Too quickly. . .

When I was full-time, I will admit that Sundays were exhausting.  I typically got to the church by 5 am on Sunday so that I had some quiet time for sermon prep, teaching prep, and private devotions.  It was usual for me to get done with Sunday morning about 1-1:30 pm -- unless, of course, meetings and other activities were scheduled when that would extend to 4-6 pm!  I was tired.  In my foolishness I feared that my schedule was seen as exhausting by those in the pews.  For a few that was certainly true.  The cantor was there early and left at least as late as I did.  Others were also there for many hours on Sunday mornings and afternoons.  But I have discovered something in retirement.  I was wrong.  Nearly everyone in the congregation is there for a few brief hours and the worship service lasts at its longest 75-90 minutes.  Sitting in the pews and assisting in the distribution has taught me that the time spent together around the Word and Table of the Lord is not long at all but passes too quickly.  It is over in the blink of an eye.

It seems like I am just getting settled in the pew and the liturgy is already to the readings from God's Word.  It seems like I have just found my comfortable spot and the sermon is winding down to its Amen.  It seems like I am just beginning to say I believe and we are already confessing the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.  It seems like I am just starting to pray and already the petitions are done and we are in the Offertory.  The Eucharistic Prayer that seemed wordy at one point is too short to give me a real opportunity to meditate on the riches of God's grace soon to be placed upon my lips.  The distribution that once seem too long is over so fast and almost seems rushed.  I am just back in the pew and already we are being encouraged to bless the Lord, be blessed by the Lord's benediction, and being the final hymn.  Where did the time go?  It is all over too quickly.

I am not saying that 75 minutes or 90 minutes is too short but that when one enters into the presence of God around His Word and table, it is over far too fast.  Churchill said that they had barely begun to fight.  God has barely begun to deliver His gifts to my mouth and to address my mind with His wisdom and truth and to take from me the heavy weight of my sin and it is done.  I suspect I am speaking more here of the attitude of the heart than clock watching or the actually time spent in the pews.  I have rediscovered awe.  That is perhaps the biggest change for me on Sunday morning.

This is not about how wonderful the preaching is or the choir or the music.  They are fine.  It is about the renewed sense of awe at the simple privilege of being in the presence of the most high God who comes not to condemn sin but to bequeath grace upon grace.  It is the renewal that comes from listening again to every word of the liturgy, to hearing God's Word spoken into my ear, and to kneeling to receive the flesh of Christ upon my tongue and the blood of Christ upon my lips.  Amazing grace!  It is awesome.  It is too quickly over, the sacred vessels cleansed and put away, the echos of the hymn fading in the ear.  Wow.  It is the rediscovery of awe.  I always had some of it but the labor of Sunday, repeating everything twice, looking forward to the inevitable meetings or congregational activities always set for Sundays worked against this sense of awe and made me labor against this simple appreciation and joy of being in the presence of our gracious Lord.

I hope and pray that if you are leading worship from altar or organ bench, you still enjoy this wonderful awe.  I hope and pray that if you are sitting in the pew you think with me the wonder of where the time went and how you barely had a moment to consider the miracle of it all in the God whose voice lilts into the ear and whose heavenly food is tasted on the tongue.  Awaken to the awe of being in the presence of God.  Worship is not drudgery but awe.  The preacher or organist or choir do not make it so but God who comes to us, down to us, with heavenly grace and favor to bestow upon us His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation week after week after week.  In the blink of an eye He is there before we realize it and in the blink of an eye it is done before we appreciate its majesty.  We need to awaken to the awe of what happens on Sunday morning because that is the foundation of everything that flows out of it through the rest of the week and the rest of our lives. 

 

An oddly missing hunger. . .

Orthodoxy in doctrine is supposed to lead to orthodoxy in practice.  That is the lex of ancient wisdom -- not simply a tie between the two but a causal connection in which right praying leads to right believing and right believing leads to right praying.  There are those who say there is no causal connection and, while both are good, either alone can exist for at least a while without the other.  Though I wish it were not so, I suspect there is truth in this.  I have no formula for estimating how long either can exist apart from the other but I know for a fact that it happens.

There are those who rightly worship in doctrinally stalwart sermons but in worship that is painfully cerebral and lacking in the earthy concreteness of the Sacraments.  We see it in seemingly orthodox Protestant bodies where the sanctuary is largely a lecture hall and the table holds money more than the bread of heaven or the cup of salvation.  There are also those whose worship is evidently Sacramental but whose homilies are barely moral encouragements without a hint of teaching or doctrine.  We see it in Rome with liturgy done competently if not well but without much time spent or expectation of teaching in the sermon.

We really do not need to look all that far away.  I grew up in an orthodox Lutheran congregation which was conservative in every way and proudly Lutheran but there was a mere tolerance of things liturgical and an absence of the Sacrament from Sunday mornings as well as from the piety of the people.  This was not the worst that could be but there was definitely something missing.  The orthodox preaching and teaching should have manifested itself in a hunger for the things of God in the Holy Eucharist.  They did not.  Many folks left after the offering on the rare (quarterly) Morning Service with Holy Communion.  There was no hint of discussion about much less interest in private confession.  There was certainly moralism but it was accompanied by an appreciation for orthodoxy of doctrine, especially in the realm of justification by grace through faith.

That era is gone.  Nearly every Lutheran congregation celebrates the Sacrament more often today than they did in the 1950s.  Weekly has become normal.  I am happy about that and am not complaining.  But it is worth noting that the more frequent Eucharists and the more sacramental preaching and teaching that is also typical of a confessional Lutheran congregation that this has not exactly been accompanied by a hunger and thirst for even more frequent communion or confession.  Why not?  The lex of ancient wisdom suggests that it should lead us to more rather than to less -- more frequent Communion, more frequent confession, more and deeper devotional piety, etc.  Has it?

My own history was to add the Eucharist so that at least three or four times a week the Sacrament was offered and a sermon preached on the texts -- independent services and not copies of a Sunday service and sermon merely repeated at a different time.  Yet as often as I tried to offer the Eucharist more frequently, I did not find a groundswell of people to welcome such.  I preached about the Sacrament in the hopes that such hunger would arise and it did not.  Honestly, I would have thought that a daily Eucharist would have been the norm in my parish a long time ago.  It would have been a taxing demand upon my time and energy but I would have welcomed it.  It did not happen.  I could have gone ahead and scheduled them but I know from attempts that the attendance would have been very small indeed.  I regret that I talked myself out of this discipline and piety.  I should have tried harder.

Perhaps we have hit a plateau.  Perhaps the demands of work and home and leisure are too great to find time for a daily Eucharist.  Probably most folks in the parish would not have thought it was a good use of my time as their pastor to hold such daily Eucharists.  Or, I am afraid, perhaps we did not encourage such a hunger as we might, as I might.  It could have been that this was a step too far -- the awkward move from orthodoxy to enthusiasm?  Zealots are not exactly welcome in our churches -- especially zealous pastors!  Could it be that this is what is lacking among us confessional Lutherans today?  Have we come up against a wall, so to speak, going so far with our orthodoxy of doctrine and our catholic practice but not so far that it would actually suggest that our lives needed to reordered toward such a hunger and expectation to hear more sermons and receive the Sacrament more often than weekly?  I leave it out there for your to ruminate upon and to help me find an answer to my question.  Have we quenched the Spirit but stopping at one point where we should have gone further?

When sin is merely weakness. . .

The Bible is filled with strong words for sin but our modern mind does not hear them.  What passes for sin in private confession and public litany is an apology for our weakness more than it is an admission of our complicity with evil, our complete failure to do good, and our refusal to stop doing what is wrong.  It is tiresome to listen to but it is more of a problem than its sound in our ears.  When sin is merely weakness, our need for God is lessened and God is made smaller in the process.  When sin is merely weakness, we are no longer utterly dependent upon God but He is made a small nicety in a world with other niceties.  When sin is merely weakness, forgiveness is rendered even weaker and grace is made politeness rather than power.  When sin is merely weakness, mercy is impotent and the God of mercy is equally impotent.

In times gone by when I was hearing confession more regularly, a penitent once confessed a litany of things that could have or should have been done better.  These failings rightfully troubled the conscience of the penitent but were they really sins?  I prodded.  What did you do wrong?  The failing was never enlarged beyond what could have or should have been done more or better or differently.  These were sins of weakness and fragility.  They were the small mistakes of someone who knew better and who had succumbed in a moment to what that person now regretted.  It passed as sin in the mind and heart of the penitent but was it really sin in the way the Scriptures speak of sin?

The absolution being sought was more akin to understanding than mercy.  Of course, you could have and should have done better but we are all guilty of these inadequacies (and, therefore, if we are all guilty, none of us are really guilty!).  They were seeking not the powerful absolution that flows from the blood of Christ but the affirmation that they were merely human, like everyone else, and to be sent away with the dutiful expectation to try harder next time.  Is that what sin has become?  If so, it is certainly what absolution has become.  Not the strong Go and sin no more but the more reasonable Go but try harder next time to do better.  

I realized at the time what was happening and how I was also victim to the same minimization of what sin was and therefore the weakening of what grace was but I could have and should have handled it better.  When it did happen again, I stopped the person and turned them to the Ten Commandments to read them aloud and to frame their sin in the context of this Law and not the limited guilt or complicity of what might have been done better.  Perhaps the reader will suggest that this is the familiar path of those on the liberal or progressive side of Christianity but I think it is more likely the temptation of us all.  We want to minimize what sin is because then we do not need God or His grace so desperately but we want to make sin into weakness largely because it puts the ball back in our court instead of His.  It comes right back to us what we could and should do next time as opposed to what we actually did and how only the profound and powerful mercy of a crucified Savior can rescue us from what our sins have done.

Worse, when sin is merely weakness, we are largely victims instead of the perpetrators of evil.  The strong popularity of victimization in politics and culture has eroded the power of confession.  I am a sinner.  I have done the evil God condemns and have not done the good God requires.  I have loved myself above all, lived as if I mattered most, and failed to love God above all or my neighbor as myself.  It is not by weakness or fragility or accident but by will and deed I have sinned in thought, word, and act.  I am fully incapable of finding a way out of this mess of death or atoning for the evils in my mind, on my heart, or by my hand.  When we make a strong confession of real sin, God is not only enlarged in this act of confession but His mercy and grace are made great indeed.  Our appreciation for the cross is magnified.  Sin required a Savior and required a Savior to die.  Forgiveness is not some inconsequential word that understands our human frailty but the powerful blood that cleanses us from all our sin.  When we lose the idea that sin is more than weakness and fragility, we lose the idea that grace is powerful and mercy is a gift bigger than any other.   

Policy based confusion. . .

Policy based governance and, in particular, the version developed by John Carver, has taken hold across the boardrooms of America and, it should be noted, in churches as well.  Designed to address governing boards that err on the side of micromanaging executives while neglecting their particular duties, we see the evidence of this all across congregations, districts, and agencies of the Synod. Its ten core principles include:

1. Ownership: The board is the legitimate voice and agent of the organization’s owners.  All owners are stakeholders but not all stakeholders are owners.  Go figure.

2. Position of the Board: The board is fully accountable to the owners for the success of the organization.

3. Board Holism: The authority of the board is collective with individual members having no independent authority.

4. Ends Policies: The board defines everything in terms of the outcomes expected.  The concern is ends or strategic priorities and secondary to the means.

5. Board Means Policies: Such policies are the way the ends are to be achieved through the governance process and delegation policies.

6. Executive Limitations: The board governs through policies and the means policies are limits on the employees/CEO/staff (they shall not fail to...).  It is negatively stated.

7. Policy Sizes: Policies are framed in the broadest possible terms with specifics defined only as necessary; these are exhaustive in the limitations the board places on the corporate staff.

8. Clarity and Coherence of Delegation: Authority is delegated unambiguously with the broadest possible freedom given to the CEO/corporate staff to accomplish the ends the board has defined.

9. Any Reasonable Interpretation: The CEO/corporate staff are allowed any reasonable interpretation of board policy.

10. Monitoring: The board monitors and evaluates performance, comparing actual results (success or failure) against the Ends and Executive Limitations stated by the board. 

Policy Governance is a precision governing system that conditions success with following the model without variation.  In Policy Governance, all the above pieces are required for Policy Governance to be effective. Only when all are brought to bear on the organization can there be owner accountability. 

In typical adaptation for church usage, the senior pastor functions as the CEO or the pastor who is elected or appointed for other levels of church governance.  Elders/board members in the congregation are policy makers and monitors of compliance.  Congregations hold their leaders accountable through policies rather than the direct exercise of authority. 

Such is the entrepreneurial model of both governance and the pastoral office at work.  Sometimes it seems to work okay, perhaps even well.  There are, however, things that tend to happen as a result of policy based governance.  One thing is that it confuses spiritual responsibility and authority with physical responsibility and authority for property.  When this happens, it is not unusual for the spiritual to become second to the physical ends or indicators of success.  

The other big problem is that it tends to make lay leadership weak (on the congregational side) and to make for limited input to the governance of the organization except to set ends and make policies.  Even worse, it tends to elevate weak leaders and infuriate strong lay leaders.  

Finally, it tends to turn even the corporate leaders (in this case, the pastor acting as CEO) to comparing statistical results with ends envisioned without really leading at all.  The focus is on doing what the Board has directed and the evaluation is based on fulfilling the ends directed by the board through the policies it has established.   What happens if they are not the real ends or the policies are simply bad policies?  In this way, the governance tends to muddy things up and encourage mediocre leaders.  What happens when a pastor’s primary accountability is measured by whether or not he follows the policies the board has established and achieves the organization outcomes the board has defined but that comes at the cost of the values, doctrine, and confessional integrity of that organization?  What about the faithful proclamation of the Word and the faithful administration of the Sacraments?  

There was a time when we probably had too many boards acting independently of each other and too many committees with overlapping responsibilities.  Maybe there was a time when we functioned rather disjointedly and probably somewhat inefficiently.  But have we over corrected --  effectively throwing the baby out with the bath water all in the name of shorter meetings, transparency, clear expectations, and defined objectives?  Fewer people in governance in an church organization and those few people with less responsibility except to define outcomes and establish policies can be a recipe for disaster.  Furthermore, when everyone is concerned with the physical side of things and no one is paying attention to the spiritual, the Church is definitely in trouble.  And, I am afraid, we are already there.  It is less a problem of pastors wanting to take over what rightfully belongs to the laity than it is nobody wanting do what they are supposed to do.  It also has the problem of judging everything in the church by the wrong set of values and defining success in every way except that which God would judge faithful.

Heaven and earth are full of Your glory. . .

The danger of secularism is the idea that life is independent and solitary, that the only real association is choice and that it only has the meaning we attach to it all.  Stuff.  It is all just stuff and accident and nothing organized or ordered.  The world has for a long time embraced the idea that there is a way to secularize everything in such a way that it has nothing to do with the notion of God. But things are not just things. “Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory,” is the revelation of Scripture, the song of the Church, and the affirmation of the faithful.  Not just heaven but earth.  All the earth is filled with beauty and all things declare the wonder of Him who made all things.  The earth is also the revelation of God's glory.

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of your glory.”

The eternal song of the angels who surround the throne of God in Isaiah's vision of heaven (Is. 6:1-4) is given also to earth to sing. The splendor of that song was lost to us in the Fall but not the splendor God has woven into the fabric of all things.  It had to be revealed to us and so it was and is.  It might seem that the glory of the earth was nothing compared to the miracle of God in flesh, the death that paid for every sin, the resurrection for all who live under death's shadow, and the ascension to the right hand of the Father.  Is it nothing?  In the Holy Eucharist, the God who made all things and entered into our world prepares for us a table to give us the gift of life. 

Heaven and earth are full of Your glory.  Heaven breaks into the world until both heaven and earth must display what cannot be hidden. Oddly enough, Luther proposed moving the Sanctus after the Words of Institution precisely because the reality of these words and their fulfillment in the bread now His body and the cup now His blood.  Here we confess in the blessed song that the earth is full of God's glory and that this is part of the proclamation every bit as much as the heavenly redemption.  It is the end of any neat distinction between sacred and secular, of the lie that it is all just stuff.  It is the end of everything the world wants to believe about religion, about the ability of mankind to deny the spiritual character of our identity and of the image of God placed in us though distorted by sin yet not obliterated.

We sing it in the Te Deum and in the Sanctus and we read it in the Scriptures.  It is our statement that the earth cannot deny the reality of this everlasting truth.  The world battles emptiness and depression with all the wrong remedies.  Stuff is just stuff.  Things are just things.  People are just people.  As much as I hate to speak of it this way, the affirmation that heaven and earth are full of God's glory is therapeutic -- not in the sense of some patient listening to feelings but real therapy that gives honest consolation, comfort, and peace.  The answer to our longing is not a conversation about feelings but the affirmation of the truth.  Heaven and earth ARE full of God's glory.  His glory is His saving love, His merciful countenance, His sin-forgiving heart, and His gracious disposition.