Are you going?

 

Blessing death. . .

For a long time I have suggested we ought to be wary of our neighbor to the North.  They have instituted things that eventually find a home here and, although it usually takes a while to make it through the border, it does not take long enough.  Assisted suicide is one of those things.  Labeling the Bible hate speech not to be tolerated in the public square is another.  When you cannot screw things up any worse, what you can do is bless the mess.  That is what Canada is doing -- at least some of the Canadians.

The Anglican Church of Canada has deemed it time to provide for a litany of blessing for those being killed.  Indeed, the Canadian Anglicans have authorized their clergy to bless people being euthanized just before, during, and after being lethally jabbed (at least with the permission of the bishop). From “Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically Assisted Dying”:

It is not our intent to enter into the ethical arguments regarding MAiD, nor to provide a moral argument for or against MAiD. . . . No matter where people are in their life journey, we as a Christian community and Christian leaders in particular are called to respond pastorally to the needs and concerns of the people before us. Wherever the church serves, we are the Body of Christ reaching out to the suffering, the sick, and the dying. When someone reaches out for pastoral care, the church responds: there is a duty of pastoral care.

Ouch.  Jesus came to overcome death but the Anglicans are now authorized to bless it.  Imagine if only Jesus had the benefit of their generous pastoral care!  But that is the point.  In their theological vacuity they have failed to raise an ethical argument against euthanasia so what is left but to bless it -- giving it the stamp of approval from the Anglicans who presume they are also acting on behalf of God?  Never mind that suicide has a long history of being one of the most egregious sins in the Christian book of wrongs from the earliest of our days.  No, they have no stomach to prevent this death but they do think it might benefit from some nice words being spoken as it makes its way to rob the life of the living (whether they were complicit in this death or merely its victims).  Better let the Anglicans speak for themselves:

Death is a natural part of life, and in the spirit of the Church’s continued ministry, we are called to walk alongside health care agencies and practitioners to offer a pastoral response and presence to those who are dying. As the Book of Alternative Services notes, “if the sick could not get to church, then the Church [. . . should] come to them.” 

So, then, if death does not come at the right time to those who wish it or those wishing it for them, the church can come to them with a blessing while the government conveniently provides the painless end for the very thing Jesus suffered all to kill once for all.  Legal must mean moral in the playbook of the Canadian Anglicans.  Again, their own words:

People who choose MAiD freely and without coercion may indeed be ready to go. They have been living with and suffering through complex health challenges and they want the pain to stop. They want to be able to sleep. They desperately do not want their families and loved ones to watch and wait, wondering how much longer? They have exhausted all medical options, and they know, everyone knows, that there is no cure. Some wish, most of all, not to be alone at the time of their death, and to die well. Some, who are Christian, also desire not to be alone at the time of their death, and to die well, and with the grace and blessing of God and with the presence of the Church at their side. 

Indeed, I am not sure that hastening death with a medical assist is something anyone who has read the Scriptures or knows the history of Christianity would ever want to do alone.  Funny how they want to put the imprimatur of Christ on the very thing that Christ came to end.  Oh, well, sometimes we know better than God, don't we?  For what it is worth, I am not suggesting that we abandon the Christians who are making this kind of choice but the alternative to abandonment is not blessing.  Is it?  No wonder the Anglicans are struggling so in North America.  They just don't seem to know how to get it right.  Perhaps that is why they US version is selling its prime property and church headquarters.  I am sure they will come out with enough money so that they can afford to print up blessings when the time comes for the Americans to follow the Canadian lead.

 

Voting is the problem. . .

I was having coffee and reviewing the news with beloved wife some weeks back and mentioned that the Presbyterians had voted on the issue of whether their clergy had to be monogamous.  It was a shocking thing to think.  Churches will now be required to vote to keep their pastors from practicing one or more versions of the polygamy now becoming avante guarde.  My beloved responded that no matter how the vote turned out, the mere fact that you had to vote on it was itself a sign that the battle was lost.  How astute!  That is the problem with voting.  You vote once every year or two years or three but the effect of the vote is only as good as the last time you voted and only sure until the next time.

We seem always to vote in the Church for things we should not be voting for -- even good things!  It is a good thing, I suppose, to vote regularly for an all male priesthood or for close(d) communion or weekly Eucharist or the value of the liturgy and a host of other good, right, and salutary stuff.  But that is the problem with voting.  You are only as good as the last vote and the next one may change it all.  I am weary of voting.  It is the Achilles' Heel of democracy and it may well be the undoing of the Church down the road.  The mere fact we vote on things that are a given in God's Word and a staple of our confessional and creedal life means that these things are not enough and, without reaffirming them, we could actually overturn them (though the Word of God does require a two-thirds majority vote to be overturned!).

Whether in Australia or in Germany, recent events have shown us that even when the vote fails to change the practice from truth to error, there is always another vote and another opportunity to change the right side into the wrong one.  Even Rome knows that.  The mere fact that a diocese or two has voted to support the ordination of women, for example, shows the problem lies with the vote.  Voting does not establish doctrine but it cannot deny it.  What about the biggest ballot of all -- the one that sends up the white smoke?   And, too often, it does just that.  I cannot speak for Rome and what they are doing with their abundance of problems but I know in the Lutheran back yard voting has become the idea that we get a say so over what the Lord says and a say so over how we intend to implement what He has said.  That is the fallacy of voting.  Voting does not establish doctrine.  Only the Word of God can do that.  When we vote for practices that muddy the waters of doctrine or confuse what we say we confess, the problem lies already with the vote even before we get to what it is we were or are voting upon.

One convention I well recall is when we voted to rescind the XIV article of the Augsburg Confession.  It took nearly thirty years to fix that mistake and we did it by, yup, you guessed it, voting.  Which means we could screw it up all over again.  We were careful to say we were not changing doctrine back then but only tweaking with the practice but in the end we pretty much destroyed the idea of ordination (whether or not you think Apostolic practice is serious stuff or not) and the rite vocatus that led up to the laying on of hands.  Even if you win, unless your margin is 90/10 or so, you almost leave room for the opponents to come back again for another go at undoing what we said we believed and how we practiced it.  There were, after all, overtures submitted designed to turn back the clock so we could party like 1989 one more time.  I am writing this a little early so I will venture to say we did not give into that temptation -- at least not yet.

Some people think that it is a problem of who votes -- laymen or, in particular, female laity.  I think it is a problem of voting period.  We should vote less on even good things which we confess and practice.  Voting gives us the wrong impression -- namely that we are in charge! 

Why are we losing them?

In 2007 Lifeway published the results of a fairly wide study that found some 70 percent of young American adults who regularly attended a Protestant church in high school stopped attending upon when hey reached college age. Interestingly, this was mirrored in those who did not attend college as well as those who did enter university.  Ten years later when Lifeway repeated the study (2017), guess what—it found pretty similar results.  Before we quickly blame the colleges and the secular education industry, we would do well to recall that Lyman Stone made the conclusion to his review (Institute of Family Studies) that “most nonreligious children are born into religious households and lose their faith while under the supervision of parents who believe that they are successfully transmitting their religious values.”  Neither study is alone in its findings or its conclusions.

Organization	Study / Source	Year	Key Finding
Lifeway Research	Church Dropout Study	2007	70% of young adults who attended church regularly in high school dropped out for at least one year between ages 18–22.
Lifeway Research	Church Dropout Study (updated)	2019	66% dropout rate—a slight improvement from 70% in 2007. 71% say leaving was not intentional.
Barna Group	You Lost Me	2011	59% of young adults with a Christian background disconnected from church during their 20s.
Barna Group	Faith for Exiles	2019	Dropout rate rose to 64%. Only 10% of young Christians qualify as “resilient disciples.”
Pew Research	Religious Landscape Study	2023–24	29% of U.S. adults are religiously unaffiliated (“nones”)—up from 16% in 2007.
Pew Research	Why Americans Leave Religion	2025	53% of those who left religion did so by age 18.
Gallup	Church Membership Trend	2020	U.S. church membership fell below 50% for the first time ever, to 47%.
NSYR	Longitudinal Study	2002–13	Parents are the single most important influence on long-term religious outcomes. Retention drops to single digits without parental engagement.
Fuller Youth Institute	Sticky Faith	2006–10	Intergenerational worship participation is the strongest predictor of sustained faith into college.
PRRI	Census of American Religion	2020–24	36–44% of adults under 30 are religiously unaffiliated. Young women now leaving faster than young men.

The data points to a dropout rate somewhere between 59% and 70%, depending on how you define “dropout” and depending upon the time period being surveyed.  Of course, many of those who "drop out" will eventually return but even so, the situation is serious.  What is concerning is this.  The surveys found that: 71% of those who left said it was not an intentional decision—it just happened. They drifted away.  They stopped attending for a while and it became a habit. They did not get angry and storm out.  They did not rebel against church teaching.  They just woke up one day and had lost the habit of attending Church.  Some of them worked to regain the habit.  Many did not.  It is also interesting that many, perhaps even most of those young adults who dropped out of Church were not rejecting the faith outright (though this might come later) but they had lost the habit.

 

While it is true that many eventually return—especially after major life transitions—those life events that would eventually provide an opportunity for them to drop back in are themselves in decline. Survey said that the reasons for returning include feeling that something was missing and having the desire to return (34%), feeling God was calling them back (28%), having children (24%), and getting married (20%). About half of young adults who leave eventually return in some capacity which is good but if having children and marrying are on the decline among those same young adults, that means there are fewer entry points for them along their lives. 

 

The single strongest predictor of long-term religious outcomes: parents.  Duh.  This should not be a surprise.  So the fix does not lie with church programs.  It is not youth group, not summer camp, not a youth pastor or leader, not participation in church leadership, and not worship style that is the biggest factor in the long term religious connection of young adults.  Far and away the most significant variable in all the studies is the home, the faith of the parents, and the practice of the family. Though it is politically incorrect to admit this, the faith and practice of the father in the home has the greatest impact.  The declining presence of the dad in the home is therefore also very concerning.

 

Retaining youth is key to the vitality of the Church.  We may be great at evangelization but if we are a failure at keeping the kids we have, we will decline.  It is inevitable.  So having children and raising them in the faith and in the Church with a strong father example is part of the solution as well as a sign of the problem.  This is not earth shattering but it does reinforce the common wisdom that the strength of the Church is the strength of the home. 

Elections and mandates and governance. . .

It is probably impossible to resist but it is not good for churchly institutions to borrow from political ones to conduct and interpret elections.  We are not a democracy.  We do not decide things by plebiscite.  Even when we have votes or elections, we are not doing what political institutions do.  Interpreting elections can be dangerous or difficult.  Even Rome knows this and they insist that they do not conduct democratic elections or cast ballots (except to cause the white smoke to rise or at councils!).  People who try to make the Church fit into political style jackets find themselves disappointed and disillusioned.  There were those who expected one thing from JPII and BXVI and FI and LXIV only to see their visions disrupted by unexpected things from them all.  The little corner of the Christian world called the LCMS should be also chastened by such political hopes and aspirations.  Is this really what any one of us wants from the Church?

We do not have political parties in the Church and our political patronage is not as deep or broad as it was in the heyday of American politics.  We do not have the layers of political offices in which to identify and promote political candidates.  Some would suggest we have the rudiments of such a system and some would insist that this is exactly what we ought to be doing -- conducting the business of the Church as if it were some grand plebiscite voting on what God's Word says, what it means, and how it is to be lived out.  We already have something of the kind coming at us through the rear entrance as culture influences and shapes what we are willing to tolerate as God's Word and what we have decided to overlook.  We do not need to give culture and the mind of the individual more room to influence or shape Christian faith and practice.

Although some might disagree, I do not believe I am naive.  I know some of this will always be there and our baser nature always wants to fight for control and self-preservation.  But do we formalize this as the way we act as a church body or do we right against the intrusion of worldly ideas of how to govern the Church?  Do we interpret elections as mandates for change or for the status quo?  Do we measure these mandates by election majorities?  Do we play politics with the numbers in order to diminish our opponents or magnify our favorites?  Social media has become the perfect platform to do this.  We can do this almost anonymously -- doing everything from character assassination to slander while hiding who is doing the accusing.  Is that serving us well? 

I am not here simply thinking of such things as elections and votes but also policy based governance.  We want efficiency in the Church and in the name of efficiency we have elected to put more power into fewer hands.  At the same time, we have not bothered to differentiate between authority and responsibility and so the power gets to choose.  In my own church body we chose to eliminate boards and executives and funnel nearly everything through a very few hands.  We have done a mighty fine job of burning good people out and promoting some to their level of incompetence and, worse, created a perfect scenario for blame politics.  We blame our leaders for every problem in the Church -- from not having babies and the graying of the pews to not recruiting enough pastors.  We seem to look everywhere to blame someone for the problems that belong to everyone.  How is that working for us so far?

Finally, everyone agrees we need rules.  A constitution and bylaws are those rules, duly adopted and faithfully enforced.  But we cannot and will not solve some of the vexing problems of the day by throwing bylaws at them.  We cannot bylaw our way to more people in the pews or more souls baptized or more folks being catechized or more folks coming to the rail or more missionaries sent or more church workers trained.  Votes cannot create the answers to the problems we have largely created for ourselves.  We all need to look into the mirror and admit this and work, as best we are able and where we are placed, to correct our inadvertent or deliberate errors.  Governance can sustain what is but it cannot grow the Church.  Leaders can faithfully lead the Church but they cannot grow it either (especially in Rome where they have no wife!).  It is frustrating for us to work so hard to make the business of the Church about votes, governance about control, and then to ignore how our rules cannot fix what we have broken.  When we begin to admit this, we just may take the first step toward improving the state of things. That is called repentance.  

What is the Law?

Sometimes we forget the obvious or become so comfortable labeling something what it is not that we no longer notice it at all.  Preaching the problems of this mortal life is not the same thing as preaching the Law.  We have problems.  You bet we do.  Some of those problems are caused by our sins and some are the consequence of living in a sinful world.  But preaching the problems of our individual or communal lives in this day and time is not the same as preaching the Law.  The Law accuses and convicts.  Identifying the problems we face is good and salutary but unless we go the second step of connecting those problems to our sins, the Law has not yet been spoken.

Preaching to "felt needs" or problems has become popular today but for the Lutheran, we must admit that preaching about the problems we face is not the same as preaching God's Law.  We struggle with many things that are wrong in our lives.  Loneliness is epidemic.  Marriages are struggling and failing all around us.  Our economic circumstances confound and conflict us.  The world is not a safe place.  Violence is all around us.  Medical diagnoses threaten our lives and the lives of those whom we love.  These are real problems.  We all feel them and they contribute to the constant anxiety of our lives.  But speaking of these things and identifying them as the sources of our fear and angst is not the same as preaching the Law.

Sadly, the identification of problems as Law in preaching has consequences for the Gospel.  Instead of being the answer of God to sin and its death, the Gospel becomes something rather weak and passive.  God is present with you in your problems.  God wants you to be happy.  God can be called upon in your hour of need.  All of these are true (well, maybe not quite the idea that God's greatest desire for you is your happiness!) but none of these are the Gospel.  The Gospel cannot be removed from the cross where Christ suffered in our place for our sin and from the empty tomb where He rose that we might rise with Him to new and everlasting life.

Preaching can easily become formulaic.  Even Lutherans are not immune.  When we simply identify the problems people have identified and tell them that God is with them, we have not told them a lie or deceived them in any way but we have not quite proclaimed the Gospel to them.  Preaching to the felt needs of the people can often become a simple exercise of identifying what things people are struggling with in their lives and then simply reminding them that they are not alone in their struggles.  It may sound relevant and appear to be successful but it is not preaching God's Word faithfully.  In the end, such preaching does little to help the people and everything to make it easier for them to fall away from Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Perhaps it is better than telling people to fix themselves and their problems on their own but it is not preaching the cross or empty tomb.  It is not preaching Christ.  

Problems can become ways of connecting what is happening in the lives of people to sin, helping them to connect the dots between the troubles of this mortal life and what sin has done to cause these troubles.  Preaching can become a tool through which we connect people to their choices and to the voice of the Law condemning those choices when they are wrong.  But simply identifying problems and reminding people God is with them and working on their behalf to resolve them is to fail in the preaching task.  We might complain about moralism when it replaces preaching faithfully the Word of God but it is no different than preaching a weak idea of sin and what has done to us and a weak idea of what it means for God to love us and send forth His Son to be our Savior and Redeemer.  God is not a silent companion in our lives.  He has something to say.  I guess we would rather not listen. 

The waning influence of Europe. . .

I read a startling statistic that indicated that Pakistan had one million more births than the whole of Europe last year (7M to 6M).  It would seem that the birth rate is not merely a statistic but a sign of the decline of Europe and its influence.  Indeed, it has become dependent upon others to work in its factories, fill the service jobs, and pay into the government the tax money going out to its aging citizens.  No one likes to admit this, of course, but everyone knows this painful truth.  Europe is on crutches or, more appropriately, behind a walker, inching toward its own demise.  It may well be that there are not enough fertile females left in Europe to change this even if they all suddenly desired to become moms.  In any case, the day is looming when the social programs protecting the populace will either fail or be subject to the whims of others who are living in their lands but not European in values as well as ancestry

Even the EU’s largest and most industrialized nation, Germany, is vulnerable to the litany of ailments presently affecting them all.  Europe matters less in the world and Germany also matters less within Europe.  The Germans are victims of the same problems and all their industrial machine cannot produce them out of this problem.  It is related to the decline of marriage, the family, and the lack of children.  For some time now power has been moving away from Berlin and not to other capitals like Paris.  It is moving out of Europe as the population ages and declines and its influence is more ceremonial than real.  This is the real decline of a civilization -- when there is no value to or interest in the foundational structures of any society in marriage, children, and family.  It has taken a while to get here but it takes a longer time to reverse this kind of decline if only because the population has aged itself out of the child bearing years.

Not surprisingly, this same thing is also at work in the US though we are much slower to get there -- at least in part because of the strong birth rate of our population of recent immigrants.  Right now the birth rate of Nigeria is either the same or ahead of the US so the problem is looming for us as well.  Interestingly enough, this has already shown itself in many Christian churches -- the leading edge of this decline revealed among those whose graying membership and birth rate even lower than the rest of America show what will happen to the rest soon enough.  In the LCMS, the thing that is killing is most is not that we are terrible at attracting new people to our confession and church life but that every year shows a significant decline in the number of babies born to our people and presented for baptism.  Our statistical graph is ahead of the nation and the same people who dismiss this as an issue for Europe or the US are laughing themselves to death -- literally -- when it is pointed out for our church body.  Our influence wanes not simply because those outside our church body are not listening but because we do not take its theology serious enough within our own homes and congregations.

In the following table we find summarized the fertility rates of the LCMS compared to other religious groups in America (not necessarily Christian):

Religious Group	Fertility Rate
LCMS	Lower than average
Mormons	Highest among religious groups
Assemblies of God	High fertility
Non-denominational Evangelicals	Moderate fertility
Roman Catholics	Traditionally high

What are the implications of a low fertility rate?

• Decline in Membership: The lower birth rates mean fewer families are raising children within the church, leading to a shrinking membership base.

• Generational Impact: With only 11% of LCMS families currently in the child-raising stage, this is significantly lower than the national average of 20%. This trend suggests that fewer children are being baptized and confirmed, which is the most significant factor in church growth.  It also points out that many of those being raised in the faith, will not stay either due to marginal participation by the family in the life of the church or a break down of catechesis.

• Future Projections: If the current demographic trends continue, the LCMS will certainly face continued challenges in maintaining its membership levels and without a turn around, will probably see a functional decline in the church and its influence in the coming decades.

What we are now seeing in Europe is but a prediction of the future both for the US but in particular for the LCMS unless we work to turn this around now.

 

The focus is not on the soil but the Seed. . .

The Sermon for Proper 10A, the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, the Parable of the Sower, preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Clarksville, TN, on Sunday, July 12, 2026.

Though it seldom happens, we have the benefit today of Jesus’ own interpretation for His parable of the sower.  Except that He told the parable to one group and gave the interpretation to another.  Which might be cause for me stopping right here since the interpretation was given to the apostles while the parable itself was given to everyone.  That probably won’t work.  So let us venture forward.

While we are quick to rush in so that we can discover why some continue in the faith and others fall away, I am not sure we should begin there at all.  Parables are mostly pictures of God and if we are too quick to rush to an explanation to comfort worried parents or explain empty pews, we would miss the picture of God given here.  It is, after all, God who is on display in Jesus’ words and not simply people who have always grown hot and cold about everything.

As someone from a farm state, I could say that the picture of God given here shows He is not a very good farmer.  Seed is expensive.  So is fertilizer and herbicide – not to mention the time, labor, and energy invested in making sure that the seed grows roots and bears fruit.  No farmer can relate to this parable.  Every farmer knows his soil – which soil is a safe bet for the seed to grow and a harvest to be made and which is not.  Except God.  He does not spend His time finding the right soil.  He is wastefully extravagant.  He sows His costly seed everywhere.

God the sower sows without care or concern for the kind of soil upon which He is sowing the seed.  He does not worry about wasting the seed or about the cost of His extravagance or wastefulness – at least by our standards.  He does not spend His time worrying about the kind of soil that is right but purposefully sows His seed in those places everyone knows is a big risk.  He does not stick to fields and soil which can be expected to produce a good crop but simply lets the seed fly indiscriminately on all kinds of worthless soil.  What kind of God does that?

He drops the seed along the rocky paths that mark where people have walked it hard – places hardly amenable to planting or harvesting.  He sows the seed among weeds and thornbushes where no one in their right might would even walk – much less plant.  God the sower is not looking for the right places to sow the seed from which His kingdom will grow and flourish but is extravagant enough to toss away some seed at places where not much can be expected. He simply sows everywhere.

 What kind of God does that?  We are so quick to rush into the explanation and to some answer to why some and not others that we have missed the most important thing about this parable.  We are so quick to nod our heads at the obvious explanation of what happens to some who come to faith and then fall away, that we miss the God who is wasteful enough (at least in our eyes) to put the seed of His Word everywhere and not in the places we think wise.  This is a parable of God’s unfathomable mercy more than it is an explanation to tell us why some believe and some do not, why some endure in the faith and others fall away.

The Word of the Kingdom is not something reserved for the right people but for everyone.  Everyone already knows that the world is made up of all kinds of mixed soil.  We know about the rocks and paths worn hard and weeds and thornbushes.  We do not know about the mercy of God.  That is what we need to have revealed to us.  We know all about the reasons why faith is hard, why we struggle to keep the faith in hard times and amid all the distractions of this world.  We all know the limitations of our strength, the ease at which we surrender our hope to despair, and the sins that we struggle to feel are forgiven.  We all know these things and we are too often overcome by them.  But what we do not know as we should is the limitless mercy of God and the grace that is sufficient for our every need.  Yet this is precisely where our focus should be and it is the focus of Jesus’ parable.

Every step of this life for every Christian is filled with constant temptation, with a world of competing values, ideas, ideals, rights, and wrongs.  We seem to spend our lives trying to reconcile our faith to these in a way that will satisfy us or make it all easier.  We think there are secret ways to making peace between the things we know are right, true, and of God and the things so enticing to us but just plain wrong.  We think there is some hidden way to resist temptation without it costing so much or being so hard.  But our focus is not meant to be on these.  Our focus is meant to be on the Lord, whose goodness will never fail us even though it is impossible to understand.

We are all the rocky paths, the hardened soil, surrounded by thistles and thorns.  We are the worthless soils in which God has dared to waste the seed of His Word, calling us to faith, washing us in baptismal water, guiding us by His voice, and feeding us at His table.  Faith is not the predictable response to a reasonable set of circumstances but the surprise of the Spirit, the surprise of grace, and mystery of a love that refuses to give up.  

The good soil is not the sinless soul or the righteous heart but the one who hears the Word of God and keeps it.  The miracle is not that some fall away but that any believe.  It can only be the work of the Spirit and the mystery of God’s extravagant love.  His Word that proceeds from His mouth shall not return to Him empty but shall accomplish His purpose and succeed according to His own intention.  That is the mystery revealed in this parable.  God’s mercy is His most important character trait.  And of any, we Lutherans ought to know this best of all.

At some point we forgot this.  We began to treat the church like a business and outreach like a business plan and we borrowed from the business world to try and figure out where to sow the seed to get the highest yield.  It has not helped the Church to grow but it has succeeded in making us think that the secret lies in the soil instead of the seed of God’s Word.  As parents we try to figure out the secret to raising good kids who will do what is right and keep the faith plated in them.  We all know that there is no secret.  The parent knows you love every child the same, teach them and provide for them as best you are able, and pray for them as if you have done nothing at all.  The results are uneven.  They are always uneven.  But you do not focus all your energy where you think the best results will be found.  You give your extravagant love to every child over and over and over again.  It is what you do.  It is what God has done.  It is what God is still doing.

He does not focus His resources on those most likely to come to faith or remain in the faith.  He sows the seed where nothing is expected and sends forth His Spirit on those we deem a wasted effort. He does not know how to give up.  He just sows the seed.  If we are failing to grow as a Church is it because we have failed to figure out the key to marketing the Gospel successfully or have we forgotten to sow the seed everywhere, no matter what it costs, because that is what was done for you and me?  Do we trust what we think will bring results or do we actually dare to believe that God’s Word shall not return to Him empty but will accomplish His purpose in sending it?

 Sow the seed like God does, without prejudice or constraint.  Be as lavish sowing the Word of God for the sake of others as it was sown into you.  It will not fail even if you never see results.  The focus is not on the soil but the seed.  We will only accomplish His purpose by sowing the seed of His Word and trusting that God will bring the results.  To you has been given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of heaven and blessed be your eyes to see and your ears to hear this Gospel of Christ crucified and risen.  Amen.  

Outgrowing ourselves. . .

The pursuit of the evolutionary goal has always been without limits to its cruelty but with the advent of Artificial Intelligence it would seem that this goal is also without any limit upon its humanity.  Indeed, there are those who hope and pray that the technology we invent will replace ourselves -- or at least replace the abhorrent aspects of the human self which the so-called enlightened have long lamented.  What the earlier philosophers and religionists decried in the flesh that held in captivity our spirits has been translated into the hope that machines will enable us once for all to be free of the constraints of the body.  It is called transhumanism.  

The core of Christian belief has stood as a witness against such fancy.  That Christ became incarnate and that God did not disdain the flesh He had made but chose to send forth His only-begotten into that flesh for us and for our salvation has at the same time but the foundation of our belief and the greatest cause of offense to the world beholden to science and the myth of progress.  Not a prison but a wonderfully created gift of God, we are not embarrassed or ashamed of our bodies but celebrate them as signs of God's goodness and gifts of His own creative will and purpose.  We are embodied creatures of God not as punishment and neither as our weakness but by design.  That design, so profoundly crafted by God and unable for us to replicate except in the crudest fashion, is not our failing but our glory.  This is the witness of Christianity.  God lives in flesh for us and our flesh, even after the Fall and the curse of death, remains His gift even as it awaits its perfection in eternal life when new and glorious flesh shall replace what cannot be eternal.  

C.S. Lewis coined the title, The Abolition of Man, but the work he authored is a prescient criticism of then modern attempts to debunk natural values, such as those that would deny objective value on rational grounds.  This same work appears in his own fiction in That Hideous Strength.   The Abolition of Man has turned out to be rather prophetic on the topic of "values", such that today they accepted as being projections of our feelings and subjective whims, and consequently, anyone who dares to speak of properly objective truth or objective moral value is engaging in an oppressive play of power."  That small collection of essays which Lewis once complained had been ignored has become relevant again because of the conflict within the Western world over what it means to be human and the failure of science to offer us any help to solve such a crisis of anthropology.  

In the midst of our walk to outgrow ourselves, Christians proclaim the Scriptures.  “What we will be has not yet been made known” (1 John 3:2). We have become “partakers of divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), “for a little while [made] lower than angels” (Heb. 2:7–9), until the exaltation of Jesus, who “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named” (Eph. 1:21–23) has prepared the place where we are to go to be with Him (Eph. 2:6).  The resurrection does not disdain the flesh God created but transfigures it into the spiritual bodies like Jesus own glorious flesh.  We plant these bodies in the earth as seed, just as Christ was planted in death to be raised in glory (1 Cor. 15:36–37). The mortal bodies are sown in dishonor and weakness not because they are bad but because of what sin did to them and so they give way to the imperishable bodies of glory and power (1 Cor. 15:42–44).  What we shall be, we do not know but we dare not cast off or demean the flesh of God's own creation and redemption.  Indeed, in the cemetery we pray that the God who created this body might keep these remains until the day of the resurrection of all flesh -- hardly a lament but rather the voice of hope.  Our end is not the rise of the technological marvel of our own creation and a testament to our progress or evolution but rather to God's redemptive work, rescuing our bodies from the death that cursed them since Eden and promising that they too shall see them created anew when we, with our own eyes, behold God face to face.

Archbishop at home in a mosque. . .

If you want to know one of the things wrong with Rome, listen to how the Archbishop of Detroit described his visit to a mosque:

“There is no place where I feel more respect, fraternity, and kindness,” Archbishop Weisenburger said at the mosque’s opening ceremony on June 12, according to The Arab American News. “From the moment I entered this beautiful site, I felt a profound divine presence.”  [emphasis added]

Frankly, I do not get it.  I am not Islamaphobic.  I am a Christian.  By nature that means a rejection of Islam and the deity the Quran [or Qur'an or Koran] is rejected as not the true God whom Jesus Christ has revealed.  Feeling at home within the sacred place of worship for a faith that rejects core Christian teaching is to feel at home with error.  It is a sign of the constant need on the part of some to reaffirm the rights of Muslims to worship as they please (and who says anything against this?) but at the same time causing offense to the core confessions of Christian faith established and proclaimed in the basic creeds of Christendom.  

Rome has an alarming way of somehow giving place and recognition to faiths which deny basic Christian teaching yet without calling them out on this.  No one is suggesting that Christians need be rude or offensive in the way they speak or interact with Muslims but that does not justify to over the top rhetoric about feeling at home with the divine presence in a mosque.  Really?  A liturgical church which insists that the Mass is the most profound entrance into the presence of the Eternal and a sacramental church which insists that the sacraments mediate God's presence and grace in a unique manner which supersedes any and all other means of God's presence does not give enough of a sense of the divine presence that one must leave the cathedral and find a rug to kneel upon in a mosque?  Perhaps the good archbishop has been breathing in the wrong kind of smoke.

Worth a listen. . .

Whether you are a pastor or a Lutheran or Christian, there are many words of wisdom in this man and it shows that Scripture was right to commend the gray haired head for the wisdom of years as well as the wisdom of learning.  Thank you, Dr. Scaer.  Thank you, Gene Wilken.  Thank you, host Gottesdienst.

Mercy alone. . .

Sermon for Trinity 5, preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Clarksville, TN, on  9 July 2026.

Not always do the readings appointed for the one year and three year series have the same focus.  This week they do.  On Sunday we will hear the Parable of the Sower and Jesus’ own explanation of the mystery of God and those who fall away.  Today we hear the equally grand mystery of the miraculous catch.  Both turn us to the mercy of God alone.  There is no reasonable explanation or marketing information to be ascertained to teach us where to plant or where to fish.  It is all in God’s wisdom, according to His purpose, and by His mercy.

Our Lord sends His disciples out to fish after they had fished and fished and fished without anything to show for it all.  They were tired and weary but who are they to disagree with the Son of God?  So they go at the wrong time to the wrong place and use the wrong method only to be nearly drowned in the process because of the great catch of fish.  Jesus is not teaching them superior fishing methods but something of the grace and mercy of God.  It is not simply a lesson meant for the apostles but for you and me.  The Lord knows what He is doing.  He does not need nor does He ask for our opinions or our wisdom.  He asks us to do what He says.

Everything God does is by nature His plan.  He does not act upon whim nor does He act accidentally.  It is all His intention.  It is accomplished by His power.  This is what the disciples learned with the miraculous catch of fish that defied explanation.  Then Jesus does the unimaginable.  He insists that they will now become His agents and instruments, fishing not for gain but for men so that they may know with them the unending limits of God’s mercy and grace.

On one hand it seems to be a painful reminder that no one enters the kingdom of God by their decision or will but they are caught in God’s net.  No one comes to God by their own reason or strength but only by the Holy Spirit.  This is Luther’s genius in explaining the third article of the creed.  We hear and believe.  Faith is not an act of our will but of God’s, His gracious gift by the power of His Spirit working through His Word and Sacraments.  It is not that we do nothing – we are fishers of men, after all, but we do not make people believe or fill the net.  God does that.  He keeps His promises.  He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies everyone who will be saved.  He keeps us from being snatched out of His hand.  He delivers the faithful to the Father at the appointed day.  Do you believe this?  
That’s what the disciples learned from that little fishing expedition – to believe.
Those who belong to the Lord are not lured into the kingdom.  They are not caught by the skill of the angler or the knowledge of the secret holes where the big ones hide under the surface of the waters.  This is not serene mountain stream and a well fought fight with a trout.  Instead, this is the surprise of a net that unfolds the unsuspecting fish.  They care caught in the violent act of a net suddenly stealing them from their old life and marking who they belong to.  Nets catch all kinds.  Good and bad, big and small, the ones deemed valuable and those deemed to be throw away.  Like the different soils of the parable of the sower, it is not about the soil or the lure but solely about the mercy of God.

The net is the voice of God, spoken to us in Scripture and through us to others.  God speaks and we know Him.  Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.  The Good Shepherd calls us by name.  We all know this.  But how this works is a surprise.  The Church is not a group of people who share common interests or values or hobbies or anything like that.  The Church is as diverse as that net holding the miraculous catch.  What we have in common is simply that we belong to the Lord.  There is no homogenous principle in the Church.  There is only the net reaching out into the world and bringing back all kinds for the Lord and by His power.  It surprises the fish and even the fishermen.

It can be dangerous to fish for men.  The boat creaks and groans under the weight of it all and sometimes it feels like it is all about to drown the fishermen.  But do not fear.  Even sinners who find a home in God’s Church have a work to do for the sake of the Lord and His kingdom.  Peter admits this when he tells the Lord to leave him alone because he is an unworthy sinner.  Aren’t we all?  Later Peter will admit with the rest of them that he has given up everything for Jesus – isn’t that enough?  But that is the point.  It is not what we give or give up or what we do or fail to do that makes the Kingdom grow.  It is all God’s doing and it is His grace to call us to join Him in this calling.

We will all want to jump ship from time to time.  We will all try to put the Lord off by reminding Him we are just sinners.  The Lord knows all of this.  We are kept not by our own wills but by the net and the boat, the voice of the Gospel and the ship of the Church.  We are not set free to go our own way but kept in Him who is the Way, through the Word and Sacraments.  There will always be a cost to discipleship and part of it is the illusion of freedom this world offers.  It is never easy.  Life in Christ is not easy and it is not the good life of our dreams.  
But where else can we go?  Peter asks for all of us:  Who else has the Word of life?  We live not by reasoned understanding of God’s ways or by consent to them but by God’s grace alone, by God’s mercy alone.  That is also how the Church grows.   Thanks be to God that the Lord still rules His Church, still catches unworthy sinners into His net of forgiveness and new life, and still calls unworthy people to fish for men.  It is not our skill that commends us to Him but His grace that we commend to the world.  His Word will not return empty but will always bring forth the miraculous catch.  Look around.  It brought you and me to the Kingdom; it will continue to catch and keep the caught until He ends it at the last day.   Thanks be to God! 

The loss of family. . .

Over time and even within the last couple of generations, the one constant around the lives of most people was family.  Love them or not, family was the structure that gave support to the person, shaped the community, and built the foundation for a whole society.  Before we get to the role of the Church in this, it is sufficient to say that religious or not, family was the ground upon which nearly every aspect of life was built.  That is not to say every family was wholesome or healthy but that family was both presumed and pursued as the most essential component to the rest of life.

There was also a time in which this was the hidden unity between the divisions of race and class.  While the color of one's skin and the size of the wallet had great impact upon so much of life, family was the same essential and constant force behind all people.  For good or for ill, family was the glue that bound nearly everything together.  Certainly this was true for Black America at a time when discrimination constrained so much of their lives and limited so many of their opportunities.  But that once vaunted institution which spanned time and economic status and race has suffered greatly in the last several generations.  It is no longer the given behind the person or the community or society as a whole.  The Church is suffering greatly because of the loss of family (though, in some cases, it may have been an accomplice in its demise).

Churches were about right and wrong, morality and evil, sin and redemption.  Their concern was the soul and the salvation of the soul was the key to amending sinful lives.  This was true in nearly all the churches and was especially true of the Black churches in America.  When the churches began to be concerned for other things and when those issues and causes began to displace redemption from the center of the life of the churches and the lives of the people in them, things happened.  No matter the race, society became a profound influence upon the agenda of churches and upon their teaching.  What people thought became at least as important as what God thought and in many churches became the most important thing.  

Liberation in the white churches of America was the casting aside of constraints -- throwing off the chains of a strict sexual morality and a work ethic in favor of individual happiness and a culture of entertainment.  Liberation in the Black churches of America became the freedom of their members and from political oppression and racism -- something that turned Jesus into someone different from the God of the cross and empty tomb.  The belief that freedom in the Gospel meant freedom from social and economic inequality, rather than sin, became mankind’s greatest need and the sole organizing principle for many churches.  It did not take long to hitch additional kinds of oppression to this cause (especially in the white churches) until the adoption of a liberated view of sexual desire and gender identity became the natural heir to the Civil Rights Movement.  The hidden cost in this is the loss of family in both white America and Black America.

It is the devil's bargain, as some have coined it.  In exchange for silence on the Biblical issues of the centrality of male and female, marriage, children, and family, the political causes were pursued and economic and political equality became the necessary paths to individual happiness.  Some thought that in order for churches to remain relevant, they had no choice but to go along with the flow.  Religion and politics blurred their boundaries until today religion and political stance are parallel markers of what people think and how they live.  But where is the Gospel in all of this?  That is the subject for another column but suffice it to say that the churches which have adopted this definition of the Gospel have not fared well in the pews, suffering almost as much as the families they helped to sideline and the common values of good and evil that once bridged every community across America.

What does this mean?

According to Gallup, Americans view the following five behaviors as morally acceptable:  birth control (83%), having a baby outside of marriage (58%), gambling (57%), sex between teenagers (35%) and cloning animals (27%).  However, birth control, gambling and cloning animals have all been lower on the scale of morally acceptable in 2026 -- this after years of holding relatively steady.  What does this mean?  Ah, the good Lutheran question.  Who knows?  It could be due to a variety of anomalies in the reporting or who was surveyed or a blip in the thinking of people.  Or, it might be a signal that these are not as sacrosanct in American minds as once thought.  Look at the chart to see where things stand.  You may notice the three behaviors — the death penalty, medical testing on animals and changing one’s gender — which have hit record-low points in moral acceptability.  According to Gallup, "over the past two decades, Americans have grown generally more accepting of most of the behaviors measured by Gallup, which include those associated with sex, marriage, and certain medical and end-of-life issues. However, this trend toward more permissive attitudes has largely plateaued or pulled back in recent years, though acceptance levels on most behaviors remain higher than they were 25 years ago."  FWIW, Gallup measures the poles of political affiliation but not religious affiliation (at least in this report).  I found the most curious thing the closeness in approval given for changing gender, teen age sex, and pornography.  This is an interesting area of disapproval and one that has bucked the perceived trend of sexual promiscuity among teens and the promotion of transgenderism.  Again, I am only reporting and have no answers.  This ought to arouse a spirited discussion in a variety of settings.  At least, I hope so.

 

Praying the promises of God. . .

In nearly uniform tradition, Christians have repeated the Apostles' Creed, the Our Father, and the Psalms as part of their daily devotional routines.  This is good and salutary and should continue.  If you cannot think what to pray, at least pray that.  But there is an eminently practical reason for this.  God does not repent of his promises.  Let me go one step further.  God cannot repent of His promises.

Much is made of God's freedom to do what He pleases but He also lives within limitations upon His absolute power.  He cannot deny His Son nor what His Son has accomplished by His blood shed for sinners.  He cannot deny the self-offering of Jesus Christ on behalf of those who had nothing to offer of their own righteousness or goodness.  He cannot deny what that once for all sacrifice has accomplished in the full and free payment for sin rendered by our Lord Jesus Christ.  He cannot deny the boundaries He has placed upon Himself for our behalf -- from the rainbow reminder in the wake of the flood to the watery rebirth that raises up the dead to life everlasting to the words by which bread and wine feed the faithful the flesh and blood of Jesus.  Praying the promises of God is praying what God has solemnly pledged and sealed with the blood of Christ so that there is no going back.

I only wish I were as resolute.  I am not.  My promises are weak and frail, easily broken and sometimes repented of because I find the cost of those promises too high or they were made in haste or passion.  But not God.  Not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Not the God born of Mary, Virgin mother.  Not the God incarnate for us and for our salvation to fulfill the first promise of Eden.  Not the God who watched His Son suffer in the place of the guilty and pledge His own agony and blood for their sins.  No.  This God cannot repent of His promises.  That is why we pray them to Him and so reinforce our confidence in His Word while pleading what we could never plead for ourselves.

In one very profound sense, this happens supremely in the Eucharist.  We pray the promise of Christ, His blood that continues to cleanse us from our sin and His flesh that feeds us eternal life.  We pray this to the Father not as another offering to repeat the once all sufficient offering of Calvary but as the remembrance His own Son has commanded us to make.  We pray it best by trusting what it says.  We pray it best by giving thanks.  We pray it best by ordering our lives by its life and truth.  We pray it best by cherishing the precious gift of forgiveness which continues to be offered by the merciful God to unmerciful people.  Pray the promises of God.  Recall the history of God's saving acts among His people Israel and their ultimate fulfillment in Christ.  Everything in the Old Testament is about Christ, the promise of God kept in His incarnation, holy life, life-giving death, triumphant resurrection, ascension in glory, and coming again as Lord and Judge of all.

Every morning we rehearse this promise in the invocation of the Triune name of God, in the confession of the creed, in the sign of the cross, and in the Our Father -- even before we get to our own petitions we pray the Psalms, some of the greatest prayers of the Bible.

Another year of grace…

 46 years ago today. . . on the hottest day in July on a Nebraska prairie in a rural Lutheran church, a pastor was made. . .  Most of the men in that picture are long gone to be with the Lord. . . some of us are still here. . . the good work is completed by God's grace and whatever was built upon the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, remains.

Christianity and the nation. . .

Somewhere along the way, the uneasy relationship between politics and religion became more comfortable -- at least for churches.  The issues seemed clearly religious to those within the Church, or at least the leaders, but not so much to those outside the faithful.  In face, an increasing number of Americans began to see religion itself as primarily about politics, primarily political instead of essentially religious.  I am not sure how deeply this is felt or addressed but it shows in the issues themselves.

To a great number of those outside the faith and even to some in the Church, the positions of the Church became more a political stance with a religious justification than a theological position with political consequences.  Voting on election day became part of the issue itself and not simply what Scripture says about this or that and then, to some, it became more important than the theological truth itself.  Those within the Church do not see this because it is natural for doctrine held to have implications for how you think, how you live, and, in this case, how you vote.  I fear this is what has happened to the sex issues that have been so prominent in the news both for Christians and those outside Christianity.

Abortion became on of those political issues with a stance which had religious justification but was not primarily a theological issue.  The pro-life movement which seemed to win big at the level of the courts seems to have lost the hearts and minds of people within the Church as well as those outside.  If the primary focus on this issue were theological -- what the Scriptures said -- it should not be so easy to have lost the fight on the individual level.  But that is the point.  Your stance on abortion is more likely to be seen as a political stand than it is to be identified with a moral truth flowing from God's Word.  It became easy to disagree about abortion while remaining united in the core theological truths.  The issue was a free issue on which Christians can rightfully disagree because it was largely political and not essentially doctrinal or theological.

I am not sure how the shift from theology to politics took place but it has -- even in the minds of some within the faith as well as those outside.  This is not simply true for abortion but also for sexual desire and gender.  In the minds of many, the basis for a judgment on these issues has shifted away from what God says to what desire says or what society holds.  These were once theological issues -- exclusively so but with practical implications for life and life within society.  Are they still?  Or are they simply political issues with political judgments upon which Christians may marshal different theological resources to support their position but none is exclusively religious.

It is not simply reflective of those on the right but also on the left.  Christianity with its source(s) of divine truth is simply source material to be used as you desire to give theological meaning to what is largely a political or social position.  Little will change in the hearts and minds of the faithful until and unless this changes and we rediscover that it is doctrine, theology, and Scripture which directs what we hold to be true and right.  Only then will we surrender the positions of our hearts and minds to the judgment of God's Word.  

The question is then when people join a congregation are they looking for a theology that fits their politics or are they looking for politics that reflects their theology.  Are conservative people being drawn to churches which reflect those conservative values or are they drawn to churches which hold to the faith of the Scriptures (which one might think was a conservative thing to do).  Looking for a good fit in a congregation has become largely the pursuit of one in which political views are shared and this comfortable fit beckons them in rather than one in which people confess a common faith.  They tend to stay more because they have ideological beliefs in common than because they share a common faith.  This, according to some social scientists like Ryan Burge, is the reason why membership in evangelical churches seems more stable than in others.  In others, in which politics has replaced the theology, the narrowing of political views has resulted in a winnowing of the membership.

Happy Fourth!

Here in the South it is not uncommon on the patriotic Sundays (nearest Memorial Day, July 4th, Veteran's Day, etc...) for churches to have patriotic services.  A color guard brings in the flag.  Patriotic songs are sung and perhaps a Sousa march is played.  A sermon inevitably addresses the sacrifices of those who paid for our liberty with their lives, on the need for national repentance to regain God's favor upon our nation, and on the special status of America before God.  I do not know if this is done in other nations but here it is common to weave together the fabric of faith and patriotism, at least on certain Sundays of the year.

I consider myself a patriotic American.  I am jealous about the good name and noble virtue of American exceptionalism in the world.  I am in awe of the faithful folk who have stood guard against our enemies and whose blood was shed on battlefields far and near for the sake of this nation and the freedom we value so highly.  I grew up carrying those white crosses adorned with poppies out to the cemeteries of fallen soldiers.  I still shudder when the guns of a military salute go off and tears well up in my eyes at the funerals of veterans when a soldier gets down on one knee and presents the flag to the bereaved on behalf of a grateful nation.  But there is no American flag inside the nave or chancel of this church and there should not be.

It is one of the gravest of sins to presume God's loyalty to a people or a land and to interweave faith and patriotism.  The resulting fabric will not be faithful to either cause when we assume that God is one of us (Americans or any other nation and people) and when we declare ours the only righteous land and citizenry in the world.  We do not do our nation or our faith any good by beating our chests and proclaiming God in our hip pocket.

If you are a patriotic American, then pray for the our President, the members of Congress, your Governor, state legislature, judges, mayors, and all levels of civil servants elected and appointed.  Do not pray for those you like or those with whom you agree but for all manner of leaders in the kingdom of the left.  Pray for their wisdom, for their faithfulness, for their faithful exercise of the powers entrusted to them as servants of the people, and pray for them to be people of truth and integrity who love justice, who act mercifully, and who carry the solemn mantle of public service humbly.  And while you are at it, do not speak so disparagingly of our politicians that no one of good repute and noble character would deign to serve the public good.

If you are a patriotic American, then render unto Caesar the things that are his as your civil, patriotic, and solemn duty.  Don't cheat on your income taxes and call it the great national sport.  Don't sit at home while others cast their ballots for people, initiatives, and referendums.  Don't be a silent minority or majority but engage the issues, causes, and conversations of the public square, guided by principle and faith as well.  Don't refuse to speak circumspectly or to act virtuously but show forth good citizenship as best you can until and unless to do so would violate God's law.

If you are patriotic American, then teach your children our history -- the good and the bad -- and urge them to give nothing less than their best for the cause of liberty, the rule of good law, and the common good.  Teach your children the sacrifices of those who went before them on lonely beachhead, in jungle heat, on thunderous wave, and cloudy sky to protect, preserve, and defend our freedom.  Teach your children not to squander this legacy of liberty in the pursuit of selfish endeavor or to justify lustful desire but to pursue it with honor, integrity, and virtue.  Teach your children to honor the flag without confusing flag and cross and thereby diminishing both.  Teach your children how the government works and prepare them for their own time when they must pass the torch to their own sons and daughters.

If you are a patriotic American, cheer on the defense of the defenseless, the protection of the vulnerable, the cause of the unborn, the aged, and the infirm, and challenge oppression, hatred, and bigotry in all its forms.  Honor life as precious gift and not as the prerogative of  rich, the powerful, or those who intimidate.  Refuse to allow life to be valued by the almighty dollar, the parade of accomplishments, or how productive one can be.  Protect rights without dismantling morality or diminishing virtue or surrendering right to wrong, goodness to evil.

Going to worship on a Sunday close to a national holiday and raising up the flag where Christ alone should reign helps neither patriotism nor the faith.  Be wary of those who intermix and confuse the two for they are prone to abuse one for the sake of the other.  God is not an American but live your life and profess your faith so that your patriotism will not diminish your faith and your faith will ennoble your life as citizen and both will be honored.  I know that there will be those who might take offense at what I have written but a patriot is more than someone who waves the flag a couple of times a year.