What of the Methodists and homosexuality?

As nearly 1,000 delegates from across the world gather in Tampa, Fla., for the United Methodist Church's General Conference, gay and lesbian activists have printed pamphlets promoting their cause in five languages, including Portuguese and Swahili....from the RNS...


United Methodists who support gay rights have proposed about 100 resolutions this year that would lift the bans and excise the “incompatible” phrase from the Book of Discipline. Leading up to General Conference, they argued that momentum is on their side.

For example, last year a UMC court barely punished a Wisconsin minister who sanctioned a same-sex marriage; more than 1,200 retired and active UMC clergy have pledged to perform gay marriages; surveys show young Christians generally support gay rights; and other mainline Protestants -- including Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians -- have adopted gay-friendly policies in recent years.


Some United Methodists argue that policy should be set by regional conferences and reflect local mores.
For example, pastors who live where gay marriage is legal should be permitted to wed same-sex couples in their congregations, said the Rev. Dean Snyder, senior pastor of Washington's Foundry United Methodist Church.

Foundry proposed a resolution that would allow churches in six states and the District of Columbia to celebrate same-sex marriage, and sent 50 volunteers to Tampa to lobby for it.  Snyder said his church has celebrated about 10 same-sex weddings since 2010, when D.C. legalized gay marriage. That admission could place the longtime pastor’s career in jeopardy if UMC policy is not changed at General Conference.

My comments...

It may very well be that Methodism will put off formal adoption of the GLBT agenda but it can hardly be said that this will sit well or satisfy the American segment of Methodism.  In fact, it is highly likely that with or without formal sanction for such local or regional choice, Methodists will tacitly allow the growing proportion of those friendly to the blessing of homosexual marriages and the expulsion of all formal impediments to gay clergy and the full inclusion of gays and lesbians into every aspect of the Methodist Church's life and structure.

This might prevent the wholesale exodus of congregations and people from Methodism for a time but it will ultimately only postpone Methodists from facing up to the obvious and accepting the full measure of the consequences of their decision.  Even if the tide is prevented now, it is certainly only a matter of time before the full GLBT agenda will become fully accepted by Methodism.

In Lutheranism, the prominent decisions of a few church bodies have forced the hand of the Lutheran World Federation and that international body is working toward the expectation of all member churches that gays and lesbians will be fully accepted in every level of the Lutheran identity and life.  This very thing may assist the Missouri Synod in its ecumenical endeavor and help us begin the conversation with those unwilling to follow where Scandinavian Lutherans and the ELCA have led the way...  

The antiquity of hymn singing...

For those who question the antiquity of hymn singing (given that hymn is a word that does not refer to something which is stagnant but a form always in process), let me refer you to a quote from Augustine (kindly provided by a reader of this blog):

   "The church of Milan had only recently begun to employ this mode of consolation and exaltation with all the brethren singing together with great earnestness of voice and heart. For it was only about a year -- not much more -- since Justina, the mother of the boy-emperor Valentinian, had persecuted thy servant Ambrose on behalf of her heresy, in which she had been seduced by the Arians. The devoted people kept guard in the church, prepared to die with their bishop, thy servant. Among them my mother, thy handmaid, taking a leading part in those anxieties and vigils, lived there in prayer. And even though we were still not wholly melted by the heat of thy Spirit, we were nevertheless excited by the alarmed and disturbed city.
     This was the time that the custom began, after the manner of the Eastern Church, that hymns and psalms should be sung, so that the people would not be worn out with the tedium of lamentation. This custom, retained from then till now, has been imitated by many, indeed, by almost all thy congregations throughout the rest of the world." St. Augustine, Confessions

Lent the nagging killjoy...

Somebody sent me a summary of a recent article from the ELCA's The Lutheran.  It goes like this:

Writing in a recent issue of The Lutheran, David Miller laments the “moralistic” cast of the Lenten worship and piety he grew up with. “Each year Lent came as a nagging killjoy,” Miller writes, “pointing out failures to be what God wants.” This is not what Lent should be about. “It’s a time for drawing close to the river where one is more easily drawn into the currents of unspeakable grace,” he contends, “there to forget every sadness and despair, there to have every haunting failure and preoccupation with self and image swept away in the endlessness of an eternal mercy.”

Well, it made me actually read the article.  It was not long, thankfully.  It was your typical complaint about the Lenten preaching and devotion of the past with its attention to the sinful and unclean and its call to repentance.  It was not terrible but it did seem pretty thin.  The focus on God's grace was not matched up with the concrete events in which that grace is revealed (suffering, cross, death of Jesus, for example).  It lamented the typical moralistic cast on the word "repent" and expressed the desire that Lent focus on the Lord but mostly on the positive expression of love -- knowing Jesus and sharing in His joys and sorrows and in His holy dreams for creation.  He urged Christians to make up their own spiritual practices so that this new positive self may emerge from the depths of God's river of grace and life.  It was about what I expected.  It could have been worse.  It should have been better.

Now lest you think I only criticize the ELCA, there are those in Missouri who regularly complain about the Synod President's call to repentance.  It is said by some among us that Pres. Harrison speaks way too much about repentance.  Some have gone so far as to suggest that repentance is not a word that should be in the usual vocabulary of the active Christian.  In other words, you do not have to be liberal in order to be made uncomfortable by the word repentance and by the call to repent.  I remember one fellow LCMS Pastor telling me he had read Senkbeil's Dying to Life and just did not get what all the fuss over repentance, confession, and absolution was all about.

The funny thing is that this call to repentance is not moralistic at all.  If it is only the behavior that needs shaping up to please God, then we have a screwed up idea of God.  If it is only our behavior we need to be concerned about, then we have a screwed up idea of Christian life.  Repentance is not about painting the exterior of the house so that it looks better to those outside.  It is not even about remodeling the interior to make it new.  Repentance is about the acknowledgement that sin is death.  We come confessing on Sundays (and Wednesdays in Lent) not because sin is bad but because sin is death.  Even to the baptized.  Temptation and doubt and fear are the voices of sin that call even to those in the kingdom of God.  Like the mythical sirens who called to the sailors of old, we hear the call of our culture, the voices of evil, and the still active voices of desire.  But they are not mythological.  They are real.  Repentance acknowledges this reality.

Repentance does much more.  It also points us and pushes us back into the safe and secure arms of our Savior when we are at our weakest and most vulnerable.  Whether we are undone by the load of guilt for our failure or deceived to think of sin as not all that bad, we need to be secure in the arms of our Savior to have the heavy load of our sin lifted from our shoulders and the self-justifying lies removed so that they do not obscure the truth of Christ and Him crucified.

The author is right about one thing.  If Lent and repentance only means, "I was bad, I am sorry, now it is all better...thank you, Jesus" -- then Lent is a killjoy and joke at the same time.  Joy comes not from moral improvement but from grace undeserved that cleanses and restores the unworthy.  Repentance is not the enemy of joy but that which points us to the real joy that does not evaporate when the smile drops off our faces.  Apart from Christ and the work of the Spirit, the word "repent" is a nasty word we would rather avoid.  In Christ, repentance is the work of the Spirit pointing us to the blood that cleanses us from all sin and that binds us together into the eternal community of the Church. 

Funny how the author of this article could talk about Lenten spiritual practices without much mention of the cross.  Repentance, if it is anything at all, is about the cross -- the cross that calls to us in love, the cross makes repentance possible, and the Spirit who works through the Word of the cross works this repentance in us.  Pres. Harrison is right.  Jesus came only for sinners.  Repentance makes sure that we get this for it is only when we count ourselves sinners that grace's river flows to us as the water of life.  We don't need less of this kind of preaching, we need more of it.  And not just in Lent.

Liturgy and beeswax... Pam and tanning lotion...

I needed the bikini for the physique competition at the Wisconsin State Fair. I started training the year before. I loved how strong it made me feel. Now I was about to compete in front of hundreds of people. The competition would be on a Sunday morning, a day I had requested off for “a personal enrichment experience.” I would not know many people in the crowd. No one from church would be there. Men and women would perform poses of “front double biceps,” “side triceps” and “back lat spread,” while at the other end of the exhibit hall, judges would award ribbons for apple pie and pickled beets. This was a wholesome environment; still, I knew I couldn’t share widely what I was doing. 

Those words were from a female Episcopalian "priest" who is also a body builder and was contemplating her competition in a bright red sequined bikini and its contrast with the white alb of her normal "priestly" attire...

Next she is "giddy" with excitement as she contemplates what she is about to do, and then reflects on the "posing" routine as somehow liturgical and churchly.

What about when a priest wears a bikini? What if she complicates the picture by having sizable biceps or well-defined lats? Can “buff” and “holy” go together? “Ripped” and “reverend”? If the “reverend” is a woman? On the day of the competition, when I put on the bikini, I felt almost giddy. The stealthy nature of my mission — to win the title of Ms. State Fair, with few people knowing I even entered — added to my excitement. Competitors hurried to do final preparations. We checked our makeup and did calisthenics to make our muscles stand out. We passed around spray cooking oil to give ourselves a thin coat.The competition started with the judges calling out poses. We performed them in unison. The similarities to liturgy stuck with me: in church, the smells of beeswax candles and furniture polish. Here: Pam and tanning lotion. In church: gestures called out by the celebrant (usually me). Here: poses called out by a judge.

One more reason I am relieved for my church body and its faithful decision not to ordain women.  Oh, to be sure, it is not because I think women are screwier than men.  It is just that we have enough screwball things being done by men in the office and I think it is a blessing of diminishing goofiness to stick with men only...

Ahhh, well, like a little wierdness is the worst thing we have to deal with in the church... Read it all here in the NY Times...  FWIW... I do not find male bodybuilders pleasing to the eye nor would I find a male Pastor Bodybuilder any less, well, goofy...

Nothing new under the sun...

The Montanist impulse, the desire to supplement or reinterpret the Bible, or the tradition of Christian doctrine and practice generally, has recurred constantly among Christians. One of the reasons why it is a good thing to know the heresies of the past is that they are never simply in the past.  They are reborn as popular movements over and over again.  Over and over again the Church  must answer them with the same rebuke formed and framed in new and different ways.

A HT to William Tighe for exposing the Marcionite and Montanist tendencies so apparent in modern day liberal Christianity today.  He writes to expose the soft underbelly of those who would re-write Christian history and its failings as the patriarchal deterioration of what was and what was meant to be a feminist proposition.

Bettany Hughes, an expert in ancient history, was quoted recently in London’s Daily Telegraph as saying that Christianity “was originally a faith where the female of the species held sway. To oppose the ordination of women bishops in the Church of England is to deny the central role women played in the faith’s founding.” She added: “Who knows whether God is a girl, but mankind has turned to the female of the species for good ideas.”

Who knows, indeed.  Well, apparently Scripture knows but, then, since when does liberal Christianity pay much attention to Scripture?  It is entirely frustrating that the old lies once exposed continually are reborn as new challenges to orthodoxy but it is the lot we face, because of sin.  We are still not content with the Word of the Lord, no more or less so than we were in Eden, and still rebelling against that Word, editing and writing afresh words that oppose the Word that they intend to illuminate.

It is a strange thing that we look inside ourselves and we look around at our culture and then decide that the words of Scripture could not possibly be correct or that a Gospel principle (a love principle) requires us to break with Scripture and the stand of the Church through the ages.  We once knew what morality was with respect to sex (fidelity in marriage and chastity outside of marriage).  Now we have come full circle.  My bad, as they say.  Sex is good and God wants you to do it however you want to do it as long as it pleases you.  We once had a sense of complimentary roles for which God made us male and female and a sense of love that showed itself not in self but in service to the other.  Now we have come full circle.  My bad, as they say.  Desire trumps everything and if it feels right and good, go for it.  Marriage itself is a changing institution and so the church must change, too.  No marriage or relationship is good which asks you to sublimate self.  Just the opposite.  If it is good, it supports self-expression and freedom.  We once believed that children were essential to family, that children were the God given gift of a fruitful and sacrificial love between husband and wife.  Now we have come full circle.  My bad, as they say.  Children are not just optional.  They may be completely irrelevant to and a detriment to a full and complete relationship between consenting adults.  You may choose them but only if they are ornamental to a relationship already built upon freedom, love, and desire.

But this is not something new.  Some of this was already there in the culture around early Christianity.  Yet we act as if these represent newness, sophistication, and even progress.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  There is nothing new under the sun -- only the same old errors repackaged for the modern eye.  Not even the expression is new --nihil novi sub sole (Eccl. 1:9).

In their own words....

Well, there you have it.  How the millenials define themselves in comparison to their parents.  Does it look right or ring true to you?

In case you are not a visual learner, you can find the same stuff here in print form.  Read it up and tell me the answer to the great Lutheran question:  What does this mean?  Download the PDF and read it all here.

If you cannot wait, I have cut to the chase the put in the info on their religious views and values.  Read it below:


Younger Millennials report significant levels of movement from the religious affiliation of their childhood, mostly toward identifying as religiously unaffiliated. While only 11% of Millennials were religiously unaffiliated in childhood, one-quarter (25%) currently identify as unaffiliated, a 14-point increase. Catholics and white mainline Protestants saw the largest net losses due to Millennials’ movement away from their childhood religious affiliation.

• Today, college-age Millennials are more likely than the general population to be religiously unaffiliated. They are less likely than the general population to identify as white evangelical Protestant or white mainline Protestant.
• Millennials also hold less traditional or orthodox religious beliefs. Fewer than one-quarter (23%) believe that the Bible is the word of God and should be taken literally, word for word. About 1-in-4 (26%) believe Bible is the word of God, but that not everything in the Bible should be taken literally. Roughly 4-in-10 (37%) say that the Bible is a book written by men and is not the word of God.

Jimmy Carter, Ex-President, Bible Scholar, Theologian

Many thought we could not do better than a Baptist Sunday school teacher as President.  But the cache wore off after one term.  Carter distinguished himself in retirement better than as President but even there he has a penchant for scolding us in a cardigan against a religion that is not modern.  I listened to his interview with Al Mohler and was not impressed.  His new study Bible is also not impressive (though I confess only to have paged through it and did not purchase it or read it through).

George Weigel  looked at it more closed than I did, also listened to the interview, and reports:  In the course of an interview promoting the Carter Bible, the former chief executive allowed as how the Bible was written “by human beings deprived of modern day knowledge,” opined that there is “some fallibility in the writings of the Bible,” and offered his endorsement of same-sex “marriage,” which he implied would be Jesus’s view of things, the Lord having “never said a word about homosexuality.” Such Carterisms are, perhaps, not surprising, given the former president’s previously expressed views that the “mandated subservience of women by Christian fundamentalists” contributes to the practice of female genital mutilation by Islamists, and that pro-lifers “do not extend their concern to the baby who is born.”

I was heartened to hear that he personally believes abortion is wrong and thinks the Dems should not spend so much time promoting it but among the rest of his positions I find him still reacting to the things he labels fundamentalist (whether they were expressed by Popes or councils or denominations).  He has not only a penchant for redefining orthodoxy to fit his own predispositions but he is also sort of like an old school marm in lecturing Christianity for its failings.  In the end, the Carter study Bible tells us less about God than about Jimmy Carter.  It may sell well but it probably won't wear well.  Mohler was respectful of Carter during the interview but in the words that followed distanced himself greatly from the positions and comments of the former President and, I believe, still Sunday school teacher.


I think all of the Bible is divinely inspired, but it was interpreted, God’s message was interpreted, by fallible human beings, who were constrained by their knowledge of facts about the universe, for instance, when they wrote. God, who created everything, knew that the size of stars and God knew that the earth was not the center of the universe. And when the Bible says that the stars would fall on earth as though they were little twinkling things, obviously that’s not factual. And so I believe the basic thrust of the Bible, the basic message of the Bible, is epitomized in the life of Christ and in the teachings of Jesus Christ. And I also believe that there is nothing in the Old Testament that contradicts the basic teachings of Christ for peace, justice, humility, love and so forth, and each person’s proper relationship with other human beings and also a relationship with God. So I believe in the miracles of the Bible. I believe that Jesus was come from a virgin birth. I believe Christ died for our sins on the cross. I believe He was resurrected and that we are promised, if we have faith in Christ through the grace of God, that we will inherit eternal life. I believe that God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son. I believe those things, but I know that there are some things as a scientist—my background is in nuclear physics—there’re some things that weren’t understood by the writers of the Bible. I just ignored those discrepancies as insignificant.

It sounds pretty orthodox on the facts of the faith.  I will grant him that.  But he finds much that conflicts with his scientific and educated view of the world.  In the end, it is a balancing act between his skepticism of things he cannot accept and the things he believes.  I am not God and glad I am not but the example he offers to us ultimately is deficient since it allows us all the privilege and responsibility of drawing the line where we believe it should fall between what Scripture says and what it means and what reason accepts.

I musta misplaced my invite...

Apparently the Jesus Seminar met again in March and I missed it.  Drat!  You know how I love listening to the presumptions about Christianity from people who presume to tell me everything I thought I knew was wrong.  Oh, well, at least I can update you... a month or so late.

The theme for this Washington, DC, seminar of the the Jesus Seminar was the "Social World of Early Christianity.”  We learned that early Christianity was fractured and filled with conflict from within and that order and unity was imposed by Constantine -- order that distorted Christian teaching and morality.  We learned that Christianity grew largely because Christian women were fertile, because they did not abort, because Christians cared for the sick and so they got better (while pagans abandoned the ill), etc.  We learned that Christians must not have been united if Jesus had to pray for unity and that they had to keep having councils because they kept having conflict and division even after the empire imposed structure and dogma upon the Christians.

We learned that Jesus was an ignorant and illiterate itinerant preacher and prophet.  We learned that He could not have read the scroll of Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue and that the synagogue was too poor to have even owned the expensive scroll of Isaiah.  We learned that outside sources are more objective to the nature and beliefs of early Christendom than the Bible or official history.  We learned that Scripture, particularly the New Testament, needed to be "re-imagined" to remove the sexist distortion that infected the written text.  We learned that Christianity was an oral religion with an oral Word and an oral history that got sidetracked in the written documents, Scripture, and history of the faith.

The audience of 40 mostly elderly participants was told to “make up your own canon” of scripture and one presenter said he would trade Revelation for Hamlet any day.  He also suggested swapping out the Pastoral Epistles for any two Emily Dickinson poems.  “We’d be way better off.”

The speakers complained at length about the continued worldwide spread of Evangelical Christianity and the failure of liberal religious thought to gain widespread traction.  They lamented that even liberal Christian preaches tell the stories of Scripture in their preaching as if they were or could have been true.  Modern day Christianity was generally condemned as anti-intellectual and they all regretted that they had largely lost the public battle for control of the shape of Christianity.

Ahhhh.... so sad.  Forty elderly skeptics telling the other couple of billion Christians they knew Jesus, Jesus was a friend of theirs, and the Jesus of Christian proclamation is not the Jesus of history.  Oh, well, I just knew you were waiting to hear a report of the Jesus Seminar meeting in March in DC... now weren'tcha!

Something old, something new...

"I believe the Spirit is inviting us into a significantly different way of being the body of Christ..." 

I am telling you that whenever you hear someone speak in this way, hold on to you wallets, your hymnals, your prayer books, your alb, your pipe organ, your pew, your Confessions, etc...  When church leaders say we cannot afford to keeping doing what we have been doing, they mean nothing in the future will be the same.  Whether the liberal Episcopalians (Bp Schori is one who spoke those words in her opening remarks to Episcopal Church Council) or by the conservative Missouri Synod Lutherans (who tell us gleefully of the new paradigms we must learn from the non-denominationals and any other add group the believes and confesses differently that Lutherans), caveat emptor.

Now I am not an idiot (no, really) and I know that we have things to learn.  I know that technology may offer us a platform to speak the Gospel in new ways to people who communicate in different ways than they did in the 1950s.  I know that we cannot go on assuming that the world still looks like it did in 1958 when Lutheran growth was exploding.  I am not at all saying that we must act exactly like we did in 1958.

What worries me most is that methodology is not isolated from theology and the methodology that we learn from non-Lutherans and which conflicts with our Confessions cannot be used or adapted in such way that it suddenly becomes consistent with our Confessions.  Practice and confession are not in separate boxes but at different ends of the very same spectrum.  Change one, you change the other...

It is generally not just outreach things that the folks who talk like this want to change.  They want to change Sunday morning so that the liturgy is gone and with it the weekly Eucharist.  They want to ditch the hymnals and the hymns and the theology in those great Lutheran chorales.  They want to remake us into a different church body -- one decidedly more American than Lutheran, more trendy than historic, and more changeable than steadfast and enduring.  They have the idea that this process of change will have to take place generation after generation as each age remakes the church in order to meet the expectations of those outside the Church and to make us feel more successful in what we do (numbers talk).

Schori is talking as a radically liberal Christian for whom neither Scripture nor Christ is changeless.  In her mind (and in the mind of many in the ELCA), the Biblical writers did not know strong and loving gay relationships and so they could not possibly have said no to them.  Therefore, the Biblical thing to do becomes the very thing the Scriptures prevent.  And, in case you have not noticed, a ton of things in these very liberal churches seem to be about sex.  More about sex than about Jesus.

Missouri has very little to fear from Schori or the ELCA cutting edge.  Our weakness is decidedly different.  We want to grow more than we want to be faithful to our Lord.  We have decided that the only criteria of faithfulness worth mentioning is numbers.  We have also decided that most of the things in the Church are values or confession neutral so that we can borrow indiscriminately from almost anyone and use their methods to achieve our ends.  We can create short-cuts to ordination.  We can ditch the liturgy.  We can diminish our emphasis on concrete sacramental theology for feeling or decision or choice oriented convictions that begin and end with us. 

I am a radical too... I believe that we cannot keep doing what we have been doing.  I believe that the Spirit is inviting us into a new way of being Church.  But this new way is actually rather old.  It was manifest in the first centuries of Christianity, it was renewed in the Great Reformation of Wittenberg, and it has not been tried much by Lutherans or other Christians since.  So I do get excited when I hear Rome fomenting for change from the pack um in and move um out mentality of the Mass Lite or when they begin remembering the music of the Mass instead of a strum strum throw away tune and missalette.  I do get excited when I see the President of our Synod speaking of our fathers and even our Lutheran fathers and calling us to repent from our sectarian ways.  I do get excited when the guys coming out of Seminary are more comfortable at the altar than they are reading Group Magazine or the latest from Saddleback or Willow Creek.

As Will Weedon has so often said, perhaps we should try confessional Lutheranism since we have tried everything else and it did not work...  Why is what we try last the thing we should be doing first?!  What St. Paul said, we need to be able to say.. "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision..."  “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle...” “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition (some translations have teaching, at any rate teaching can be passed on orally before it is committed to writing) which he received from us...” 

A canvas being painted with the image of Christ...

Sermon for Easter 3B, preached on Sunday, April 22, 2012 (and, humbly submitted in the Concordia Pulpit Resources for this year by this author).

    How familiar is the ritual of relatives parading by the face of the child to suggest who he or she looks like.  The shape of the head, the color of the eyes or hair, the shape of the nose, the ears, the chin – they all hold forth hints to what this child will look like when he or she grows up.  Time does not always follow a predictable pattern.  Things change.  Faces change.  Sometimes it is easy to see the face of the future in our children and other times it is hidden, with only glimpses of what will be revealed.  That is also true of us as Christians.  Scripture often reminds us that here on earth we have but a vague glimpse of what will be made plain only when Christ comes again.  St. Paul describes how for now we look through the mirror dimly (1 Co 13:12).  The surprise is not that this future will be different than what we have been told but that our imagination is not up to the task of seeing all that God is revealing (1 Co 2:9). 
    As much as we want to know and predict the future God is unfolding in Christ, we are limited by the fact that we live in an earthly world with a mortal frame.  We see through eyes that have the blinders of this present moment, of sin, and of death upon them.  We look for what will be and see only vague images.  What sustains Christians is not a clear picture of the future but the promise and presence of God who is with us now.  We are God's children  now says John in today’s Epistle.  He has restored us as His own in Christ, marked us as His own in baptism, declared us righteous and holy in Christ (though we see more clearly our sin and failures).  That said, we are not without a pattern of what is to come and that pattern is Christ.  What He is, we shall be, in the glorious flesh and blood that death cannot touch, without tear or regret to diminish our joy.
    For too many of us this is not only a puzzle but a problem.  We tend to demand that God reveal all before we believe any of it.  Like Thomas who refused to believe what he did not see or touch for himself.  When troubles touch our lives, we become like Job who demands to know why these afflictions have befallen him.  God does not explain Himself to us or give in to our stubborn demands.  Instead He points us to Jesus.  It is enough to see Jesus for in Jesus, we see our own future.  Remember when Philip asks to see the Father and Jesus insists that if he has seen Jesus, Philip has seen the Father as much as the Father can be seen and known until our condition changes (Jn 14:8).  The Epistle today says that our future is seen only in Christ.  If we see Christ, we see enough.  Our hope is based not upon seeing or knowing all but trusting Him who is our future.  If you have Jesus, you have enough. He is the author or pioneer who cuts the path through dead.  He is the first born of the dead to wear the glorious body that never wears out.  If you have Jesus you have enough.
    In Habakkuk 2:1-4 we read: "I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, looking to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.  And the Lord answered me: ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.  For the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay... the righteous shall live by faith.'"
    The vision is the future God is preparing for us.  But the vision awaits its time – God's time.  Our lives never follow a straight path yet we trust in the goal and outcome of our lives, the promise of the Father fulfilled in Jesus.  Like the painter facing a canvas, God is at work painting His future on our lives.  Because we are not the painter, we cannot always see or make out what is on the canvas of our lives.  God calls us to patience and bids us trust.
    At the last few National Youth Gatherings, there has been a guy there they call the Jesus Painter.  In jeans and a tee shirt he comes to do his thing.  With housepaint, a huge canvas, and a 4 inch brush he slaps the paint on in what seemed a willy nilly, random fashion.  It does not take forever but the time passes slowly as he paints with brush and hand on the canvas.  Just when it seems the image is nothing, it becomes clear.  It is the face of Jesus.  No matter what he paints, it is always the face of Jesus.
    Like the Jesus painter whose picture was a mystery, our lives are mystery -- hidden and discernable only by God and His Spirit at work in us,  among us, and through us.  We get glimpses but seldom more.  But all we need we see in crucified and risen Jesus.  We trust in Him because He is our future.  The vision is not given by Jesus, it IS Jesus!
    What God is painting upon the canvas of our lives is not some reflection of our hopes, dreams, priorities, or desires.  Our hopes, dreams, and desires are pale and shallow reflections of the greater glory God has in mind for us.  What God is painting upon the canvas of our lives is nothing less than Jesus Christ.  The old "me" is going and the new "me" arises by the grace of God flowing from my baptism.  The new me looks like Jesus – I shine with His righteousness and I reflect His holiness.  This is God's work, painting upon the canvas of our hearts, identities and lives the saving work of Jesus. 
    God is at work in the lives of all the baptized.  But we share one goal in common.  Remember John the Baptist, saying, "He must increase, I must decrease."  God paints the old person away so that the new person we are in Christ may arise from the ruins of what was.  It is all the work of grace.
    All creation groans in expectation of this future, the completion of all things, and the final revelation of all that will be.  But for now we live in this tension of waiting and trusting.  I know you want it all.  So do I.  But we can't.  We wait upon the painter Jesus to finish what He has begun in us.  You know, the words we pray after the absolution every Sunday.  May He who began this good work within you bring it to completion on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
    The brush of God is His Word – the written Word of Scripture and the visible Word of the Sacraments.  Through these means of grace God is at work in me and on me, painting Christ into my mind, heart, and life.  But all too often we see only are the individual brush strokes – the twists and turns of life – instead of the completed and final picture which God alone sees.
    This is also true of us as a congregation.  God is painting us as well.  We are not yet what we shall be, not what we were, but always becoming – as the painter's canvas slowly unfolds the image of what the picture will be.  The picture never changes – it always looks like Jesus.
    When they lay that child in your arms for the first time, no parent can see the future.  Now how the child will look or what the child will become.  But the parent joyfully waits in expectation of that grand day of revelation.  For now rejoicing in each day lest those days of our children’s lives pass by us without memory.  So it is with us.  We have joy in this moment because we are confident of what God is doing, because we have confidence in His grace and His purpose, and because we know the power of His grace.  So we do not fix our minds on what we cannot see or know but on what we know in the crucified and risen Lord.  He will bring it to pass.  That is enough for God’s children now and that is enough for the future waiting to be unveiled in God/s time.
    If you are lost, confused, weary or dismayed, remember who the painter is.  We endure not because we see or understand what God is doing but because we trust in Him to keep His promise.  We are all works in progress.  We are saved in Christ – we add nothing to what His death has accomplished.  We are even now being saved as through Word and Sacrament God give us this grace, working out our salvation.  We will be saved on that day when this life is no more, when heaven and earth pass away and the new He's promised comes into its fullness and we see as God sees without any distractions or doubts.  Amen.

More Wisdom from CS Lewis...

Say it ain't so!!!

From GetReligion....  I can add no comment except to be incredulous if it is, indeed, true!  Read it all here from Reuters...

Reuters has a dispatch from Athens on the difficulties the Greek financial collapse is causing the Orthodox Church. The article entitled “Crisis proves a curse for Greece’s Orthodox Church” will appear in various forms in newspapers and websites this weekend and I encourage you to read it, as it provides a strong account of the hardships facing the Church.

However, a GetReligion reader, Dominic Foo, was struck by one section of the article. He wrote:

I find it incredibly hard to believe that an Eastern Orthodox Church would permit lay celebration of the Eucharist, unless of course, this is merely sloppy journalistic reporting and what is permitted is not “mass” but a prayer service....  He was questioning this section of the story:...  To cover the shortage of priests, some bishops are permitting laymen to take services. These volunteers receive no state wages and don’t wear the characteristic vestments.

For instance, a retired army officer recently started holding mass at Avantas, a village close to the eastern border with Turkey, said Father Irinaios. “Priests in small villages retire or pass away and there is nobody to replace them,” he said. “We are going to have a huge problem.”

If Reuters is correct in its reporting, this is highly significant development. In the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions it is inconceivable that a lay person would be permitted by a bishop to celebrate the Eucharist as the administration and celebration of the sacraments is the essence of the priesthood. For Roman Catholics this teaching is set down in a number of formal statements and encyclicals: Lumen Gentium 28; De ordinatione episcopi, presbyterorum et diaconorum 2; 6; 12.

For the Orthodox lay presidency is a non-starter. The doctrinal confessions most accepted in the Orthodox world, The Confession written by Dosietheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem (1672) and The Orthodox Confession written by Peter Mogilas, Metropolitan of Kiev (1643) state the Eucharist may be celebrated only by a “lawful” priest.

In my corner of the church world, the issue of lay celebration of the Eucharist has the potential to supplant the fights over homosexuality. The Diocese of Sydney — the most influential evangelical diocese in the Anglican Communion — supports  allowing lay people licensed by the bishop to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. The diocese has debated this issue for almost a generation and prepared a number of theological papers in support of its views.

One clue to the debate is the use of the phrase “Lord’s Supper” rather than Mass by Sydney Anglicans. Their understanding of what takes place in Holy Communion is very different than that of High Church Anglicans, not to mention the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. However, the Archbishop of Sydney Dr. Peter Jensen, has so far declined to implement the diocesan synod’s request as the wider Australian church — and Anglican Communion does not agree with this innovation.

If the Greek Orthodox Church is allowing lay celebration of the Eucharist this would be a break with tradition. For a religion reporter this would be great news — I have visions of a pan-Orthodox council being called (allowing me a trip to Greece on my editor’s dime.)

Perhaps something less dramatic, but still highly significant is taking place. Has some form of Liberation theology arisen in Greece? That would be news! In marginalized or deprived communities where a priest is not present to preside at the Eucharist, such as in Latin American base communities, Leonardo Boff and other radical theologians have proposed holding a eucharist-like fellowship meal as an admittedly less than adequate substitute for the Eucharist.

Or, as is most likely, the Reuters reporter was confused or his article was mistranslated. I’m afraid I won’t be jetting off to Greece this summer as I suspect the liturgy being used at services where no priest is present is the Typica or Reader’s Service.

While the Typica may not be common in areas where there is a settled Orthodox presence, it can be found in places like the American South or Africa where there are new Orthodox congregations but no resident clergy. Here is a link to a Greenville, NC Orthodox Church that explains the value of Lay-led Services.

While this Reuters story focuses on the effects of Greece’s economic implosion on the Orthodox Church, the statement about lay led masses should be addressed. If wrong, I would hope it would be corrected. If right, then there is a major story here that has so far gone unreported.

The problem with seminaries...

Over the past few years there have been abundant discussions and heated discussions over what should be required in terms of training for those to be ordained.  In the LCMS we have had our DELTOs and SMPs and so many incarnations of diaconal offices, yet none official with Synod as a whole, that it has become more than a theoretical question.  I have posted some of it here.

There have also been a host of articles by non-Lutherans about seminaries and whether or not they remain a good idea.  Lutherans don't have seminaries simply as educational centers since we include in them field work and an internship and, at least for Missouri, the seminaries also then certify and commend graduates to the church for ordination (as they have done for so many years).  But often we end up borrowing from those who are questioning the value of seminaries and using their arguments in our own discussions.

I was given a link to a FORBES set of articles which hit on seminaries pretty hard.  In fact the author suggested that he would give a person with some business experience (real world) and a mentor the nod over any twenty something with backpack in tow heading to class at a seminary.  Ouch.  This is less a discussion on seminary than an indictment against having an educated clergy at all.  Maybe that is where some Lutherans are headed but I doubt Missouri will follow that path.

This guy said that "seminary" education for the apostles was rabbical mentoring with Jesus which included some theological debates with the religious authorities but mostly it was parties, stories, healings and alms.  That is a pile of bulloney if you get what I mean.  Jesus' instruction of His apostles was not an endless string of tall tales, eating out, dramatic healings, and a few kindnesses thrown in.  It was exactly what a seminary education is supposed to be today.  Jesus opened the Scriptures to them to show how the Son of Man would be betrayed into the hands of sinners, suffer and die on the cross and on the third day rise again and how all the Law and the Prophets pointed to this and were fulfilled by this.  Granted they did not have a dorm room or cafeteria or library or classrooms or bookstore or parking lot, per se.  But they did have reasonable substitutes for them and the content and context of seminary training is not so radically different today than it was for the apostles learning at the feet of Jesus.

Seminary should not equate to buildings and curriculum catalogs only.  Seminary is organized instruction in the Word of God to open the learner to the Law and the Prophets as they point to Jesus and to prepare them for the pastoral vocation of preaching, presiding, teaching, and caring for the people of God (and therefore, by extension, also to the people not yet in the kingdom).  I am not saying that everything has to look exactly like it does not.  All I am trying to do is bust the myth that theological and practical training of the clergy is a modern day invention.  It is there throughout Christian history in various formats but with common core of instructional matter and a common goal and outcome.  In fact, it may have been more rigorous in the past than we have it today.  No, Jesus did not give mid-terms or finals but His apostles were with Him constantly over some three years of His public ministry.  What they learned or did not learn was helped by the gift of the Spirit who would bring to mind all that He had told them. 

For those training for full time service as Pastors, the worst that could happen is that you might end up driving a cab instead of being a Pastor.  For those in Jesus' day, the worst that could happen to you was being run out of town or arrested and martyred.  Personally, I would choose the former over the latter consequences.

The seminaries that have served Lutheranism, specifically Missouri, for so many years are not monolithic and unchanging.  They have adapted and changed and continue to be a thing in process -- with the goal of meeting the needs and expectations of the Church they serve.  But I am not ready to ditch seminaries in favor of a mentoring program and I am not ready to distance what happens on our seminary campuses from what the apostles learned directly from Jesus.  Different, of course, but the same as well.

I am exceptionally proud of the educational system that produced me (though I would not ever blame them or my parents for my own flaws and failings).  That system, by the way, is gone.  The Synod dismantled it in the late 1970s.  I mourn the loss of the feeder system that built progressive foundations in preparation for and to be fulfilled at the seminary but, in many ways, the Seminary in Fort Wayne today is a whale of a better school than it was when I graduated 32 years ago.  It has a much better and well integrated curriculum and the faculty is much closer to the parish than some of (well, many of) the profs were when I was there.

When I began as a Pastor, I was close to the most educated person in my parish.  Not so today.  I have a congregation filled with folks with graduate training at least as extensive as mine and, in some cases, they are far more educated than I am.  Now is not the time to be ditching a seminary training model in favor of a mentoring system with a few book learning courses thrown in.  Our people can see the difference.  Holiness of life/intention and education should not be antithetical.  Holiness and a sense of calling should not be allowed to substitute for adequate training. We need both.  We need people who serve out a deeply formed sense of personal calling, people of good character in the faith, people instructed and judged capable by the Church, and people whose calling the Church confirms with a local election.  This is most true of the men who would be Pastors but no less true of the auxiliary offices held by men and women.

Some Easter Pix...

The chancel at Easter with the new painting on either side of the central arch...

Just for comparison, this is what it looked like just after it was built.

World Malaria Day.... Lutheran Malaria Initiative...

What is the
Lutheran Malaria Initiative?

What We Do

The most effective methods currently being used to control malaria include proper diagnosis and prompt medical treatment, proper use of insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor residual spraying. To be successful these strategies require education about malaria and how to prevent and treat it. The Lutheran Malaria Initiative works through local partners to educate families on malaria, increase access to treatment, and provide prevention tools such as bed nets.

EDUCATION

LMI educates families on the causes, symptoms, treatment and prevention of malaria.

TREATMENT

Increasing access to affordable medical care and resources for malaria prevention.

PREVENTION

LMI provides treated bed nets to families and trains them on their proper use.

Where We Help

We work in communities where we already have strong relationships, such as those with our Lutheran partner churches and other local, community organizations. These long-standing partnerships make the ideal platform for introducing malaria programming. Already, the work of the Lutheran Malaria Initiative is making an impact. To date, LMI has reached 2.4 million people through malaria projects in Tanzania, Mali, Uganda, and Kenya. With increased funding, LMI will expand to Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Nigeria, Guinea, Niger and Ghana.

Visit www.lutheranmalaria.org   and give generously!!

Solitude or loneliness...

In 1950, four million people in this country lived alone. These days, there are almost eight times as many, thirty-one million, according to a recent article in The New Yorker.  Today, more than fifty per cent of U.S. residents are single, nearly a third of all households have just one resident, and five million adults younger than thirty-five live alone.


Solitude was often something we sought out for healing, for reflection, and for change.  Now it is more and more the preferred lifestyle of those across all divisions of age and economic status.  Solitude is not the result of time apart in order to heal up from a broken relationship or marriage or job loss or other psychological or personal event or issue.  It is increasingly both the goal and the result of our choice to live alone and apart.  Even in circumstances where one shares space with a roommate, it is not uncommon for the shared space to hold completely separate lives.  In other cases, experience with roommates is seen as a cost greater than the financial commitment of living on your own.


Communities and their organizations are dying for lack of civic participation. Between 1973 and 1994, the number of people who held a leadership role in any local organization fell by more than half.  Our solitary lifestyles are not only reflected in the address where we reside but by the way we approach the community around us.  Increasingly, that means less involvement in and less ownership over those civic organizations that once provided both companionship and an opportunity to do good for others.  Is there any PTA group or civic organization or community club or softball or baseball league that does not struggle to find officers and leaders to continue the work that often picks up where government leaves off?  That also included churches where the lack of volunteers has left us struggling to fill elective positions and seldom with working groups of folks to manage facilities or direct the church's full program of activities and ministries.  Where I am, paid staff does what in the past volunteers would have done - and no one would have thought of having it any other way!


Heroic is how we tend to view the elderly who remain independent and live alone (as do the vast majority of  the widowed, for example).  But at the same time, the result is that many of these have no one who holds them accountable for medicines or diet or cleanliness.  Is this independent living or a substitute for living in the real sense of that term?

I can hardly recall a time being alone -- whether as a child or adult.  I did not have my own room until I was nearly out of high school.  Growing up, I played in groups of kids from the neighborhood, with cousins, and with my brother.  My life revolved not only around parents but around extended family.  I spent a great deal of time with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  There were regular family reunions -- sometimes including upwards of several hundreds of various kin inhabiting church basements on a Sunday afternoon.  When I did go away to college, I did not have a choice of whether to have a roommate -- we all did.  My whole college years were lived within groups of friends -- whether studying, goofing off, or at the local bar.  I am not sure I actually had a date in which the girl and I did things alone until college and she turned out to be my wife (of soon to be 34 years).  Wherever we lived as young marrieds and young parents, our lives included friendships and weekly scheduled connections with other folks who shared our common circumstance (kids of a certain age).

My vocation as a Pastor means I am forever with people but the way I connect with people has changed a great deal.  I spend more time on the phone or emailing or meeting for coffee and less time in committee meetings or home visitation.  If I were more adventurous, that might include more texting or tweeting or social media (the every pervasive Facebook).  Even the hospitalized are sent home and, unless they are married or have family to take care of them, they are on their own.  Hospital visitation has changed tremendously since I watched mentors teach me the art of pastoral care for the sick and shut-in.

Our pot lucks are not what they were (more buffets of the latest offerings from Wal-Mart or Kroger than home cooking) and the people do not stay and visit all afternoon the way they once did.  Our seasonal services of Advent, Lent, and Holy Week compete against busy work schedules, youth activities, and the overwhelming desire to just go home, kick off the shoes, eat your take out in front of the TV, and get away from the world for a while.

Funny, I recall a time when singles were considered with suspicion in a community, were not allowed to own homes or rent apartments, were confined to boarding houses (substitutes for families), and assessed higher taxes than marrieds.  Now communities value singles because they don't cost us money with their kids in schools and they spend money in restaurants and shopping malls that is taxed and comes right back into the community.

Is this solitude good or bad?  Depends on how you look at it.  Underneath it all, loneliness is epidemic.  Yet, funny as it may seem, we seem more content with the misery of our loneliness than we do inspired to break out of the solitude.  Even when we sit together at a table and eat in the restaurant or at home, we are busy updating our status or sending a text or watching a YouTube video or playing a video game, or going to iambored.com because, well, we are bored.

Community was once one of the primary needs fulfilled by family and church.  Even in our loneliness, we seem less involved in both than we ever were.  I am not sure it will change soon.  Don't get me wrong.  I am not complaining like an old coot lamenting how wonderful it was in the good old days and how bad the younguns are today.  I am merely reflecting on how things have changed, how our isolation has left us both lonely and yet fearful of community (or at least less convinced we need community it is comes at a cost of some of our independence).  With this has grown increasing cynicism with regard to the social structures and institutions of our past and growing impatience and intolerance with those who differ from us or disagree with us.  The disintegration of our communities and our culture is easily verified by statistic and by listening into the way we talk about each other.

And guess what?  I am lonely.  My own life, like the lives of those around me, is more and more invested in work and the things I must do to keep the home going and less and less in the friendships and community that defined and still define my parent's lives (at age 82 and 85 this year).  If you are reading this, I bet you are nodding in agreement -- no matter what your age.  I have no solution.  Only the rambling observations or, rather, meandering thoughts of a Pastor looking out on the front porch of life in the 21st century. 

So what do you think?

Requiescat in pace, Chuck Colson

Charles Colson, who fell asleep in the Lord today, was 80 years old and for nearly half that time had served the Lord through Prison Fellowship, which he founded in 1976 after spending 7 months in federal prison for Watergate-related crimes. His confession of wrongdoing, his repentance and his conversion to Christ (told in Born Again) were as genuine as anyone could ask for. He was a new man in Christ.

He knew the word repentance not as a word but as the Spirit's work in him.... He was not a perfect man but he was a good man, a man of faith, whose smile on the outside mirrored the hope that lived on the inside...

Did Jesus really rise? Evidence and conclusions...

I am not much interested in the old debate about "is the resurrection real?"  It is not that I have no doubts or fears -- who doesn't?  It is only that I believe that this fact is a fact which takes on importance only because of faith.  There are many facts that have no impact whatsoever on us.  The resurrection can never be looked upon as simply a fact.  It is either a life changing, game changing fact for all time or it is nothing at all.  What changes your perspective is not a mountain of evidence but faith.  Period.

Nevertheless, there are those who are bothered by the question and there are those who think that if they question is answered in the right way, people may be more amenable to faith.  I am not so sure.  It appears to me that faith is the work of the Spirit working through the Word.  But I will grant you there are lots of people both inside and outside the Church who are curious...

Peter Kreeft has done as good a job of any of looking at the facts (evidence) and giving us some conclusions... if you feel nagged by your curiosity or your doubts, you can read it all here...  He does have one thing right.  There is no middle ground.  Either Jesus rose and it is all true or He did not rise and none of it is true.  In this respect, an honest atheist is more consistent than a liberal Christian who spiritualizes the faces and the truth of it all.  It seems to me that liberal Christianity which eschews talk of a physical resurrection guts Christianity of the very thing that makes it worth believing:  the death that gives us life and the life that death cannot overcome.  It is like those who remake recipes from the fat and calories into something lean and mean.  I remember someone saying of such a recipe that it tastes just like the real thing without the cream and butter -- in other words, it tastes nothing at all like the real thing.

I don't much need a spiritual truth or a spiritual resurrection.  Friend William Weedon once said that advancing age had changed his perspective on sleep.  Now he sees it as practice for death.  I agree wholeheartedly.  I have been practicing for death all my life and this destiny will neither be undone or softened by spiritual life or a spiritual resurrection.  What I need is a new and glorious flesh and blood that death cannot touch.  It is either this or nothing at all.  There is no in between.  You can look at the evidence and I hope it will help you deal with it all but be careful here.  If the resurrection is true, it is the one fact that cannot be ignored or put away.  It will grab you and transform you -- changing your past, transforming your present, and reshaping your future.  I am not only convinced the resurrection is true -- it is the truest truth of all (if you get what I am saying) because nothing can ever remain the same in view of the simple truth:  Christ is Risen!

A cardboard cathedral... no, really!

Remember the New Zealand earthquake and the loss of the historic Christ Church Cathedral?  Guess what.  It may be replaced -- at least temporarily -- with a cardboard cathedral.

The Anglican Church today revealed plans for the "transitional" cathedral designed by a top Japanese "paper architect".

While debate rages over the decision by the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch to demolish the crippled city centre landmark, work will start on the temporary A-frame building in nearby Latimer Square next week.  Constructed with cardboard tubes, timber beams, structural steel, and concrete, it is expected to last 20 years and will become the new place of worship for the city's St John's parish, whose church, vicarage and hall had to be demolished after the February 22 shake.

With seating for 700, the building will also provide a venue for concerts, with the church saying it will host the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra as well as pop stars Dave Dobbyn and Bic Runga.


The church said today that the capital cost for the new cathedral, as well as supporting buildings, has been estimated at $4m to $5m.

"The bulk of the money is in hand but there will be further fundraising to meet the costs of building the temporary structure," Mr Gray said.

A feasibility study was conducted with a $50,000 donation from the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal Trust.
It is the largest 'emergency structure' to be designed by Shigeru Ban who, with the support of associate architect Yoshie Narimatsu, has contributed his time free of charge and gifted the building's design to the cathedral, Anglican Diocese and city.

Ban, known as "an emergency architect" who has built temporary houses in post-disaster centres, including Japan, Turkey, China, Italy, and Haiti said cardboard was the ideal building product for the new cathedral.
"The strength of the building has nothing to do with the strength of the material," he said.

"Even concrete buildings can be destroyed by earthquakes very easily. But paper buildings cannot be destroyed by earthquakes.

"It's also consistently low-cost. Normally after disasters the price of building materials goes higher, but since this is not a traditional building material, it's very easy to get."

The cathedral would be weatherproof, fire resistant and secure, the architect said.

Stay tuned for more... construction is believed to begin in November if it gets all the go-aheads!

Why do we kneel?

There were a few folks who were not so sure about the decision to include kneelers in our new church (well, 11 years old and counting).  Some did not know Lutherans knelt (ever a surprise to find out how catholic Lutherans are).  Some knew about kneeling and did not like it (not a surprise to find out some Lutherans are suspicious of things they might deem a little too catholic).  Some did not want anyone to kneel if they did not (or could not due to inability) -- thinking that the different postures would divide the church (surprising since we have always had folks who did not kneel though the majority do kneel for Holy Communion).

Anyway, I did find a section on the Pope's homily for Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday) where he directed us to the postures of prayer in Scripture.  It was nice and short but very well written.  So I pass it on to you here:

Before reflecting on the content of Jesus’ petition, we must still consider what the evangelists tell us about Jesus’ posture during his prayer. Matthew and Mark tell us that he “threw himself on the ground” (Mt 26:39; cf. Mk 14:35), thus assuming a posture of complete submission, as is preserved in the Roman liturgy of Good Friday. Luke, on the other hand, tells us that Jesus prayed on his knees. In the Acts of the Apostles, he speaks of the saints praying on their knees: Stephen during his stoning, Peter at the raising of someone who had died, Paul on his way to martyrdom. In this way Luke has sketched a brief history of prayer on one’s knees in the early Church. Christians, in kneeling, enter into Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives.   When menaced by the power of evil, as they kneel, they are upright before the world, while as sons and daughters, they kneel before the Father. Before God’s glory we Christians kneel and acknowledge his divinity; by that posture we also express our confidence that he will prevail.