A calling or a life choice. . .

I have said on this blog many times how disappointed I am over the resistance of families to their child's choice of church work vocation.  While it is true overall, it is especially true of pastors.  Many second career men have said that they might have made the ministry their first calling but did not receive the support or encouragement from their families for this vocation.  That is a real tragedy.  Undoubtedly there are a number of reasons families and friends do not encourage this calling for church work but one of them is that we no longer value nor hold in highest esteem this vocation. 

Part of it means labeling the vocation to church work, particularly the pastoral office, merely a life choice or a career move.  Reducing the ministry to a life choice that is the same as choosing any other career reveals how deeply we have lost the understanding of the profound gift and blessing of the ministry.  Our lack of reverence for many professions is telling by the lack of those seeking them, especially the helping professions.  But here it reveals that we also lack reverence appreciation for both Christ and those who serve us in His name with His gifts.  It does not diminish any other calling to raise up the pastoral vocation to its rightful and noble place among them all.  

Instead of offering pale support or hostility to a young man who is considering becoming a pastor, we should be offering them our prayers and our encouragement.  This also holds true for the man who give up on their calling and end up in the limbo of candidacy or who resign altogether.  I am saddened every time I read of those who are no longer pastors, the list of resignations that dots the official notices.  None of us knows all the circumstances under which these have been given and some of them may need to resign but many of them have been chewed up, spit out, and despair of the struggles.  It should not be that way.  If the pastoral office is noble enough to expect sacrifices from those who enter it, then it is noble enough for us to offer our prayerful, vocal, and financial support.  Nobody becomes a pastor to make a killing.  

In the end, when we judge careers simply on the basis of what they provide for us, we miss not only the particular vocation of those who would be pastors but we forget that we are all called to a life of service, sacrifice, and giving -- denying self, taking up the cross, and following Him who had neither nest nor home to call His own.  Yes, pastors give up a lot to serve but the rest of the baptized are not to judge life simply on the basis of ease, pleasure, or personal satisfaction either.  If grace is sufficient for the pastor, it is sufficient for us all.  I fear that our life with plenty has blinded us to this need to depend upon Christ and His mercy.  The way of the cross is not the unique path of the pastor or any other church worker but our common life as the people of God by baptism and faith.  

What is Canada?

There was a time when Canada and the United States were so close together on values and purposes that it was inconceivable to find a space between them.  We had similar economies, churches, resources, histories, and goals.  Then it all seemed to fall apart.  While some Canadians insist that it has to do with Trump, the lines of division began long before anyone ever imagined a Trump presidency.  I am no expert and have no crystal ball but I do think that the differences were noticed more when Canadians themselves distinguished between the French and the English heritage, between Quebec and the West.  When Canadians began to normalize the odd balancing act between the two populations, there was a distinction with a difference.  Though perhaps not causal, the distinction did seem to highlight the difference in a way that had not quite been apparent previously.

Now it is as if there is a Canada with the same name but with an identity we in the US no longer know or recognize as kin.  One of the key elements of this difference is the change with respect to religion.  Canada seems to be so far left of the US when it comes to religion and Christianity in particular that it is a foreign land to us and one we no longer understand or appreciate.  Canada is the place where military chaplains no longer are free to even mention God or practice their faith freely without restraint -- the official restraint of governmental policy.  The Canadian Armed Forces issued within the month a new directive barring chaplains and other military personnel from mentioning God, Jesus, or other religion-specific language during mandatory public events.  They have effectively banished the name of God from the public square and there seems to be no big conflict over it.  That means that the population has become either secular or religiously indifferent to the whole thing.  Even more concerning.  I read once where Quebec was once among the most Roman Catholic regions of the world.  No more.  It is now a religious ghost town in which popular opinion regards the church as more problem than blessing and seems content with the efforts to marginalize Christianity.  No wonder the rest of Canada is also a religious wasteland.  Though the Western regions of Canada are not quite there yet, it is clear they are behind but heading toward the same goal.  

The second area of difference is the respect for life.  Canada has been on the forefront of protecting abortion as a right and medically assisted suicide the same kind of right.  Canada's reported rate of abortions is probably in line with its size -- roughly 10% of the US in both numbers -- but that represents only those places required to report abortions.  Now that roughly 80% of abortions occur outside hospitals with mandatory reporting requirements, who knows how many abortions there are.  On the other hand, the medically assisted deaths make up 5% of all deaths in Canada and are growing fast.  Since the MAID laws are now ten years old, it has become normal to call upon the medical community to provide a painless and easy way to end your life.  Euthanasia has skyrocketed, surpassing even MAID deaths to some 16,500 in 2024 and statistically one in twenty deaths in the nation.  The US is not only far behind but the unfettered voices of religion in the US have challenged the acceptance of chosen or forced death.  We look to our neighbors to the North and wonder who are these people we thought we knew.  

One such example of Canada's refusal to honor life lies within the case of an 83-year-old Christian great-grandmother, Brigitte Stegemann, who was living out her final chapters in an Ontario long-term care facility with untreatable Stage IV stomach cancer.  The woman was not unclear.  She said "no" -- she did not want to be euthanized.  Her family honored her wishes until her granddaughter, Brigette Kranendonk, who had power of attorney, was away and the gears of the medically assisted death machine sprung into action, putting pressure on the woman to request Medical Assistance in Dying.  Somehow, though no one seems to know how or who witnessed it, consent was secured. The granddaughter returned to discover the irreversible has already been done.  Now months later, she still hasn’t been allowed to see the supposed consent.  The power of death in Canada is greater than the concern for life.

I could list other areas of concern for Americans.  They include the governmental policies and powers used during the pandemic -- who can forget the truckers whose convoys triggered an invasion of their lives and pocketbooks for daring to challenge the then government?  Or, as I found out from working with an agency of our church body, the insistence of Canada that Canadian money or money made in Canada stay in Canada.  It turns out we are not quite following the same rules when it comes to being each other's primary trading partners.  There are other things.  My point is this, Trump has surely brought our concerns to light though not very effectually but he is hardly responsible for creating them.  In the end our cultures are proceeding along different paths and this means that perhaps the most religiously Christian country in the world is finding it hard to know how to deal with one that is becoming a more unashamedly anti-Christian nations.  Although I do not hear many folks talking about this, this is part of the problem and a bigger part of the problem than anyone seems willing to admit. 

An oddity in Rome. . .

Although its permission has not been uniformly or evenly granted, it has become regular enough so that it is no longer rare to have the chalice offered to Roman Catholic laity.  That said, the practice since roughly 1414 AD has been for laity not to receive from the chalice and more profoundly formulated in the Council of Trent a little more than one hundred years later.  It was only after Vatican II that this changed and it did not change universally.  Apparently some bishops are returning to a more restrictive practice and attempting to change what had become a more routine practice of offering reception of the precious blood to those other than clergy.  Some bishops are suggesting that the offering of the chalice to the laity should be reserved to more "special" occasions which, for some anyway, do not include Christmas or Easter.  It seems rather odd to me as a Lutheran and I suspect for many others as well.

The decision for this is and has always been at the discretion of the local bishop.  That is one oddity.  It means that across the invisible line from one diocese to another, very different practices may be operative.  Since Vatican II, communion in both kinds moved from an impossibility since Trent to pretty much the normal practice 400 years later.  Tradition is in the eye of the beholder and even though the first 1400 years or more did one thing, from the Council of Florence on was another practice.  So the tradition here is at best about 600 years old.  Another problem I have with Rome.  Tradition here is hardly different than someone in a Lutheran circle insisting that is not the way it was in great-grandpa's church.  This is really goofy.

What is even more goofy is the insistence that this is not "more" Jesus or "less" Jesus but that Jesus received in the bread is all the Jesus there is and so no more is needed.  Except that Jesus said differently.  If Jesus' words about this can be abrogated (Trent's words have not been overturned), then why can't they be ignored or altered for other things.  The reality is that this restriction of the laity from receiving the wine was not majority or universal in the Western church until the 1400s.  Plague (read Covid in modern terms) may have justified this emergency practice but what made it normative is exactly the problem.  It should be noted that Lutherans followed the Eastern practice which never withheld the chalice.  We followed Rome when Rome followed Jesus and we departed when Rome did not.  While some of the issues with Rome may seem rather sophisticated and not altogether practical, the restriction of the chalice from the laity is an every Sunday concrete issue.  Every Lutheran would agree, this is not about how much Jesus you get (as if a bigger host or larger sip would grant more grace) but whether the words of Jesus are normative and how that normative practice since the Upper Room are the definitive word on the issue.  Nobody should make normal practice of what happens in an emergency.

Do we get to depart from Jesus' clear words or not?  Rome seems to be saying that they do.  The rest of us should give pause to embracing this idea.  Furthermore, this treats Jesus' body and blood as something the Church must protect while this is exactly how our Lord has made Himself accessible to us.  Here, some Lutherans may sound a bit like those who, when speaking of who communes, sound like they are protecting Jesus.  Close communion protects not Jesus but those whose communion may harm them and not benefit them.  We are gatekeeping for Jesus but for the sake of those unprepared or unable to receive the body and blood of Jesus as blessing.  Jesus does not need us to protect Him from those for whom He has come but those who are unable to receive a worthy communion must be protected by Jesus.  The scandal of the Sacraments is that they are for sinners.  Rome seems to try to remove this offensive generosity and make Jesus blood less accessible for sinners than His body.  If that is not offensive, it is the strangest oddity.

 

Oddly offensive misstep. . .

In what has to be one of the most tone deaf and oddly offensive actions of the Church of England, Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi was given the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation.  It all happened on Friday — 11 September.  Who in their right mind scheduled this?  Whether or not he deserved it or not, it was an offensive misstep for a church body that prides itself on careful order.  He was recognized for his “outstanding work as an ambassador of interfaith harmony in Pakistan” and was described in the citation as a “prominent Muslim scholar and religious leader in Pakistan, known for his unwavering commitment to promoting religious tolerance and interfaith harmony”.   Then somebody actually looked at the guy.  After taking a deep dive into previous comments made by Imam Ashrafi Lambeth Palace had enough second thoughts to reconsider this award withdraw it.  They have so informed Imam Ashrafi that they are taking it back.

This a profound example of why churches should not presume to enter into the realm of political judgments or enter efforts to become authorities outside their sphere.  It all made the CofE and the Lady Mullally look foolish and amateurish in their efforts to promote something grand on the world stage.  It is also one more example why Americans look at the CofE and our friends across the pond with sadness.  At a time when this church body could have been leading the efforts to sink the assisted suicide bill, they were playing diplomatic chess.  Thankfully, while the CofE and its lady archbishop were messing things up, the Parliament actually got it right — at least for now.

The British Parliament voted against legalizing assisted suicide services for adults, successfully blocking a bill that was filibustered out of time before the April recess.The House of Commons voted 286-270 on the same day to deny the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which sought to “allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards and protections, to request and be provided with assistance to end their own life.”  The surprise was that the lower chamber had previously approved a near-identical bill in the last parliamentary session but came to their senses at the same time the CofE was losings its bearings.

Give it a rest. . .

As if we have nothing better to do, the predictable outlets for news and commentary in the LCMS have moved on from the immediate past presidential election and convention to set their sights three years down the road.  The so-called guardians of the Synod have decided that there must be an urgent and profound effort to redefine ourselves as a Synod and come up with a leader who will not look at our past but toward the future.  I think I read somewhere "sufficient to the day is its own troubles..."  Perhaps we have reinterpreted that verse.  Everywhere we will see people mining the Scriptures to find quotes to justify the further politicizing of our means of selecting leaders and governing ourselves.  How sad.  How tragic that we seem powerless to present something more than these crude Machiavellian attempts to plan plans and prosper God's work without all that much consulting Him.  I will admit to growing so very tired of it all.  The sensationalism, the hype, the drumbeat for change (even though we are divided about what changes need to come) is both wearing and distracting.

Good leaders and good governance are blessings and worth our labors to find and assist, not to mention our prayers.  That said, do we really think the Lord has given marching orders to the Church that begin with a constant litany of navel gazing?  The statistics the Lord promotes are remarkably out of step with the world or our own Christian thinking.  Leaving the 99 alone in pursuit of the one lost, finding the pear only to bury it again so that you can secure the field, engaging laborers at all hours of the day and then paying them an inequitable wage that is described as generosity...  I could go on but will not.  Nowhere in the Scriptures does the Lord talk about graphs or charts or polls or customer satisfaction surveys.  Instead, He describes the very Gospel we problem as a stone of offense, almost daring us to be embarrassed by Him and of Him.  I am not at all suggesting that we bury our heads in the sand but neither am I saying that social theory will lead us out of this mess.  In the end, growth happens locally and not nationally, not by grand movement but by solid preaching, teaching, sacramental administration, and pastoral care.  We certainly do not need more community organizers.  We do need faithful shepherds who will care for the flock over which Christ has made them bishop with the tools He supplies.

Sheep always wander.  They are always prey before their enemies, subject to fleecing by those who care nothing for the sheep, and viewed as chops and roasts by those who would harvest the flock rather than defend it.  There is nothing new here.  The Church is always in need of being reformed but never by novelty or creative departure from God's Word, work, will, and wisdom.  Shepherds do not make sheep.  Sheep make sheep.  Faith formation happens in the home before the Church building and the primary catechesis is always liturgical, within the Divine Service, before it can happen anywhere else.  The best coffee cannot attract what the Gospel repels.  It is the work of the Spirit to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify.  We are instruments but not the power, used by not the users, shepherds under Christ.  Good heavens, I am not saying we have nothing to learn but navel gazing and surveys and polls will teach us nothing of the means by which the Church of Christ will grow and prosper.  We trust in Christ alone.  We live by His grace alone.  The Luthers of this world are not our saviors even when God does use individuals to call us again to the voice of His Word and the power of His Spirit.  A viable church in the eyes of the world will likely have sold its soul to the devil to gain that recognition.  We are always at war and not in the least with ourselves.  It would all be wearisome and worthless except the outcome has already been determined.  Jesus wins.  If you cannot see it now with your eyes, look with faith.  Is our penchant to try new things because God has forsaken us or because we have forsaken Him and His ways?  The kingdom ours remaineth.  That is the promise.  He proved Himself trustworthy by dying as He said He would and rising as He said He would.  What more do we need? If we never learned anything new but worked diligently to be the best we are at serving the people of God and those not yet of the Kingdom with the fruits of His redeeming love, we will have done enough.  If we don't we have done too little.