I will with the help of God. . .

Every form of baptismal liturgy includes the promises or vows made either by the one being baptized or on behalf of the baptized by parents and sponsors.  They normally revolve around the devil, his works, and his ways -- renouncing them because the baptized now belongs to the Lord.  With those renunciations comes the promises of faith.  Do you believe in God the Father, do you believe in Jesus Christ His Son, and do you believe in the Holy Spirit.?  They mirror the three articles of the Apostles Creed.  Finally is the simple question of whether the candidate wishes to be baptized.  While it may have been the temptation of other ages to add to these, until more recently most have not succumbed to that desire.  At least among the Lutherans this is so.

In the Baptismal Covenant in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, these questions were reformulated as follows:

Question    Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
Answer    I renounce them.

Question    Do you renounce the evil powers of this world  which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
Answer    I renounce them.

Question    Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?
Answer    I renounce them.

Question    Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
Answer    I do.

Question    Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
Answer    I do.

Question     Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?
Answer    I do. 

I am not sure I find these an improvement.  Certainly the idea of turning to Jesus Christ and accepting Him as your Savior is borrowing too much from evangelicalism and decision theology and is an invention that harms more than helps.  I suppose the promise to put your whole trust in His grace and love is innocuous enough but it is also vague enough as to allow just about anyone to say yes.  The promise to follow and obey Him as Lord ordinarily belongs in confirmation or the promises of an adult or older child being received into membership in the congregation and even then borrow too much from evangelicalism and decision theology as to draw attention away from what God is doing here and to the candidate.

Then follows a couple more questions which, while not bad and certainly sounding Scriptural, are rather out of place:

Celebrant     Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?
People     I will, with God's help.
 
Celebrant     Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
People     I will, with God's help.

The content of the questions and adding to what has traditionally been rather concise itself turns the focus away from what God is doing and what the candidate is to do or promises to do.  That is unhelpful, to say the least.  Then a couple of more questions are added to make this part of the rite longer than any other part.  That is certainly a problem.

Celebrant     Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
People     I will, with God's help.
 
Celebrant     Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
People     I will, with God's help.
 
Celebrant     Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
People     I will, with God's help.

The final question has a rather profound social justice bent to it and is also rather vague.  What exactly does it mean to strive for justice and peace among all people?  For an infant or child being baptized, in particular?  What does it mean to respect the dignity of every human being?  That is perhaps the broadest of terms and no one seems to know exactly what it implies.  Roman Catholics are always talking about human dignity without really saying anything about what that means.  I rather dislike those general terms and particularly dislike them added to the very specific act of God in baptizing a child to be His own.

Even that, if you can believe it, is not enough.  Now another promise is being added by the Episcopalians.  This promise being tried in some congregations at the behest of the national church is concerned about the role of the baptized to “sustain and renew the life of the earth”.  A couple of years ago the Episcopal Church’s General Convention passed a resolution two years ago directing that the development of new language “that expresses our baptismal responsibility to care for creation”. It invited congregations to experiment with adding in a sixth promise, if their bishop gave permission.  In the diocese of Chicago, congregations can choose between two different version of a sixth promise: either “Will you strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth?” or “Will you cherish the wondrous works of God, and protect [or protect and restore] the beauty and integrity of all creation?”  While noble and certainly not wrong, do they belong in the baptismal rite?  This rite needs to focus on what God is doing and not on what we think we are called to do and certainly not upon our promises as if they have anything to do with God's action in baptism.  Our attempts to make things more relevant actually tends to make them less, tying them to specific cultural and political movements of the day while diluting the focus on what God is doing.   At least that is what I think.

A funny bone. . .

As I have written before, to me relics are a strange curiosity at best and an embarrassment to Christianity at worst.  In Lutheran history, the vast collection of relics by Frederick the Wise turned from something to be proud of into a foolish waste of funds.  I am sure that I read somewhere what he ended up doing with the odd collection but it did not end up being displayed for the faithful to earn merits by their devotion -- that is for sure.  But what a Lutheran ended up regretting remains a source of pride and a treasure for Rome.  Why?

I recently read somewhere that Rome boasts a bone from the index finger of St Thomas the Apostle is located here. It is said that this is the same finger that he inserted into the side of the Risen Christ.   Indeed, there is an almost complete skeleton of him!  Tradition has it that Saint Thomas was buried in India until the 3rd century when his bones were dug up and transported to Edessa in Mesopotamia.  A thousand years later his bones were 'rescued' together with the tombstone to be taken to Italy (to remove this treasure from the threatening Turks).  They were apparently stolen while vacationing on the island of Chios in the Aegean and taken to Ortona in Italy.  There most of the bones were kept in the basilica San Thomasso Apostolo but the Turks desecrated them 300 years later.  From the 17th century to the present, the shrine has been opened several times for surveys of the bones and research.  Minus a few arm bones and above mentioned finger bone, there are bits and pieces a few other places.  It would seem that the bones of St. Thomas have had a rather storied career and we know more about that than we actually do the life of the apostles after famously being asked to touch the wounds of the risen Savior.

What does this do for us today?  I am not sure that it helps the case for Jesus nor encourages faith in any doubters.  It makes for a good story but I wonder if there will ever be a time when the bones of the poor man can be laid to rest.  I doubt it.  Much as I love the stories of the lives of the saints, I find the business of relics to be odd and somewhat creepy.  Maybe it is simply my own Lutheran skepticism.  Maybe I am a victim of my own education to have doubts about the bones of the great doubter.  Maybe I fear what someone could do to my own bones that might end up dragging me around for a couple of thousand years.  Or maybe my concern is that all of this, interesting as it might be, detracts from rather than points to Christ.  It also seems to build on the very thing which St. Thomas thought he needed -- a little something to bolster the claim and make faith easier.  But can that be done?  Is is possible to make faith easier?  I doubt it.  Faith is faith.  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.  The only thing which aids and assists the doubter are the things provided for us by Christ.  The Word which gives assurance of the things into which we have been catechized and the Sacraments which convey the very gifts His Word speaks and promises.  At some point, maybe we should let the bones lie, read the Word, and rejoice in the Sacraments.  Maybe then we will all find the assurance St. Thomas was looking for and of which his bones offer no promise.  

On November 11. . .

11 November + St. Martin of Tours, Pastor

Here is a smattering of events that might matter to a Lutheran that occurred on St. Martin of Tours feast day.  Oh, and the third one down might be the most interesting of all but, as important as Armistice Day was, it might not be the most consequential of these events.  You will have to judge.  Anyway, it is interesting from time to time to think about what happens on a particular day and how it might have changed things if they had not occurred.

887 The end of the Carolingian Empire: King Charles III resigns as Emperor after a revolt led by his nephew Arnulf, the empire is then split up

1208 Otto IV, nephew of Richard the Lionheart of England, is elected Holy Roman Emperor at Frankfurt

1215 The Fourth Lateran Council was convened by Pope Innocent III (ca. 1161–1216), meeting until 30 November.

1417 The Council of Constance, by making Martin V  (ca. 1368–1431) pope, ended the long-lasting Western papal schism.

1483 Martin Luther was baptized.

1491 Martin Bucer, German Protestant theologian and reformer, was born (d. 28 February 1551).

1561 Hans Tausen, Danish Lutheran leader, died (b. 1494).

1620 The Mayflower Compact was adopted by the Pilgrims.

1679 Firmin Abauzit, French Reformed scholar of Huguenot parentage, was born in Uzes, Languedoc (d. 1767).

1778 Anne Steele, hymnist, died (b. May 1716).

1793 Missionary William Carey (1761–1834) arrived at Calcutta.

1843 Samuel Alfred Ort was born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania (d. 6 January 1911).

1855 Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, Danish Lutheran theologian and philosopher, died at Copenhagen (b. 5 May 1813).

1868 Richard Wilhelm Heintze librarian at Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis, Missouri) from 1926 to 1936, was born in Berlin, Germany (d. 23 March 1937).

1893 Paul Martin Bretscher, professor at Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis, Missouri) from 1941 until 1969, was born in Wausau, Wisconsin (d. 10 August 1974).

1908 The Synod of Central Canada was organized at Toronto.

1917 The United Lutheran Church in America was approved by the United Synod in the South at Salisbury, North Carolina. The merger occurred in 1918.

1921 P. T. (Peter Taylor) Forsyth (b. 1842), English Congregational clergyman and theologian, died.

1947 Martin Dibelius (b. 14 September 1883), German Lutheran New Testament scholar, died.

1985 Philip Fry, president of the Manitoba and Saskatchewan District of the Missouri Synod from 1970 to 1978, died in Regina, Saskatchewan. He had also been vice-president in that district and in Nebraska. Fry graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1937 and was also pastor of congregations in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta; Yorkton and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; and Beatrice, Nebraska. He retired in 1978. In his earlier years, Fry was a district Walther League president.

1992 The Church of England votes to allow women to become priests. 

A paraphrase too far. . .

I wish I could say that I am anything less than embarrassed by the invention of the hymnic paraphrase to substitute for the parts of the ordinary.  It was probably not a Lutheran invention but that did not stop Martin Luther from establishing the practice of substituting a hynm paraphrase 9from his own hand) for the ordinary of the Divine Service.  It became known as the Deutsche Messe (1526) and was meant to make the Latin ordinary more accessible to a German speaking population.  While they might work as hymns, only the Kyrie is moderately successful and the Gloria less so.  The vaunted Sanctus (Isaiah Mighty Seer) does seem a huge stretch from the words of the actual Sanctus itself.  Again, though Luther was probably not the first to do so, it did sort of establish the hymn substitution of the ordinary as ordinary Lutheran practice.  It is not.  A temporary exception to the norm, maybe.  A regular diet of such, whether penned by Luther or anyone else, is a paraphrase too far.

So let me offend all of Lutheranism here by suggesting that the Deutsche Messe is an anomaly against the confessional Lutheran practice simply singing the ordinary.  That is probably a shocking thing to say on the 500th anniversary of his liturgical offering.  In one sense, Luther's original suggestion (the Formula Missae) was about as traditional as you could get -- so much so that without a few noticeable changes of tones for the chanting of the Gospel and the hearing of the Verba Christi out loud, it would have been difficult for some folks to notice the difference between the Roman version and the Lutheran one.  So we said:  Falsely are our churches accused of abolishing the Mass; for the Mass is retained among us, and celebrated with the highest reverence. Nearly all the usual ceremonies are also preserved, save that the parts sung in Latin are interspersed here and there with German hymns, which have been added to teach the people.  This was even after Luther's liturgical revisions (a set of evangelical rubrics to use with the missal on the altar and then, well, the German Mass.  Here and there with German hymns somehow became no Latin and only German hymnns -- at least among some.

For my part, I think it would be better to simply conveniently forget the German Mass entirely and stick the hymns you want to use in where hymns ordinarily belong -- here and there.  But not use paraphrases of the ordinary either as an occasional shout out to our guy's ideas or as a regular practice.  That would, in my mind, also include the LSB Divine Service IV.  That and DS V's omission from LSB would have freed up some space for something better used on a regular basis.  Oh, I get that DS IV can be used to help restore liturgical practice where it has been abandoned but such a tool belongs in Builder but not in the printed book itself.  So now that I have offended nearly every Lutheran (except those who might find Luther's paraphrases hard to sing), let me suggest that this is not about preference but about learning the texts and sticking with them.  The hymns are not wrong or bad but they are not quite the ordinary either.  So why do it?

One particular hymn that illustrates the point without offending Lutherans too much more is the Apostles' Creed hymn in LSB.  We All Believe in One True God was written by Tobias Clausnitzer (1671) and, of course, translated by Catherine Winkworth a couple of hundred years later.  The hymn is nice enough, fairly popular, even ecumenical -- but does it really jibe with the content or wording of the real Apostles' Creed?  You be the judge.

1 We all believe in one true God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Ever-present help in need,
Praised by all the heav'nly host;
All He made His love enfolds,
All creation He upholds.

2 We all believe in Jesus Christ,
Son of God and Mary's son,
Who descended from His throne
And for us salvation won;
By whose cross and death are we
Rescued from all misery.

3 We all confess the Holy Ghost,
Who from both in truth proceeds,
Who sustains and comforts us
In all trials, fears, and needs.
Blessed, holy Trinity,
Praise forever be to Thee! 

In fact, in more words that the brief and compact Apostles' Creed, the hymn fails to include all that the baptismal creed includes.  That is the problem with hymn paraphrases. They tend to take more words to say less than the actual texts of the ordinary.  I have tried my own hand at writing paraphrases of the ordinary and with even less success, apparently, as Luther.  So my vote is to retire DS IV & V from parish use -- except where DS IV might work to renew a waning liturgical focus where none has been.  But it does not need to be in the hymnal and we do not need to use it.  Sing the hymns if you want to.  But not all of them together displacing the ordinary with less salutary paraphrases.  

The last problem I have with the Deutsche Messe is the ordering of the canon.  Luther, for whatever reason I really do not care about, thought it smart to move the Sanctus to after the Verba Christi so that you sing the Sanctus (German hymn Isaiah Mighty Seer) and right after the Agnus Dei).  Really?  It is almost like Luther was setting us up for pastors and congregations to take the ordo and turn it into smorgasbord of things and then to arrange them like food on a plate.  Was Luther the origin of such tinkering?  Luther should have stuck with the Formula Missae, with a cheat sheet to make the Latin missal work for evangelical purpose, and left it at that.  Of course, your mileage may vary.  So load up and fire your comments at me folks.

Only few mysteries are revealed. . .

Some like to think that religion is the result of man's observation of himself and his surroundings.  There are many things that would fit that bill.  We look, we think, we posit opinions, and we speak of facts.  Some of them are true and some of them end up being foolish as we reconsider them.  Christianity, however, is not a religion of observation and conclusion.  It is a religion of revelation, of disclosure, and of hidden things.  It is a religion of mystery but not in the sense of a puzzle begging to be explained.  No, indeed.  The mysteries of the faith are those things which lie beyond proof and are taken by faith.  These are the things of God which are beyond our knowing.  He reveals Himself and His ways to us but not in full or total so that it is ever a done deal.  He gives us what we need to know of Him and His ways.  The rest He does not disclose to us and we cannot ascertain them by observation or study.  We accept them by faith.

The Book of Sirach (The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach or The Wisdom of Jesus son of Eleazar, or Ecclesiasticus is of Jewish literary origins, written in Biblical Hebrew probably around the time of the Second Temple period.  It was translated into Koine Greek, expanded with a prologue, and was generally well-known.  It is in the prologue we find what is generally considered to be the earliest witness to a tripartite canon of the books of the Hebrew Bible and so it is a witness to the revelation even if it is not quite revelation.  Although included in the Hebrew Bible nor regarded as Scripture by the Jews, it is included in the Septuagint and the Old Testament of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East.  While most Protestants have paid less attention to it, Lutherans hold it as an important intertestamental text found in the Apocrypha, noncanonical but not insignificant.  Indeed, until more modern times, Lutheran editions of the Bible always included this work among the other works of the Apocrypha.

Perhaps my favorite verse in the Apocrapha is  Beyond these, many things lie hid; only a few of God’s works have we seen (Sirach 43:34).  It reminds me of the line in the Nicene Creed -- the God who made all things, visible and invisible or seen and unseen.  Among the many marvels of God's creative work and in the exclusive salvific works of God, we have ample testament to His power and to His mercy.  Enough.  But it is, as they say, the tip of the iceberg about God.  Beyond these, only a few of His works are revealed to us.  We know there are more but they are not the more on which we focus.  We turn our attention to His revelation while trusting in the most which eye has not seen nor ear heard nor mind conceived.  It is enough to have what we have but we all know there is so very much more.

In a world which treats a mystery as a problem or riddle to be solved, Christianity does not tread lightly upon the unseen works of God.  We do not let them overwhelm what we are given to know by revelation.  God's self-disclosure, while plenty, is not everything and yet it is enough.  Enough to save.  Enough to forgive.  Enough to end the terror of death and the reign of the devil.  Enough to rescue the soul from despair and the lost from the prison of their darkness.  But there is more.  The mystery remains along side the revelation.  The Psalmist knows this:  The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim his handiwork (Psalm 19:1).  Job is not put down by the revelation that the things of God are too great and His mystery too deep for mere man to ponder.  It is enough that God has stooped low to behold and esteem the plight of man urgent enough for His grace to fill man's every need.  His ways are above ours.  That is not a put down at all.  It is comfort.  We do not need to comprehend everything of God to believe in Him or faith would be impossible.  It is enough to know Jesus Christ whom He has revealed and the only true God.   The things of God do not confound us unless we refuse to trust in Him, do not baffle us unless we choose to ignore what He has revealed.

All of this is on prominent display in the Divine Service.  The how of the mystery is never explained but the gift of that mystery of flesh in bread and blood in wine delivers the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.  It gives to us not a solid preview of heaven but the taste of it -- enough to whet our appetite and want the more that is to come even while we affirm with joy that what we have is enough.  That is where we live when we live by faith.  I guess I have Christmas on my mind.... already.