I am dying... so are you.

One of my kids looked at the vitamins and a few other pills I take and asked me if I was dying.  Though I was tempted to say no, I admitted to him that I was, indeed, dying.  There isn't a pill that will prevent that though some things we do can help prolong a life or at least make it easier.

Death has passed to all people.  Even Christians die to shed the mortal flesh in favor of the glorious flesh and blood like Jesus now wears.  It is not the fearful death of those who die outside of Christ and the grace of His blood shed but it is not nothing.  Death is still filled with tears, sorrow, and grief.  Death is the final enemy to be overcome.  This is true even for Jesus so it is true for us as well.

Though we are tempted to say that some die before their time, it is more a reflection of the suddenness of death and how it has caught us unawares.  That happens to me when I hear of those who are my age or thereabouts and they have died.  Just a few months ago it was a very dear friend of many years.  Some of those I have buried over the course of this past year were not old so it did not seem to be their time either.  Death is not about a particular time or season of life.  Death is the shadow that is cast over all our lives.

We can try to make death happier by consoling ourselves with a long life or a life well lived but this does make death less threatening.  Sure, sometimes we see our loved ones suffering and death seems to be merciful.  The truth is that we do not want death, we want to see the suffering ended.  Death is the cost of the suffering ended even though we would rather have kept the life without the pain.  Death is also uncertainty.  Though we know we will die in Christ and the dead in Christ live in Him, how that looks practically is not given us to know.  We accept it by faith without seeing it with our eyes or reasoning it all out into some nice, neat little explanation.  For those who have rejected Christ, death is even more uncertain.  It is, as they used to say, a body all dressed up with no place to go.

The worst thing we can do with death is to trivialize it.  That is what it has become in the funeral industry and modern parlance.  Instead of grieving the loss of those whom we love, we look at some photos and tell a funny story about the dead, and go home thinking it is all better.  It is not.  I knew when my son asked me if I was dying because I was taking more pills than he did, he was not making light of it.  He was genuinely concerned.  Love is that concern.  He did not want to contemplate my death anymore than I wanted to contemplate the death of my parents.  He was not brushing off the reality of death but looking for confirmation that the inevitable was not expected sooner rather than later.  I get it.  But treating death as if it were a joke will not help the grieving.  

Our lives are not our own.  They belong to our families, to be sure, but for the Christian there is another dimension to it all.  We belong to the Lord.  Even our death belongs to our Lord.  He has claimed our sins and even our death.  He has borne their burdens upon His own shoulders.  He did this for us so that our death would not be the end.  One of the most hopeful things on earth is a funeral, a real Christian funeral.  Imagine that, we gather not merely to remember the dead but because we expect to see them again -- living never to die anymore.  It is the great and grand surprise of God.  Resting in the silence of the earth is a seed which will rise again.  Christ is the first seed and His resurrection the first fruit of the many that will follow.  

Yes, I am dying.  I am nearer to my death than I am to my birth.  Most of us are.  I do not say that flippantly.  It is an acknowledgement of God's abundant goodness.  I will die but death will not hold me anymore than it held Jesus.  I will not rise to start this living process all over again but to begin the new and everlasting life which can never be known fully in this mortal life.  I am dying and one day it will all catch up to me but the fearful death that threatens I have already suffered.  Joined with Christ's death and resurrection in baptism, I died that death already.  Thanks be to God!

Foot dragging. . .

Strange how things are.  It seems that some Christian jurisdictions and their leaders complain that the faithful are dragging their feet when it comes to implementing the purified vision of tomorrow within the Church today.  In case you do not get it, they are frustrated by people in the pews and those who stay at home who are not jumping on board the bandwagon to accommodate every sexual desire, support every gender identity decision, right every wrong, restore every injustice, repair every inequity, and heal the climate by reducing the imprint of mankind.  They are upset because folks just do not seem to get how important these things are as the new gospel of Christianity and so the churches are lagging where their leaders think they should be forging ahead of society.

Oddly enough, these same Christian jurisdictions and their leaders do not seem to be complaining about the diminishing size of the Christian population within these jurisdictions.  They do not seem to be as concerned by the increasing number of those who are no shows on Sunday morning.  They do not seem to be worried about the lack of repentance for real sins or the desire to be forgiven by the real blood of Christ.  They do not seem to be at all disheartened by the growing irrelevance of doctrine and doctrinal unity (much less practice).  We hear all kinds of talk about the need to awaken within the faithful (and those who have cashed out) a yearning for the new world order envisioned by such folk but we hear little talk about any yearning for or guidance to their eternal salvation.

It does not seem to take long before we forget what Christianity is really about in order to surge ahead with what we think it should be about.  That is certainly the hallmark of a lost Christianity, confused about what Christianity is or what the Church should be about.  And that is exactly where we live.  The only real life in Christianity seems to be where people are still talking about Scripture as truth without error, the Gospel of sin forgiven by the death of Jesus on a cross, and the Gospel of new life bestowed in Baptism and sustained by the Eucharist to the resurrection and the life eternal.  There are dying and dead churches all around us except where this faithful Christian Gospel is the voice and the means of grace are faithfully offered for the purposes for which Christ instituted them.  These are the only real pockets of life within Western Christianity and, indeed, across the world's stage.

As one commenter put it, the Church is daily being stolen from the faithful and their God by those who have betrayed the Gospel and nobody seems to be concerned.  That is the problem facing Christianity in the West.  The concern and therefore the agenda of these churches is misplaced and so the one Gospel the Church was established to proclaim has been cast aside in favor of the gospel everyone seems to be parroting.  If only these leaders actually listened to the voice of Scripture, they might just learn why there is so little energy or momentum in these progressive churches.  They have kept forms as decor without honoring the substance of that Gospel.  We are all tempted by this and we are all in danger of squandering the very treasure God has given us.  It is not a now or never proposition but an everyday battle that will not subside until Christ comes in His glory to mercifully end our delusion and take back what is His.

Can we trust the Spirit?

It would seem that we have a conundrum.  The Holy Spirit seems to be speaking with forked tongue.  He seems to be saying one thing to some and something else to others.  That is the problem between a progressive and liberal Christianity which believes that God is always doing new things and forgetting about the old and a conserving catholic Christianity which believes that God's Word endures forever.  You cannot have both.  That is the dilemma we find ourselves in today.  We do have both.  We have those on one side who insist that the Holy Spirit is telling us to talk more about climate change and liberating sexual desire and living true to your feelings than it is about calling us to repentance, forgiving our sins, and keeping us to everlasting life.  

This is precisely the problem that Luther and the Reformers found in the sixteenth century.  When the Roman Catholic Church presumes that it owns Scripture and can add to it or change what it means because of a papacy or teaching magisterium that is above Scripture, it is really no different than Protestantism deciding that reason or culture is above what Scripture says.  No matter how much it is ridiculed by liberals or Romans, sola Scriptura is the only real answer.  No, not a naked Scripture ripped out of its believing community and living tradition but a norming voice for today and for all times -- that is what we need.

Novelty has become what drives liberal and progressive voices.  It does not matter if it never was believed or heard that way before, it is how we hear it today and so that is all that matters.  Novelty also becomes those who can invent things not found in Scripture or attested to within the universal Church and her living tradition down through the ages.  Either the Spirit is unreliable or a liar OR the Spirit has already given us something to norm what we believe, teach, and confess.  It seems to me that this is pretty much what this sola is all about.

Some Roman Catholic wags have suggested that the Holy Spirit is telling the more liberal German part of that body things different not simply from the past but also from what the Spirit is telling other parts of that same church body.  If it were not so sad, you might laugh.  We should not be laughing.  This is the basic dilemma of Christendom today and it is occasioned by our distance from Scripture and the universal tradition of the Church.  Who can say who is right and who is wrong unless the Holy Spirit has also provided a means test for such things?  And what is that means test -- a person, a council, a teaching magisgerium?  Or, could it be the Word of the Lord which, by its own statement, endures forever the same.  What think ye?

A curious dispute. . .

Sometimes I find what is being argued and how it is being argued among some in Rome as rather tedious and arcane.  So it is that apparently there is a war against kneeling and has been for some time.  It is being said that progressives prefer standing and traditionalists prefer kneeling.  It is a matter of theology for some of those arguing -- although it is at least practical theology.  Lutherans do not pay much attention to the kneeling debates in Rome.  That is in part because the vast majority of Lutherans do not kneel ever (except for a few moments at the rail when receiving the Sacrament) and relatively few Lutheran naves have kneelers in the pews.  We do not kneel because we do not like it and because it is inconvenient and because some say they cannot and therefore would be conspicuous if everyone else knelt.  At least those are some of our arguments.

Everyone would agree that kneeling is not convenient or comfortable.  For those reasons alone we do not want to kneel.  Kneeling is inconvenient for all and uncomfortable for the aged and those with bad knees (just about everyone these days).  Lord, knows God would not want us to do something inconvenient or uncomfortable so therefore God has deemed kneeling unnecessary or irrelevant as well.  That is the way some Lutherans think.  Sure, we might make an exception at the rail but even then kneeling is not required of those who cannot or do not wish to kneel.  That would not be Lutheran.  And we could say the same about bowing and genuflecting.  Not convenient, not comfortable, and, to the latter especially, too much like Rome for a Lutheran's good.

Nevermind that the word kneel is found all over Scripture.  It must be symbolic and not prescriptive.  And so is bowing.  But there are a lot of words in Scripture that we do not pay all that much attention to -- especially if they refer to something we do not like to do or something we find uncomfortable.  Even when we sing words like kneel and bow (as in the Venite, Psalm 95) we read them symbolically.  Lord, knows you would not want to ask people to kneel when the hymn or Psalm talks about kneeling (or bowing!).  In fact, we could say the same about singing.  God did not really mean O come let us sing unto the Lord.  That is a turn of a phrase.  Speaking is better than singing and it is faster so that the service might actually end a couple of moments sooner -- always a good thing!

Okay, my tongue in cheek point is this.  Words should not be not taken to be symbolic unless they are meant to be taken that way.  It is highly doubtful that in our more enlightened society today we have come to a more enlightened understanding of Scripture to decide all of these are symbolic.  It just may be that we are meant to be inconvenienced and uncomfortable.  That may be the point, after all.  Let’s be honest here.  If God asked us to do something we wanted to do or was easy, we would jump at the chance.  The reality is that we are far removed from the ancient traditions and postures of the Church when it comes to such things as kneeling and bowing and genuflecting.  We now live at a time when even the venerable pews of old are being exchanged for more comfortable seating.  In fact, kneelers have gone by the wayside precisely because comfort is more important than just about anything else.  Unlike Moses, we have no holy ground to worry about.  Churches are more like living rooms than temples and we even have screens to avoid holding a book or a piece of paper.  Give us easy over complicated and convenience over trouble and comfort over effort any day of the week.  Maybe that is the real problem we ought to be dealing with!

Bad news in Lutherland. . .

Okay.  The Reformation has come and gone.  You may still hear the faint echo of the brass announcing A Mighty Fortress or one of other battle hymns of the Reformation.  But it is time to get back to reality.  Things are not going well for Christianity in Germany -- not for Lutherans or for Roman Catholics.  

The fall in membership of these two largest Christian institutions in Germany is leaving those churches little choice except to sell or demolish hundreds of buildings.  The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reports 603 Roman Catholic and 444 worship places of the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD, the main Protestant Church) have been “deconsecrated”and no longer be used for worship services.  For the Protestants, this has meant either selling or demolishing the buildings.  It is estimataed that in 9 years, “every fourth or fifth church [building] will no longer be used for its original purpose”, says architecture professor Stefanie Lieb. She calculates that this could mean up to 10,000 churches would be silent on Sunday morning.  They are already pretty much empty.

The reason is not surprising given is the constant fall in the membership of the two churches.  Year end figures from 2023 show that the Roman Catholic Church in Germany lost 628,000 members, and the Protestant EKD, 593,000.  This includes the intentional exit of members (to avoid church tax) but also includes deaths and the drop in baptisms.  The reason they are closing now is the high cost of maintaining these old and expensive structures -- estimated to cost the Roman Catholic Church in Bavaria alone some 100 million euros annually.

Sure, this is not about preserving the buildings.  It is up to the German people to determine which structures are culturally and historically significant and to fund them.  But no one seems to be noticing how the numbers of Christians in Germany keeps circling the drain.  What good is it to preserve a building if there is no concern for the salvation of the people who would worship and pray in those buildings?  In any case, Germany is home to some of the most liberal and progressive versions of the Protestant side as well as the Roman Catholic side.  Perhaps this ought to tell us something about the Christianity lite version most commonly known in Germany.  It is not working.

You are looking at the wrong signs. . .

Sermon for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (B) preached on Sunday, November 17, 2024.

Living here you soon discover that somewhere a deer carcass is cooking as you see the vultures flying overhead waiting for dinner to be ready.  Perhaps that is how we have come to view the end times.  We look at the broken and tattered remnants of humanity, our failed institutions, the brutality of war and violence, and the balance of nature seemingly out of whack and presume the worst.  That is how it was for the disciples.  They wanted to know what the end was going to look like or, more accurately, how bad is it going to get.  We are not so different.  We look at the pace of change, the flourishing of evil, and the growing uncertainty over the future and we want to know if this is the beginning of the end and how much worse it will be down the road.  So our judgment of the times and our question to God is the same – how bad will it get?

It would be easy enough to preach a simple sermon of warning to you now but that is not what you need to hear.  Furthermore, it is not what Jesus said.  Yes, there will be worse times to come as the world seems to spin out of control toward destruction but that is not the main point.  It may not be the beginning of the end, but I can tell you clearly it is most certainly the end of the beginning.  We are not in the period of Christian infancy when hopes were high as the faith seemed to spread over all the earth.  We are in the achy adulthood of the faith and have learned the lessons of disappointment, disillusionment, and fear.  But even then, we are not without hope.  He who endures to the end shall be saved.

Before we jump more directly to the shape of our hope, let me dismiss the false use of Jesus’ words to shift the burden of judgment away from God and onto us.  When Jesus says the Gospel must first be preached to all nations, He is most certainly not conditioning the timing of God on what we do or fail to do.  The coming of Christ has not been delayed because we did not preach the Gospel more ambitiously or to every corner of this globe.  Jesus is not issuing a command to us here but revealing the promise.  The Gospel is for every sinner and no one is beyond reach of that Gospel by the working of the Spirit.  What we do with what we hear, well, that is on us.  But the Word is not kept impotent in a cage because of what we do or have not done.  So do not go there and forget what Jesus said.

These are the last days.  They have been since Christ rose from the dead, since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and since the apostles led the Church in the great missionary enterprise that turned a sect into a worldwide kingdom of faith.  The signs are all there.  No, not the wars and rumors of wars or terrorism or sexual immorality or abortion or child abuse or false prophets or threats against the Church.  These are not new.  No, what I am speaking to you about today are the signs of hope and promise that we too easily forget.  The same Daniel who stood in the lion’s den recorded the promise.  You shall be delivered – everyone whose names are written in the book of life.  The dead shall be raised.  Life shall triumph. The wise in faith shall shine like stars in the dark night of the soul.  This is what Jesus is referring to when He promises “those who endure shall be saved.”

None of us needs a preacher in the pulpit or a prophet speaking “Thus saith the Lord” to know the world is going to hell in a handbasket.  The warnings are all around us and obvious.  But the hope is not.  Hope is what must be preached when all we see is destruction and death, evil and indulgence.  The day of the Lord is coming and to those who are baptized into Christ, whose names are written in the book of life in the ink of Christ’s blood, who have been called to faith by the Word preached, who have been absolved and restored from their weakness and sin, and who have been fed and nourished upon the heavenly food of Christ’s flesh and blood – this is GOOD NEWS.  We do not have anything to fear.  Our sins have been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and our bodies endowed with the promise of the resurrection to life everlasting.

The day of the Lord will come and it will surprise us.  It will shock those who are unprepared, who live outside the banner of faith, and who have been too busy sinning to repent.  But it will be the glorious surprise to the faithful who long for an end to the fight, who are weary from all the battles, who wear the scars of their warfare, who know only too well their weakness.  Christ’s victory will not be ours because it is already ours.  Christ is risen from the dead not for Him but for you and me.  He lives not for Himself but for us.  He has covered us with His righteousness so that we will be found worthy.  He has planted His kingdom here in time so that we may be transferred to eternity.  He comes among us still as our Good Shepherd, our Great Redeemer, our Brother in love, who will guard us as His most treasured possession even as we guard our faith in Him as our most treasured possession.

For now we are tested by school shootings and violence that intrudes into every place that is supposed to be safe.  For now we are tested by the world that seems unstoppable while we seem impotent.  
For now we fight – not to be saved but to remain as the saved of the Lord, enduring in the hope into which we have been planted in baptismal water and fed in the Holy Eucharist.  Contrary to those who think the days are needlessly prolonged, He has promised they will be cut short because He loves us and He does not want any to be lost and all to be saved.  

He knows our names.  This is our comfort.  He calls us by name.  This is our courage.  He wrote our names in the book of life.  This is our confidence.  We call Him Lord because He has taught us to call Him Savior.  Instead of looking at the signs of the times that stir up fear, we need to look to the promises that give us hope in which we stand.  The world is not getting better and it is getting worse at a frightening pace.  But husbands and wives still love each other and cherish their days together, plan and rejoice for a family of children who will know and call God Father as they do and go to bed at night with a clear conscience through forgiveness and hope that whatever the morning brings, we will still belong to the Lord and His promises will prevail.

The world is not ours to fix and our hopes are not planted upon an improving tomorrow.  Where the dead are, the vultures will gather.  Well, guess what.  Where death is, God is already there.  Death has not the final word for your lives or mine.  So when we see the evil, hear the rumors of war, lament the immorality that passes for goodness, and see how casually life is treated, do not give into despair and repent of your fears.  Look to the signs of hope Christ has planted among us.  The Word and Sacraments.  And pray: Maranatha!  Come, Lord Jesus.

In the holy name of Jesus.  Amen.

The democratization of the Church. . .

As one who lives within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, I probably have no right to speak about this.  After all, we have institutionalized the democratic experiment of America and enshrined it all in a sacred voters assembly that can literally do what it pleases.  Of course, there are supposed to be boundaries on what is put up for a vote but that hardly stops us.  We tend to vote on things we should not and remain paralyzed by the things we should be voting upon.  It is not unlike the problems America finds in the political sphere.  While I am not quite saying the Church is hierarchical, neither is it a democracy.  More than this, giving people more opportunities to express themselves (or vote) will not repair what is wrong with our sacred institutions today.

Rome should send someone to a Synod or District convention or to a typical Voters Meeting and they may just back away from all their synodal talk -- which is really a cover for not only giving more people a voice but also giving that voice some teeth with a vote.  Levels of input, discussion, and consideration are worthless without the sense that at some point there will also be a vote.  It only disappoints expectations and embitters people to be asked what they think only to have it patently ignored.  So there is some duty to the creation of a structure in which people are asked to participate.  That said, it is also wise to remember Richard John Neuhaus' quip that the first words heard upon entering hell would be, “Break down into small groups, discuss, and then report back to the plenary.”

I fear that meetings will be the death of us and hell will be all the votes we took which we should not have and all that urgencies we ignored because we could not decide what to say or do.  I looked at my calendar and there are endless meetings and even meetings to prepare for meetings or meetings after meetings as well as meetings about meetings.  Is this really the way of the Kingdom?  Is this what God intended for His Church?  The other anonymous quip is the rewording of John 3:16 -- for God so loved the world that He did not send a committee.  The great temptation is that meetings end up be self-referential in a Church that is supposed to look to Christ and His Word.  The great fallacy is that the meetings are ways to invigorate the moribund Church when the reality is that meetings tend to focus more on the past than the future.  Worst, however, is the confusion of our meetings with God's work -- particularly the diminishing of the real work of God through the means of grace and the elevating of our own work of thinking, discussing, and judging.

Meetings are the bane of just about every pastor's existence.  Sometimes the essential, they are often the most extravagant waste of our time.  Part of that shows up in the way we end every meeting by setting a date and time for the next one.  Oh that God would disappoint all our agendas and show up to bring all things to completion before the next meeting!  Good luck to you, Rome, on your current infatuation with meetings and votes.  If anything comes of this, it will probably be nostalgia for the days of a benevolent monarch and pope.

Young men heading to church. . .

According to reports among those who chart such things, young men are heading to churches in greater numbers than young women.  While that ought to be something to celebrate, some are not so sure.  After all, they are heading to churches which have charted a course different from the one embarked upon by liberal and progressive Christians.  You can read all about it in this new Ryan Burge study: “The Religion of America's Young Adults — And how the gender gap could be the story going forward.”  Some of the points are listed below:

    … For the first time in modern American history, young men are now more religious than their female peers. They attend services more often and are more likely to identify as religious. 

    “We’ve never seen it before,” Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, said of the flip.

    Among Generation Z Christians, this dynamic is playing out in a stark way: The men are staying in church, while the women are leaving at a remarkable clip.

    Church membership has been dropping in the United States for years. But within Gen Z, almost 40 percent of women now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, compared with 34 percent of men, according to a survey last year of more than 5,000 Americans by the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute.

    In every other age group, men were more likely to be unaffiliated. That tracks with research that has shown that women have been consistently more religious than men, a finding so reliable that some scholars have characterized it as something like a universal human truth.

   They place a higher value on traditional family life. Childless young men are likelier than childless young women to say they want to become parents someday, by a margin of 12 percentage points, according to a survey last year by Pew.

    The men and women of Gen Z are also on divergent trajectories in almost every facet of their lives, including education, sexuality and spirituality.

It does seem clear that these young men are searching for the very things society has largely rejected or marginalized -- traditional gender roles, marriage, children, transcendence, meaning, and purpose that goes beyond the sanctioned political and cultural values of the moment.  They are hungry for the very things that modern culture has deemed unnecessary or irrelevant to life and happiness.  Also significant is that they want to be men.  

Before we rush to celebrate the good news, we would do well to consider this carefully.  This is not about being conservative but about living out the values inherent in Scripture.  This is about authority posited in the Word of God that endures forever.  This is about order and the shame of society, rooted in marriage and expressed in family and children.  This is about leadership and not dominion, leadership shaped by the Scriptures and our Lord's own words and model of serving and loving.  This is about not simply holding onto the values of the past but expressing them positively and effectively in the present.  This is about a Scriptural identity rooted in baptism and not an ideology.  This is about the life of those whom God has mercifully called His own and gathered unto Himself as His Church.  If this is true, we dare not offer them something less than the catholic and apostolic faith, rooted in the Scripture, reflected in tradition, and manifest where God gathers His people in His name around His Word and Sacraments.  By the way, this is an observable truth in my own parish.  Here every week more single young fellows are in the congregation than single young women.  They are enamored by the call and challenge of what it means to live as Christ's own in the difficult world in which we find ourselves.  They are looking for a challenge and this is what we give them and all of God's people -- take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow Jesus!

Baptizing nations. . .

When Jesus spoke the words "Go and make disciples of all nations," He was speaking to a time in which that very word nations meant something different than it does today.  Nations at the time of Jesus were seen not primarily as borders, governments, constitutions, and such but peoples.  In the Old Testament, the term had a decidedly negative connotation.  Nations represented goyim and about half of those citations had a negative context.  This was a body of people and not quite what we think of today in terms of race, ethnicity, culture, or identity.  Most importantly, these were people who were not believes in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  In the New Testament the word ethnos has a similar mixed impression with half negative contexts, half positive, and half neutral.  In the same way, this word does not immediately connect with borders or governments the way we think of nations today.

The call of Christ to make disciples was not a call to build an earthly kingdom nor did it mean that nations would be converted as later happened when monarchs converted and the population of a given nation or state wholesale converted as well.  It was by and large the call to preach, teach, and baptize those who were not historically part of the chosen and therefore an acknowledgement that God was in Christ reconciling all people unto Himself.  Now we have muddied the waters, making the Great Commission almost into a march to conquer territory.  I am not at all sure that this is helpful.  Nations as states or governments or even societies cannot be converted.  The Gospel is spoken into the ear and then to the heart and mind and not into the ballot box or legislative or political work of a nation.  People can be converted and societies and nations are the consequence of people being converted -- not the other way around.

All of that said, Christians are meant to be a leaven in their place -- home, neighborhood, community, and nation.  Our light is to be set up high so that it shines beyond the small domain of ourselves or even our families.  In this way churches are always political without being in politics.  We cannot escape the world around us identifying our position with certain political parties or candidates.  We should work to make these nuances careful and clear but it is a risk of being public and in the public square.  This is a risk we must take or else we will be invisible and this is certainly not Christ's will for His Church.  The nation is not meant by God to be a secular state if that means that Christians and Christianity is silent and invisible within that state.  We may not be a theocracy but there is little value beyond self for a faith that lives so deeply inside the Christian it does not show.  The Church, however, is not trying to win the soul of a nation by acts of government or the courts.  Neither do we compete in the marketplace of ideas as if Christianity were simply one set of truths or values against others of equal worth.  We are to be voices of the Gospel, speaking Christ through His Word and it is through this speaking and hearing that the Spirit works to bring forth faith. When we take this seriously, it is clear what happens. The nations of the West and indeed all places where Christianity flourished were transformed by the values of this Gospel as the people of God lived them out.  Where Christianity has died or been oppressed, it has had an equally profound although less salutary effect.  What changed was not the power of Christians as a voting class but as a people who lived true to their faith the words of the Lord that endure forever.  So, if we are not seeing that today is it simply because the government is less friendly to us or could it be that our lights are dim?

Where are the signs?

Sermon for the 25th Sunday after Trinity.

Oddly enough, the request for signs comes amidst the signs that Jesus did which incurred the wrath of His enemies – especially among the Pharisees, Scribes, and temple authorities.  It is no different today.  We ask for evidence or signs of God’s Kingdom and the end right after the sounds of worship fade away.  Jesus warns us that what we are looking for we will not find.  The end will come suddenly, like a thief in the night but obvious and not hidden.  What good is that?

In contrast, Jesus says the kingdom of God is not coming with observable signs.  No one will point “There it is!”  The kingdom of God is in your midst.  But where?  If you could see the kingdom of God, then why on earth would you need to have faith?  It is precisely because the signs are not obvious that you need to have faith – faith in the word of the Lord – not in what you see or hear but in what the Lord says!

We are awaking a week or so after an election in which both losers and winners are united in saying that if their candidate did not win the world would come to an end.  No matter how much you esteem Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, neither of them is capable of bringing the world to an end.  The Christian does not put faith in political leaders to solve theological problems.  We live or die not by who is elected or who is not but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

Sin has created a life of trouble for the child in the womb, the baby newly born, the child stretching his legs, the youth in rebellion, and the adult looking more to the world in time of fear and for signs of comfort than to the Lord.  We eat and drink and work and marry and busy ourselves with all sorts of things that seem so very important.  We would not see the kingdom of God or the signs of the times if we ran into them.  No, the kingdom of God is not somewhere out there but right here, right here where the Word of God is read and preached, where baptismal water gives new life, where absolution restores the fallen, and where the flesh and blood of Jesus feeds us everlasting life.  We do not need signs or people pointing to what is not there.  We need faith to rejoice in what God has made present in our midst – the voice of His mercy, calling us to faith, washing us clean, and keeping us with forgiveness and the food of heaven.

Everyone saw Noah building the ark and they did not see God or His kingdom.  They laughed at the hideous joke of a barge to carry animals and man while God sent a flood of destruction as punishment for sin.  It is no different today.  
People are always saying “Where was God when the hurricane happened or the floods destroyed or children gunned down?”  You know where He was and where He is and still you are tempted to join the chorus of complaint against the God who is never where you want Him to be.  Well, the joke is on us.

Religion has become an Olympic sport of championship naval gazing.  We look at ourselves and ask where God is.  We look at our problems and ask where God is.  We look at our unfilfilled desires and ask where God is.  We look at disappoinment and disillusionment and complain that God is never where you want Him to be.  But Jesus has it exactly right.  The kingdom of God is right here and right now.  Here in the efficacious Word that speaks and sins are forgiven.  Here in the baptismal water that has become the womb of our second birth to everlasting life.  Here in the drama of sinners forgiven and restored by the mercy of God.  Here in bread and wine that tastes of Christ’s flesh and blood.  

To the world and to our sinful selves, church is the most irrelevant thing of all.  Nothing changes.  You can go to church a month of Sundays and you will not win the lottery or get a promotion or have the perfect spouse or find better children.  When you walk out the doors today, everything will be the same – all that is good and all that is bad.  But these things come and go and God’s kingdom remains forever.  Luther got that right.  Though everything be taken from us, we keep the only thing that matters.  Though the devils fill the world, we are not of the world but merely in it for a while.  The kingdom ours remaineth.  And here it is.

Here it is in the laughably innocuous words that come out of this tired old man closer to death than to the beginning of his life.  Sermons matter.  We preach not words but the kingdom of God.  Here it is in the pitifully insignificant drops of water splashed over the heads of people with a promise “you are Mine.”  Here it is in the weakness of forgiveness that seeks not revenge but making reconciliation.  Here it is in the pathetic excuse for a meal of bread that is barely bread and yet is His body and of wine that is merely wine and yet it is also His blood.

Trump and Harris cannot bring the world to its knees but the God with love enough to suffer and die even for sinners, that can!  You want to know where the signs of the kingdom are or where to look to see God?  Right here.  Right now.  But no one and none of us will see it except by faith.  Stop staring into the heavens or looking for political answers to theological questions.  The kingdom is in here!

Distance makes the heart grow fonder...

I grew up around farming -- not the large corporate farms of modern day but the small, family farm of 80 acres or so with two or four row equipment and a very hands on approach to the fruits of the earth.  There is great romance about it but I am not sure I looked at it very romantically then or now.  Nostalgia, yes but romance, I don't think so.  We lived close to the soil then.  Even if you lived in town and your father was a shopkeeper.

The land was not always a benevolent master.  The soil wore out.  The rain did not come or came when it should not have come or too little when we needed more or too much we needed a little.  The weeds were kept at bay with a corn knife and troops of kids walking the fields.  Every farm had a few hogs and cattle and lots of chickens -- these were not because this was your business but because it was your life.  These were not always kindly masters either.  The milk cows needed milking no matter what and they did not like the smell or hands of strangers.  Ahhh, it was a very close partnership -- the farmer and the land and the fruits of that land and his labors!

None of us know it like that anymore.  Farms are corporate entities.  When my mother's cousin died and that family farm sold, the buyers tore down buildings and bulldozed trees so that they could farm almost from the edge of the road to the other edge.  They did so with giant equipment in air conditioned cabs with computers figuring out the moisture content of the crop and its value at current market prices.  It was high tech and still is -- even more so!  There is no family farm like their once was.  Even the modern farmers are distant from the land and its crops.  They irrigate so that they do not have to depend upon God to send the rain.  They spread fertilizer and herbicides so that they can keep weeds and pests in check.  It is very big business.

My wife and I along with a million others watch All Creatures Great and Small and live out on screen the romance of a rural past.  We are all far removed from the farm.  We shop in automated food emporiums.  We enjoy foods in seasons where they would never have been available in the past.  We like it all fresh but we have no idea how that freshness got to the produce department or meat case or bakery.  We love the romance but we do not live it out.  Distant as we are from rural and farming life, the heart has only grown fonder for it all. 

So far from nature, we no longer admire it.  We worship it.  The green revolution is a theology.  God is nature and nature is God.  We dream of the circle of life.  We imagine the grand reunion with the tree as in Avatar.  We make policy based on these dreams as much as evidence.  We want the world to be like it was and still is in our dreams.  But this is poor ecology and even poorer theology.  In a place where cow farts can upset God's creative majesty and balance, we have a decidedly pedestrian idea of things holy and heavenly.  No, we are not rural or farm people anymore -- except in our unrealistic dreams.  This is the sad reality but we ought to at least own up to it.  God's work is not proclaimed by preachers like Greta Thunberg or Al Gore.  God is not interested in how we preserve a pristine world but how we use it.  Sure, we have some sins to confess but not in the least of them is making a God out of what God intended us to use for us and for His glory by how we use it for us.  Vanity of vanities -- it is all vanity.  At least so says this preacher.

So very inappropriate. . .

There is a certain ease in Scripture that no longer exists within the wider society in calling people disabled or crippled.  It is politically incorrect to suggest that someone without hearing, speech, or sight -- or use of or missing a limb -- is anything but differently abled.  Yet that is the point.  No matter how well those with such disability have learned to cope, they are disabled and this disability has crippled their lives in some fashion.  At the same time, the number of disabled license plates, parking spots, and parking passes seems to have skyrocketed.  It illustrates that we are willing to tolerate the term if we gain something by it. 

Hidden in this discomfort with admitting disability or refusing to be called crippled is our own refusal to admit that we are sinners.  Sins are like that disability in that to admit them is to also admit that they have had profound effect upon us and the character of our lives.  We might be willing to admit our sin if we gained something by that admission but without such gain we are more likely to pursue the normalization of our sins or the comfort of the judgment that nobody else is any better off.  That does not quite make this sin go away but I suppose it provides a momentary relief.  

Jesus is not at all shy about meeting up with and identifying the disabled or crippled.  He calls them lame, deaf, mute, etc.  He is not shy about this not because He is insensitive to their feelings but precisely because He has come to answer this disability with something more than word games.  He has come to bring healing.  Over and over again our Lord answers the crippled or the friends of the crippled with healing that restores them to a full life over the limited lives they had known.  He does so for the deaf and the mute and the blind and even those subject to demons.  The present will not be allowed to stand.  He will open the ears and release the tongues and open eyes and heal limbs and set free those whom the evil spirits have claimed as their own.  He is not worried about offending but has come to transcend what we call the problem with a real answer.

Perhaps we could learn something.  On the one hand, the people who come with sins could learn that the sins that trouble our consciences and cause us shame will not be allowed to have the final word over us in a Church where Christ has placed the power of absolution.  The power is not in the admission that we are disabled or crippled with sin but in the mercy that absolves and forgives us.  Yet without that confession, there is no value to Christ's answer.  In addition, the Church needs to learn not to soft pedal or walk gently over the idea that sins are sins.  It is not punishment to confess our need but the means to have that need answered with the mercy that forgives our sins and cleanses us from all our unrighteousness.  So when the Church tries to find a way about calling people to repentance and confession, the Church is depriving them of the answer Christ has for those who repent of their sins and confess them.  Furthermore, what does Christ have to offer us if we do not need the cleansing of His blood?  We can play games with sin all we want but the outcome will always be to lose the only answer there is to sin in the cleansing that comes by His absolution.  Without this, the Church becomes an unwitting or willing participant in the lie that sin does not matter.  

It is no different than telling the blind not to fret because sight is not all that great anyway or the deaf not to despair because there is nothing to hear or the mute not to try since we don't want to hear from them anyhow.  It is no different than telling those with missing limbs or limbs that do not work that mobility is not all that it is cracked up to be.  What fools we would be to do that!  What fools we are for finding ways to excuse or justify or normalize sin so that people do not feel judged when they are called to repentance!  The whole point of this is not the judgment but the forgiveness that has the power to answer the judgment.  Unless we really do believe that standing at the cemetery and telling the grieving family that the dead are better off in the grave than they are alive is the Gospel. 

Archbishop Welby knows better. . .

It seems that Archbishop Welby has decided he knows better and the better he knows is that all sexual activity should occur within a committed relationship -- straight or gay.  Furthermore, that committed relationship need not be marriage but can be simply a blessing of the current relationship -- whatever the shape of that relationship might be.  What matters is that it is committed.  How interesting is the creative work of people trying to tiptoe around Scripture and the unanimous tradition right down to the present age!  How weird it is that even every secular idea of the basic shape of human relationships is also ignored in favor of a new imagined idea -- the committed relationship.   

The Church of England is a leaking ship, tilting to the left, on a sea of conflict, headed toward irrelevancy and yet the Archbishop works very hard to say that things are getting better and even perhaps due to the ability of the CofE to hold together conflicting views of everything from marriage to the ordination of women.  It must be exhausting to keep such a happy disposition in the face of all that is happening to him, to the Church of England, and to his place within the Anglican communion.  

In the end, however, the problem remains.  The Scriptures do not know of anything called a committed relationship.  In fact, no one knows of such a thing until the most recent of times.  So the CofE and Welby have mapped out a boundary which is symbolic and not one rooted in Scripture or known by nearly every religion and culture in history!  How do you defend such an arbitrary position when the world around you is constantly changing?  Why a committed relationship?  Why not let the individuals decide what sex, what relationship is necessary or prudent for such sexual relationship, and when that begins and ends?  That is the point. 

In January 2023, Archbishop of York Cottrell told BBC Radio 4 interviewer William Crawley that he thought “stable, loving, committed” same-sex sexual relationships were “good” – stressing that “they are the place for physical intimacy.”   “And not a sin?”  he was asked.  “That’s what I’m saying,” Cottrell replied.  This is where Welby is as well.

What Welby seems really good at is playing politics with theology.  He knows how far he can go within the parameters of the situation today and he is adjusting to it.  But tomorrow another adjustment will need to be made by the Welbys of this world.  And again down the road until there is nothing that the CofE can say at all about what is moral or prudent or wise or godly about it at all.  He is playing a game to stave off a battle here and there while the strategic view of things has been lost to him, the Archbishop of York, and all of those in the CofE who think that you can whittle away at God's Word by degree and still retain some sense of Christian integrity.  Indeed, Welby will go down as one who steered the CofE away from an iceberg and into a rock.  So there are no tears from this corner for his leaving.

He is no more Archbishop of Canterbury though he resigned not for his failures in the realm of theology but for his failure to handle an abuse case.  His leaving is in the wake of increasing public anger about the way in which he and his office failed to handle an abuse crisis produced when an evangelical layman, John Smyth, young boys under the guise of offering spiritual direction -- beat until they bled! In all, about 130 boys and adolescents were thrashed but Welby, who has known about this since 2013 and was a visitor to the camp prior, seemed uninterested in this -- or not as interested as say advancing the LGBTQ+ cause!

The fool says in his heart there is no God...

I had to laugh because there was nothing else to do.  The commenter insisted that God must lie since He said of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that if you eat you will die.  Of course, the commenter said that Adam and Eve did not die but continued to live and to live long.  Therefore, God must have lied.  You may respond as I initially did that they did certainly die -- not in the moment of their eating but at the time God appointed.  Perhaps there is another answer.

Could it be that they did not die at that moment precisely because God is merciful?  Those who read Genesis 3 do not fail to miss the promise of the one born of woman who will crush the serpent's head though he suffers the bruise of his own heel.  By this we affirm with the early fathers that Jesus did, indeed, began His redemptive work already in the garden of Eden and, literally, just moments after the Fall.  The curse of death will not be overcome until He who overcame it fulfills His saving work.  Therefore, the all-holy God expresses His mercy by countering the curse with the promise. God did not immediately destroy Adam and Eve though they had defied His commands.  They did not immediately suffer the full penalty of the curse they had brought on themselves solely because God had already determined that His mercy would be extended and prevail against the curse.  But not yet.  Even Eve seemed to understand it this way when she proclaimed of her first born Son "God has gotten me the Man!"  The Man is the one of whom God spoke in Genesis 3:15.  

Only God can lay aside His judgment for the sake of His mercy.  We cannot demand it of Him nor can we earn its blessing or merit His favor.  But He can and does have mercy, laying aside the curse for now because of the promise to come.  The word of that promise becomes the message of the patriarchs and prophets as they.  God does not lie.  The commenter was wrong.  The Lord did not misspeak nor did He sacrifice His creation for want of a moment of justice.  His mercy triumphed.  What seems to us like a God who knows not what He wants to do is in reality the God who knows exactly what He must do in order to rescue and redeem His lost jewels.  What kind of fool is upset that God has chosen mercy for an eternity over a moment of justice?  Only one who remains the skeptic of God to make relative what God has set in certainty.  How hard do we try to trip God up in His words when it is the clear word of mercy that He is delivering through His Son, the promise given in Eden to answer the claim of death upon us!  Indeed, the fool says in his heart there is no God and proceeds to prove his own cleverness over the Word of the Lord that endures forever.  In an amazing display of ignorance, the wisdom of man is shown for the sham it is and the foolishness of God wiser than us all.

Putting face to a uniform. . .

I am not sure how I feel about this Armistice Day being transformed into Veterans' Day.  It is not that I have something against all veterans but only that sometimes when we enlarge a day of remembrance it means that we lose touch with the specific people we are remembering.  Everyone becomes nobody in particular.  

Living in a city with such a huge presence of active duty, former military, and retired military has left me with many faces to put to this day and a depth of appreciation for the many who have defended our nation, fought to protect our liberty, and gone the world over in the cause of American interests.  The numbers of those dead and wounded over the years is too great a number for me to imagine.  On Sunday morning I see the faces of many young men and women who are there in their civies but whose normal clothing are uniforms.  

We have chaplains and enlisted and officers.  They do all kinds of jobs in the military. They include mechanics, helicopter pilots, special forces, paratroopers, clerks, medics, and all kinds of folk.  They are tall and short, men and women, from cities and rural areas, but all display a remarkable sense of duty that makes me feel safe and secure.  More than this, it makes me feel a deep and abiding sense of gratitude toward those who have served and now serve.

Today when I think of those who have served us, I think of someone not a lot of folk remember.  His name was Phil Secker.  He was an academic with a doctorate and much scholarly research but he had many sides to him.  Though actively opposed to the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, he was intent upon supporting the troops who fought there. From 1967 to 1971, he was on active duty as an Army chaplain and volunteered for deployment to Vietnam.  While there, TIME magazine found him and found it odd to oppose a war but support troops; Phil didn't.  He received the Bronze Star for meritorious achievement in ground operations against hostile forces for serving in Saigon during all of 1969 among other medals and served as a chaplain in the Army Reserves until retiring in 1997 as a full colonel.  Phil and I knew each other in person when I served in the Atlantic District and maintained an email correspondence over his stewardship of the literary legacy of Arthur Carl Piepkorn, another noted military chaplain from our church body.  He died a month or so ago.  His family deserves the thanks of a grateful nation and I was richer for knowing Chaplain Secker.

As we observe Veterans Day (formerly Armistice Day and known as Remembrance Day for our Commonwealth friends), we lament that promise of the war to end all wars has not been kept.  Instead we find ourselves in conflict after conflict with even more breaking out across the globe.  Some are nearer to our homes and some are so far away we can barely pronounce the geographic names.  In the midst of it all are those men and women who have borne and continue to bear the lion's share of the burden of liberty's defense.  But don't just say a prayer of thanks, tell a veteran or active duty soldier "Thank you."

The worship laboratory. . .

If you are old enough, you can recall when Coke nearly killed itself by changing the old recipe.  New Coke was born to a people who wanted the classic taste of old.  It was a marketing nightmare.  To have a successful product and then turn that product into a lab experiment is to risk the financial viability of the whole company on a whim.  Business has learned to be careful.  Small things matter.  Remember when Bud Light shot itself in its foot by forgetting who it was and who drank it?  Well, the same is true of Christianity on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning has become a worship laboratory.  We all know this.  I am not saying this only with respect to the Evangelicals who have rejected the liturgy and its historic form but even of those who appreciate the liturgy and also among those whose liturgy is highly regulated by central authority.  You can blame the liturgical movement, Vatican II, or the advent of local publishing technology that can reproduce copy fit for a hymnal.  It does not matter who is to blame.  What does matter is that from Rome to Wittenberg, the liturgy has become one grand experiment that not only is an affront to God but a scandal to the people in the pews.

In some liturgical churches, nobody knows what they will find when they arrive on Sunday morning.  It may be a priest riding his bicycle around the chancel or spooky looking set of giant heads walking in procession.  It could be a clown service or a polka mass.  It could be an ancient text or words that were composed within hours of the gathering.  It could be a hymnal in hand or images on a screen.  It could be balloons on a string or champagne in the cup of Christ.  It could be a priest dancing or singing a contemporary ballad or a diva singing a love song to Jesus.  Who knows?  Whether Lutheran or Roman Catholic, we have turned the liturgy into a divine experiment as if it were a toy given to us to play with.  In the end we have betrayed our faithlessness to those assembled in solemn awe and to the world as if to say nothing really matters to me.  What a joke!

Church architecture has become the same kind of laboratory in which someone who does not understand what is happening in worship plays with shapes and materials to provide a space which serves nothing of its intended purpose and costs the faithful more than dollars.  Church music has become the same odd curiosity in which Jesus spins us round or we spin Him in a display of ignorance and foolishness that makes light of sin and even more of the cost Jesus bore to end its reign of death.  Church vestments have become no different that the blank canvases on which some play with shapes, textures, and colors only to betray the very purpose of the vestments themselves.  We are experimenting ourselves to death with the holy things of God.  

God has not given us the means of grace to play with but to observe with due solemnity because through these He does His bidding -- His Word that does that of which it speaks, His water that is no mere symbol but the means to accomplish what it signs, His food that feeds us not symbolic food but real flesh and real blood for the forgiveness of real sins.  Children seem to have better sense than adults in knowing what is sacred and holy -- too sacred and too holy than to toy with it.  A little child shall lead them.  We not only mock the things of God but God Himself and in the end we make ourselves fools because of how little the things of God matter to us.  I wish I could say better but I am tired of our constant need to express ourselves and then cover up our selfishness and foolishness by saying it is being done in the name of God.  When we make the liturgy into a toy, we are no more pious than the builders who built a tower of arrogance which God had to destroy.  If the Church is going through a time of cleansing, it may well be for the same reason God confounded the languages of those who would touch His feet with their accomplishments.  Don't play with worship and if you do be prepared to suffer the judgment of the God who really does care what we dare in His name.

To be judged. . .

It is always a curious thing when someone complains that they did not go to church to be judged.  But that is precisely why we go to church, isn't it?  What else does St. Peter mean?  For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?  (1 Peter 4:17).  We are judged in the Church so that we may be absolved and restored from our sin.  Without this judgment, we are left to await the final judgment when there will be no opportunity for repentance and no possibility of restoration -- only the final condemnation of what it means to be judged outside of Christ.

I wish we could get it through our heads that this judgment is a good thing.  Sure, no one likes to be reminded of their sin but God reminds of our sin not so that this sin may condemn us but so that we may confess it, plead the blood of Christ, and be forgiven.  This is exactly what John 3:17 says.  He did not send His Son into the world as the new lawgiver to condemn us even more or even to allow the old law to keep us captive to death.  He sent His Son into the world so that we might be saved.  That is exactly what happens every Sunday and in times of private confession when sinners gather before a holy God only to hear the unthinkable from the only One who is righteous -- I forgive you.  It is surely this that Jesus had in mind when gathered with His disciples on Easter evening He said exactly this -- whatsoever sins you forgive in My name are forgiven.  This peculiar power is not odd in the sense of being rare or unusual but because it represents the surprise of mercy to a people who expect justice (even when delusion presumes that justice is in our favor!).

There is no place where judgment is waived but there is a place where mercy answers judgment.  That is the blessing of God and it is why we are so bold as to confess.  He has promised to have mercy.  Is this not what John is saying?  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)  It is a false Gospel to say that God has set aside His judgment and merely shrugs His shoulders at our sin or ignores it completely.  That is no Gospel at all.  The true Gospel is the despite our sin and God's judgment against that sin, there is an answer in the blood of Christ that cleanses us from all our sin.

If you want to go to a church where you are immune from judgment, you can certainly do so.  But that church has nothing to do with Jesus Christ.  It is precisely this kind of delusional thinking and this type of distortion that robs the Gospel of its power and steals from us the only comfort and hope we can have.  So let us be honest here.  We confess our sin because we know God to be more than just and it is this mercy that answers the judgment against us.  Thanks be to God!  I want to go where what I know is true from reason and from my own guilt and shame find an answer.  I want to come under the judgment of God for my sin now in the day of salvation so that I might also come under the banner of the blood of Christ. 

Niche Marketing. . .

Terry Mattingly called it niche-market journalism.  It is an apt and sad description of what has happened to the news media.  Reporters seem to be driven less by the objective facts than by an appeal to what the management has considered their market.  It is not quite that they are propagandists but they definitely are influenced by the market in how they view and what they report of the news -- something true of both right and left. We listen only to those who agree with us and then we wonder why we are so divided.  We are also content to live within the bubble of like-minded folk more than we want to engage others.  The rhetoric of our public conversation is design to confront and not convert.  So it is no wonder that we do the same thing in the realm of religion and faith.

The conversations of religion have become rather narrow and they seem to be headed toward an even more narrow audience and appeal.  In Lutheranism, for example, the forums that truly engage all flavors of Lutherans have become angry shouting matches between those who hold their line no matter what.  In the meantime, those forums that cater to a perspective seem to be doing fine.  Even in matters of faith, we would rather listen to those who agree with us than to risk learning from others.  I admit that this is true of me although I would also admit that I lurk on many forums whose theological perspective is vastly different from my faith.  I do so to learn but also find myself sharpening my faith by working through the challenges of those who disagree.  That said, I am more likely to be found in the less toxic conversations where the argument is won by Scripture and tradition than on those where he who shouts more or loudest is judged the victor.

This is true even of such things as our taste in religious music.  We listen to the playlist of the contemporary Christian music stations as the soundtrack of our daily lives even when we have a very different musical offering inside the Church on Sunday morning.  It is no wonder that we seem to have more interest in and more loyalty to what fits our taste than we do the sturdy hymns old and new that speak doctrine.  It points out the problem of trying to live with feet in two worlds.  It is hard enough to live in the world but not of it but to have the tension of faith pulled from very different ends of the spectrum is even more difficult.  So I have found that those who tend to listen to contemporary Christian music in their ear pods during the week will eventually find their way to a place that sounds like that on Sunday morning.

How well is this niche marketing serving the faith?  Probably no better than it serves us as a society and nation.  We engage people who sound like us but fail to engage those who have not heard or have not yet believed the Gospel.  While it is probably more of a challenge for a pastor who serves a congregation to regularly engage those outside the faith, those in the pew do it all the time -- out of necessity.  At work, at leisure, shopping, and in our entertainment venues we are always around people  who do not share our faith.  As that public square becomes increasingly hostile to the sound of religion and faith (at least that which stands for Scripture and within the catholic tradition), we find the opportunities to speak the faith even more limited.  With cell phones that go to voicemail and email that goes to trash or spam folders and ring doorbells that allow us to watch who is there without opening the door, the niche marketing becomes our only source of information and the faithless become even more insulated from the Gospel while the faithful become more secure in their little refuges away from the world.  It is not a good thing.

Of course, Protestants have pushed this to the limits.  Bible studies and small groups are situated for the narrowest of criteria.  I knew of one young woman who was let out of her Baptist small groups because she had gotten married and the group was for singles only.  There is the Protestant churches are children's church for certain ages and worship services that are offered especially to those with children or those without, to those of one generation or those of another, eschewing the idea that one size fits all.  Marketing has become a way to appeal except through the Gospel itself.  This is not a good thing. The Gospel is precisely for the mass market -- for those of every age, ethnicity, marital status, economic status, and every other thing used to divide.  We are sinners one and all to be saved by Him whose blood cleanses sin.  Or is there some other kind of church?

The reduction no one is paying attention to...

More tens of millions of pounds are to be pumped into efforts to drastically reduce the Church of England’s carbon emissions over the next six years, the first impact report on its net-zero programm says.  The report summarises progress on the General Synod’s ambition to achieve net zero by 2030, which was set in 2020 (News, 12 February 2020). The Synod approved a “route map” to this goal two years later (News, 15 July 2022).  In real terms, the target is to decrease the Church’s emissions — mainly from its buildings — by 90 per cent against the current baseline: 415,000 tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent (415,000T CO2e). The remaining ten per cent is to be offset by carbon-cancelling schemes, such as tree-planting and installing solar panels.

What would make me laugh if it were not so sad is that the Church of England seems to be more concerned about shrinking its carbon imprint than it is with the shrinking numbers of the faithful in its pews.  But that is entirely understandable.  They may be able to do something about the carbon imprint but they seem powerless to turn about the ship of faith.  In fact, turning around the ship of faith would require returning to doctrinal positions the Church of England seems to have rejected fully and finally.  The Church of England is not failing for lack of zeal for the environment but for lack of interest in and belief in the Scriptures as the Word of God and the Gospel of Christ's death and resurrection.  The Church of England is not failing for being behind in the sexual desire and gender identity programs undertaken but because they have nothing really to say about Christ's death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins and to restore us to the life that death cannot overcome.

The soul of the Church of England is in trouble -- not its carbon imprint.  I say this as a friend to what the Church of England once was.  We Lutherans have certainly debt to Bishop Cranmer and we have a love for the wonderful tradition of choral music within the Church of England.  We love the ceremony and the seriousness devoted to symbols, ceremonies, and rituals.  We are sad that the history and legacy of this church body has become lost in cloud of various schemes to be relevant in every way except the way God intends for His Church to be relevant to the world and daily life.  We are sad that the eloquent collects and prayers and hymns of the Church of England are sung without must trust in what they say.  We are sad that the ceremonies and external piety of the Church of England has become detached from any appreciation for and confidence in the words or faith behind those ceremonies, symbols, and rituals.

Archbishop Welby will go down in history as the cleric who oversaw the decline of this church body even within Anglicanism.  Of course, to be faith, he had some help along the way but his stewardship of the office has been marked by more missteps, errors, and failures than most.  What a wonderful legacy!  He saved the buildings while killing the Church.  I wish he were unique.  He is not.  Too many have a great passion for climate change, social progress, the morality of the moment, and catching up with society but have no passion for the saving of souls through the means of grace.  Evangelization and the liturgy are not enemies except in those who view the saving of the environment more urgent than preaching the Word and administering the sacraments by which any people shall be saved.

 

Social work in the political sphere. . .

Before anyone gets angry, this is not a tirade against social work or social workers.  What it is, however, is the careful distinction between who the pastor is and what he has been called to do with the social work done by social workers.  The sad reality is that too many people have succumbed to the temptation to see their pastors and the most important work of those pastors as social work and the equally sad reality is that too many pastors have succumbed to the temptation to see themselves and their work as social work.  It is an offense to the noble labor of social work and social workers and it is an offense to the Gospel which has a particular work and venue for those who would be shepherds under the Good Shepherd.

Social work is a particular discipline and profession whose focus is meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and even society as a whole in order to enhance both the individual and the collective well-being of people.  It is as varied as dealing with mental health issues or finding support for those discharged from the hospital to assisting the hungry and homeless in basic needs.  It is a worthy profession to be sure.  Although I am less inclined to approve of those who have translated this work largely into advocacy, I have every respect and support for those who labor on the front lines of need in a world in which those needy often are hidden and powerless.  As important as this is, however, it is not what pastors are called to do or to be.

I can see why pastors are tempted.  Pastors often do not see or do not immediately see the fruits of their work in preaching and administering the sacraments but they want to.  We all do.  Yet the nature of this ministry is the bringing of the gifts of God to the people and not registering progress.  Of course every pastor pays attention to attendance and offerings but not as the gauges of success.  Rather, every steward, including the steward of the mysteries, must account for those within his care.  It is therefore this stewardship that marks who is there and who is not on Sunday morning and how well the work of the kingdom is funded by the people of the kingdom.  That said, the real determination of success and effectiveness today has shifted away even from these statistics and onto the unsteady ground of consumer satisfaction.  We want to be effective; we want to see the evidence of our effectiveness.  We want to be loved; we want to have evidence of being loved.  We want to make people and things better for people; we want to enjoy the evidence of this improvement in the happiness and satisfaction of the people we serve.  All of this is understandable and even rational.  It is just not Biblical.

When I say that social work is not the pastor's calling, I am not diminishing the need for or the value of social work.  Instead, I am advocating for the work that only the has been called to do -- the ministry of the Gospel through the means of grace.  If you tilt the scale toward social work, you automatically reduce the attention given to the work of the ministry through the means of grace.  We cannot do everything but there are things we must do or we fail in our calling.  Hidden under that calling is an inherent trust that God is at work through this ministry and that God is working the fruits He desires and that God is working for eternity in the things we do in this moment.  The shift to social work is a sign of our lack of confidence that God is at work through the means of grace and that this work is the primary work of our calling.  We can affirm people into a good mood in the moment only to prevent them from the voice that calls them to faith, washes them clean, forgives their sins, and feeds them to everlasting life.  While this is our great temptation, it cannot be one to which we surrender or the work of the kingdom done through the means of grace will suffer.

Finally, social work has become largely political instead of personal.  It is about making a big splash in what you do and not about the individual families or people in need.  It is about what fits the political will and agenda of groups vying for power and not about serving the neighbor in need.  That is why churches have become increasingly political.  When pastors become social workers and that social work becomes more political than personal, the work of the kingdom suffers.  The pastoral work is personal.  The pastor preaches to people he lives with and knows and not to generic Christians.  The baptismal water does not merely unite the baptized to an individual identity with Christ but incorporates the person into the family of God the Church.  The absolution is not simply about one person feeling forgiven but empowering the forgiven to forgive others.  The Eucharist is not about a meal for the person or the moment but the Church gathered on earth in anticipation of the grand reunion in heaven.  It is not about claiming or fighting for or holding onto territory OR about improving the quality of life for those on our sacred ground.