What is tradition?

Not only the spoils belong to the victor.  With the spoils comes the opportunity to rewrite history to favor
the victor.  We have always known that was the case in secular history, especially in the history of the nations.  Now, it appears, there are those who are trying to claim the same privilege for religion as well.

Not so terribly long ago there were those who suggested that the Jesus of history and the Christ of the Scriptures could be framed in this same sense.  We cannot know the Jesus of history but only the Christ who is defined and proclaimed by the victorious among the various parties, versions of history, and theological perspectives.  The convenient target then was Constantine who apparently had so much power he was the one to define Christianity for the ages (at least until modernity began to question the official version of things).  Constantine kept some books out of Scripture and made sure some were included.  Constantine defined the dogma that would be enshrined in the Nicene Creed.  Of course, how we are smart enough to know this and to challenge the historical record and tradition.  Now we can begin to piece together what later generations had done to change who Jesus was and is and what the Gospel was and is.

It started with Scripture itself.  Three Isaiahs were later lumped together into one.  The Gospel were derived from a source now unknown but then known to all the Gospel writers.  You get my drift.  The point is to say that what we have today is in reality a doctored text defined by those who won the doctrine wars of the past.  It soon became the mantra of those ostensibly engaged in bringing Christianity into the modern age but guilty of more than this.  There arose the idea that it was not only possible but the duty of the present to undo what had been done to stifle the challenges and challengers of what we now call Christianity.  The liturgy as we know it was preceded by a common, simple, and primitive form that we should all now return to.  It was the foible of some within the modern liturgical movement to decry the elaborate and complicated received form and put together something they thought might better reflect the pristine and unpolluted form of Christian's earliest ages.  It was not enough to make incremental changes but wholesale change was required.

While some claim that Lutherans suffered the same as Rome in this misguided pursuit of a liturgical ancestor, what ended up in Lutheran hymnals was less the radical shift Rome endured and a more careful remodeling of the past.  All the Divine Services in LSB show this connection in every place except the canon of the mass.  There the bare Verba were given a context in the prayers of thanksgiving that did not Romanize this part of the mass as much as it reflected an evangelical Eucharistic prayer.  Sure, one can argue about the actual words chosen for the new translations of the ordinary or the choices to retain the creedal forms going back to the 1941 hymnal but in reality there is less divergence between the older tradition and what we have now.  I am sure, however, that some will disagree.  It is fairly easy to see that the forms are similar, however.

Rome did something far different.  Rome did not merely translate the Latin into the vernacular but made a wholesale change in the form of the mass.  Yes, the Latin was gone but so were many of the distinctives the Roman mass had known through the ages -- at least as afar back as Trent.  The end result was not a deliberate evolution but a radical disconnect that was not even envisioned in the conciliar documents of Vatican II. That rupture has contributed not only to the rise of voices who wish to retain the Tridentine Mass but to those who want to be free of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal to do what they please.  While Lutherans always had some variation, the demise of the Tridentine Mass made sure that Roman had one liturgical identity which, in the aftermath of Vatican II, became many identities.  Look at how the Roman Mass is being celebrated and you see a remarkable diversity not simply of style but also texts and music in a church that once celebrated with a clear uniformity the mysteries of God.  Apparently the battle over who controls what happens on Sunday morning is focused now less on those who go beyond Vatican II than on those who retain what was before.

In other words, tradition has come to mean whatever the future says it means.  This is not only true for Rome but for Lutherans.  Our confessions are seen as less prescriptive than as merely descriptive of what was happening at the time and the great intention of Lutheranism was always a great diversity.  This is said because we have such diversity now and so those who enjoy it and wish to be free to depart from the liturgical forms and ceremonies of the past trumpet diversity as a confessional hallmark of adiaphora. The reality, of course, is that the claim of our first Confession is that we do not depart from but are rigorous in keeping what is catholic in form and in practice, that liturgical uniformity while not required is still advantageous and beneficial, and that the goal is to retain rather than replace or omit.  Now we are hearing from some that the current hymnal is not merely a minimum but also a maximum in terms of the form and its ceremonial and that even this is too much to expect from those who claim our confession.  Rome is letting the extreme voices behind the liturgical transformation that was imposed upon the parishes and priests in the aftermath of Vatican II now exclude what was considered by Rome to be sacred and faithful.  Lutheranism is letting the same kind of extreme voices insist that there can be no return to a more catholic identity in worship or in practice because of a strange and hidden new confessional principle that less is more.  In response I would say this to both.  The modern forms resulting from the liturgical changes of the late 1960s through the 1970s can be used and should be used in a manner consistent with our tradition and not to depart from it.  Tradition does have a meaning and a form and you do not need to be a rocket scientist to recognize that.  Along with everything else lost in the last 50-60 years, we seem to have also lost a great deal of common sense.

Plan on attending. . .

Those scheduled to present include:

• Mary Eberstadt, Panula Chair in Christian Culture at the Catholic Information Center and Senior Research Fellow at the Faith & Reason Institute
• Paul Kengor, Editor of The American Spectator and Professor of Political Science at Grove City College
• Gene Veith, Jr., Professor of Literature Emeritus at Patrick Henry College and former culture editor of World Magazine
• Donna Harrison, Scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute and former Chief Executive Officer of the American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs
• Hans Fiene, Pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and creator of the "Lutheran Satire" channel
• Sean Daenzer, Worship Director for the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
• Christian Preus, Pastor at Mount Hope Lutheran Church and Board Chairman at Luther Classical College
• Noah Hahn, Instructor of Philosophy at Fordham University 

 Register now! www.ascensionmadison.com/henkel 

It is not given to us. . .

The skepticism that too many approach the Scriptures and the orthodox Christian faith seems to arise more than anything from our want or perhaps our need to have things make sense to us.  Yes, in part, this is also driven by ideology and certainly affected by the ideology of the times in which truth is personal and temporary and defined by the judgment and declaration of the individual but it is more than this.  Perhaps other ages also had their problems and were also affected by the want to have God make sense to us and to understand Him but it is the driving force in so much today.

The truth is that many things that make perfect sense to us are also wrong.  Error is often the most reasonable of alternatives as we confront and attempt to make sense of the things before us and in us.  This is no less true for the things of God.  Reasoned religion is suspect because it not only has its source in us but is left to us to decide its truth or relevance.  Religion that is revealed to us is not given to us to understand or comprehend but to believe.  Could it be that the problem of our age (and perhaps those before us) is just that -- the problem of faith?

Ours is an age in which we question the most basic of the things that have been accepted and lauded by those before us -- from gender to desire to marriage to family to truth itself.  We want to know why about everything and reject the answers that conflict with our presuppositions.  While some would say that is exactly what is wrong with orthodox and Biblical Christianity, it is the other way around.  We begin as catholic Christians first with God's revelation and not with the Church's judgment over that revelation.  Of course, the Church proclaims and defends and even unpacks this revelation for the time but she is not given to know the mind of God except where God has disclosed His mind and she is not given to go past what God has said to bind the consciences of men.  Christianity is a religion of revelation in which reason must be the servant of the Word of God.

Who can know the mind of God or comprehend His ways?  God who makes all things perfect and then allows the freedom to reject His order and Himself...  God who posits a plan through the ages that unfolds painstakingly slow over the millenia until it ends with the Son of God in human flesh and blood...  God who saves not the worthy or those who might become worthy if they had the chance but sinners and enemies who must be granted even the Spirit to know and give amen to this grace... God who acts through means such as the Word passed down through the ages speaking with the voice of people or water that is the womb of new birth and everlasting life or absolution that erases what God cannot forget by the power of Christ's blood or bread and wine that taste of eternity in the flesh of Christ for the life of the world and His blood that cleanses us from sin... God who saves at every age and stage of life and gives to each the same but complete blessing of redemption and everlasting life...  God who is come to not to judge those who deserve only judgment but to save through His mercy...  God who raises the dead with bodies that seem like but not exactly like the bodies that are planted in the grave...  God who acts in time but is not subject to it and for whom every day is the present...  God who heals and relieves and even extends the lives of some but not others, who calls the death the enemy and yet allows a merciful death when suffering is great, and who blesses all but not equally with the gifts and graces of this mortal life...  I could go on and on.  The point is this.  It is not given to us to understand God but to believe in Him.

Faith is what we struggle with and it is faith that we lack.  We want a reasonable God who reasons with us but we have a God whose greatest mystery and blessing is His grace and mercy.  He is incomprehensible not simply because He is God and we are not.  It is rather because He acts like no one and nothing else on earth.  He refuses to be put in a box, to be predictable (except for His mercy), or to be controlled and yet this is surely behind our want and desire to understand Him and comprehend Him.  We have nothing to judge Him with except His own Word, His mighty acts of old by which He delivered His people, and His promises of the future that belongs to us precisely because He declares it to be so.  This was the mark of Abraham, of Moses, of Elijah, of John the Forerunner, and of the blessed apostles -- not their personal righteousness but faith credited to them as righteousness.  Let it so among us.  It is not given to us to understand God but to believe in Him and to walk in His ways.

 

A practical reason for gratitude. . .

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." (Colossians 3:17)  

Most of us have learned from our moms the polite custom of saying "thank you."  Maybe it was not always heartfelt but it was offered to every gift and kindness -- now what do you say?  They seem like lessons in futility but they were important.  Gratitude does not come naturally.  It is a learned thing.  It can also be unlearned.

I fear that we have unlearned what it means to be grateful.  We once had a better idea of what we were grateful for as a nation, as families, and as Christians.  Perhaps this is where we have failed.  We no longer seem to be sure or certain or even care about the rich and abundant blessings we have received.  Instead, we seem to be consumed with the things that are wrong.  We style ourselves as victims and are proud of such a label.  It does not matter why we think we have been wronged, to be wronged is our badge of honor.  We do not trust or value the esteemed institutions that have surrounded our lives and so we nitpick and find fault with them just as we do people.  Nothing is right and everything seems to be wrong.

Patriotism has become bigotry and we no longer seem aware of or grateful for the manifold blessings that we enjoy daily and richly.  Living near an army post I have learned to be grateful that there are still those who out of love for country offer themselves to service in the protection of liberty and the defense of our land.  But there seem to be more and more people who disdain this land and our freedom and our liberty.  We have become a nation of whiners and complainers who overlook anything that is good in our to point out what might be bad.  Where is our gratitude?

We were raised in homes by parents, surrounded by family, and supported along the journey of this life but as a people we seem suspicious of marriage and family more than attracted.  We fear the cost of loving and we are hesitant to pay the cost of putting anyone ahead of ourselves.  What are we willing to give up for the sake of another?  Is that not what is behind the increasing numbers of people who think marriage out of date and family out of style?  Even the casual way we treat life from its natural beginning to its natural end signals the fact that we are no longer grateful or live in awe of its sacred gift.  Where is our gratitude?

We are conscious of every slight, every snub, and every offense and we want the right not only to be offended but to obtain damages.  Our courts are filled with cases of people who want money more than justice.  Our unsocial media is filled with folks who think that they can raise themselves up by tearing down others.  We have lost more than our charity or manners, we have forgotten how to be grateful and so we end up angry.  We are angry in school, at home, at work, on the highway, and even in our leisure.  Where is our gratitude?

Churches are not immune from this.  I wish I had a dime for every time the ritual shaking of hands at the door was accompanied by a complaint -- the kids were too noisy, the organ too loud, the choir off key, the sermon too dull, the service too long, the building too hot or cold, the pews too hard, the floors too dirty, the coffee too weak or strong, the people too rude....  it goes on and on.  Here we are in the presence of the Most High God who made all things and in His holiness stooped down to become incarnate so that He might save the bunch of whining, complaining, ungrateful sinners that we are.  But all we seem to know how to do is to find fault with something or other or someone or other.  Where is our gratitude?

Teach your children well how to be grateful.  They were not born with gratitude.  The world will not instill this virtue.  It is up to you at home.  Without gratitude, God is merely the complaint box for all that we find wrong and are unwilling to accept responsibility for.  With gratitude, God is not only good but life is better, too.  Think about that.  And consider this your momma reminding you again, now what do you say?

A lost joy. . .

The advent of the come as you are culture has certainly made it easier but has it improved anything?  Go to any funeral or wedding or any other major event and you see that folks have taken this idea to heart.  Shorts, khakis, t-shirts with advertising, jeans with holes, and worn polos are the rule of the day.  Gone is the day when you might expect a suit or sport coat or dress.  Even when men wear a sport coat it is likely worn without a collar shirt or tie and probably over jeans.  Women wear comfortable clothing as well and the dresses of the day are more often than not casual and not formal.  Kids are likewise dressed or play more than formality.  We all feel better about it, right?

You see, that is the problem.  All our informality has not exactly increased our joy.  In fact it may have done the opposite.  Dressing down (even to the point of sleepwear that now functions as out and about clothing) brings with it the inevitable reduction of expectation and joy in the event itself.  Certainly there is a loss of solemn even when it is not sad but noble.  The fact that we hunger for such things can be seen in the way we gleefully watch as the English royals put on their best and historic duds for the occasion and the way we watch to see what Hollywood royalty are wearing on the red carpet.  But somehow we have distanced ourselves from all of this.  I fear it has cost us.

I grew up in a lower middle class home.  My parents never had much in the way of money but their lives were rich.  They dressed well.  So did my brother and I.  We had matching overcoats, hats, and suits so that we looked like little adult men on Sunday morning and for the great and festive gatherings of family and life.  Girls had their own version of dress up which was not put on but a reflection of the values attached to the occasion and not simply an attempt to look good.  Everyone wore their best to church, weddings, and funerals.  Everyone acted their best, too.

In most churches, at most weddings, and at most funerals anymore you would not know that these were either solemn or festive occasions.  We look like we always look and nothing from our dress or demeanor signals anything different.  Our decorum leaves much to be desired.  We seem unable to shut up or observe silence even during prayer.  We carry our ever present water bottles or coffee cups and we never seem to know how to turn off the ringers of our electronic devices.  Our comfort and our connection to the world is more important than what is going on before our eyes.  That is the problem.

When we give out the white baptismal napkin it is quaint but not relevant.  We do not dress up for much of anything anymore and so it does not make much sense to us that God has deigned to cover us with the perfect white robe of Christ's righteousness.  At the other end of it all, the pall over the casket seems more like a table cloth than a reflection of the completion of God's work begun in us in our baptism as the dead now wait in Christ for the new bodies of the resurrection.  The paraments on the altar and pulpit and lectern are, well, quaint but largely misunderstood.  The vestments worn by the pastor are seen as attention getting and strange vesture rather than a reflection of anything belonging to Christ.  With our loss has come a lack of joy and awe, reverence and wonder.  It is all too plain and ordinary and so are we and therefore so must God also be.  There we have it wrong for sure.

Does there have to be an explanation or a reason for reverence, respect, awe, or wonder?  I hope not.  These are not utilitarian but special.  If the time comes when we rediscover this idea and begin to appreciate what it means to be dressed up for the occasion rather than dressed down for comfort, then we just might learn what it means to stand on the holy ground of God's presence or the holy fear of a sinful people whom God invites to stand before Him.  Then we just might also recover the joy that once accompanied on the inside the attention given to the outside.  But it may take a very long time to get this back and perhaps way longer than I have.

Sheep without a shepherd. . .

Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 11B, preached on Sunday, July 21, 2024.

The feeding of the 5,000 is introduced with this context:  “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while, says Jesus.”  The disciples had just returned from the sorrowful task of burying the body of John the Baptist.  They were emotionally and physically exhausted.  Jesus invites them to find some rest and join Him in a place off the beaten path.  Everyone of us has known the same burden of a busy life filled with sorrow and pain.  We just want a moment away, a moment for ourselves, to recover and recoup from it all.  Jesus knows our hearts just as He knew what was resting so heavy upon the hearts of His disciples.

It does not always work.  In fact, it seldom works.  We plan vacations and then we find ourselves stressed by the prospect of getting away.  We plan for days off and the jobs of house and homes will not be set aside even for a day.  We plan a quiet night only to have it stolen by trouble and trial.  It did not work for the disciples either.  The troubles and burdens and needs follow us.  They followed Jesus and His disciples.  There was no rest, only people and more people and more people, aimlessly looking for meaning and purpose and answers.  Like sheep without a shepherd, the Scripture says.  But there Shepherd was there.

If you try to reduce this pericope to a story with a moral at the end, you will miss it all.  Jesus is not trying to get you to do something – not even share your lunch with those in need.  Jesus is telling you what He does and will do for YOU.  Jesus does not send us or our problems away.  He does not ask others to do what He has come to do.  The problems are not about money – too much or too little.  They are not about convenience or inconvenience.  They are not about time to fix ourselves.  It is all about Jesus and what He has come to do.

Jesus says that man does not live by bread alone but by the bread of God’s Word.  That does not mean that Jesus does not provide bread for the body even as He provides the bread of His Word and the bread of His flesh in the Holy Communion.  For the Lord it is not a choice between satisfying the needs of the body or the soul.  He is Lord of the whole person.  He has come with gifts sufficient for the body and for everlasting life.  He is the God who provides it all not because we are worthy but because we are hungry, not because we are holy but because we are sinners, not because we know what we need but because He knows what we need and provides it all.  
We live in a civilized world complete with our education and our jobs and our incomes and our investments and our health care industry and we presume that God is for emergencies – for the moments when all of these other things fail us.  But everything is an emergency.  That is what sin has done.  Life is not safe or secure but risky and dangerous and the risk and danger are not simply unhappiness but death.  

Like the people in the desolate place with Jesus so long ago, we too often fail to recognize how weak and fragile we and our lives our.  We have no refuge or rest except in the Lord.  From Him and to Him are all things – whether we realize it or not.  Our lives depend upon the Lord from the cells that unite to become a child in our mother’s womb to the every breath we take to the hunger that lives in our bellies and the hunger that lives in our souls.  We are all the lost and alone, sheep without a shepherd.  We comfort ourselves with our things and presume our accomplishments will provide what we need but instead we are fooled by our things and our image of self-sufficiency.  These are not our comfort but a false and misleading dream.

It might be understandable to those who have never known God’s comfort or the food of His Word or His care for our bodies and lives.  But it is terrible when we who presume to know the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit ignore the truth.  When we presume our sufficiency without God’s help or turn the Lord into a God for emergencies, we give into the idols that would destroy us and choose the convenient lies over the truth that saves.  When we begin to believe that God’s mercy and grace are deserved or earned or needed only for the rare moments of a crisis, we no longer live by His mercy and become strangers to His love.

We are the starving for lack of what the Lord’s grace and mercy provide. We are not in need of money to buy our own bread or medicine to extend our lives.  We need a Shepherd who has come for His sheep, a Shepherd who feeds the body and the soul.  The Lord is not telling us what we can or should do for ourselves or for others.  He is telling us what He has come to do for us, in the days when we appear to be in charge and in the days when we are lost and alone with nowhere else to turn.  The Lord has come not simply for sins but for sinners, not for our souls and eternal life but for this life and for all the needs of these bodies.  He has come so that we might find true and everlasting rest – not a respite for the moment but the rest of everlasting life that becomes our comfort in trial and our hope in death.
Mark says that they all ate and were satisfied.  And there were a dozen baskets of leftovers for the dozen disciples to carry home.  Ours is not a God of essentials but of mercy more than sufficient for all our needs.  He gives us food for this body and the Word of God to guide us through the gauntlet of this mortal life.  He gives us eternal food in His Word and Sacrament to sustain His new creation to everlasting life.  He is our Good Shepherd, come for a lost and vulnerable sheep, but it does not mean anything as long we presume He is there for emergencies and the rest we can handle ourselves.

The reality is that people do not attend worship regularly simply because their lives are distracted or their schedules are busy.  They have come to believe worship is not urgent and the things of God’s house not the most important things of life.  They pray in emergencies but as a people who are strangers from God’s mercy and love.  They are never quite at home within God’s House because their hearts are elsewhere.  They do not get anything out of the service because their minds remain on themselves.  Is this YOU?  Is this ME?  Don’t be comforted by a nice story and try to go home and be better about sharing or more diligent in prayer.  Your comfort is in this.  God knows your needs – all of them – and has sent His Son to fill you with the good things of His mercy and grace.  And by faith you learn that this is really all you need and the only thing you can count on...   Amen.