In persute of origins. . .

The goal and purpose of textual criticism and, indeed, the liturgical movement have been for a very long time to presume the original texts both of Scripture and the earliest liturgy.  The roots of historical criticism lie with the presumption that what we have in the text and how we have understood that text is under suspicion and reflects a later imposition upon the text.  Whether you spent time in seminary underlining portions of the Gospels that came from the Q source or divvying up Old Testament among the JEDP sources or not, it is a common presupposition that the text of Scripture is at best a compilation and at worst a different word that the original.  So the Hebrew Old Testament is constantly being reviewed and re-evaluated to decide which rendering is closest to the original and the Greek New Testament suffers the same fate of constant criticism in pursuit of an original text.  So also the liturgical movement has viewed early and good as one and the same, skeptical of the accretions of time and revision.  While some of this may end up as interesting debate, is it actually helpful to the Church and the mission of proclaiming the Word of the Lord that endures forever?

Disputes over text and Canon of Scripture having been going on long enough that they actually threaten the text itself and provide a distraction from dealing with the text that we have.  Textual criticism in the Bible and order of the mass can easily derail the Church from confidence that what we have and use today is reliable and trustworthy.  Some have recently been arguing for an earlier, rather than later New Testament Canon, perhaps that a "Four Gospel Canon" was set in place circa 100 in Rome.  I am happy when voices are raised to challenge the idea that the text we have has been developed over time and represents an evolution of texts instead of a Scripture we can trust or a Divine Service that is credible and reliable.  Recently I have begun to look less at modern versions who presume to be more accurate and have returned to reading out of the King James.  At the same time, the Vulgate, once regarded as an inferior tradition, has itself undergone something of a rebirth.

Of course, there are and will be variants in the texts and text families as we have received them.  But the real question today is not originality as the primary pursuit but reliability.  I could argue that the variants are not quite as significant as the critics make them out to be but that would move the argument right back to text and the discovery of some kind of pristine original.  In reality, the job of the Church and her exegetes has never been to unearth a perfect and original manuscript but to provide for the Church in public worship and for the people of God in private reading a usable, reliable, and orthodox text of Scripture to read and the Divine Service to guide our praise.  Originality is fine as a side gig but the most important purpose of textual criticism and exegesis is to aid the Church in preaching the Word that bestows faith by the Holy Spirit and to give a faithful order by which the people of God unite their voices in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving -- receiving the means of grace both with confidence and with gratitude.

Reconstructing the original is a pursuit that may be fabulously interesting but not quite helpful to the Church.  This is because it presumes that what was original is somehow different than what we have today and the Bible and the liturgy as we know them are unreliable and suspect.  That is the problem.  They are not.  Reform is always a good thing in restoring to the Divine Service its integrity as the place where the people of God receive His gifts and the review of the text is always a good thing when the goal is preaching that Word that gives life and faith to the hearer but reform is a dangerous thing if it leaves in its wake the presumption that what we have had is wrong or defective.  Confidence in what we have been catechized has been the aim and goal of the teaching and worship of God's people since St. Luke penned that phrase in explaining his Gospel.  We must be wary of becoming so distracted by the pursuit of the original that we allow suspicion and doubt to linger at what we have in Scripture and Divine Service.  If we don't, we leave our people adrift on a sea of doubt about the very means to that confidence.

 

Intellectually disabled. . .

Although few would remember Rowan Williams as decisive during his time as Archbishop of Canterbury, an interview in The Telegraph has shown him to be something more than a parody of himself.  In fact, he seems spot on in his critique of the Church in the 1960s as having lost its nerve, sort of like St. Peter walking on water and then losing his confidence.  According to Williams, the Church looked down at the wrong moment and lost its footing -- perhaps when it should have looked up?!  He finds the Church bearing the fruit of its pervasive and paralysing anxiety about the role of the Church in society -- especially at a time in which the the tide of people and attention are flowing away from Christianity.  Perhaps he should have gone one step further and admitted that the same pervasive and paralyzing anxiety exists in churches about Jesus and not simply the role of the Church in society.  We have the creeds and he is thankful for that but do we believe them and do we believe they are still relevant and applicable to the world around us -- that is also the issue.

However, what I found most interesting is his treatment of our intellectual disability which, he says, is due to the way we acquire information today.  Instead of pursuing a curiosity that bears its fruits in a disciplined search of source material, we live in an age in which scrolling through a phone or watching a screen is about as far and as deep as we go.  It is incredibly dishonest as an intellectual pursuit.  Forgetting how it is that we learn, we presume that what you see on screen passes for teaching, for research, and for fact.  This is especially a problem for theological education but it is no less an issue for learning in general.  I wonder if he is not on to something here.

While I have little knowledge of the situation of the things he mentions in England, I know that here we find ourselves ever pressed to make pastors as quickly, easily, and cheaply as possible.  We have replaced the formation of community gathered as much in worship as in study with a solitary screen and somewhere along the way presumed that the two were close to the same process.  The challenges being forced upon the Church today require pastors with more training, not less, and with the ability to think and respond to an ever changing reality in the world around them.

It is remarkable to me how little time seminaries spend instructing and forming pastors to lead worship in the parishes they serve.  It is at one and the same time the most profound contact any pastor has with his people yet we find ourselves at a critical juncture in which the digital may replace the in person and the routine of weekly worship attendance has diluted down to monthly for many.  If anything, we need to expand the amount of time in the curriculum devoted to worship, liturgy, the church year, and prayer.  

In the wake of a pandemic in which churches willingly surrendered themselves to the judgment of the state that worship was non-essential or easily replaced by virtual gatherings, the burden fell upon the pastor to explain why this is not true.  Absent such serious and intellectual honesty, we were left with pastors who asked their people to set a cup of wine (or whatever) and some bread (or whatever) by the screen and receive communion at home or the pastors who sent Jesus to the home via the USPS (probably the same pastors who in another time would have objected to reservation!).

Instead of pastors who express confidence before doubting parishioners, we find ourselves in the terrible position of both pastors and people unsure and uncertain before a mountain of challenges and changes that seem poised to swallow up Christianity entirely.  The shape of sexual desire, gender identity, what marriage is or is not, what is family, whether children are good or non-essential and whether man is the reason for climate change and or an enemy of the environment -- these are not small issues faced on both sides of the pulpit.  Furthermore, the individual pastor will find himself pressed by a media and culture which has already decided that they know the Christian answers and judged them wrong.  

Part of the problem is intellectual dishonesty.  The screen on the computer or on the phone in your hand can transmit information but the person must decide if that information is reliable, relevant, and relatable to the issue and the moment.  That is an intellectual process and not simply the application of personal preference.  We have done little to help the pastor unless we have also taught him to think, to search the sources, to see them through the lens of Scripture, to focus on them through a Christian worldview, and to judge them.  This is certainly true for a pastor but it ought to be part of every discipline and station in life.  The whole Covid mess has pointed out what happens when opinion and fact and agenda and truth can no longer be distinguished.  Unless the pastors whom we train and ordain are able to help their people through the conflicting mess, our people will continue to be buffeted by every wind of change.  No, now is not the time to exchange the classroom, chapel, dining hall, and library for a screen -- unless you have already decided that truth no longer is relevant or matters.

Impassioned Passion. . .

The sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany on Sunday, February 13, 2022.

For all the niceness of our Lord’s Words, they fit better on a plaque than they do in our hearts.  “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”  But who wants this poverty?  “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.” But who wants to live with hunger?   “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.”  But who can laugh in the face of sorrow and tears?   “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!”  But who wants to be hated, rejected, and reviled?

When you first read these words, it may seem like Jesus is simply telling you to buck up, face the music resolutely, practice a little self-control, and wait for the tables to turn.  Who wants to hear that?  Besides that, Jesus does not appear to be self-controlled either.  He was so out of control that His disciples and family thought Him to be unbalanced.  Is our Lord calling you to be unbalanced also?  Is the Lord calling you to be out of control as well?

In fact, the Lord is relentless.  He does not resist passion but is passionate about everything He says or does.  From a boy who insists that His place is in the Temple to the Son of Man who dares to call disciples from their jobs and homes to follow Him, our Lord is passionate.  From the Son of God who commands bread to feed thousands and illness, affliction, and death to give way to His will, our Lord is passionate.  But there is something about His passion to which we must pay attention.  He is not passionate for Himself but for us, not relentless in the pursuit of His desire but the desire of the Father who sent Him, and not out of control in the pursuit of selfish things but out of control for the sake of you and me and our salvation.  His passion is His compassion for us and for that compassionate rescue He will suffer and die to save us.

It is this passion that the Lord works in us by His Holy Spirit.  We call that passion faith.  The Holy Spirit ignites in you and me passion for Christ and for the eternal salvation He has come to accomplish.  Just as there was no room in Christ for anything but the relentless pursuit of our salvation, so there needs be nothing in us but the relentless pursuit of Him and of the salvation He has accomplish for us by giving up everything for our sake.  That is the message of the Beatitudes – the radical nature of His words that go against all reason and logic but not faith.

That is why our Lord warns us.  “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”  If your heart is full of today and the things of this life, there is no room for eternal life and you are far from the kingdom of God and its gifts of righteousness, peace, and joy.  “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.”  If your god is your belly and your life is the endless pursuit of that which fills it, there is no room for Christ in bread and wine and you are far from the kingdom and its life and salvation.  “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.”  If your god is entertainment and leisure and that which makes you happy, your end will be grief and tears that do not end.  Think of the countless hours wasted away on those small screens through social media, Tik Tok, and a host of other platforms that offer us at best an amusement or distraction.

The world is filled with false prophets who speak everything that appeals to your sinful hearts but of hope and of life.  The world is filled with an endless preoccupation with what is frivolous, foolish, and fleeting but offers no refuge for the pain of guilt or the shadow of death.  The world changes its tune and its mind day after day because it has no anchor or foundation.  The world knows only of friendships easily broken, of marriages easily dissolved, of children killed in the womb, and of a most unsocial media that is a platform for our ignorance and foolishness.

The passion of God is for you and the Lord Jesus is relentless in the pursuit of your salvation.  He is willing to suffer the rebuke of powerful people of the day in order to rescue the lost, the lonely, and the languishing.  He will not pass by the neighbor in need or restrain His mercy because it is the Sabbath or ignore the Samaritan because it offends the people of God or hide from His enemies even though He knows they seel His death.  He has a purpose and a plan to redeem us from our sins and rescue us from the power of death.  The plan is not logical or reasonable or cheap.  It will cost Him His all this is why He has come.  To empty Himself into suffering and death in order to fill us with forgiveness and life.

And what are you willing to do to hold onto His gift of salvation?  He does not ask you to pay for your salvation or to atone for your sins or to repeat what He has done.  Only that you put first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness in your heart, mind, and life.  Only that you are willing to forego the moment for the sake of eternity.  Only that you live by faith and not by sight.  Only that you surrender your fascination with the false prophets to cling to the Word of God that endures forever.  Are you willing to do this?  Perhaps the pandemic was a good test of this resolve – what would we surrender to our fears?  Truth is we didn’t do so well.

We were not passionate for the things of God but for ourselves and to protect ourselves no matter what it cost.  We were not relentless for the things of God but to do whatever we thought was necessary to preserve our own lives.  When we were confirmed and received into membership, we pledged to suffer all even death rather than fall away from this faith.  Every Sunday sees about 40% of our people here.  We sought an easy Christianity that asks nothing of us but what you get in return is an easy but worthless Christianity – without power to save.  If the Church exists only to make us feel better about the sins we love, that is no church at all.

God does not have to judge or condemn us.  Our loose grip on God and His kingdom is judgment enough.  Our words and actions are judgment enough.  But, guess what.  God does not seek your destruction.  God seeks your redemption.  And God calls you to repent so He might restore you again.  He calls you to trust in Him now and forgives your failure to trust Him in the past.  He promises you a future and an eternity and sets aside your preoccupation with the moment.  He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding and steadfast love.  He is relentless in the pursuit of you, in the mercy that saves the unworthy and undeserving, and in the grace that is sufficient for all your needs.

My friends, the past is done.  Christ has forgiven you.  But challenges will come and tests will arise for the faithful.  Where will you stand?  Will you stand together with the faithful, who pursue with all abandon the kingdom of God and who value above all things the salvation that came at the cost of Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross?  You cannot endure by being stoic or survive by insulating yourself from any consequence of believing.  But if you trust in the Lord, He will deliver you not only from your trials and troubles but to everlasting life and light.  Faith is not easy.  It is much easier to poke fun at faith and take seriously the things around us that we think are more real.  These will not last but God’s kingdom will.

We have a passionate Christ, a Savior who is passionate about His compassion on us and our every need.  We have a relentless God, a God in flesh who comes among us full of glory, only to surrender it all on the cross for our salvation.  We have a determined God, a Lord who comes not to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.  He plants this passion in us by baptism and faith so we might be passionate about His mercy.  He plants us firmly in His grace and gives strength to resist sin, the temptation to surrender His great treasure for the puny treasures of this life, and a place to come that when we fall, He might raise us up again.  God grant us that we may be worth of Him who suffered and died that we might live and be as passionate for Him and He is for us.  In Christ’s name.

Disneyland for God. . .

By now you will have heard of the plans to renovate Notre Dame and make it something different than it was.  If planners have their way, the once fire-ravaged Notre-Dame cathedral may end up resembling a “politically correct Disneyland.”  The sense of sacred space would be replaced with discovery zones in which technology replaces art in trying to make not only the cathedral but its God more user friendly and interesting.  I am not at all sure that is what God wants but that seems to be what we want -- we want a fun God and to worship in a fun place that appeals to our shortened attention spans and its focus on the visual.  And why not!  The Cathedral long ago became as much a civic icon and public space as a religious one.  Isn't that what happens when it stops being a sacred place where God dwells and becomes our space, used for our enjoyment and our purposes?

Before we begin to complain about Notre Dame's future, it is time to look at what we have made of  church buildings.  Big box evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and fundamentalists have long styled their campuses as family friendly places and not just worship spaces.  In my own city these buildings house coffee houses and fitness centers and everything in between.  It may not quite be the Disneyland of religion but it is far from being only a sacred space where God is center and we worship Him above all.  And you can find a few Lutheran complexes that serve the same all encompassing goal of a family space for all the family's needs, wants, and desires.  Generations ago it was a bowling alley in the basement but now the bowling alley seems rather tame in comparison to how we want our facilities to serve our needs as much as or even more than God's purposes.

How we have treated the buildings we call churches reflects how we treat God.  Gone are the soaring spaces that lift our vision from ourselves and challenge the idea that we are the center of the universe.  Gone is the beauty that turns our vision to the things of God and in its place are the reflections of our own wants and desires.  We care more about creature comforts than faithfulness, more about a God whom we can use for our purposes than a God who redeems us to be His own.  Our technology has become the means of grace more than the things of God endowed with grace to deliver us from ourselves. Why would we not wish to remake an ancient cathedral into a playground?

It began with David's desire to build a house befitting a God whom he loved but also felt sorry for -- why should a king live in a better house than the mighty Lord of Israel?  But God would not have it.  David would not build it.  When Solomon dedicated the temple, he was in awe of the God who allowed him the privilege of sacrifice and service.  We are more like David than Solomon today.  We want the house of God to be like a home for us -- though guilt no longer motivates that desire.  Would that we were like Solomon and the people who gave their all that God's House might be greater than any house of man!  No, we have not learned much.  Jesus has much work cleansing the temples we have built that they may still be a house of prayer where faithful gather before a God of promise, grace, and mercy.

Notre Dame Cathedral has become a relic -- something of an anachronism in a nation and continent predominantly agnostic or atheist.  If there is a passionate religious strain in the area around Paris it is either Muslim or the green god of the environment.  So accusing renovators of turning the 850-year-old church into a "woke theme park" will probably fall on deaf ears.  The Christians in charge no longer believe the faith or do not believe the faith is attractive to the modern mindset and the rest of the folks are looking for a tourist destination.  What could be more perfect?  Preserving the exterior just as it was while gutting the interior and making it reflect who we are now.  And, unless I am mistaken, that is exactly what modern Christianity is -- an historic tie to the past without any baggage of what is believed and confessed because of that past.  Let's wreckovate all the grand cathedrals of Europe and make them into places where people will want to visit -- even if that means emptying them of any remnant of their faith and witness.

Now it seems the French government is in favor of the whole deal.  France’s heritage authorities approved the controversial plans for the interior of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  Members of the National Heritage and Architecture Commission backed the proposals during a closed-door meeting on Dec. 9 amid an outcry over the restoration of the cathedral badly damaged by fire in 2019.  French media quoted the Ministry of Culture as saying that “the experts gave a favorable opinion on the interior refurbishment program.”  The commission expressed “two reservations” about the plan. The first concerned a proposal to remove saints’ statues in the chapels. The second related to plans to install moveable pews. AFP reported that the commission asked to view a prototype of the pews, which would replace the current straw chairs.  The vote by a 24-member committee came shortly after more than 100 of France’s leading figures in the arts and academia criticized the proposals.  So what would keep anyone from lauding the Disneyization of Notre Dame now!

To love pure and chaste from afar...

The Holy Sacrament of our Lord's Body and Blood has been the subject of much discussion, dispute, and discontent within the Church.  Strange that such a gift would become such a burden -- but, alas, such is the manner of sin.  It abuses the gift and turns the blessing into something less than blessed.  That said, this is not simply about the doctrine of the Sacrament but about its use.

Herman Sasse noted that confessional Lutherans like the Missouri Synod have a history of needing the doctrine of the Sacrament more than the Sacrament itself.  That is, Missouri has a long practice of spending more time on the pure and orthodox confession of what the Sacrament is without having that turn into a hunger and yearning to actually celebrate that Eucharist more often or receive it more regularly.  Considering that the evolution from a quarterly to at least twice monthly or even perhaps weekly is an accomplishment of the past couple of generations, it is easy to understand Sasse's comment.  But we are not called to a theoretical Sacrament but to a real reception.  The Sacrament of Christ's flesh and blood was not given for us to debate (except when we must to preserve its use) but for us to eat and drink, receiving its food as gift and blessing, in faith.

On this night, it cannot be enough to confess what the Sacrament is or is not rightly.  It must also translate into a love for and a consuming passion for that Sacrament to be received as well.  Close(d) communion unfortunately spends too much time in trying to discern why some should not commune instead of affirming why those who may commune should commune.  As I have often opined on this blog, a worthy communicant is not one with a membership card in the wallet or the appropriate family pedigree but one who has faith in the words given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.  “For the worthy reception, faith is necessary, by which one firmly believes Christ’s promise of remission of sins and eternal life, as the words in the sacrament clearly state.” (LW 34:355)

While it is true that Luther's words are moved more by concern for those “of timid conscience, who prepare themselves for the sacrament with much worry and woe and yet have no peace and do not know how they stand with God.” (LW 32:54-55)   To those who come with the good conscience of confession, Luther gives these words of comfort: “Faith alone must always be the proper cleansing and worthy preparation.” (Ibid)  Could it be that in our concern for the unity of those at the rail, we have failed to encourage frequent and faithful reception with faith that trusts the Words of Christ and, having confessed sin, is relieved from the torment of the soul by the Holy Absolution of our Lord?  No one should wait until their faith is strong enough to receive Christ's body and blood in this Sacrament.  It is precisely this weakness that bids the hungry and thirsty to come and be refreshed, strengthened, and encouraged.  

We talk a great deal about the Sacrament but the talking should not replace or substitute for the eating and drinking in faith, trusting the Word of Christ and delighting in the gift and blessing such communion gives.  All our talk ought to encourage a more reverent and frequent reception of of our Lord's body and blood within this Eucharistis feast.  If it doesn't something is not quite right.

Allow me a personal moment.  I personally dislike greatly the practice of many of repeating the Words of Institution into brief phrases, a few words for each communicant that, if successful, will spread the whole sentence over however many there are at the rail to receive.  It means that sometimes the only word the pastor speaks and the communicant hears is Take or eat or this is, etc...  EVERY communicant needs to hear these words for you.  That is the faith that brings the communicant to the rail and that is the phrase that sends them back to the pew rejoicing.  We celebrate not simply that this bread is Christ's body but that it is Christ's body given and shed for you.  So pardon this advice and stop trying to play a game with the words and simply say so that every communicant hears:  The body of Christ for you.  The blood of Christ for you.  If faith is the key to receiving this Sacrament worthily, then the words for you are the springboard of joy for something objective to be given and receiving personally.

And on this night, do not preach a doctrinal sermon which forgets that the whole point of the Sacrament is not to understand the mystery but to meet the gift of Christ with faith.  It is not doctrine in the abstract which concerns us today but the personal gift Christ commands to be given for me.  The goal of close(d) communion is not to restrict anyone from the Table of the Lord but to ensure that all who do commune rejoice to receive and believe that this is Christ's flesh for you and this is Christ's blood for you.

Now we must also consider who the person is who receives such power and benefit [from the Lord’s Supper]… It is the one who believes what the words say and what they give, for they are not spoken or preached to stone and wood but to those who hear them, to those whom he says, “Take and eat”…All those who let these words be addressed to them and believe that they are true have what the words declare… Now this is the sum total of a Christian’s preparation to receive this sacrament worthily. (The Large Catechism, The Sacrament of the Altar, section 33-36)

Growing smaller and bigger. . .

The story of American religion is less a story of great works than it is of small assemblies, more like families or extended clans than the mega churches of Protestantism or the grand cathedrals of state churches.  

We were deluded in America by the masses fueled by immigration and the quest for the preservation of culture -- a culture in which Christianity was a part but not primary.  In those days the various ethnic communities gathered in great buildings to celebrate a God who had helped them endure through the great transition and allowed them to keep some of their language, culture, music, traditions, and food to carry with them into the New World.

Some will complain that this has everything to do with changing demographics.  And it does -- to a certain extent.  But it also has to do with something else.  It is about churches who allowed the mix to pass as genuine Christianity and leaders of the faith who failed to catechize carefully, distinguishing what was culture and what was faith.  As some put it, the faith became about as precious as Grandma's recipes but also about as occasional as the dishes of the past were made.  The demographic changes mask how easily and quickly those who moved left the churches of their youth for the evangelical churches that seemed so new and different or simply left them entirely behind without replacing them with anything new.  Lutherans and Roman Catholics can both commiserate on this part of the outcome.

Not to be forgotten were the failed attempts by well-meaning church leaders to modernize the church and give the faith a facelift less of a contrast with the culture around them.  In the end, they opted for less catechesis rather than more -- for the focus on feelings rather than facts and for a faith that attempted more to be relevant than real.  What fueled the decline were a shallow sentimentalism that did not have the roots needed to build a solid faith, the view of religion as entertainment or distraction rather than truth, and for a religion more therapeutic than transformational.  All of these methods failed.  They did not resuscitate a moribund faith but perhaps killed it.  In the end, part of the problem was that our church leaders assumed that this is what people wanted or would settle for.  But they were not that stupid.  They saw through it and were only momentarily distracted by such trivialities.  At the same time the churches were offering pale substitutes for what was all around them, the people knew  that better entertainment and therapy could be found elsewhere without all the God baggage of sin, repentance, and resurrection.

There will always be large congregations.  There will always be mid-size congregations.  They will never go away -- unless the governments of the world refuse to allow them anymore.  But more and more Christians will gather in smaller groups.  No longer with a focus on programs, the faith will be more front and center and worship and the study of God's Word will be the center of these smaller assemblies.  It is not the time for us to berate the smaller congregations for their failings but the time to begin helping them prepare for their renewed role as the ordinary expressions of Christian koinonia.  Yes, it will mean that the shape of the clergy will change -- more worker priests and more congregations sharing a pastor.  We all knew that.  It is no surprise.  But neither can we afford to prepare these pastors with less training.  An online education will offer them knowledge but it will not help form them for their service to churches in Christ's name.  We have already seen the alarming numbers of those thinking of leaving the ministry or who have left -- especially among the non-denominational folks.  When we face a rapidly changing world, we do not need less clergy with less training but more resources to help them endure the changes.  This will be a time in which more is required both of pastors and their people -- not less.  It will be a time in which we prove whether or not we believe the words of Jesus -- He who endures to the end shall be saved.

Old-fashioned but not out of date. . .

It is a wonder.  How the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth of various states keeps it all together.  The center of it all is, as always, in the Queen.  Where once it might have been said the monarchy itself transcended the current monarch, it seems as if the reverse has come true in our generation.  Indeed, there are those who cannot conceive how the monarchy will survive the death of this monarch.  Perhaps it will cease or, more likely, simply fade away.  But it is less about the monarchy than it is the state of things today.

It is England that is fading fast.  Not England as an economy but as a nation.  The monarchy was certainly a symbol of an age in which the king or queen was not simply the person on the throne but God's choice.  It was an ordination as well as a coronation into an office which had more than simply the title the head of the Church of England.  The monarchy brought together the diversity of a far flung empire under a common set of values marked by duty, dignity, and decency.  The Queen had her responsibility to God and to her people and the people returned that responsibility to the Queen (representing the nation) and to God.  And it seems to have worked marvelously well since she ascended to the throne (note the religious style of language) in 1953.  But although it seems she has changed less, the nation and the world has changed even more.  

The old virtues of duty, modesty, and devotion to a cause larger than self have been replaced by an individualistic notion of responsibility and the insistence upon displaying that individual self as largely as possible upon the canvas of life.  Underneath it all, there is a question about whether anything at all is worth the devotion of heart and soul except self and the pursuit of safety, security, sexuality, and sentiment (usually translated as happiness).  It is a mark of these times that the Queen has changed less than her people but nobody knows what shape either the monarchy or what remains of the once mighty empire will be in for the next one placed upon Edward's seat, presented with Bible, orb, and crown.

This might seem mere curiosity to a Yank except that what carved out the empire from underneath the Queen was not simply changing conditions in the world or colonies throwing off the weight of servitude.  It was the demise of a Christian identity, whether actually true among all the peoples yet the binding truth that united a culture and a people under the monarch assigned them by divine choice.  In this we are not so different.  Without a king (thanks to George Washington), we have had royal families among those with money and power and with royal lineage to the Office of President (from the Adams to the Bushes).  Yet modern presidents find it harder than ever to govern in a land divided by the very diversity that we claim our founders fostered.  Perhaps they were wrong.  Or more likely, they did not foresee a time in which common virtue would become uncommon and the notion of a Christian nation (civic and religious) would not unite the vast geography and its inhabitants.

A great many things old-fashioned are not out of date.  They may seem quaint except to a culture in the throws of a mighty battle over the most basic of truths -- sex, gender, marriage, family, the value of life, etc...  We are no longer arguing over rights and wrongs but waging a war over values -- whether to have them as well as what values to have.  As with Britain's monarchy, this problem was not simply thrust upon by the passage of time and the addition of immigrants but by the loss of old-fashioned virtues and the consensus among the woke that religion is private and individual and mostly out of date.  In the great vacuum of a common sense of morality and identity greater than self, there is only the divvying up of the rights and privileges and giving the bill to the welfare state to occupy our attention.  

Across the world, the demise of Christianity has been followed by a chaos of conflicting ideas over who matters, what matters, and why things matter.  Death, which once brought us together to find hope, comfort, and meaning, has become merely an individual choice -- whether to the child in the womb or the person who decides that his or her life has become not worth living (and the state owes the person a painless exit).   Who needs God when sin is no longer sin and when death is no longer death?  Who needs man when he is an enemy to the pristine ideal of nature and a world which would be better off without him?  Yet as old-fashioned as God is, He is never out of date.  Ignoring or renaming sin and death cannot make either go away.  God will remain the necessity of those who are woke enough to find out that the removal of sin from our vocabulary, the individualization of morality, the personal definition of life as well as happiness, and the befriending of death (when we control some of the terms) are a game without any chance of winning.

Yes, the Triune God of the Scriptures and creeds is certainly an old-fashioned notion for a modern world that finds technology and science to be the oracles of our future but it is never out of date.  Let the Church be the beacon of this shining light as darkness encroaches evermore upon our world and our people.  Man was not created for the world but the world for man and both serve God's purpose.  Jesus did not come to erase that order but to perfect it.  His gift to us is not simply a personal and individual righteousness we wear but a place in that order -- restored to us with its own gift of identity, boundary, and purpose.

Respectable. . .

Respectable religion knows its place, knows when to be quiet and look the other way.  Respectable religion knows that doctrine is not what is important but the more common vagaries of all religion.  Respectable religion does not presume to judge but honors the virtue of tolerance.  Respectable religion must forego all the trappings of truth for the sake of an egalitarian ideal in which God was the loving but distant Father who did not bother with morals except to make sure that people played well together in the sandbox of the world.

Religion that refused to be respectable was blamed for all sorts and kinds of things -- from the downfall of empires to the start of wars to all the injustices that plague societies and peoples.  Soon salvation was the right of all and sin does not matter so much.  The principles of love and self-actualization became the driving force behind everything.  And the promise was that by jettisoning doctrine and morals, people would be free to be united and to live positively to their chosen fulfillment (as long as it did not infringe upon the myths the under girded this utopia or harm others).  Overall, the point was to rescue humanity from itself and from the ruination caused by religion.  

Protestantism was the first to embrace the role of respectable religion.  It characterized the Biblical facts as mere legend and made the history secondary to the esteemed principles of an enlightened society.  When fact and history were set aside in favor of generic ideals, the seeds of our modern day dilemma were already sown.  The results may be new but the direction was already there when Adam and Eve became symbolic figures and creation became a fairy tale.  Instead of salvation, the fight was about how much or how little of Scripture was truth and whether that mattered at all.  It did not take much more to surrender the eternal for the present moment, cleansed of any embarrassments of the past.  It was a short trip from there to a full embrace of any sexual desire and gender identity.  And from that we got the spiritual but not religious outcome that has hijacked church and culture today.

Rome took a longer and more intellectual route but it came along.  In the wake of Vatican II, unbelief was no impairment to salvation and intention took the place of faith.  There was no wholesale loss of memory over what had been believed but simply the primacy given to a pastoral application of the past.  The dignity of the individual, the improvement of the condition of the worker, and the integrity of desire provided a foundation for Rome to follow Protestantism, but in a more refined and philosophical way.  The end result is that some find it hard to distinguish the cause of the unborn from the support of the poor -- as if they were functionally equal in urgency and weight.  Truth telling was no longer the distinctive role or mark of Scripture or the Church and political ends became as much the focus of popes and jurisdictions as the salvation of the soul.  It did not take too long to find that cozying up to political leaders came at the price of accepting their divergence from Roman Catholic faith and practice but that was and is a small price to pay for influence.  It was this way as soon as a pope put a crown on a king and it remains that way today -- what to do with a Biden and Pelosi are not modern day questions but what Rome has dealt with over the centuries.

Maybe I am a fool and an old one at that but damn that respectable religion.  Maybe the terrible state of Christendom is due to the fact the we have chosen respectability over faithfulness too often and for too long.  Christianity has always been a scandal.  Jesus knew that the warned us of it but we have forgotten His words and tried to find the easier path of accommodation.  There is little danger of being hauled before magistrates and rulers if all we have to say is a faint echo of the world around us.  The only problem with truth defined by opinion poll is that the Church is rendered unnecessary and Scripture unessential.  It is no wonder the pews are empty and emptying.  Perhaps there is still time to rescue the faith from obscurity and to be true to Christ no matter what happens.  If that is the case, the Church must stop acting like a business seeking market share or consumer satisfaction and begin to preach in season and out of season the one eternal Gospel.  Church leaders must stop acting like administrators and politicians and begin being bishops accountable to God.  Pastors must give up pandering to the changing whims of preference, the busy schedules of work and play, and proclaim the whole counsel of God's Word.  And the people in the pew must give their leaders prayerful and financial support so that the Church does not repeat the mistakes of our past and give up when the going gets tough.

Good Luck Finding an Organist. . . Redo. . .

Twelve years ago I penned what has been my most popular post.  Some 200,000 read the story of churches with empty organ benches and silent organs.  Since that time, things have not improved and have declined even more.  Those serving as organists have aged.  In fact, it is not uncommon to find organists who have been at their jobs for 50, 60, and even 70 years -- and still playing.  Like my own home parish, the ordinary organist there has played at least that long and there is no one in the parish to succeed her.  Thankfully, the wife of their pastor (a pastor shared with another parish thirty miles away) is an accomplished organist and is able to fill in.  Perhaps she will become the regular organist whether she wants to or not.  It is often the situation where a pastor's wife who can play piano or organ becomes the default parish musician when there is no one to step up.  My home parish is committed to the pipe organ.  They just recently spent more than $3,000 just to repair a blower motor and that shows the level of commitment to both the instrument and its role as leader of the people's song.  But as hard as it was to have an absolutely ancient electric motor repaired, it will be more difficult to find someone to play that instrument if the day comes and the wife of the pastor is no longer there to fill in.  

The prospect for finding an organist have become pipe dreams in too many places.  As the situation declines even more, it will be harder than ever to recruit new people to the organ bench.  Without a real life organist to demonstrate the craft and encourage those who may have an interest, the young will not have a mentor to encourage their interest or train them in this important craft.  It is not simply a problem in the congregation.  There are a host of reasons that contribute to the problem.  Children receiving less exposure to music in their regular school settings, music programs in schools are either being cut back or eliminated entirely, and neither the organ or the piano is as popular as other instruments.  There is also the problem of musical taste.  Children are more often exposed to church music that features no organ accompaniment to the hymns and instead see and hear instruments such as guitars, drums and electronic keyboards.  Even in places where organs remain, the sound is likely to come from speakers playing a CD or from an iPad.  Where the sound system might be okay, it might be acceptable as a short term solution but it is no long term answer to the problem of the empty organ bench.

Why does this matter?  The organ is not there for the aesthetic.  It is the King of Instruments largely because it provides the best sound to call forth and support congregational song.  That is what is at stake here.  Neither the piano nor the praise band offers the best way to sound the melody and then support that song as the people lift their voices in praise. Part of what we are discussing when we talk about the shortage of organists is the tenuous situation of congregational song.  Absent the music programs which one taught singing (even in parts) from a young age, school music programs no longer have the money or the willing participants for such endeavors.  Furthermore, many school music programs are no longer offered or required of all students but only those interested.  At a time like this, the strong sound of the organ is needed more than ever (for the timid voice and the untrained one).  After all, music is God's gift to us that we might return it to Him.  It is only secondarily the domain of our own preference and enjoyment.  In most Protestant congregations as well as in many Roman Catholic parishes, the congregation sings but a few hymns and no longer the parts of the liturgy.  This is for several reasons but not in the least has been the failure to find good parish musicians and the failure to provide the resources (organ and compensation) to attract and keep such parish musicians.

Some organists drive significant distances to play at one or perhaps several congregations each week.  I know of at least one parish where the organist is paid more than the vacancy pastor -- fee for service and mileage for a 140 mile round trip!  In any case, we are at a tipping point.  Unless we compensate and support the organists we have and recruit and train those interested, the bench may be empty for a very long time.  In my own parish, our Cantor has begun a training program to do just that -- to recruit and train young men and women in our parish to become organists.  While it is doubtful that they will ever be organ majors when they attend a university, such training will open many doors to them and provide them with a lifetime of opportunity and satisfaction -- heralding the sounds of the mighty organ to marshal the voices of God's people in praise to our gracious God.  The other problem, of course, is that without students and funding, many universities are abandoning organ programs and no longer employ staff organists or have teachers on their faculties.

The days are coming, sooner rather than later, when the organist will become a rare quantity and the organ merely a decoration in the parish.  But it does not have to be that way.  Consider this a wake up call.

Must be Lutheran. . .

Although some decry that our Missouri Synod colleges and universities some time ago ceased to be places where the majority of students were members of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  Although some are worried about this, I am not.  It is not the diminished numbers of LCMS or even Lutheran students at our institutions of higher learning that is the problem.  It is that those institutions struggle to know what it means to be Lutheran and therefore teeter on the edge of Lutheran identity.  This is not a new problem and has been going on for a very long time -- although masked by the fact that enough LCMS students were on campus to maintain a semblance of that Lutheran identity.  No more.  There are simply not enough LCMS students entering college to fill all our campuses and those LCMS students are not assured of having a solid Lutheran identity and worldview before they get to the schools.

Not every student at a Lutheran college or university needs to be a faithful LCMS or Lutheran, but the institution itself absolutely must be Lutheran or it has no reason to exist -- except self-interest.  If there are students from other religious traditions or strains of Christianity or have no faith at all, and I expect there will be, the identity of the institution does not and cannot rest on the polled preferences or religious backgrounds of the student body.  It can and must reside with the college or university itself.  This is the problem that killed Portland and Bronxville and has always been the problem with Selma.  It is a growing problem for the rest of the Lutheran colleges and universities that are doing better than those which closed.  The same, by the way, could be said of the Lutheran preschool, elementary school, and high school.  It is not the faith or lack of faith on the part of the students that defines an institution as Lutheran.  It is the character and commitment of that school to be Lutheran -- Lutheran in doctrine and practice.

Existing to explore the wonder of God's mystery or to exist to glorify God is not a sufficient idea of Lutheran identity.  It goes to the heart and core of Scripture -- the message of Jesus Christ.  What must permeate the campus in classroom and chapel is the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen.  What is required of a Lutheran institution is that they have a Lutheran worldview -- even if their students do not. . . at least not yet!  The trite and trivial mission statements that speak of Lutheran heritage or even speak of Lutheran identity without fleshing this out remain the fog that confuses the folks on the inside of that school (faculty) and the folks on the outside (prospective students and the church folk whose $ support that school).

The reality is that the government has influenced who we are in the Lutheran school because we have pandered to the money trail.  Whether it is in student loan guarantees or aid in a direct or indirect form, the government never gives without strings.  For too long we have been willing to or consigned to accepting the strings with the money and what we have surrendered in the bargain is the very identity of the institution as an expression of our Lutheran faith and an extension of our Lutheran parish and mission.  Part of this involves the conclusion on our part that no one would want to come to a Lutheran school unless that school was but minimally Lutheran.  We have lost confidence in our identity and it is reflected in the institutions that extend out from the central life of the Lutheran parish at font, altar, and pulpit.  We don't believe an institution can be credibly Lutheran anymore and therefore we have styled our preschools, elementary schools, high schools, and colleges/universities as legacy institutions who honor the past but are not defined by it.

Let me restate the obvious.  Not every student at a Lutheran college or university needs to be a faithful LCMS or Lutheran, but the institution itself absolutely -- without shame or embarrassment -- must be Lutheran or it has no reason to exist -- except self-interest.  There are many who think I know nothing about such things and perhaps they are correct.  But the track record of accommodation and the surrender of our distinctives have not exactly filled the institutions with students or shaped those institutions for the faith.  Maybe the only path left is to give up being generic and start being particular -- giving up our vague Christian identity to be fully Lutheran as institutions.  Then let us see if those schools survive and attract students.  If they do not survive and did not attract students, then at least let us fail because we were true to our confession and not because we abandoned it.

Invited and Cleansed to Proclaim

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (C) preached on Sunday, February 6, 2022, by the Rev. Daniel M. Ulrich.

 And [Isaiah] said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
    Vulgarity and four-letter words have become part of our daily vocabulary.  They’re heard in the songs we listen to and the TV and movies we watch.   We hear them so much, we get used to them.  We don’t think they do serious damage.  We don’t believe that saying something hateful to someone or about someone is on the same level as actually assaulting them.  But our sinful words are serious.  They harm our relationships, and not only that, they separate us from God; keeping us from coming into His presence.     
    There was a time, not too long ago, that if a young boy was caught saying four-letter words or telling a crude joke a nearby adult would rebuke him saying, “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”  There’s a bit of humor in that stinging question, but at its core, it speaks the truth.  Words of affection can’t come from the same lips that speak words of filth.  No mother wants to be kissed by a son who speaks that way.  
    But it’s not just about filthy jokes and four-letter words.  The sinful words that cross our lips are all the unholy things we say: words that lie, words that speak and spread gossip, words that degrade and harm others, words that insult, words spoken to tear others down instead of buildup.  They’re words that participate in false worship, words that refuse to speak truth, words that take our Lord’s name in vain, words that reveal our fear, love, and trust in anything and everything else but God.  Sinful words and faithful praise can’t come from the same lips.  The prophet Isaiah knew this.  
    At the time of Isaiah’s commissioning, he saw a vision of the Lord.  God was sitting upon His throne, His kingly robe filling the temple.  Above the Lord flew the seraphim angels, and they were singing the very same song of praise that we still sing today in the Sanctus as we come into Christ’s presence in Holy Communion.  Seeing all of this, Isaiah feared.  “Woe is me!”  Isaiah knew couldn’t rightly stand in the presence of the Lord because he was a sinner who spoke sinful words.  
    St. Peter realized this very same thing too.  Witnessing that miraculous catch of fish, Peter knew he was in the presence of God, and he was afraid.  The first thing he said was “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Lk 5:8).  Because he was a sinner, he knew he couldn’t safely stand in the presence of the holy righteous God.  Because he was a man of unclean lips, Isaiah knew he couldn’t safely stand in the presence of the holy righteous God; and neither can we.  
    Because we’re sinners, we can’t safely stand in the presence of the holy and righteous God.  Because of our sin, it’s right to fear being in the Lord’s presence, because our sin deserves to be punished.  This is what Luther teaches us in the Small Catechism as he explains the Commandments.  Every explanation starts with, “We should fear and love God….”  
We rightly deserve the punishment of death because of our sin, including the sinful words that cross our lips and the sinful words that we don’t say but still think.  Following the example of Isaiah and Peter, it’s right for us to fear our sin; it’s right for us to confess our sin; and it’s right to trust in God’s cleansing of our sin.  The Lord didn’t leave His prophet and disciple in their fear.  He didn’t keep them away from His presence.  He cleansed them of their sin and invited them to come to Him.  
    There’s a scene in the movie A Christmas Story where Ralphie, the main character, says a four-letter word and his mother hears it.  Immediately, she marches him to the bathroom in order to wash that filthy language from his mouth by putting a bar of soap in his mouth.  The whole purpose of that bar of soap was to make Ralphie suffer.  It was to make him remember that awful taste so that he would think twice before before saying those kinds of words.  That soap was punishment, but it couldn’t completely cleanse Ralphie’s mouth.  He may not have said that word again, but he was quick to lie, saying he heard that word from a friend.  He still spoke sinful words.  The only way for our lips to be cleansed is for the Lord to do it.  
    For Isaiah, God sent one of His seraphim angels to touch his lips with a burning coal from the altar.  In that action, the Lord promised that Isaiah’s guilt was taken away and his sin was atoned for.  This action foreshadowed how the Lord cleans your lips.
    The altars and sacrificial system of the Old Testament pointed forward to Christ our Savior.  All that blood, all that death, all of it pointed to the cross where Jesus died for you, where He sacrificed Himself for you, where He shed His blood to atone for your sin and to cleanse you from it, to take your guilt away.  The sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood, His very body and blood that touches your lips as you eat and drink the Lord’s Supper, by that sacrifice your lips are cleansed; your heart is cleansed, and you are brought into God’s presence.
    Not only did the Lord cleanse Isaiah of his sin, He called him to proclaim His name.  Jesus called Peter to follow Him and become a fisher of men.  With clean lips, and clean hearts, these men went out to praise God’s name.  They went out and shared the forgiveness of Christ…and we get to do the same thing.
    The Lord invites us into His presence.  He cleanses our hearts and our lips so that we can faithfully praise His name, so that we can faithfully speak and share the forgiveness of Christ to others.  This doesn’t mean that Jesus is calling every single one of us to go out and Isaiah and Peter did.  But it does mean that we get to speak and share the forgiveness of Christ with those around us in our current vocations in life.  We get to praise our Lord’s name amongst our family and friends, neighbors and co-workers.  We get to speak a good confession with our deeds and our words.  The Lord has cleansed our lips, so let us rightly use them.  
    Separated by almost 8 centuries, Isaiah and Peter had the same reaction when they found themselves in the presence of the Lord.  Knowing their sin, they feared.  But God invited them into His presence.  He cleansed them of their sin, and called them to speak His forgiveness.   Christ does the same exact thing for you.  He takes your quilt away and has made atonement for your sin.  His body and blood cleanses your lips.  And He invites you into His eternal presence where you get to praise His name forever.  In Jesus’ name…Amen.  

What is our strength?

The Vatican, cloaked in secrecy about its finances, has been in the news of late because of bad investments.  In fact, a trial in Italy has yielded hints as to how the financial house of Rome has been and is currently being run and it does not seem in order.  Cardinals and bishops are pointing fingers upstairs and it is not God who these fingers are pointing to.

On the other hand, Cardinal Pell has warned that while we do not know who is going to heaven or who is going to hell, we do know when the financial underpinnings of the Roman Catholic Church are headed toward bankruptcy.  Years of deficit spending have resulted in a weak financial condition and, it would seem, the Roman Church has not weathered the sex scandals without a financial penalty.

Lutherans might seem relieved because we have no such problems.  Or do we?  Though we have great resources put in place by wise planners (agencies like the Lutheran Church Extension Fund, the Lutheran Federal Credit Union, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Foundation, and the like), we are also tempted by the goal of a financially secure future for the Church.  

This is no different than the growing number of congregations whose annual income from tithes and offerings is regularly supplemented with income from trusts, bequests, and endowment funds.  All of these are well and good but the grave issue facing us is about where we look to the support of God's mission, what are the resources that give confidence to that mission, and what is the strength of the Church.

Money has always been the temptation but the world views the dealings of the Church with money with skepticism.  What we view as our strong and prudent resources, the world uses to confirm the lie that the Church is more interested in earthly kingdoms and power than it is the salvation of souls.  Grand buildings and big bank accounts are not the tools that God has given us.  They are not problems unless we make them to be but they cannot be counted upon to be our strength for the future and they should not be the goals of our present.  It is our piety that we offer the world and it is that piety that is our strength and foundation for what we do now and what we will do in the future.

By piety I do not mean our own machinations but the real meaning of piety -- faith that flows out of and back to God's Word and Sacraments.  Our piety is not what we do to show ourselves to God or man but what God has done that bears its promised good fruit in our lives.  It is our piety that is our strength and it is our lack of piety that will be our downfall.  We may go down with plenty of real assets and money in the back but our demise will surely come, less at the hands of the devil than our own failure to believe God's Word and order our lives around His means of grace.

The word piety comes from the Latin word pietas (noun), and our adjective pious from pius. To the Romans, pius was something weak or feminine but masculine and strong.  Another strong word which substitutes for piety is “devout” or “dutiful”—the very kind of devotion a soldier would have for his brothers in arms, his commander, and the nation for whom he fought. Such a soldier was pius if he was willing to step into the breach, to hold his ground, to stare the enemy in the face, and die for a cause greater than himself.  The virtue of a man was related to the pietas he held for the deities esteeemed by his city or state.  The poet Virgil used pietas as Aeneas’s common epithet in the Aeneid.  So when  Christian chivalry carried on this tradition among the knights or heralded guardians of their God and the monarchy, they also continued the tradition known as knightly piety—the virtue of those select men who were warriors for Christ and country.  Think here of the fabled Musketeers.

Piety is our strength and always has been.  It is from our piety -- our confidence in God's Word and promises and our devotion to the Sacraments whereby Christ comes to us and makes His home in us -- that we face the world around us and the enemies of God's Kingdom.  From this piety flows our passion, strength, and devotion toward the cause of Christ and the well-being of His Church.  We act in this piety with a sense of honor and duty, never ashamed of one’s faith, always ready to give answer to those who question and always with an informed faith and devotion to the Church, the womb of our faith that gave us our baptismal new birth. 

Yet it is piety that is the problem.  When Christians no longer practice regular and faithful church attendance -- when monthly becomes the norm -- we offer a weak witness to the world and we suffer from our neglect of the Lord's House, Word, and Table (Hebrews 10).  When Christians are passive before a government that declares the ministrations of that Word and Sacraments non-essential, we offer a weak witness to the world and we suffer ourselves the weakness of missing out on what the Lord offers, promises, and commands.  When Christians accept the rules of the public square that preclude a faithful witness to the Scriptures on what marriage is, what it means to be created male and female, and the fruit of intimacy born in the children that are His gift, we offer a weak witness to the world and we suffer as a people either embarrassed by or ashamed of our faith.  When Christians no longer practice the stewardship of self, time, goods, and money as the reflection of a grateful faith and their churches are forced to beg or provide other income streams for the regular support of God's work here and throughout the world, we offer a weak witness to the world and we suffer as a people as attracted by what we want, what our money can buy, and where we want to spend our time as we are the things of God.

Money is not our problem.  Buildings are not our problem.  Even hostile governments are not our problem.  What is our problem is our weak and vacillating piety -- treating the mighty things of God as a meme to illicit sentimental response and depriving our faith of the very means of grace that encourage, uplift, and comfort us with the fruits of Christ's work of salvation.  The sad reality is that the privatization of piety -- distinguishing that individual piety from the Church and what goes on there around the Word and Sacraments -- has left us with a private faith that is both content to live alone and excuse for doing what is easy and convenient over what is right.  Now more than ever, the power of a strong and vibrant piety is demanded.  Such a piety knows what we cannot do and what God has done, believes and trusts God's Word and promises above all else, and meets the Lord at least weekly where the Lord is -- in His Word preached, baptismal life renewed through absolution, and baptismal faith fed and nourished in His Holy Eucharist.  And one more thing.  Prayer.  

Pray as if work did not matter and work as if prayer did not matter.  The daily prayer lives of our people (and our pastors) suffers because either we are not sure that prayer matters or because we cannot force ourselves into the discipline of prayer.  And it shows.  Prayer is the reflection of our confidence that God hears and answers us, that His good and gracious will demonstrated in Christ's death and resurrection be trusted, and that our hearts and souls are filled as we empty ourselves before the Lord.

Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood. . .

I supposed it was predictable that Facebook would rebrand -- that is what you do when your old brand is tied to an identity you are trying to transcend or when your old identity becomes tainted in some way.  Facebook began as a means of connecting neighborhoods and has turned into its own neighborhood -- albeit an imaginary one.  Across the ages the platform moved from being largely young people to largely old people.  While it was heralded as a technological tool to bridge the gaps between us and engage in civil discourse it became a cause of division, a great divider in its own right, marked by the most uncivil of conversations.  Liberals, progressives, libertines, and conservatives all have a beef with Facebook.  So maybe it will all go away with the Meta universe being envisioned by Zuckerberg and his lot. 

He is itching for a new digital reality that blurs the real with the digital.  In this world, posts would not be in words but in video, in images, whereby the person speaking and the person listening have some sort of visual connection without being in person.  Maybe so.  Of course, we have had Zoom and Google Meeting for a long time and these have not exactly raised the bar for our social experience so what can Meta do that Facebook cannot?  I wish I knew and I have no way of predicting what that would look like.  What I do know is that however fancy and seamless the digital realities become, they are not in person.  What I also know is that too many of us do not seem to know the difference or care.  In particular, my concern is how this more visual form of digital connection would impact the Church.

The cause of the Gospel is not being furthered by new and more profound digital realities to replace in person worship, study, or fellowship.  What might work to introduce or access those who do not know the Kingdom will not work at all to grow, sustain, or bring to fruition the faith that might be planted by digital seeds of the Word of the Lord.   It is high time that we all confronted this elephant in the room and debunked the myth of the digital church.  But that will probably not happen.  On the one hand you have Rome which is not sure that you actually need to be there or to receive in your mouth the Holy Supper of our Lord in order to benefit from the Mass.  On the other hand you have those who think that there is enough of the Mass sent through a fiber optic cable or screen to replace what is given and received from the hand at the rail -- Protestants of all flavors and, increasingly, Lutherans as well.

The kind of universe envisioned by Zuckerberg and his religious counterparts is a threat in so many ways.  It is the ultimate lie and deception.  First of all, it begs the question of reality -- or at least what kind of reality we are willing to settle for.  Second, it presumes that the reality of the personal is either not real itself or unsubstantial in a way that threatens the substantial confession of creed and doctrine about God and the means of His presence.  Third, it deceives the people with a blend of digital and personal that detracts from both because it promises a seamless way to interact between the personal or real and the virtual.  Fourth, it raises all sorts of questions about privacy and control that affect us as people but also affect our ability to access and use platforms that we borrow from others.  Finally, it allows the people watching the screen the comfortable myth of belonging and confessing and fellowshiping -- quite literally to their possible damnation!

It is a sad day in the life of the Church when voices actually have to be raised against putting your hermetically sealed bit of cracker and juice up to the screen and then calling it a Sacrament.  But it is even a sadder day in the life of the Church when voices are raised to encourage us to accept and adopt the inevitable -- a personal reality which has been fully integrated into and replaced by a digital one.  It took us 18 months before we began to say "no" to online Sacraments.  How many years will it take us to say no to the fool's gold being offered to us by Zuckerberg and his ilk as a version of Church and an alternative suitable for the Gospel and worthy of Christ.

And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong. . .

For All The Saints remains one of my favorite hymns and the favorite throughout the English speaking world.  Its stanzas sing a progression through the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant.  It is eloquent and well-phrased and the tune is wedded to the text in ways that support both.  What more can I say?  Well, of course, there is more.

Sadly not all the stanzas are used.  Interestingly, the stanzas for the apostles, evangelists, and martyrs are generally omitted.  I wish I knew why and wish that we could restore them.  The eighth stanza (yes, there were originally 11 but most omit 3, 5, and 6 of the original) addresses the state of the world today and the place of Christendom within that world.  A 160 year old hymn still speaks to us today and to a Christendom still in need of its words and witness.  Maybe, just maybe, it will become our song again -- a song of victory!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,

Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

With reference to the fierce fight, the long warfare, the weariness of the soldiers, still comes the distant triumph song.  It can barely be heard with the ear -- stealing into our hearing like a thief who quietly enters to steal.  But this song is meant only to steal from us our faint hearts, our weary minds, and our tired bodies.  It steals what is worn and broken to make it new again.

And hearts are brave...  That is what is missing in the Church -- brave hearts.  I long for this.  Like so many, I long for brave hearted bishops and church leaders who are not captive to the fears of legal counsel or a threatening culture but who speak with courage and conviction the unchanging and eternal Gospel.  Is this not what we all seek and for which we hope?  A Church with leaders not cowered into submission by the warnings of government or the unpopularity of the cross in a secular society!  The brave hearts of leaders who encourage by example land and who inspire by their fearless words!  Where have they been in pandemic times?  In times when sexual desire and gender identity rule over everything?  In days when the Gospel is labeled hate speech?  In days when the culture wants only to hear the lie that everything you think and desire is well and good with God?

The bravest among us are not those who insist they are free to be themselves but those who use their freedom to be God's!  This is what the Church has missed and caused us all kinds of distress and upset.  We want leaders who will stand like the prophets and apostles of old, who will preach without fear the whole counsel of God's Word, and who will rally us to be steadfast and immovable in Christ.  We want a Church that does not live by the like meter on Facebook or the number of hits on a web page but by believing, preaching, and teaching the doctrines of the Scriptures without shame or embarrassment.  We want a Church willing to risk all to sing the sturdy hymns of old in a society in which music has become a business and entertainment instead of a medium for God's praise.

For All the Saints was written as a processional hymn by Anglican Bishop of Wakefield, William Walsham How. The hymn was first printed in Hymns for Saints' Days, and Other Hymns, by Earl Nelson, 1864. It was sung amid the deaths of plague and war, among terrorist's destruction and for the noblest of our fallen leaders.  It is still sung in parishes where the names of great people are remembered and where the anonymous saints are not forgotten.  It is time to sing this stanza again as a people who mean what we sing and who desire to inhabit those words.  And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.

We are not weak and we do not serve a weak God.  We are strong and the devils that fill the world and all their minions of evil cannot take from us what God has given.  Our God was there before anything and our God will bring us with Him into everlasting life where the troubles, trials, temptations, and twists of this mortal life will pass away from our memory leaving us occupied with eternal joy.  Marshal the sounds of the mighty organ and sound the brass for the people of God need to sing these words again and become the brave and strong again.  In times like these, we need nothing less!

Bridges to our past. . .

As a grandparent I am always tempted to make my time with my grandchildren fun.  Who does not want to be remembered as a fun papa or grandma?   But grandparents are for more than fun.  They serve as bridges to a child's past, even more so than their parents.  Parenthood is laced with so many responsibilities -- made ever more complicated and consuming during a pandemic.  But grandparents are free from having to deal with many of those and that freedom exists for a good purpose.  We can provide roots to our children that go back more than one generation and a bridge to their own history.  Of course, they will not realize or value that bridge as children.  Who does?  But as time goes on we equip them to remember and remembering to renew their place as part of the came before them.

As a child I did not know this.  I am not sure any kid does.  I loved my grandparents and they were an almost daily part of my life.  Overtime, I began to realize that they were a people with a story and that their story was also mine.  As is always the case, by the time I fully comprehended this, they were gone and I could not question them or probe into that history anymore.  It is probably no different for any kid who grows up.  But the role of grandparents is not simply to babysit or be fun playmates, it is to teach the grandchildren even before they grow up to know and appreciate the story of their lives.

None of us can reach too many generations ahead of us but we can address a generation after our children with the profound influence of a living faith that has aged well and remained faithful.  We can give to our children's children the example of values that endure whether they are in vogue or not.  We can instill in our children respect for life, for their family, for each other, and for themselves as children of God.  We can give them a sense of their past, anchors in a world of change to remind them that they stand in link and line with those who went before.

I to this very day regret that my vocation as a pastor left me with little choice about where I was to serve and how that distance affected my own children's relationships with their grandparents.  Knowing that, I have been given the opportunity to be involved with my grandchildren in a way my own parents could not.  No, it was not like they were strangers or my kids did not spend alone time with them -- they did.  One of my kids lives less than an hour away from where I grew up and the roots of my family remain.  But they were not geographically close enough to do what I am able to do.  Part of that task is to support the parents -- a task that will become inevitably more difficult as they become teenagers -- but that is years down the road for now.

My wife is the smart one on this.  She has researched our ancestry and knows my family better than I do.  She puts the fruit of her work into albums and scrapbooks that give a more permanent reminder of the things we told our kids and tell our grandchildren.  I am very grateful for her work.  Children need anchors but in this time of rapid and constant change an anchor is even more important!  We know who we are not by looking inside ourselves but by looking at our families, the people from whom we came and by whom we learned faith, values, truth, and character.  She reminds me of so many things I had forgotten and she encourages this duty of passing on to our children and grandchildren a bridge to their past.  She reminds me that the best we can give to our grandchildren is not a fun memory or the latest toys or gadgets to distract them but the story of their families -- of their history, their courage, their strength, and their faith.  I only wish I had learned this lesson sooner so I could have learned better from my own grandparents and I pray that I will not soon forget this instruction as the brief days of my grandchildren's youth pass before me and I age away from them finally into death.

What did we hope for. . .

Sermon for the Presentation of Our Lord and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Candlemas, preached on its observance.

If you have not yet, now, at Candlemas, the Presentation of our Lord and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, you may put away your Christmas decorations.  That is the English tradition.  If it will last that long, the Christmas tree and all the festive adornments of Christmas are kept until Candlemas.  But I suspect that you grew tired of the tree and the decorations long before February 2.  Only those exterior strings of lights high on our roofs might escape the urgency to put all the stuff away and pack up Christmas for another year.

After a while Christmas wears thin.  We realize that the old and ordinary family tensions remain after the holiday is over.  We realize that all the packages under the tree did not hold the happiness, contentment, and peace we had hoped to receive.  We realize that COVID and bills and cleaning and work are still there – waiting for the holy day to end and the holiday to be over.  We had hoped for more.  A longer respite from the harsh realities of this mortal life.

Maybe Jesus hoped for more as well.  But already on the eighth day His blood was shed.  Circumcision is worth hardly more than a giggle to a sophisticated people who can find no logic in this outward sign.  But Jesus shed His first blood so that He might be under the covenant, reaching back to Abraham.  He does so not so that He might belong to God – He IS God – but so that He might belong to us.

Maybe Mary and Jesus had hoped for more time before the harsh realities of His incarnational purpose would be revealed – time to bond, to build memories, and to be happy in ignorance.  But already on the fortieth day the first born Son who breaks the womb is symbolically taken from blessed Mary His mother and from Joseph His faithful guardian and their earthly family of relatives and friends – and Jesus is given to God to fulfill God’s purpose.  That is the presentation.

Maybe Mary had hoped that the words of the Archangel proclaiming the beating heart in her womb to be the Son of God might be delayed so that Jesus might have a semblance of a normal life and she might have one with Him.  But already on the fortieth day when sacrifice was offered so that she might declared clean and given entrance back into society, a sword pierces her heart.  A stranger plucks her son from her arms and prophesies the future of this baby and warns her that her own soul would be pierced.  That is the purification.

That is why we are here today, to remember the Presentation of Our Lord and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary on February 2 every year.  Maybe we thought sin might be wished away or forgotten like a nightmare into the shadows.  But already we see that death is in the wind, blood must be shed, and a life ruined because of what we thought, said, and did from Eden right down to the ticking second that passed while I speak.

Maybe we thought that Christmas might be more than a mere distraction but a detour around all the unpleasantness that fills life because of sin.  But already we see that death is right there in the midst of the wonderful story.  Angels sing and shepherds worship but the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem die and the wailing of their mothers still echos in our ears.  Simeon prophesies and Anna rejoices but the news warns us of division, of the rising and falling of many, and of a mother who will watch her innocent Son die for the guilty world.

The Christmas of our hopes and dreams is over but the Christmas of God’s saving purpose is still here.  It is the sound of the Savior crying out over circumcision blood shed so that we might be marked for God by baptism.  It is the voice of Simeon raised in a canticle of praise we still sing having seen our salvation and tasted our Savior in Holy Communion.  It is the smile of an aged woman who knows God’s promise as a Word fulfilled and the smile of a people who hear the voice of God preached into their ears, minds, and hearts.  It is a sacrifice paid once for all that now becomes the sacramental gift of God’s favor forever.  It is a death that has died and a people who live to laugh at death.

Christmas is tied to circumcision and to the presentation and purification.  But it is also tied to the teaching of our Lord with authority, to the palms and hosannas of a crowd, to the Passover in the Upper Room, to the suffering of the cross, to the darkness of the grave, and to the light of the Risen Savior who raises us to life.  In other words, now, finally, you can put your decorations away.  But don’t you dare pack away your joy or hide away your hope for what is truly Christmas is still here, still yours, and still applies.

And you know this not because I say so, but because He has made it so.  Our Lord is Emmanuel, God with us in trial and goodness, in trouble and calm, in affliction and health, in defeat and victory, in life and death.  We shall not die but live and living we shall dwell before the Lord and within His household forever.  And so we join with Simeon to sing again, our song here in this life, until we know it face to face in heaven.  Lord, now You let Your servant depart in peace.  Amen.

Who is in therapy. . .

Many years ago I was eating lunch with a professor at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, who is well-known for his academic work.  In the course of conversation he remarked that many of those who were coming to seminary were people with wounds seeking a cure, with hearts and minds seeking healing, and broken in search of personal wholeness.  He asked what was happening in Missouri.  While I have no doubt that there are such individuals, they are, I suspected (then and now) to be few.  His concern was that these individuals were being commended to the congregations for the ministry but, without a cure, healing, or wholeness, ended up bleeding all over the people they were supposed to serve.  The effect was to weaken or even, perhaps, destroy a congregation.  The words stuck with me.  I fear that however true they were then, they are even more true today.

A while ago I read a piece on a United Methodist pastor who ended up on a HBO feature on drag queens.  This Indiana minister participated in full drag queen dress and then went back home to his parish.  “When the episode is over, I go right back to my home, my neighborhood, my church, my experiences as Craig Duke, where my pronouns, my race, my sexuality and the way I express my faith is completely accepted,” he said. “I’m hoping it’s a bridge — for my daughter, for the church I serve, for the denomination I love and for me — and I’m hoping my voice will become stronger,” he said.

Although I do not know the man, I am sure he found the experience cathartic, therapeutic, and exhilarating all at the same time.  But at what cost?  His own denomination is divorcing over the very things that such a show puts front and center.  Perhaps what was most telling was the way he began the HBO show with "Welcome to Church."  That is the problem.  Dealing with his desires and seeking the approval of his church, his friends, and his God is what he calls church.  While it might sound nice, it does little to acknowledge what the Gospel is by Jesus' own words or to address the world with the message of the cross.  I am sure it is therapeutic but is it the Gospel?  That is what's at stake -- not approval or disapproval of the man or his chosen lifestyle but what kerygma is being proclaimed in Christ's name to the world and to those in his charge?  The fact that folks feel better about themselves may or may not be good -- depending upon what it is that they feel -- but that is not the focus of the Gospel.  

Those who advocate for the greater GLBTQ+++ agenda are hijacking the Gospel and the church and using them to deal with personal problems and needs.  It is not a theocentric message but an anthropocentric focus.  This may have been a problem in the past but now it has become the very content of the faith and the focus of the life of the congregation for those churches where this social justice theme has replaced Christ and Him crucified.  Therapeutic deism is not only the danger for the church but it has become the operating program for the clergy of too many denominations.  Meanwhile, without the real Gospel, people are left bruised, broken, and bleeding without the true medicine of the Gospel.  How long will churches last with pastors whose primary concern is coming to terms with their chosen identity and getting the people in the pews to celebrate them and join them in this endeavor?