra oil.  They all waited for the coming of the bridegroom, but he was delayed, & they all fell asleep.  At midnight there was an announcement that the bridegroom was coming.  The wise virgins rose & trimmed their lamps, but the foolish virgins had no oil, so they had to go buy some.  While they were away, the bridegroom came & everyone went into the feast, except for the foolish virgins.  They weren’t ready to welcome the bridegroom & they were left out in the darkness. 
    We’re familiar with this story, & when we interpret it, we often place ourselves into the role of the virgins.  We think Jesus is telling us about something we need to do in order to be ready to welcome Him.  We need to take extra oil with us...whatever that oil is.  But let me tell you, you’re not the virgins.  You are the bride.  You are the Church, the Bride of Christ.  He is your Bridegroom.  He has prepared a home for you in heaven.  There’s nothing you do to make yourself ready for Him.  He came to you & gave Himself up on the cross for you, so that He might sanctify you, cleansing you with the water and the Word (Eph 5).
   So, if you are the bride, & Christ is the bridegroom, who are the virgins, & what are the oil & lamps?  The oil & lamps are God’s Word.  The Psalmist writes: “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet, & a light to my path” (Ps 119:105).  The light of God’s Word shows you your Savior, your Bridegroom.  It proclaims the forgiveness and life you have in Him.  It creates faith in you, faith that trusts in Christ, faith that is ready for His coming.  This light, the Word of God, it’s given to the virgins, to the attendants of the Church, to God’s pastors. 
   Jesus spoke this parable to the disciples, the very men He sent out to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom.  At the Great Commission, He instructed the apostles to teach everything He commanded, all of His words.  The disciples were to keep Christ’s Word close and only proclaim His Word.  Scripture says wisdom holds firm the Word of God.  The apostles were to be the wise virgins, & so too are pastors today.  They’re to keep the light of God’s Word.
   When the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him about the His second coming, He warned them against false teachers, men who don’t keep God’s Word.  These are the foolish virgins.  Instead of holding on to Christ’s teachings, they go out looking for other things to replace the Word: worldly wisdom; a social gospel; anything and everything that satisfies their wants and desires.  These teachers won’t be ready to welcome the Bridegroom Christ.  When Jesus comes they’ll knock on the door, but our Lord will answer “I don’t know you” (Mat 25:12), & they’ll be left out in the darkness, along with all those they lead astray. 
   But not you.  You won’t be left out in the darkness.  You have the light of God’s Word, a light that never goes out.  This light you receive in God’s Word preached each and every Sunday.  This light you receive in God’s Word in the waters of Baptism.  This light you receive in God’s Word in the Sacrament of the Altar.  This light makes you ready to receive your Bridegroom. 
   We don’t know when Christ will come again, but we know He’s coming.  He may come in a few moments, He may come tomorrow, or the next week.  He may come next year, or several hundred years from now.  But no matter when He comes, no matter how long He may be delayed, you’ll be ready for it because you’ve been made ready through the Word of God.  By hearing God’s Word preached by faithful pastors, by receiving it in the Sacraments faithfully administered, you have Christ always before you.  You have the light no darkness can overcome.  And with faith in Him you’ll be ready to welcome your Bridegroom.  In Jesus’ name...Amen. 

Take your time. . .

Economy of words. . . noble simplicity. . . unnecessary repetition. . .  "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." (Matthew 6:7)

It is easy to jump to a false conclusion here.  We tend to think that shorter is better when it comes to worship, preaching, and prayer.  Indeed, one of the complaints about liturgical development is embellishment and one of the characteristics we presume for the earlier and more development forms and rites is brevity.  While there may be truth in this, why do we assume that shorter is better?  Why do we presume that words detract?  Our Lord does not condemn repetition in Matthew 6 but vain repetition.  In other words, the Lord complains about words that have no meaning to the voice that speaks them, words that are spoken without faith.  Many words are not a substitute for honest words born of faith.  Yes.  Of course.  God is not placated by appearances that are not rooted in repentance and faith.  But that does not translate into the idea that shorter is better, that brevity is the goal. 

Why is it that the moments we love are ones we desire to extend and the time spent in worship, hearing the Word preached, and in prayer should be cut short?  Does that mean we are happier to spent time watching our favorite team or a good movie or eating with friends or sharing one of the significant moments of life than we are meeting the Lord in His Word and at His Table?  We with some moments would never end and we cannot wait to for some to end.  I get that.  Waiting rooms and lines are filled with people who just want the waiting to end.  But what does it say about us that we are clock watchers during the Divine Service?

Every pastor has heard it a million times.  I was at a mass the other day and they did the whole service, sermon, and communed a zillion people and were still out in an hour.  If you cannot get your point across in 10 minutes, why do you think you can get it across in 20 minutes?  There is a game on today: do you suppose you could cut it short so we get out on time?  Ouch.  Not for me but for the Lord who is the object of our praise and whose gifts are the reason we gather.  We love you, Lord, but not enough to hang around too long.  

We have no clocks in the nave or chancel.  I know of a pastor who insists that all those participating in the liturgy remove their watches (only liturgical jewelry like a cross ring or wedding ring are allowed).  I also know of churches that built in clocks to pulpits so the pastor would get the hint.  And I know of churches where some folks will give not so subtle signals to the pastor to move it along.  What happened to the idea that in worship we set aside the chronos for the kairos -- the clicking clock for the ripe and full moment of God's salvation?

You get no apology from me that we routinely go 75-80 minutes in a service.  We do not pare down worship as if it were something filled with added, optional, unnecessary extras.  We do it all.  As we should.  The only variation is the time taken for distribution (with fewer communicants it obviously takes less time than with a full house).  We do not rush.  We do not speak the words of the liturgy or read the Word of the Lord at a fast pace but a deliberate one.  We are on the holy ground of God's gracious favor and bidding.  When you are ushered into the holy place where God dispenses unmerited grace, you do not glance at the clock to see how long the Lord is taking.  How long does worship last?  As long as it needs.

My advice to pastors is to slow down.  Pause.  Allow for some silence.  Teach your people how important is the time we spend in the Lord's House and how rude and even unbelieving it is to count it down as if it were an unpleasant ordeal one hoped would end as soon as possible.  My advice to people is to stop paying attention to the clock.  Listen.  Learn.  Pray.  Rejoice.  Sing.  Reflect.  You are in the presence of the Almighty.  His Word is the only one that neither changes nor expires.  It is forever.  This time around the Word and Sacraments of the Lord is the ripe moment, the fullness of time, when God acts in the wonder, mystery, and delight that only God can.  Here He speaks into our ears wooing our divided hearts and here He passes over our lips heaven's bread and salvation's cup.  Instead of rushing out, linger.


1 Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face;
Here would I touch and handle things unseen;
Here grasp with firmer hand the eternal grace,
And all my weariness upon thee lean.

2 Here would I feed upon the bread of God,
Here drink with thee the royal wine of heav'n;
Here would I lay aside each earthly load,
Here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiv'n.

3 This is the hour of banquet and of song;
This is the heav'nly table spread for me;
Here let me feast and, feasting still prolong
The brief bright hour of fellowship with thee.

4 I have no help but thine; nor do I need
Another arm save thine to lean upon;
It is enough, O Lord, enough indeed;
My strength is in thy might, thy might alone.

5 Mine is the sin, but thine the righteousness;
Mine is the guilt, but thine the cleansing blood;
Here is my robe, my refuge, and my peace:
Thy blood, thy righteousness, O Lord, my God.

6 Too soon we rise; the vessels disappear;
The feast, though not the love, is past and gone.
The bread and wine remove, but thou art here,
Nearer than ever, still my shield and sun.

7 Feast after feast thus comes and passes by;
Yet, passing, points to the glad feast above,
Giving sweet foretaste of the festal joy,
The Lamb's great marriage feast of bliss and love.

Ditch Latin and the Church will self-destruct. . .

A quick perusal of a Roman Catholic blog lamenting the loss of Latin with the shift to the vernacular brought to light a whole series of comments by bishops from Vatican II showing that the push for the vernacular was NOT a primary cause of the Council but rather a specific and determined goal of the more progressive wing of Rome.  This one caught my eye.

J. B. Peruzzo, archbishop of Agrigente. Multa audivi contra sacram traditionem. Haec verba cause mihi fuerunt anxietatis et timoris. [I have heard many things against sacred tradition. Those words were for me a cause of anguish and fear.] … All those who want to diminish Latin always invoke the same reason: so that the people will understand and participate better. That is what the Augsburg Confession demanded. Now, quid evenit [What was the outcome]? Actus separationis a Sancta Matre Ecclesia [An act of separation from Holy Mother Church]. Separatio a lingua latina, per quandam inexplicabilem rationem, fere semper, etiam cum permissu Summi Pontificis [The abandonment of Latin, for some inexplicable reason, almost always, even with the permission of the Supreme Pontiff], ends up in absolute separation. (212–13)

For those whose Latin is not up to speed, Archbishop Peruzzo specifically mentions the Augsburg Confession, the basic confessional document of Lutheranism, written by Philip Melancthon in 1530, to present the fundamental articles of Reformers to the papal party. In Article 24: “All the ceremonies [of the Mass] must serve principally for the instruction of the people in what is necessary for them to know concerning Christ.”  According to Archbishop Peruzzo, the outcome of Augsburg in using the vernacular will surely become the outcome for Rome if it follows suit.

So why is it so humorous?  Well, for one thing Luther was not a fan of abandoning Latin.  He believed Latin would continue forever because it was and, he thought, it would remain the language of the educated.  Luther did not so much advocate for the vernacular as to allow it where people were not educated and did not understand Latin.  Second, the instruction of the people did not automatically translate into their comprehension but rather had to do with the role and function of ceremony to be visible words, that is, to be a confession without words and an instruction without words.  Augsburg was easily the most conservative of the Reformation voices in preserving tradition and even promoting it.  And in fact, the AC presumes Latin continues with German hymns.  In other words, Rome still did not get it some 450 years after the Reformation.

Augsburg XXIV:40: Forasmuch, therefore, as the Mass with us has the example of the Church, taken from the Scripture and the Fathers, we are confident that it cannot be disapproved, especially since public ceremonies, for the most part like those hither to in use, are retained...  Article XV specifically addresses ceremonies.  And Article XXIV also says, in the full quote, “We at the same time give instruction against other erroneous doctrines concerning the sacrament. In the public ceremonies of the mass, also, no other perceptible change has been made than that at several places German hymns are sung along with the Latin, in order to instruct and exercise the people; since all ceremonies are chiefly designed to teach the people what it is necessary for them to know concerning Christ."

Russian Celebration of 500 -- a Church give back. . .

Russia is returning ownership of St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Moscow to the Russian Evangelical Lutheran Church. The handover is part of festivities marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

From one thing to another. . .

At the time of Luther, the Mass was hardly uniform.  In fact, it's diversity of practice was aided by the overwhelming complexity of rubric and calendar.  This diversity of liturgical practice reflected regional and local priority over Roman usage.  Though the Roman Rite was given place, the fact was there were many more local or regional variations to the Roman Rite.  Some of them were rather well known and carried a name that is identified even to this day -- such as the Gallican Rite, the Ambrosian Rite, and the Sarum Rite, among others. From time to time popes and councils worked to bring more uniformity to the the liturgy and they promoted both the purity and antiquity of the Roman Rite.  Eventually, the Council of Trent was convened in part to deal with this diversity and to rein in the regional and local variations.  Trent ended up decreeing that rites and practices younger than 200 years old should give way to the Roman Rite and its practice. There was deference given both to antiquity and to the cause of  uniformity that was supposed to reduce both novelty and recent innovation.

Though we often presume Rome was and is monolithic, when it came to the liturgy, this was not the case.  Even the Council of Trent was not able to erase the unintended diversity of liturgical form and practice.  Some of Trent's decrees were either ignored or not enforced. Local and regional variation was paused but not halted and within a couple of hundred years another major council would deal with this disorderly state of liturgical affairs again.  A hundred years later, in the wake of Vatican II, diversity would again be fostered by those who believed in local and regional authority.  In one sense this debate is still going on in Rome since Pope Francis has decided that the congregation or department of the Vatican that deals with worship would no longer create liturgical changes but approve those begun on a more local and regional level.

All of that is interesting enough to a Lutheran but the diversity of Lutheran liturgical practice is more than a curiosity, it has become a crisis.  Where Rome's diversity was within a more narrow boundary,, modern day Lutheran liturgical practice has become contradictory and confusing, perhaps even scandalous.  Lutherans go from congregation to congregation and find radical differences in worship form and "style."  On the one hand, they encounter Lutherans worship very formally, following rubric and observing the ancient form religiously.  On the other hand, Lutherans worship without any liturgy, indeed without the Sacrament being the center of the service at all.  This is not merely a matter of "style" but of confession and identity.  Does Lutheranism have a face or form on Sunday morning or not?

In early Lutheran history, diversity was more narrow.  Jurisdictions defined how Lutherans would worship within a particular geographic region.  Worship practice was not strictly congregational at all.  Even when Lutherans showed up in America, their diversity of worship practices mirrored the churches they left behind.  Scandinavians tended to be more liturgical and some Germans less so but only those who were thoroughly Americanized stretched the limits of liturgical identity.  All of this became somewhat moot when by 1888 Lutherans were more or less united liturgically in the Common Service.  Though Lutherans nearly a hundred years later sought to publish a common hymnal, the reality was that liturgical unity was pretty much in place, at least until 1958 when the Service Book and Hymnal changed the canon with the addition of a Eucharistic Prayer.  But the high point of Lutheran liturgical unity has come and gone.  Now Lutherans may not know what they will find on Sunday morning.  Lutheran identity is suffering from this extreme diversity.  The genie is out of the bottle and it appears that no Lutheran jurisdiction in America seems willing or able to restore any real unity and uniformity to Lutheran worship forms and practices.  

Some have tried to make this a matter of low church or broad church or high church.  It is not a matter of how much or how little ceremonial or even whether or not vestments are worn.  It is matter of whether or not faith is born of the Word and nurtured by the Sacrament of the Altar or faith is a decision and worship is about getting God to sanction what you desire for you and your life.  Modern technology has made this abundantly clear.  On one hand a group of Lutherans has put out a video that some have called too Roman and yet this video follows the official book and liturgy and the red letters of the rubrics, with few additional ceremonies clearly within the scope of Lutheran history and practice.  On the other hand congregations ostensibly Lutheran (though they may not use "Lutheran" in their name) look, act, and sound like ordinary Evangelical, non-denominational churches without the liturgy but with a form of singing, praying, and preaching/teaching that entertains the people more than meeting them on the holy ground of God and His gifts of Word and Sacrament.  Lutherans have become adept at distinguishing theory and practice, substance and style, to the point where what happens in worship is no longer directly tied to what is believed, confessed, and taught.

We have gone from one kind of diversity to another.  Lutheran identity is in chaos.  Where will it all end?  I wish I knew. . .

In the dark. . .

One of the things I have noticed is that most non-denominational churches and those who wanna be like them use buildings with few or no windows.  Indeed, they worship in the dark.  Literally.  Not only do they lack stained glass, they also are without liturgical art and furnishing.  The whole atmosphere is rather carefully controlled.  Screens are the few places where images are seen and those images are the domain of the preacher and/or worship leader.  Stages are replete with dramatic lighting, high powered sound systems, and the best video production that the congregation can afford.

Churches have become blank pages upon which every Sunday gets written in music, image, and sermon.  The buildings are often vast warehouses with few finishes.  In them form and function are more important than art and beauty.  Where once the church building was a sermon in stone and glass and wood, now churches are open spaces with grand stages for worship which has become performance oriented for a people whose role in worship has become as passive as it once was prior to the Reformation.

Walther once famously suggested that the churches he encountered in America had become lecture halls.  Now the lecture hall and the holy of holies have both been replaced with theater with the best production value money can buy.  Furniture, if there is any, is made out of lucite so that it blends into the backdrop.  Front and center are people.  The musicians of the praise bands stand out front and center.  The "pastor" performs with a modern day costume of current style and a casualness that belies the scale (especially in the mega churches).

It is no wonder why misconceptions about worship are all around us.  People come to buildings that look like shopping malls on the outside and on the inside look like theaters so it is no wonder that they expect to be entertained and define what happens there less by orthodoxy than by preference, happiness, and enjoyment.  At the same time, it is unmistakable that such venues emphasize the centrality of the worshiper more than the means of grace. 

It is a strange time in history.  The Christian faith is under duress both from those who think it is wrong and those who think it is weak and worthless.  There are those who think the Church is failing because the Church has not kept up with the times, with the changing values of the people and the changing mores and morals of society.  And there are those who think the Church is failing because the Church has paid too much attention to what people think or want and too little to what God says.  There are those who complain that the Church is too churchly to gain a hearing or following form people and there are those who complain that the Church is not churchly enough to be distinguished from people.  Lifeway once surveyed those who do not attend church and they wanted church buildings that looked like churches but that has not deterred those who want to eliminate just about anything that would mark churches as anything but mere gathering spaces for people.

In the end, the Church will not be judged by people but by God.  We will have to own up to Him our sins and failures and it is clear from Scripture that God values faithfulness more than anything else.  After all, the Word remains His and its outcome and accomplishment remains His domain, not ours.  If we fail because we have faithfully confessed and taught the Word, the failure is not ours.  But if we fail because we have rejected the Word and chosen to grow the Church our own way, then the failure is all ours.  I hope that we will reject relevance for faithfulness but I acknowledge the temptation is great to believe that we make the Church grow and prosper instead of God working through the means of grace by the power of the Spirit.  In the end, we may be more in the dark than even our modern church buildings.

Rebel in the Ranks. . .

“Luther would deride the idea of freedom as we know it today and disclaim any credit for it. In fact, he would be disgusted by it, because it has nothing to do with what he regarded as the only real freedom: the bound freedom of a Christian."

and

“Neither Luther nor any of the other Protestant reformers sought or envisioned anything like modern individual freedom. Nor did the Protestant Reformation as such lead to it. What led to it were the more-than-religious conflicts between magisterial Protestants and Catholics in the Reformation era, which created a situation that led indirectly, unintentionally and eventually to the making of a 21st-century world that nearly all committed Christians of the Reformation era would have deplored.”

Both are quotes from Brad Gregory's third installment on Reformation history -- Salvation at Stake (1999) and The Unintended Reformation (2012).  Rebel in the Ranks is not a scholarly treatment of Luther or the times but is intended for those who know little of the real history of the man or the movement.  It is probably not a book you would give to someone interested in the details of theological position or the footnotes of its greater history, but it is not a bad book to give to those who know only the mythology and have a skewed idea of what the Reformation and the man who pulled its trigger are about.

It is a simple enough treatment and an easy read, interesting and generally respectful of those whom he treats. For all the Luther movies, from its dramatic black and white treatment of 1952 to the rather unsettling treatment of 2003 and for all the docudramas in between, most folks still approach Luther from the vantage point of ignorance, assuming modern day ideas and issues are what got his dander up.  When it comes to worship, most folks think Luther found the mass a tyranny from which the Church and Christians must be set free.  That is true only if mass in your definition equates with the sacrifice of the mass and not the historic shape of the liturgy.  When it comes to modern ideas of the separation of church and state or individual liberty or the triumph of individual reason and opinion, Luther is blamed for horrors he would neither recognize nor approve.  When it comes to Luther and the Jews, it is assumed Luther was an anti-Semite when the reality was that religious freedom did not exist, no one then loved the Jews, and Luther's rebuke was theological and not ethnic -- how could those who had the Law and the Prophets NOT recognize Jesus.  When it comes to Lutherans, it is assumed that whatever you learned in catechism class or Sunday school gave you a full treatment of Luther and the Great Reformation and that dogmatic differences between Luther and other Reformers and between Lutherans and other Protestants are minutiae and nothing of real substance.  How wrong we are!

I have taken to reading a few of the more current treatments of Luther and the Reformation and Gregory certainly gives us pause.  In the end we want to find scapegoats on which to heap our blame and scorn for the things that have gone wrong.  For sure, the world we now have is a world gone stray but the blame lies not with Luther or even the Pope on the other side.  We always get the world we deserve.  You do not have to be Christian to admit the truth of the Scripture: the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children even to the third and fourth generation. The children suffer for the sour grapes of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.  Original sin is the one doctrine that needs no Scripture to be proven -- history and the newspaper suffice.  The Reformation was no trivial conflict.  It was born of a man and of a time in which honest questions arose about truth, hope, life, and death.  If the Reformation found rough sailing or ran aground on the rocks of disappointment, the blame lies squarely with its heirs. 

Luther was a man, just a man, and yet a noble intellect, a man of stunning accomplishment, and of great ideas. Luther's image of the future has certainly foundered but it cannot be blamed only upon him.  We added enough stubbornness, sin, doubt, fear, jealousy, anger, bitterness, and violence to turn a question into an epithet and to take what was hoped to be a new beginning and see it become an all too predictable end.  Lutherans and Roman Catholics and all Christians have some blame in this.  Yet the seeds of renewal are always as near as the voice of the Word that speaks and the means of grace deliver Christ and His gifts to us.  The only questions are about whether or not we are listening and whether or not we are so content in our ungodliness that we neither desire nor welcome the things of God that would redeem us.

Curious. . .

I have subscribed to The Lutheran Forum and Forum Letter since 1973.  At times it has been must reading.  At times it has been compelling.  At times it has been mystifying.  At times it has been annoying.  At times it has been the waste of a few good dollars.  I will probably keep subscribing.  I once was a regular commenter on the online forum.  Now I visit once in a while but seldom, if ever, post.

The Fall 2017 issue of The Lutheran Forum is replete with rather brief, one page observations -- all entitled Five Hundred Years Later... in obvious reference to the big Lutheran anniversary year.  I will admit to glancing at it when it came in but never got around to look at it closely.  The coffee table in my office contains the current issue of a dozen or so journals to which I subscribe so I tossed it on the stack and did not think more about it.

A few weeks ago a woman from my parish, someone rather well read and theologically astute, was waiting there to talk to me and happened upon the stack of journals.  She picked up The Lutheran Forum issue mentioned above and paged through it.  When my phone call completed and we began to talk she directed me to this issue and said that nearly all the pictures in it were of women pastors.  She wondered if there was an agenda at work in the choice of photographs.  I said I did not know.  Then I looked more closely at the issue.

Indeed there were 14 Five Hundred Years Later contributors and half were women.  Only one of the contributors was a member of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and, predictably enough, it was one of the few female theology professors in the entire Synod, at Concordia, St. Paul, MN.  African Lutherans were well represented (they should be since there are so many of them).  By my rough count, six were ELCA.

There is one more thing.  The same woman commented that she found the cover art depicting Luther to be rather, well, shall we say androgynous?  I am not sure about that comment.  Most depictions of Luther are not pretty and some are downright scarey (was it not Luther who said old age makes one ugly!).

So my point. . . well, The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau was once mostly Missouri but pan-Lutheran.  Now, it seems, it has become mostly ELCA but pan-Lutheran.  I suppose it is okay; they go where the money is (don't we all).  But if they wanted at least the appearance of being even handed, perhaps they could have chosen differently.  In any case, it is a curious thing that women play so prominently in the photos and contributions given that Luther knew nothing of the ordination of women, did not advocate for it, indeed, never even conceived of it.  Apparently the whole thing is so fragile that it must be regularly pictured and featured so that those who do not ordain women will know they are not real Lutherans.  Well, I guess that is what the LCMS said of the ELCA.  Perhaps this has become a bit of a thing in the relationship between the two churches (or the lack of a relationship).  In any case, what I did not notice, one of my members did.

BTW she is not a subscriber and probably is not going to.  I, well, I will probably keep it up and see where it turns out.  Until, perhaps, retirement forces me to choose between buying adult diapers or renewing my subscription.

Discretion. . .

There are some who practice a really closed altar rail.  Those who commune are members of that congregation, sheep under the care of the shepherd, period.  While this was perhaps more ordinary in the past, the key to its undoing has been the American penchant for travel and the mobility that has moved people many times over a lifetime and far from their ancestral homes.  It is not the customary sense of closed communion among Missourians.

There are those who practice closed communion in the sense that those who commune are people of a common confession, those who believe the same faith and doctrine and who practice it consistently.  This is the customary sense of Missouri's idea of closed communion.  It was easier when you had few real visitors and it was easier to deal with when the Sacrament was offered only quarterly.  It has become more difficult now that all kinds of people show up on Sunday morning and the Sacrament is offered at least every other week or especially every Sunday (as our Confessions presume).  Also part of this is the decline in confessional services and private confession which were once prime means to know who to expect at the rail on Sunday morning.  Inherent in this idea of closed communion are two things -- that those who commune share a common confession and they live under a common discipline.  Obviously, that common discipline has been the Achilles heel of the whole thing.

Underneath all of this, however, has been another thread (or shall we say threat).  Since at least the 1960s and 1970s, Missouri has become an increasingly congregational church body -- at least in popular understanding.  The parish has always been the center of things for Missouri but now more than ever the congregation is seen as a sort of Supreme Court over Missouri's constitution, by-laws, and conventions.  Each individual congregation has come to think of itself as having the right and even the duty to decide for itself whether or not something in Synod is right or wrong, good, right, or salutary, or expedient for its own set of circumstances.  This has placed severe tests upon the common confession that Missourians claim to under gird our synodical unity and identity.  Some delight in testing the boundaries of this synodical structure at every juncture.  Who communes in the congregation is seen as a local issue and not something Synod can or should inform or enforce.

Some congregations have deliberately adopted practices that poke the proverbial finger at Missouri's historical and consistent confession of closed communion.  We all know this.  Others have quietly practiced an open altar without attempting to draw attention to the practice inconsistent with Synod's stated confession and practice.  Other congregations have for all intents and purposes broken fellowship with the brothers and sisters throughout the Synod by requiring a bit more than Missouri has traditionally required for communion and by being vocal about it.

There is something else at play and that is the understanding of pastoral discretion.  Unlike some in Missouri, nearly everyone has understood closed communion not simply to be about membership or even about membership in good standing but also about the right and privilege of the pastor to admit someone who does not necessarily fit the rules.  It is exceptional and the pastor retains the authority to make exception for pastoral reason and urgency.  This is also at play in Missouri's understanding of closed communion.  Pastors practice it differently.  Some make the exception the rule and others make for no exception at all.

The key word here is discretion.  To be discreet ordinarily means to be careful, prudent, or circumspect. The word discreet is, of course, from Latin discretus, meaning separate or distinct.  It is important to note that they key to discretion is not secrecy. Discretion may not be shouted from the mountain tops but neither is is primarily private.  Prudence and discretion means to take seriously the exception and to be disciplined in granting exception as well as compassionate.  Therein lies the problem.  We are at a point in which many in the Synod do not trust the discretion of others because they fear it is undisciplined and falsely compassionate (more concerned about possible offense than possibly taking the Sacrament to the individual's harm).

It is not discretion to always grant exception and it is not discretion to never grant exception.  In fact, it is easier to open the altar rail to anyone or close the rail to all but the few members than to be in the messy middle of speaking with each communicant unknown to the pastor.  Some complain that this is not even possible in large congregations in which the pastor cannot possibly be expected to even know or recognize who is a member and who is not (something more of an issue than for closed communion only).  

The point of the stewardship of the rail is not to exclude but to assist those who commune to commune worthily, that is, to have repentant faith to receive the gift.  Perhaps it is true that some pastors see themselves somewhat like the gatekeepers who keep the wrong people out of a hot spot where everyone wants to enter.  The pastoral role here is not judge and jury of guilty or innocent but preacher of the Gospel and steward of the gifts.

For all the disputes over closed communion, the vast majority of Christians practice it in some form or another.  Rome, Constantinople, and Wittenberg were once united in this practice.  Now more Lutherans practice open altars than practice closed communion.  While that may not be true for Missouri in particular, it is certainly true for Lutheranism in general.  Yet it is an easy practice to justify from Scripture and history.  It is not a practice supported by one passage or by the odd man out in the past.  Yet in Missouri, at least, we continue to wrestle with it.

Speaking for myself, I know how hard it is to meet people before the service, inquire as to their faith, and then to tell them not to receive.  The people who complain most about the negative answer to the question are generally those who knew they should not commune.  Sometimes it is a delight to find a person whose confession is solid and orthodox and then to inquire why they belong to church body which does not confess the faith as they have just done.  I wrestle with those who think that the Sacrament is private time with Jesus as the individual alone defines it -- even regular Missourians fall into that trap.  But communion is by nature a public act, a public statement, and a public reception.  It is not private at all.  That, however, remains a topic for another post.  In the end, it is a subject that remains a hot topic for Missouri and into this touchy subject some of our better theologians have waded.  I encourage you to read and consider their words.  I will.

Listen to an Issues, Etc. discussion of the topic here. . . 

The company of the saints. . .

Sermon for All Saints, Observed, preached on Sunday, November 5, 2017.

    Analogies and metaphors and comparisons are the means by which we teach and explain things.  There are too many analogies of the Church to quote – The Church is a gas station where the empty are filled up to head back out to the highway of life or the Church is a hospital where the wounded and hurting receive God’s care or the Church a lighthouse shining forth with the beacon of hope that is the Gospel or the Church is museum of saints where the world looks for virtue.  I could go on but I won’t.  There is a bit of truth in all of them but they all fall short in describing what the Church is and what happens here on Sunday morning.
    Frankly speaking, the Church is a disappointment to most.  They come with great expectations and instead they find the font is filled with water, the Gospel is proclaimed in words, on the altar are bread and wine, and God is on a cross.  It does not help when the people of God start off by confessing that they are poor, miserable sinners, they are not strong, will never be, and must always depend upon the Lord’s strength, and they do not chart their own destiny but submit to the will of God in Christ.
    Most of us come to Church hoping and expecting and wishing for something more.  It is all too predictable. Why do we need a pastor when the words of the liturgy are printed out for all to read?  Why do we follow the same order week after week?  Why are the lessons are prearranged and predictable?  Why, unless the acolyte, choir, organist, or pastor screws up or somebody gets ill and passes out, there are no surprises on Sunday morning.  The songs are all so old.  It is all so routine.  They say familiarity breeds contempt. And it all feels so tame, so ordinary, and so boring.  Or. . . is it?
    We are not here for something new but to find refreshment in the age old promise kept in Christ.  We are here not to learn new skills but to rehearse and practice for the future God has prepared for us in heaven.  We are here anticipating that eternal tomorrow even though for now we are all caught in space and time.  What does that future look like?
    John tells us.  A great multitude of the heavenly host – an uncountable number – sits before the throne and the Lamb.  Clothed in white with palm branches in hand, they cry out in song:  “Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb!”  And everyone falls on their knees, the voices in heaven and on earth to sing the unending hymn:  “Blessing and honor and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and power and might be to our God forever and ever.  Amen.” 
    Look around you.  Is that what you see?  If it isn’t, you need to look harder with the eyes of faith.  Because that is what is here.  John was overcome with awe at that moment.  He could not even speak.  Where is our awe?  Where is our realization of the holy ground of God's presence on which we stand?  Where is our awe before the God who can love us as we are and send His one and only Son to save us at the cost of His death?  Where is our awe before the means of grace that deliver to us not only the promises of God but God Himself in ordinary forms of word, water, bread, and wine?
      John is questioned.  “Who are they and where did they come from?”  Ahhhhhhh you know.  They are the ones who have come through the great tribulation.  They are clothed in the white robes of the Lamb’s righteousness and they are washed in the blood of the Lamb. Because, you see, salvation may belong to God, but He has given it to YOU.  He has given it to the sinner in need of forgiveness, to the unclean who needs to be washed, to the unworthy who must be redeemed, to the lost who must be found, and to the dead who must be raised.
    The shocker is this.  God is not a God of the dead; He is God of the living!  Our dead who die in Christ are not dead at all.  They live in Christ.  And the life they live is not some vague spiritual existence but a life with voices that sing and mouths that eat and hands that wave palm branches.  They are not the sad ones.  We are those who sorrow and not only because they are gone but because they already have what we do not yet have.  We are not yet who we shall be but they already are, around the throne, lifting voices in song, without hunger or thirst, cooled and washed and drinking in the living water, every tear has been wiped from their eyes.
    When Christ appears on this earth, we shall be like Him and like them.  We shall see His unveiled face and we will bask in the majesty of the eternal God.  The history of God’s saving acts will be constantly retold but there will be no mention of our sins.
    God’s people complain and God hears them.  They rebel and He goes after them.  They suffer and He is wounded.  They fall before temptation and He restores them.  They sin and He forgives them.  They deny Him but He won’t deny them. They die and He pulls them from the earth for heaven and eternity.
    Our praise is not about who God is but about what He has done. Read the Psalms, Leviticus, those Lutheran hymns you hate to sing, Revelation, the liturgy – it is all about God and what He has done.  We praise the Lord not for who He is, for that is beyond us, but we praise Him for what He has done.  Apart from what He has done, we don’t have a clue who He is.  In our worship we recount the saving actions God has done and through them we know Him and have confidence in His salavation.
    There is a reason a cross stands front and center, a crucifix shows Christ suffering, a font that is filled with water, a pulpit to raise up the Word, and an altar where we are fed Christ’s flesh and blood.  Here is the glimpse of the heavenly liturgy, here is the anticipation of the eternal tomorrow, and here we recall the saints BECAUSE they live and we shall soon be one with them in the place of light and life.
    Here we shed our tears for those who cry no more but not as people without hope and expectation of joining them.  Here we join our voices with angels and archangels and all the heavenly host, bridging time and eternity to sing:  Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Sabaoth. Heaven and earth are full of your glory, Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.  Bridging time and eternity, we who live and the dead in Christ are one people.
    You what to know what the Church is?  It is where the dead live.  We don’t come here to regroup to fight on our own but to be swept up in Christ’s eternal victory.  We don’t come here to get something from God but to meet Christ as He is, where He is, in the fullness of His saving glory.  We don’t come here to find a better fit for the world and this mortal life but to anticipate the eternal day.  We are connected here, heaven and earth together.  We don’t come here to refresh our fading memories of those who have died, we come to rehearse the heavenly liturgy so that we will join them when God ushers in His new creation.
    Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb forever.  The dead in Christ live and we live with them in Christ, for now here, but for eternity there.  Amen.

Who said that?

Is there a hell?
“There may be, but I think it’s empty.”
Why?
“Jesus was clear” in the Bible that after he was “raised up he will draw all people to himself.”

Okay, give up?  Was it a Lutheran?  Was it a significant Lutheran voice?  Was it the leader of a Lutheran denomination?  Was it a female  leader of a Lutheran denomination?  Still stumped?  You need to get out a bit, read some denominational magazines, or peruse some web sites.  It should have been easy.  The person who said it was Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, Elizabeth Eaton.  She is significant simply by virtue of her role as "top Lutheran bishop."

The problem?  First of all, it is bad exegesis.  Second, it betrays Luther and Lutherans after him.  Luther would have never answered in this way and neither would any Lutheran of any prominence until modern times, at least.  Finally, it speculates where Scripture is neither silent nor unclear.  It brings us all back to the same uncertain ground of what somebody thinks instead of what the Word of the Lord says.

Frankly, I though Bp Eaton was wiser than this -- too smart by half to fall into this ridiculous trap.  But she wasn't and that may be why the ELCA is shedding members like a long-haired dog in Spring.  I did not learn much from the bishop but I did learn this -- those in the ELCA have not felt constrained by what Scripture did or did not say for some time.  This only confirms the obvious.  The ELCA is not your grandfather's church.  FWIW, according to the Sun Tiimes, the ELCA has bled off another 100K members in its journey to squander its Lutheran identity and replace the efficacious Word of God with the words neither efficacious nor objective but subjective and not even factual.  Why, it is a wonder the ELCA has not bled off  more in the pursuit of everything but that which is true and powerful enough to deliver its own promise.

Closer in geography but ever more distant. . .

Over at The Atlantic there is an article raising the honest question Have Smart Phones Destroyed a Generation.  You can read it all here.  It is not a quick read and is quite thorough.  In particular, he addresses how smart phones (a euphemism for our constant connection to virtual reality) have affected our sense of family and our sense of community.

One of the ironies of iGen life is that despite spending far more time under the same roof as their parents, today’s teens can hardly be said to be closer to their mothers and fathers than their predecessors were. “I’ve seen my friends with their families—they don’t talk to them,” Athena told me. “They just say ‘Okay, okay, whatever’ while they’re on their phones. They don’t pay attention to their family.” Like her peers, Athena is an expert at tuning out her parents so she can focus on her phone. She spent much of her summer keeping up with friends, but nearly all of it was over text or Snapchat. “I’ve been on my phone more than I’ve been with actual people,” she said. “My bed has, like, an imprint of my body.”

It is a consequence of our digital connections that our actual connections have suffered mightily.  It is so very true that physically our youth and teens are closer to us than ever.  They are geographically close but distant to us in mind and heart.  Physically they are homebodies.  Our dangerous world has precluded their youthful independence, those who do work at jobs are an ever decreasing percentage of that age group, fewer of them have driver's licenses, and their preferred communication is not face to face but screen to screen.  But they are more distant from us than ever.  Parents and children speak to each other less and less.  Parents and children live increasingly in their own separate worlds, connected by a virtual reality that has displaced both the need and desire for real closeness (at least in their own minds).  Yet the result is that we are more lonely than ever -- youth feel more isolated and vulnerable than ever.

I see it in my own children.  The phones are ever present and they are at the beck and call of their digital instruments more than anything else.  At home and out it is increasingly easy to find families preoccupied by their own digital lives even while sitting in close physical proximity to each other.  I see it in the Church.  During Bible study there are many (not just the young) who cannot resist living in their digital world even while we are discussing the kingdom that endures forever and the Christ by whom we gain entrance to that kingdom.  During worship there are those who cannot resist sneaking a look at the screen and how many worship services are interrupted by the sound of the hand held computers we cannot get ourselves to silence even for an hour or so?

The end result of our obsession is not happiness or friendship but increasing loneliness and isolation.  Even as we speak of the community created by our Lord through our common baptism and the faith created by the Spirit, it seems we live out this community through an electronic medium rather than face to face, hand to hand, and heart to heart.  The Gospel has become reduced to a personal relationship with Jesus and Christianity must constantly make the Church useful, beneficial, and necessary to a people increasingly unsure of the need for the Church.

Prior to the phone becoming a personal computer and a portal to the internet, the phone was simply a phone.  We made phone calls with the now ancient flip phones subject to so much ridicule.  And now we do everything on our phones.  Since 2007 when the iPhone was introduced, the world has changed.  Toddlers are able to navigate the screen as early as they begin speaking.  Parents, always in search of something that will keep the kids occupied, are severely tempted to use screens as babysitters.  Schools believe that the best way to educate our children is to bow to the technology gods in the classroom.  Digital assistants are advertised as robots to do everything for us from ordering things online to turning on the lawn sprinklers to writing grocery lists (to be ordered online, of course).  Of course, many of these things are good and valuable but where will it all end?

Have our phones become our gods?  In a great line from the great movie The Devil Wears Prada, we are reminded that the one whose call you always take is the one with whom you are in a relationship.  We might be allowed to alter such a great line to say that the thing you cannot part with has become your god.  Have our phones become such deities -- the places we turn for information, the creators of our community, the prayer closets in which we own our secret thoughts, fears, and sins, and the guardians of the truth we call our own?  Perhaps it is time for the Church to confront us.  Perhaps it is time for us to consider the cost of our wired generations and the price we pay to be connected but distant.  Perhaps it is time for the Church to become a safe zone in which electronic devices take a back seat rather than the guardians and guides of our spiritual journeys.  Perhaps we should be called to repentance for investing into devices what belong to real human relationships and to our relationship with our Creator through His one and only Son who has made such connection possible.

Just thinking but you know how dangerous that is.  So my advice for you?  Close up your laptop, turn off the big screen of your desktop, shut down your tablet, and set aside your smartphone.  Life will go on.  God is present in the vacuum of digital silence through His means of grace.  You are not alone.

The Missing Link. . .

The love/hate relationship with the Eucharistic Prayer of Hippolytus is, well, rather humorous.  Onc e when I posted the text here and lauded some of the ancient phrases, I was abruptly reminded that it was never used as it in a church and was not from the first century or even the second but most likely the fourth.  Well, there!  Traditional Roman liturgiologists are especially touchy on the subject of the Eucharistic Prayer II (what they call the Hippolytus canon).  When it was first introduced, of course, many thought it was the very earliest complete Eucharistic prayer.  Lutherans had it in the Worship Supplement of 1969 and Rome introduced it as Eucharistic Prayer II.  Some Romans thought the best thing it hard going for it was not simply its antiquity but its Roman-ness.

When in the 19th century, some ancient texts were discovered that read similar to the "Apostolic Constitutions", then called the Egyptian Church Order, many scholars believed it was, in fact, the earliest document and the source of the others.  Remember that the most modern edition we had at the time was that published in 1563.  Now, not so much.  In fact, a number of scholars have raised questions about that conclusion.  Among them, Paul Bradshaw said of the Apostolic Tradition:

We judge the work to be an aggregation of material from different sources, quite possibly arising from different geographical regions and probably from different historical periods, from perhaps as early as the mid-second century to as late as the mid-fourth.
(Bradshaw, P., Johnson, M., & Phillips, L. The Apostolic Tradition. A Commentary. Fortress Press. Minneapolis. 2002. page 14)

The chief problem for Rome is that the "Apostolic Tradition" is not necessarily Roman at all.  That said, some of the other prominence given Hippolytus has also come under scrutiny.  It is to the point where some wish it would just go away (those Roman traditionalists I mentioned above).  All of this contrasts with Cypriano Vaggagini’s assertion that

“The anaphora of Hippolytus… would seem to give us the usual structure of an anaphora in the early Church”
(Vaggagini, C. The Canon of the Mass and Liturgical Reform Geoffrey Chapman. London 1967 page 25)

The problems also have to do with the reliability of the text itself.  Dom Botte's reconstruction was favored by most but Bradshaw and others are not so sure.  They caution:

“it gave the misleading impression that the reconstructed translation could be taken with confidence as reflecting what the author originally wrote, whereas any reconstruction involves a large number of subjective judgements, as well as the assumption that there was once a single ‘original’ text from which all extant versions derive.”
(Bradshaw et al. op cit page 12)

If Hippolytus was as late as the mid-fourth century, then it has no superiority to the Roman Canon, parts of which are thought to be quoted by St Ambrose in the De Sacramentis, thus establishing that the Roman Canon and Hippolytus are of a similar vintage.

My point in all of this is simple.  We look for a golden thread to explain how the medieval church got where it was, in the hopes that it would answer all our questions and give assurance that what we have is also the most ancient.  In effect, we are looking for the missing link, or links, as it were.  There appears to be none and it is a fool's errand to try and find it.  What we do know is that until Luther the prayer of thanksgiving was the most central part of the mass or Divine Service or liturgy.  The actual text of that prayer of thanksgiving was fluid for a time before growing consolidation in Rome brought more uniformity.  Certainly by the time of Luther the history was not all that big of a deal.  It was a given.  Until Luther excised the silent parts of the canon.

One of the problems with Lutherans is that we never really dealt with the issue of form (at least until the modern worship wars that came with Lutheran Book of Worship).  We dealt with content.  That is what Luther dealt with and all Lutherans after him until the 1970s.  The Lutheran Confessions quote approvingly the Eastern Canon all the while condemning the language of the Roman Canon which transformed sacrament into sacrifice and buried the gift under language Luther and the Lutherans found contradictory to the institution of Christ and Scripture.

I like Hippolytus.  It offers us ancient phrases, a rather complete prayer, and a solid look at what an evangelical Eucharistic prayer might look like.  Again, the issue for us is and has been content, not form.  At least until those outside of Missouri led the charge against the Great Thanksgiving of the ILCW and began to merge form and content until Luther's liturgical surgery became for some Lutherans the only canon possible.  Traditionalists in Rome fight Hippolytus and there are some Lutherans who would rather his canon would just be forgotten as well.  I am not one of them.

The Initial Cut List. . .

The Wisconsin Synod is working on a new hymnal and has put out a preliminary cut list to let people know the hymns intending to be removed from the hymnal corpus.  Some represent texts set to more than one tune, effectively choosing one tune and eliminating another.  Others represent a real loss to the hymnal tradition (even thought we do not yet know what might replace them).

Among them so far:

Come, O Precious Ransom, Come
Jesus, Your Church with Longing Eyes
 Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending (cf. CWS 704)
Rise, Arise
O Lord of Light, Who Made the Stars
When Sinners See Their Lost Condition
Now Praise We Christ, the Holy One
To Thee My Heart I Offer
When Christmas Morn Is Dawning
Rejoice, Rejoice, This Happy Morn
Once in Royal David's City
I Am So Glad When Christmas Comes
Help Us, O Lord, For Now We Enter
The Old Year Now Has Passed Away
O Lord, Our Father, Thanks and Praise
To God the Anthem Raising
In His Temple Now Behold Him
Hail, O Source of Every Blessing
O Jesus, King of Glory
A Stable Lamp Is Lighted
Jesus, Once with Sinners Numbered
Behold the Lamb of God
Enslaved by Sin and Bound in Chains
Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain
Deep Were His Wound
I Am Content! My Jesus Lives Again
Morning Breaks upon the Tomb
See, the Conqueror Mounts in Triumph
In Silent Pain the Eternal Son
If Christ Had Not Been Raised from Death
Scatter the Darkness, Break the Gloom
Hail Thee, Festival Day
Holy Spirit, God of Love
Jehovah, Let Me Now Adore You
Father Most Holy, Merciful, and Tender
Jerusalem, Thou City Fair and High
Forever with the Lord 
Jerusalem, My Happy Home
Come, Let Us Join Our Cheerful Songs
Come, Rejoice before Your Maker
This Day at Your Creating Word
Now the Silence
Lord of My Life, Whose Tender Care
Holy Spirit, the Dove Sent from Heaven

Some are older hymns once identified with The Lutheran Hymnal.  Others are newer hymns barely two generations old.  Some are being dropped because their usage has dropped and others because they never really caught on in WELS.  Some may be reconsidered if WELS folks raise enough noise.

Part of the move out is to be able to move in newer hymns.  For that the WELS hymnal group has set forth some guidelines:

Because textual content is key, the first thing the Hymnody Committee did was sit down and agree upon a set of core principles that would guide our picking and panning. Here they are:

Hymns considered for inclusion in the successor volume of Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal should . . .

1. Be centered in Christ.
2. Be in harmony with the scriptural faith as confessed in the Lutheran Book of Concord.
3. Be rooted in the church year with its emphases on the life of Christ and the Christian’s life in Christ.
4. Be drawn from classic Lutheran sources and deliberately inclusive of the church’s broader song (including so-called international or global music.)
5. Be superlative examples of their genre in regard to both textual content and musical craft.
6. Be accessible and meaningful for God’s people at worship in both public and private settings.
7. Be useful for those who preach and teach the faith.
8. Be parts of a body (corpus) of hymns that will find wide acceptance by the vast majority of our fellowship.

I am not sure anyone in Missouri is interested in the topic of a new hymnal but then the WELS has an older book than we do.  It is interesting to watch from afar.

The Reformation Continues. . .

If you watched the interchange between Cardinal Cupich, the Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison, and Pres. Ryken of Wheaton, you noted that there was polite disagreement amidst all the cordial and friendly discussion.  There is nothing wrong with that.  The disputes of past and present will not be resolved by skirting the issues or talking around them.  They must be faced head on.  If you missed it, you can watch it below.

Or click here. . .



That said, it is clear that for all the fuss about agreement on JDDJ, justification remains a hot topic in Rome as much as between Rome and Wittenberg.  In particular, one of the corrections to Pope Francis offered by the traditionalists within Rome involves Luther and justification.  Here, the words of correction stand in stark contrast to what Rome says about JDDJ and what the Lutherans say (and Paul's pointed words):

The gospel does not teach that all sins will in fact be forgiven, nor that Christ alone experienced the ‘judgment’ or justice of God, leaving only mercy for the rest of mankind. While there is a ‘vicarious suffering’ of our Lord in order to expiate our sins, there is not a ‘vicarious punishment’, for Christ was made “sin for us” (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21) and not a sinner. Out of divine love, and not as the object of God’s wrath, Christ offered the supreme sacrifice of salvation to reconcile us with God, taking upon himself only the consequences of our sins (cf. Gal. 3:13). Hence, so that we may be justified and saved, it is not sufficient to have faith that our sins have been removed by a supposed vicarious punishment; our justification lies in a conformity to our Savior achieved by that faith which works through charity (cf. Gal. 5:6).

Clearly, the issue of justification remains at the heart and center of the Reformation of the past and its present conversation, as well.  Faith and works and their connection remain at the core of the debate.  Do works contribute or are they only result and sign of that justification?  No less than Avery Cardinal Dulles noted that there are two languages used between Rome and Wittenberg to speak of justification but the real question is whether these two languages are actually saying the same thing.

Christians without faith. . .

What undid Israel was the faulty belief that God was more interested in behavior than in faith, that God was willing to accept personal righteousness in place of trust in His Word.  In the end, the drift of Israel toward an outward religion in which faith itself was optional was under the constant judgment of John the Forerunner and Jesus.  The religious authorities of Jesus' day were happy to accord God with their works but they were not so quick to relinquish their hearts to Him.  So Jesus repeatedly held up those with no works but who trust in Him -- no matter how offensive or unlikely these folks were  (The Good Samaritan, the Canaanite Woman, etc. . .)




If there is an undoing of modern Christianity, it has to do with the same kind of predilection for morality over absolute trust and faith in God's Word.  In other words, the Word of the Lord remains the domain for relevance and reason to exercise its magisterial authority but there is no room for those who disagree with the great agenda of morality.  GLBTQ rights, the cause of the poor, a green perspective on life, preservation of the earth over the use of it by mankind, population control and abortion -- these are all some of sacred dogmas of progressivism about which no disagreement may be tolerated.  But you can disagree with the Lord, with His Word, and reject or reshape it to your desire without offense (except to those who take His Word seriously).

It comes as no surprise, then, that Cardinal Blaise Cupich, commenting on a statement in the Chicago Sun Times (August 24, 2017) wrote:

Some of the greatest Christians I know are people who don't actually have a kind of faith system that they believe in. But, in their activity, the way they conduct themselves, there's a goodness there. It might not be articulated in a faith context like my own, but there's a goodness there that is a witness that encourages me.

Cupich is not speaking of Christian doctrine but of good works, not of faith but of morality, as the chief barometer of Christian health and life.  How long before we end up at the "no creeds but deeds" idea of the past?  All of progressive Christianity is headed in this direction.  No denomination is immune.  There are Lutherans who, like Cupich, are all aglow over the anonymous Christians who have no creedal confession or a defective one but whose voices echo all the right causes.

When this takes over we will be back where Israel was.  We will have so misunderstood the Lord as to be unable to recognize Him.  And then when we proudly display our works to Him, He will surely insist that He does not know us.  For the Gospel cannot be equated with passion for the causes du jour but with the kerygma, the content of the faith, creedal and confessional.  We were determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  That is what St. Paul wrote so long ago.  For modern day liberal Christianity the crucifixion has taken a lower place to good conduct.  It is the new but false orthodoxy that was Israel's undoing and will surely be ours unless we repent.

In case you missed them. . .

Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, IN, Reformation Vespers,
Dr. Matthew Harrison, Preacher


Or Watch the Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Service here (no embed was provided)

Is the Reformation over?

Stanley Hauerwas on the Reformation:

That the Reformation has been a success, however, has put Protestantism in a crisis. Winning is dangerous — what do you do next? Do you return to Mother Church? It seems not: Instead, Protestantism has become an end in itself, even though it’s hard to explain from a Protestant point of view why it should exist. The result is denominationalism in which each Protestant church tries to be just different enough from other Protestant churches to attract an increasingly diminishing market share. It’s a dismaying circumstance.

I was late in seeing this article by the well known voice among modern day Protestants and Evangelicals.  His question seemed to revolve around the end of the Reformation and included his own story from Texas to Duke.  It was curious because he does not quite know what to do with himself except to call him a somewhat enlightened Protestant.  It was not so much a theological article as a personal and reflective take on things.  It seemed to me that he ended just when some real stuff should have begun.  But, in any case, one paragraph jumped out at me.

Republicans have been great as the opposition party but have always struggled in modern times with the real business of governing.  It is, alas, easier to complain than to propose, easier to distinguish than to form a consensus.  But most of us already knew that.  Yet when it is pointed at the Reformation, it is something to be pondered.

Lutherans would insist that there are several reformations and that we claim only one of them -- the one that produced the fruitful work of the Concordia.  These Lutheran Confessions have withstood the test of time even though the Lutherans today have considered them differently, to be sure.  The other reformation(s) we do not claim.  The splinter of denominations, the triumph of individual conscience and reason, the distance from the catholic tradition formed and informed by Scripture, and the skepticism and even wholesale rejection of that Scripture are all fruits of the more radical reform of which Luther could not be part.  Yet, it all gets lumped together as the legacy of Father Luther and we heirs of that Great Reformation bear some responsibility for either its result or for leading it to some resolution.

The ELCA and those like them have thrown their lot in with the liberal Protestant tradition, so willing to forget Scripture in order to remember and affirm the wind of cultural change.  Their response is to find unity in extra-Gospel causes like the environment and social change while at the same time being content with a Gospel unity that is fairly shallow and allows churches to define terms pretty much as they desire.

Missouri has struggled with this more than most and tried to venture out from its self-imposed isolation of the Gospel and all its articles.  What it has bought Missouri is more solid theological unity within than most churches and traditions born of this Reformation time period.  Were it not for a growing chorus of Lutherans born of mission plants a hundred years ago or more, we Missourians just might be a lonely lot.  Now it seems that many among the flourishing churches of Africa and other places are looking for substance and Missouri is where the begin their quest for real partners of conviction.

In the end, however, I am not as concerned as most about visible unity.  Having the same denominational headquarters or being in fellowship with many groups does not seem to me to be an end but a diversion from the primary call to be the Church, to speak the Gospel, to address the world with the love of Christ in mercy and service...  Christian division is not a problem unless those divisions are themselves not about the Gospel and its articles.  If we really are not all that sure we believe anything but vague code words for affirmation, hope, and kindness, what justifies those divisions.  But if we, like Luther and Zwingli, wrestle with the Word of God and cannot find common truth, then those divisions are not bad.  It may seem then that individual conscience and reason get to decide whether it was Luther or Zwingli who was correct but that is never something Luther held and certainly not something Lutherans confess.  The doctrine, the Gospel, all its articles, and the practice of this faith are catholic and not sectarian and it is not hard to see, between Luther and Zwingli, who was sectarian when it came to the presence of Christ in His Holy Supper.

Yet the question Hauerwas raises is a good one to ponder.  What now?  Protestantism cannot be an end.  The Gospel is both beginning and end.  Where Protestantism no longer has the Gospel as its beginning and end, the end has already come.  Where we contend for the Gospel in our own age and time, fiercely and determinedly faithful to the Word of God and its catholic tradition, there is our end.  We just need to remember, every now and then, that if we do what God has bidden faithfully, the results are and always were His to accomplish.  It seems that this is one thing we often forget.

An All Saints reflection. . .

All Saints has taken on a profound place in the life of the Church and individual Christians.  As far I know, the earliest certain observance of an All Saints feast was an early fourth-century commemoration of “all the martyrs.”  Of course, prior to this, the remembrance of the named saints and martyrs on their death dates was common and ordinary in the life of the Church.  Sometime in the early seventh century after invaders had plundered the resting places of the faithful in the catacombs, Pope Boniface IV gathered up some 28 wagonloads of bones and reinterred them beneath the Pantheon, a Roman temple originally dedicated to all the gods which was then rededicated as a Christian shrine.

According to Venerable Bede, the pope intended “that the memory of all the saints might in the future be honored in the place which had formerly been dedicated to the worship not of gods but of demons” (On the Calculation of Time).  Interestingly, this event, the rededication of the Pantheon, occurred in May, not in November. Many Eastern Churches still honor all the saints in the spring, following Easter or Pentecost.  So how did the Western Church come to celebrate this feast on November 1?  It is a puzzle. Alcuin observed the feast of All Saints on November 1 in 800, as did his friend Arno, Bishop of Salzburg. But it would take another century before the church at Rome would join them in adopting this date for this feast.

This feast was not even strictly for All Saints but particularly for martyrs. When Christianity was free from the fear of persecution, sainthood was no longer synonymous with martyrdom.  The Church noted those who lived exemplary lives or whose accomplishments became their legacies.  In the earliest centuries of Christianity, the addition of a name to the calendar could be as quick and easy as the act of a bishop adding their names to the list. The very first papal canonization occurred in 993.  The process used by Rome today, both lengthy and rigorous in proving exemplary sanctity through miracles attributed to the saint, only took form in the past 500 years.

While some would still argue that All Saints is for those who are named as saints but who have no feast day, the way we observe the feast today honors the obscure as well as the famous—the saints all the world has known, the saints each of us have known, and even those saints known only to God.   Interestingly, John Wesley, founder of the Methodism, both enjoyed and celebrated All Saints Day. In a journal entry from November 1, 1767, Wesley called it “a festival I truly love.” On the same day in 1788, he wrote, “I always find this a comfortable day.” The following year he called it “a day that I peculiarly love.”

Of course we all know the connection of Luther to All Saints, or at least to its Eve.  It was October 31, 1517, that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg.  For Luther, sainthood was not about moral achievement than about the declaration of God, the grace of God that redeems the sinner without any merit or worthiness on his part, and our common life together around those means of grace.  If there is anything to draw attention to the saints, it is above all about the faithfulness of the saints to the mercies of God.  He who endures to the end shall be saved.

On this day in the liturgy, we read the names of the faithful departed within the parish over the past year, each name accompanied by a single toll of a chime, and then we allow silence for the faithful to speak out loud the names of those whom they love who have departed this life in faith and now rest from their labors.  It is God's act to make us His own, His sustaining grace to keep us His own, and when we remember the saints, we are remembering that unmerited favor revealed in Christ our Savior.