Housing is the new challenge. . .

There has been a sea change in the time I have been a pastor.  It was normal for a pastor to live in church owned housing 45 or 50 years ago.  Then things changed.  It became normal for churches to get out of the real estate business and for pastors to get in.  I began in a parsonage (or rectory as I prefer to call it) and now live in my own home.  Perhaps in that way I am typical for folks around my age or either north or south of it.  It was the thing to do.  Equity, the American dream of home ownership, preparing for the inevitable day when you would retire or serve only part-time, and such all contributed to the switch.  Chief among them was cheap housing.  The world is different now.

Real estate is now beyond the reach of many (dare I say most) pastors living in urban or suburban areas across the Synod.  After Covid, not only interest rates went up but the cost of housing also skyrocketed.  How do you come up with a down payment of $45-100,000 to get in on the bottom of some neighborhoods and $150-300,000 to get into others?  How do you afford the carrying costs of mortgage, PMI, taxes, maintenance, and such?  Congregations might think that their pastors or prospective ones are simply being greedy but others in the pews know the score.  It is a different world than it was even a decade ago.  In many cases, the ability of a congregation to call a pastor or other church worker hinges less on salary than it does the cost of housing in that area.  We all know that.

Congregations sold their real estate in part because their pastors wanted the opportunity to purchase their own homes but also because they were never great as landlords.  The congregations also saw an income opportunity to cash in on the equity of older properties in an age when land is more valuable than the building on it.  They may have provided an ace in the hole on the income side of the equation but may have shot themselves in the foot on the ability to call a pastor on the other.  We are having to invent some creative ways to subsidize housing so that pastors can come to these urban and suburban places but even then it is not a slam dunk.  Everything from shared ownership to the congregation becoming a banker to help out the pastor sinking in school and other debt is being tried.  It is not a universal resolution to what is a rather universal problem.  Don't bank on LCEF to solve it -- they have their own needs and issues and can help those who already have some money better than those who do not -- plus their cost of funds is less than some other financing options but not free either.

Pastors can sometimes ill afford to move because of housing.  On one hand, they may not be able to find housing as cost-effective as the one they are currently in and on the other they may be enticed by the ballooning equity in some areas to move out of those areas because the housing market has made them asset rich.   This may contribute to fewer pastors accepting calls and especially fewer pastors (and other church workers, of course) moving to some high housing cost areas.  We all know this.  It is not rocket science.  It is what it is.

Parsonages may not be passe anymore.  Indeed, they may be the only way that we can get pastors to serve in such high cost of living areas.  I would caution any congregation from selling a parsonage because they want to cash in.  Instead, they may want to keep this asset in order to get another even greater asset -- a pastor to preach and teach among them!  Anyway, housing is as much of a challenge and perhaps even more than the high cost of health insurance, retirement plans, etc...   It is a conundrum, to say the least.  Far from giving the pastor an often overrated sweet deal on housing, it may become the only way to get a pastor at all.

The strength that produces peace . . .

On this eleventh day of the eleventh month when on the eleventh hour an armistice was declared, it is worth remembering that wars seldom produce peace.  Peace is not an end to war but something more, not an absence of conflict but something positive, and not a ceasefire but a beginning.  Yes, peace often requires wars to respond to aggression, conflict, and oppression but the end of the problem is seldom he beginning of the solution.  We have learned that only too well.  

WWI produced a victor and a loser but the embers of the destruction did not take more than a generation before they had fanned into flame and even larger and more menacing war if the worlds.  Mostly young men were sent to fight and still are.  Those with heady hopes and rising dreams find themselves betrayed by the harsh realities of the battlefield.  Death is never pretty.  But the future that rises from the ashes is not pretty either.  From winning on the battlefield came the ruins of once great cities and economies that were on life support.  It did not take long before a world was caught up in a depression that put even more pressure on everything and everyone.  After another world at war, a war so cold it was nearly frozen emerged.  I grew up calling my desk a storm shelter and bomb shelter at the same time and I was a lucky one.  A culture war began in the 1960s and joined the race riots to dominate a future of conflict.  Korea and Vietnam did not accomplish much in positive terms but came at great cost to our nation as well as theirs.  Wars undeclared in the Middle East and clandestine operations that did not remain hidden have left us wearied and wounded.

It appears that Trump has accomplished the unthinkable and actually strong armed Israel and the Palestinians to the peace table -- even the Arab nations have cooperated.  Maybe there is peace in hand for the Ukraine.  Who knows?  Maybe Iran can be contained and its trajectory changed as well.  We can hope.  The strength of peace is in the resolve of the people -- in this case 65% of Israelis who wanted hostages home more than victory.  Maybe moms will tire of burying their sons; may be dads will want to stop grieving over their lost futures -- sons and daughters who are no more.  Maybe the people of nations governed by despots and egomaniacs will rise up to say enough.  Maybe there will be more Trumps who are unlikely peacemakers but who surprise us.  Who knows?  We can hope.

It is not the weak that can effect peace but it takes more than military strength as well.  It takes the strength of will and purpose and the voice to say enough.  It is one thing to plaster Biblical phrases on a building in New York City but it is quite another to have a mechanism strong enough to work for peace.  I have long been filled with disappointment at the thing called the United Nations.  But maybe there will rise up those who can be stronger than cliches -- not a new UN but a real appetite to make the hard decisions that will make for a real peace -- one arising from the insistence that there must be a better way to fight again old battles or jockey for position to overcome old rivalries or bring resolution to every new conflict waiting to begin.

In any case, the poppies and fields of blood that birthed this day ought to remind us to say thank you to those whose sacrifice has born the cost of our convictions and to vow to them one more time -- never again. 

So long Laura Ingalls . . .

There was a time when Minnesota seemed to be Luther land.  The immigration from Northern Europe brought boat upon boat of farmers to its fertile lands and with those families came churches and pastors.  It was filled with Swedes and Germans as well but they were overshadowed by Norwegians.  The wood frame churches that were erected along with the settlements and farm places in the 19th century gave birth to myth and history -- including the captivating Ingalls family and Little House on the Prairie.  It was quite literally the most “Norwegian” place in the whole of the United States. 

More than a third of the population bled Norwegian blood and four out of ten people were Lutheran in Minnesota.  It seemed to embody the Lutheran virtues of faith, family, and work along with the character of perseverance.  Today, however, Minnesota is not what it was.  The urban area of Minneapolis is not only diverse and typical of the liberal and progressive values of the rest of urban America, it has become “Little Mogadishu.”  The resettlement of refugees has turned this stronghold of Norwegian Lutheran Christianity into the largest Somali and Muslim population in America.  In fact, it elected one of the first Muslim members of congress.  

The pictures of the Ingalls family and the Muslim population there are very different.  Demographics do change.  I saw it in the architecture of New York City and Queens as the earlier immigrant populations which had built the structures moved to the suburbs and left the Germanic icons to be inhabited by another changing landscape of peoples and cultures.  Some insist this is not only the story of America but its soul.  However, the difference lies in the willingness of the new populations to embrace and embody the American ideals of democracy, personal responsibility, work, decency, and community.  Herein lies the difference.  Some of the newer populations are not looking to fit in or even find their place in Minnesota as much as to replicate the lives and social structures left behind in their homelands.  I do not say this to be mean or to racist but to acknowledge a difference within the immigrants now in Minnesota and those who preceded them.

Minnesota is being transformed — especially in its cities.  The old heritage of Northern Europe is being replaced not simply by immigration but by the decline of the birth rates of its former native sons and daughters and the soaring immigrant birth rates of those who have come later.  According to the statistics, some 130,000 arrivals have showed up from Somalia, Ethiopia, and other places.  The birth rates of these migrant populations soar while the birth rates of those who were there tank.  Along with the ordinary tensions between newer and older populations, crime, welfare rolls, and Islamic influence explodes.  Minneapolis has the largest Somali population in the U.S. — with it a push for Sharia laws and order.  Omar Fateh — a Somali-American Muslim and Democratic Socialist — will take over City Hall as the next mayor of Minneapolis.  Yes, in Minnesota.

I do not blame the immigrants from Africa.  They have come for their dreams as did those who went before them from other lands.  I do point out that what happens in the Upper Midwest today in a heartland once known as Norwegian Lutherland will continue to happen across America and at least in part due to the choice of some not to marry or have children.  I will hand it to the immigrants now calling Minnesota home that they value family and children in a way that the rest of America has not and has not for a very long time.  We alone are responsible for our own marginalization when we choose to give up the values of faith and family once so central to our identity.  We alone are responsible for the political changes when we vote in those who have values in conflict with American ideals.  While we might be inclined to understand when this happens in New York City, when it happens in Minneapolis it ought to awaken in us responsibility and repentance for what we have done to ourselves.   

A fond remembrance. . .

The Rev. Charles Evanson was installed as Pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church on Rudisill in Ft. Wayne in 1975 --  where he would serve for 25 years.  He was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry in 1964 but not until after serving for two years as an ordained deacon under the Rev. Berthold Von Schenk.  He also became a field work supervisor in 1976 when the Seminary formerly of Springfield, IL, returned to its roots in Ft. Wayne.  While Ft. Wayne was not sure it wanted the Seminary since it had come at the cost of Concordia Senior College, Pastor Evanson was more than welcoming.  He became a mentor to me and to countless others across the years.  I was among those who were his first field workers and he was instrumental in my life as a pastor in so many ways that it is impossible to overstate his influence upon me.

I had actually been at Redeemer before he was installed there.  It was a tough time.  Their larger than life Pastor Herb Lindemann had taken a call.  He had been a very big presence in the liturgical movement among Lutherans.  The associate had left under less than happy circumstances.  The congregation was not even sure about calling Pastor Evanson.  But they did.  I well recall his installation.  The Rev. Adalbert Raphael Alexander Kretzmann, then pastor of St. Luke's, Chicago, read the Gospel.  He cast an imposing shadow over the day but it belonged to a quieter and yet no less profound Charles Evanson.  Soon began regular conversations, visits, and tabletalk -- mostly on Saturday mornings.  Behind a puff of pipe smoke and in a small study too crammed with books, Evanson held forth on the pastoral task -- complete with the history and pastoral theology to match.  But if I was going to serve at Redeemer, I also had to be under orders.

I was ordained a deacon with Gary Frank and Marvin Hinkle and served at Redeemer as liturgical deacon, visitor to the sick and shut-in, sometime catechist, occasional organist, and temporary custodian for most of the six years I was at the Senior College and Seminary.  Gary long ago swam the Bosporus and then the Tiber.  Marv served at historic Zion, Friedheim and elsewhere in Indiana before moving back to the area.  I was on Long Island, between Albany and NYC, and then here in Clarksville.  It is now 50 years since that Sunday near Thanksgiving when hands were laid, prayers were prayed, promises were made, and a stole was laid.  I cannot say what a privilege it was to serve under the good Father.  Oddly enough, I ended up for nearly 13 years just down the road from Fr. Von Schenk's farm and summer home and the mission he began in Oak Hill.  What a circle!  Anyway, I found the photo, my wife cleaned it up, and I offer it to you as a record of a wonderful day that began a privileged life.

 

Tired old arguments continue. . .

Everyone knows the ongoing debate about the order in which the Gospels were written, the theories about common source material, and the actual dates of their composition.  Spoiler alert.  I will not solve the problem here.  Suffice it to note that modern times have undone the historic narrative about the order and somewhat about the dates.  They have some evidence, to be sure, but they also are guessing and in their postulating have decided that those closer to the time know less than they do.  That is my point.

Modern Biblical scholarship believes that the Gospel of Mark was the first written Gospel and probably dates that work somewhere within a twenty year period from 50-70 AD.  Until more modern times, nearly everyone thought that the order of the gospels in the canon was actually their order of composition.  In particular, the Early Church Fathers are nearly unanimous in their thought that the Gospel of Matthew was the first gospel to be written and the sequence of gospels in the New Testament is the result of this thinking -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Today, about the only agreement you can find with earlier fathers and modern scholars is that the Gospel of John was the last to be written.

Third century scholar Origen said in his Commentary on Matthew 1:

Concerning the four Gospels which alone are uncontroverted in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first and that he composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for the converts from Judaism. 

Note that already in the 3rd century, tradition had wrestled with and come to unanimity on both the question of the order in which the gospels were written and which were canonical.  To those who would insist this question of order or canonicity is simply unknown or uncertain, here is the thinking of a person of some repute about what was known and accepted long before the Church actually bothered to write out a list or modern scholarship presumed to know better. 

Later than Origen, in the 4th century, St. Augustine himself put together a harmony of the gospels in which he states unequivocally: 

Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most remarkable circulation over the whole world, and whose number has been fixed as four — it may be for the simple reason that there are four divisions of that world through the universal length of which they, by their number as by a kind of mystical sign, indicated the advancing extension of the Church of Christ — are believed to have written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly Luke, lastly John.

In addition, Origen also wrote of the authorship -- something of which modern scholarship insists is unknown and even, perhaps, the result of various scribes and traditions as compilation, of sorts.

The second written was that according to Mark, who wrote it according to the instruction of Peter, who, in his General Epistle, acknowledged him as a son, saying, 'The church that is in Babylon, elect together with you, salutes you and so does Mark my son.' And third, was that according to Luke, the Gospel commended by Paul, which he composed for the converts from the Gentiles. Last of all, that according to John. 

While some might question if it all matters, the importance here is confidence in the source material for who Jesus is and what He has accomplished for us and our salvation.  The matter of the canon and the gospels and their composition date and authorship bear to this essential point.  Can we have confidence that what we are reading today is the Gospel.  Where modern scholarship puts a question mark and some insist that nothing is so until the almighty Church says it is, it is clear that the early fathers believed and so proclaimed this Gospel of Jesus Christ based upon the historic record of the Scriptures well known to them and well defined (except for a very few books or sections of books in the New Testament) and that they reflected the earliest consensus and tradition on the matter.

The witness to the canon is clear even though you would be hard pressed to find a definitive statement that this is the canon and no other.  So Clement of Rome mentions at least eight New Testament books (95 AD), the martyr Polycarp, a disciple of John the apostle, 15 books (108 AD), Ignatius of Antioch 7books (115 AD), Irenaeus 21 books (185 AD), and Hippolytus 22 books (170-235?AD).  So the New Testament books around which the most doubt was placed early on were Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John -- and this more for lack of mention than for dismissal from the witnesses of the earliest period.  Thus it is certain that, concerning the vast majority of the 27 books of the New Testament, no shadow of doubt existed concerning their character as tradition and this certainly includes the Gospels.  

In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius of Caesarea chronicles the witness of earlier writers concerning the limits of the canon. In summary (Book III, chap. 25), he divides the books into three classes: (a) twenty-two are almost universally acknowledged to be canonical, namely the four Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul (including Hebrews), I John, I Peter, and even Revelation (though Eusebius comments further on Revelation); (b) five are quite widely accepted, though disputed by some (though it would seem all were accepted by Eusebius himself) namely, James, Jude, II Peter (earlier regarded by Eusebius as spurious), II and III John; and (c) five are clearly spurious, namely the Acts of Paul, Hermas, Apocalypse of Peter, Barnabas, and the Didache.  Eusebius comments about Revelation: “To these perhaps the Revelation of John should be added, as some reject it while others count it among the accepted books.” As any idiot can see, this is virtually the canon as we know today.  For what it is worth, following Eusebius (after 325 AD) the differences in the canon are very slight indeed.

This history supports the apostolic tradition received by the Church -- proclaimed with clarity and certainty as its Canon -- until a quantitative list appeared by the end of the fourth century.  Modern scholarship begins with a question mark where the Church must put an exclamation point.  The history may not be as neat and tidy as we would want it to be but to suggest doubt and uncertainty where the record says confidence and authority is to betray not only the Scriptures but the Christ whom those Scriptures proclaim.  Why we would doubt or distance ourselves from this early witness to the truth and reliability of the gospels in particular and the whole of the New Testament is and remains a mystery to me.