Lutheran question or not. . .

In a recent podcast I heard someone who teaches at one of our LCMS seminaries define the parameters of the worship wars or worship debates before us.  This is what he said:

". . . what is worship for Lutheran and then how do you construct worship within any particular congregational context that is appropriate for the life of that Christian community within that Lutheran Christian community within that within that context. So that's primary. . . "

That seems odd to me.  Worship is pretty well defined by our Confessions.  We have not abolished the Mass.  That is what we said.  We keep the mass not simply as a historic form but with more devotion than our opponents.  We are catholic in doctrine and in practice.  Worship is not an open question for Lutherans.  Unless, of course, we consider our confessional words on worship to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.  If that is the case, then who known what Lutheran worship really is?  Can it change from generation to generation or from year to year or from Sunday to Sunday?  Who gets to decide?  Is it a manifestation of the democratic vote of the people assembled?  Is it the realm of the Pastor alone?  Who constructs it?  According to what rules or guidelines?  Are there boundaries to what passes muster or is that simply for those assembled to define?  How do you define what is appropriate for the life of the Christian community and who decides?  Is it simply preference?  Is it the will of the majority?  Does it have anything to do with the confessional standards which apply to every congregation?

My concern here is not that everyone who deviates from the hymnal doing something which flows from the ordo but with different words is terrible.  What concerns me is that some (perhaps, many) among us approach the worship question without the application of the Confessional documents which bind us together.  Worship is not an open question in which there are no boundaries.  Worship is not adiaphora, not something outside the realm of our Confession.  Our Lord did not leave the details to us while giving us broad categories in which to do it.  He established clear patterns which are fully reflected in the early church and consistent down through the ages.  Inculturate does not mean to keep the Gospel but to embed it within a rite strictly local and reflective of the culture in which the people live.  There is something much more at stake here than if a demon is being worshiped.  Jesus has given us Word and Sacrament, a pattern within His own practice of synagogue and Temple, and lifted this out of a particular context of culture to apply to all cultures and all times.  The Church through the ages has made rather deliberate and plodding movements toward more uniformity for the sake of identity and for the proclamation of the faith.  While these are not distinctly the dictum of Christ, they are not to be dismissed as simply the practice of the time or custom.  Nowhere does the responsibility or authority for this become strictly local or the realm of preference -- at least until more modern times!

The Lutheran question is not what is worship and what do we want it to look like and what will fit us.  The Lutheran question about worship is what does Scripture say and what has the Church bequeathed to us and how can that be used without violating what Scripture says.  The Lutheran question is not about what we could do but what flows from our Confessions, given their deference to the forms and patterns and words they already knew before the Reformation.  After all, Luther's Formula Missae is a set of rubrics to be set inside the missals already on the altar and not a new invention to stand in opposition to what had been.  The Deutsche Messe is somewhat different but its primary principle is to substitute hymn paraphrases for the ordinary in place of the Latin texts.  Yet neither of these, whether good or bad, was made the Lutheran order.  The principles behind them might be worth our look for any Lutheran distinctive to liturgical theology.  The explosion of church orders was not a gift to the Church but a curse upon us that, at least within most Lutheran circles was rather narrow, but within the context of the wider Reformation became a free for all.  The Lutheran question does not begin with a blank piece of paper and a series of what ifs.  It begins with the historic Western Mass.  You may not like that but that is what Lutherans expected and anticipated.  So whether or not some things done in the name of Lutheranism are extreme or unfaithful, the whole question that begins with a loose idea of what probably ought to be included and yet see it all within the realm of whatever we deem appropriate is not the Lutheran question.  

A word I am over. . .

There is a word that is woven through the fabric of nearly every aspect of the Christian Church today.  You cannot avoid it.  It seems not to matter on what side of the theological divide one is, this word is ever present.  I wish I had a nickel for every time I have read it or heard it in the past ten years.  It is the word strategic.  Of course, you will not find it on Jesus' lips.  Indeed, the only instance of the word that I can find is a peculiar translation of the word usually rendered opportune.   It occurs in the NASB (1977 and 1995) not from Jesus or His disciples or anyone we should be paying attention to.  No, it came from the mouth of Herod.  You find it in Mark 6:21:  A strategic day came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his lords and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee;  Lest some of you might have forgotten, that strategic day came with the cost of John the Baptist's head on a platter.

We seem to love that word strategic.  We do strategic planning.  We order priorities strategically.  We develop a strategic vision.  It is not as simple as counting the cost or using wisely the resources entrusted to us.  Strategic seems to imply that we have a crystal ball in which to work so that we need to depend less upon God's grace and more upon our own abilities, skills, aptitudes, and creativity.  It is the byword for the modern era in Christianity.  Maybe you grew up with the game Strategy or maybe you remember how one President Bush seemed to butcher that word but this is no game and comedy in Christendom.  It is serious business -- the most serious business of all.

So this is one of the more benign versions, obviously directed more toward an individual than a church but similar in focus;

When we speak about strategic planning, it’s crucial for us to grasp its essence as it aligns with the wisdom found in the Bible. Strategic planning is about taking thoughtful steps toward achieving our long-term goals. The Bible teaches us the value of wisdom and strategy. By aligning our plans with God’s will, we can ensure that our decisions are informed and purposeful. The scripture encourages us to approach our lives with diligence, seeking God’s guidance in all our plans. This inevitably leads us toward success, fulfilling both our life’s aspirations and nurturing our relationship with God. It’s about seeking understanding and allowing God’s wisdom to unfold in our strategic plans. Just as we wouldn’t race forward without considering our path, our planning process must be deliberate and rooted in prayer. 

It sounds like the kid who knows what he wants and plans how to get mom or dad to go along.  There is not much strategic in that as much as it reflects the age old problem of trying to get God to agree with what we want and to enlist His support so that we will be successful or have someone to blame.  In any case, I am over strategic planning.  It often seems like we have done more damage to the Church by our planning and goal setting than we have simply meeting the Lord where He has chosen to be found, telling His saving acts among the nations, and living as the people He has called us to be.  I do wish we could be more strategic in that. 

 

AI just keeps on giving. . .

Child pornography without a child.  Is it wrong?  Well, we are far removed from the time when right or wrong mattered.  Is it legal?   On August 25 of this year, Judge John Z. Lee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the First Amendment does indeed protect the right of Americans to possess AI-generated child pornography.  In Wisconsin, Steven Anderegg was charged by the Justice Department in 2024 “with producing, distributing, and possessing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and transferring such material to a minor under the age of sixteen.”  This was not a small matter but many thousands of very realistic images.  In 2025, a Western District of Wisconsin judge dismissed Anderegg’s possession charge while allowing the producing and distributing charges to remain in place.  A few months ago, minors in TN were charged with using AI to make nude images using the faces of classmates.  It was a narrow ruling applied only to the use of possession statute 18 U.S.C. § 1466A(b)(1) in the possession charge but it does highlight the new ground which AI is plowing as our society defines what is legal and what is not in the realm of AI created images.

It did not begin with AI.  When the day came that our courts decided, probably with public opinion on its side, that pornography was protected speech, the whole world changed.  Indeed, we subjected a new generation of youth to a sexual maturity in which their desires were also shaped by pornography and often extreme violence and perverse pornographic images and videos.  So it did not take long before AI offered the opportunity to expand what was possible and that included the use of images created of children.  What we fail to realize is that even if no child is involved and the images and videos are entirely AI, these will effectively change the landscape even further and have a profound impact upon the maturing minds and desires of young people.  Simply saying something is legal does not seem to be saying much but in a time when legality stands without morality to define what people see and how that influences desires, it is enough. Things are not going to get better.  They assuredly will get worse.  In the balance lies the development of healthy youth and the easy access and alluring temptation being provided them by new technology that blurs reality and erases boundary lines.  What will we do as a society and what can we do as Christians within that society to protect our children and promote an honest and healthy environment for our kids?  That ought to be the question before us.  Not everything legal is moral.  In this case it seems fairly obvious that what some have said is legal is extremely dangerous and evil.  The use of AI in gaming as well as other entertainment platforms will only encourage its use and eventual acceptance in pornography.  There has to be a way of limiting or identifying this menace.

Rome and Trent. . .

Though there are some who object to the term Roman Catholic Church, it is a fair term and not simply a derogatory label applied by the Reformation parties and its theological heirs.  It befits us in this October month so special to Lutherans to take a look at Trent and the Roman nature of that church body which convened the council.

The Council of Trent  was held between 1545 and 1563 in Northern Italy in the city that gives it its name.  Called the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, it was the council requested by the Lutherans and was convened due to the efforts of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V more than any pope.  It was the last "ecumenical council" outside Rome and is regarded as a local council by the East.  Though the Reformation was the trigger, the outcome was more far reaching than a response to Luther and his cohorts.  The Council put into place statements and clarifications of its doctrine and teachings on an expansive list of topics, including scripture, the biblical canon, sacred tradition, original sin, justification, salvation, the sacraments, the Mass, and the veneration of saints -- as well as the requisite condemnations of Protestantism.  Though there were not many statements about the papacy, this council defined Roman Catholicism for centuries and in a way that had not been done before.  Three popes oversaw the sessions but none attended -- a condition imposed by Charles V -- so they were represented by legates.  It would be 300 years for another council and this one focused more on the papacy -- Vatican I in 1869.  It came relatively soon -- the Fifth Lateran Council had only concluded in 1517 -- but we all know what happened that same year.

The emperor intended it to be a strictly general or truly ecumenical council, at which the Protestants should have a fair hearing and safe passage but no vote.  The obvious corruption in the administration of the Church which was one of the causes of the Reformation was a primary focus of the council.  The papal legates ensured that no concessions would be made to the Protestants.  The position of the Roman Church as the sole interpreter of the Scriptures (the primacy of the Vulgate included), the rejection of justification by faith, the clarification of the relationship between faith and works, and, while abuses condemned, practices such as indulgences, pilgrimages, the veneration of saints and relics, and the veneration of the Virgin Mary were strongly reaffirmed.  Don't forget the affirmation of celibacy for the clergy.  The most enduring and profound consequences of the council were liturgical. A year after the council, Pius IV issued the Tridentine Creed (after Tridentum, Trent's Latin name), Pius V then issued the Roman Catechism and revisions of the Breviary and Missal, and the  codification of the Tridentine Mass ensured the council would live on for the next four hundred years and define Roman faith and practice unchallenged until relatively recently.  In addition, the Eucharist was defined as a true propitiatory sacrifice as well as a sacrament, in which the bread and wine were consecrated into the body and blood of Christ using the term transubstantiation but without the full Aristotelian explanation later defined by Scholasticism.  Pope Pius IV affirmed the decrees on 26 January 1564 under pain of ex-communication for those who rejected its canons.  Though England and elsewhere seemed to make no effort to enforce the decrees, the  main and most detailed theological response was the 1565–73 Examen decretorum Concilii Tridentini (Examination of the Council of Trent) by Lutheran Martin Chemnitz.

So, there you have it.  Without spending much time on the papacy per se, the council effectively Romanized the Western Church from the sixteenth century going forward.  It was to wait until Vatican I in 1870 to address the papalization of the Roman Church but the framework was already in place and the decrees of Vatican I fit well with the work of Trent.  You can complain all you want but the reality is that it would have been difficult to know the Roman Church without the work of Trent and, later, Vatican I.  That is the simple and honest witness of history.  While you may dispute whether the Lutherans live up to their claims in the Augsburg Confession to be catholic in doctrine and practice, it is very difficult to dispute the monumental change of identity within the Western Church in the wake of the Council of Trent.

Full even when empty. . .

There is no one plan for the architecture of a church.  We all know this and it has never been so.  Yet there are remarkable similarities between those church buildings which continue to invite, inspire, and include the faithful around the Word and Table of the Lord.  Despite differences, they all seem to reflect certain traditional ideals about the centrality of altar, the rising height of the ceiling, the focus of the vision from the pews, and the sense of reverence that remains even when there is nothing going on in the space.  They are full even when they are empty of people.  Folks know this even when unable to describe it.  In these spaces, conversations are instinctively hushed when no there is worship service happening.  It is the sense of the presence of God that cannot be tied to one period or style of architecture but is common to all of them.  The architecture directs the attention of the person to the God to whom the building points and whose presence in Word and Sacrament gives the building a reason for existing.  Except the modern.

Modern architecture too often is self-referential.  It relies on the building as its own expression and justification.  It points to itself in ways that even the more elaborate forms and styles of the past did not and do not.  Sometimes it is whimsy and novelty which are employed.  Sometimes it is in uniqueness that the architecture gets its purpose and goal.  Sometimes it is in the focus on the people who would gather in the building and the goal of providing accessible space for the horizontal dimension.  Sometimes it is on the lack of adornment that the building makes itself its own adornment and its own focus.  Sometimes it is the sharp corners which make it seem less friendly and less filled when full and more empty when not.  In any case, the hard judgment against so many modern buildings used for worship is that feel empty when full and when not full even emptier.  I wish I had better words to say.  The buildings try too hard to be relevant and end up being enemies of the very purpose for which they were erected.  Even when striking, the modern architecture points to itself more than to the purpose for which it was constructed and the God who is present even when the building itself is empty.

Occasionally these cold and sometimes brutal structures seem to cry out for someone to humanize the space.  I wonder if it s less the humanization of a space to make it more inhabitable than it is the loss of its purpose and reason for existence.  It does not draw the mind or the heart away from the person to the God whose house it is but leaves the worshiper cold and confused.  Why am I here?  Who is here?  Those are the two questions any architecture must answer in order to fulfill its sacred purpose.  The buildings of the past endure precisely because they answer these questions well.  The ones torn down or repurposed did not answer these questions well.  Even those outside the Church know the value of the sense of the sacred and when it is present and when it is not.  They know without being told to be quiet within this space and to reverence the God who is present even if He is not their God.  These venues work well for choral and instrumental music (especially organ, of course) precisely because they tend to do for the music what they do for the worship.  They magnify the setting so that even something simple seems profound.  In contrast to this, the flaws of too much modern architecture is that it makes what is profound ordinary.  It defeats the purpose for which the building exists and works against the sacred gathering of God's people around His Word and Table.  Even spaces which work well as lecture halls fail the Word and even spaces which work well as dining spaces fail the Sacrament.  Liturgical space has a function but it is not functional or utilitarian in the sense that too much modern architecture is.

I wish I could make this more intelligible.  It is not for lack of trying.  Sadly, even those with the most limited experience with churches and their purpose can tell almost immediately when a space is simply wrong or fails in its calling to be home to the holy.  I only wish somebody in architecture schools and on building committees could do the same.

What has changed over many years?

When I began life, everybody around me in the LCMS was in The Lutheran Hymnal and everyone around me in what would become the LCA and ALC was in the Common Service Book or the American Lutheran Hymnal.  Of course, all that changed soon.  In 1958 the Service Book and Hymnal replaced the LCA and ALC books and in the mid to late 1960s the era of Inter-Lutheran worship books was initiated leading to Lutheran Book of Worship and the LCMS version Lutheran Worship.  What could be said in the 1950s is that Lutherans may have had different worship books but they seemed to look and act and sound alike on Sunday morning more than has ever been since.  But the change has been more than simply about the worship books.

Across the more liberal bent of Lutheranism and across mainline Protestantism as a whole, the emphasis in worship, prayer, and hymns has moved to echo more nearly the primary emphasis in these churches on peace and justice and the increasing value of variety.  In the 1950s I am not sure it would be so easy as it is today to identify a sermon from the different Lutheran bodies.  Now is not much of a problem.  On the left are the themes of peace, justice, sexual identity and desire, and climate.  On the right is the cross and empty tomb, in other words, sin and forgiveness.  In the 1950s, the order was certainly very similar if not exactly alike even if some of the music was different.  Today on the left is the wholesale borrowing of the worst of Roman Catholic contemporary hymnody (Joncas, Haugen, etc.) and on the right the prevailing popular contemporary Christian music of the moment.  But, to be fair, both sides seem to presume that variety is the spice of life.

Whereas variety in the past might mean a variety of hymnals who all preserved more rather than less of the Lutheran liturgical tradition and its Western Mass form, today variety seems to mean anything goes.  I wish there was a way to go back to the way things were but I fear the genie is out of the bottle.  We may never get back to following the book or whatever book the churches have published and this is probably due to the fact that some either do not want to use any book or who insist that the causes du jour which are too avant garde to be reflected in any book.  In other words, both sides presume that books are merely suggestions and/or starting points for something that is local or ideologically driven.  It is no wonder that there is more liturgical chaos among Lutherans today than Theo Graebner ever could have envisioned going on 100 years ago.  Variety may seem to be the spice of life but we are over spiced with variety and it is killing the brand -- in ways that any number of Lutheran hymnals existing side by side never did in the past.  Even those who call themselves Lutheran do not know who we are anymore on Sunday morning.  We do not know what to say about God anymore and we cannot agree on what sin is so Lutheranism is a veritable muddle on Sunday mornings -- both to the assembly of the baptized and to the world around them watching them.  We could not have screwed things up more if we had tried deliberately.  Ok, maybe we did.  Maybe the ELCA worked too hard to look and act and sound like mainline Protestantism with all its liberal and progressive eccentricity and maybe Missouri has been watching too many evangelicals on TV.  In any case, it is killing the brand worse than just about anything else we could have done.

Owners or renters. . .

It is often said that we do not do a very good job recruiting, encouraging, and rewarding volunteers in our churches.  I suppose there is truth to this and it would not be wise to suggest otherwise.  But the care and feeding of volunteers presumes that the volunteers need to be rewarded to give of themselves toward their cause.  The volunteer needs to get something out of it in order to justify volunteering.  Except that the Church is not a cause and those who "volunteer" are not really volunteers at all.  If it does not belong to you, then you are a volunteer but if the Church is yours, if you belong to it by baptism and faith, then the questions remains, in what sense are you a volunteer?

We all know the drill.  Before or after the Divine Service, someone (usually the pastor because he has more authority or pull) will stand up and go over the list of activities going on and how desperately in need of volunteers the parish is.  Inevitably, there is a sign up sheet somewhere to jot down your name and let folks know you are stepping up.  In some parishes, a QR code means you can volunteer by smart phone.  In the end, a few folks are guilted into signing up, maybe a couple of others are called out by name and end up agreeing to serve to avoid being nagged anymore.  Some will sigh and give in only to keep the litany of pleading announcements from going on one more week.  But most folks will end up shuffling uncomfortably in their pews, avoiding any direct line of sight with anyone involved with the activity, practicing their excuses, sure that the old regulars will take care of it and staff the Sunday school or coffee hour or fellowship committee or maintenance group or yard sale.  If the Church had a draft, such a means would be employed to fix what everyone thinks is embarrassing and irritating.  

I fear the problem is that most folks do not really believe that the enterprise that needs the volunteers is really either urgent or necessary or at least not urgent or necessary enough for them to actually sign up and do it.  They are what might be called renters.  Renters rent because someone else takes care of the major stuff and all they have to do is the little stuff.  It is a vastly different enterprise than ownership which comes with a constant drain of time, money, and effort to keep up appearances.  The Church is filled with renters and has too few owners.  Renters occupy a pew but do not feel obligated to more than paying the monthly rent on their space.  Owners feel the responsibility to show up and cough up time, money, and skills to keep the place open and operating.  Renters have to be enticed to volunteer but owners know they have a duty and responsibility to the place.  They may not like it but the Church is theirs and so they show up bidden or not, whether they signed up or not, and do what must be done whether they like it or not.  Oh, they complain about those who are not there but they know the complaints change little or nothing and they just keep showing up and doing the work.

It might be tempting to complain but the reality is that the solution to this problem is not more complaints or more guilting folks into volunteering.  We would be better off trying to build a sense of ownership over the parish and its work.  That is not to imply that it is not God's House or His work but that we have been called into partnership with Him in the Gospel.  We each have our own callings and vocation as the baptized children of God and each of us is called to offer ourselves as living sacrifices.  This is our reasonable service and our stewardship.  The vocation as the children of God who belong to the Lord and whose labors are also for Him and to Him is precisely the thing that often seems missing.  When we treat the Church as belonging to a small group that excludes us, we are doing more than failing to volunteer.  We are renting God's house as if that was all there was to it.  It is not a better job of enticing folks to serve that we need but a stronger identity as belonging to God and His House as our own home.  

Growing up in a small congregation and then serving in a small parish right out of seminary, I can see where fewer numbers makes it harder to presume that a person is not needed.  There does seem to be a cohesiveness to a smaller parish that is sometimes missing in a mid or large size congregation.  But, again, it is not about the urgent need but about the identity we have as children of God who live out our lives in response to His goodness, with thanksgiving.  I will not suggest I was good at this but I do think it is something we all need to work at.  The Church has, in that sense, no volunteers but only those who have a sense of ownership and those who need to develop one. 

What kind of horse?

The pastoral ministry has always included a variety of horses in its stable.  A few of them are the stars, the race horses whose names are know by all.  Hopefully, most of them are the draft horses who do the work but are largely invisible.  You see what they have done but they seem to fade away, neither sleek nor handsome but solid.  Hopefully, a very few of them are wild and  unbroken, lazy and unproductive, and eat more than they work.  Of course, this is true of most professions.  It is not up to the seminary alone to discern which is which but those who commend someone to the seminary.

Nearly everyone focuses on the race horses.  They are sleek, fast, and impressive and command the attention of the eye and the mind.  We think we want every pastor to be a race horse.  The problem is that the rest of us cannot keep up with the race horse.  We end up being left behind in the dust or forgotten around the next bend in the road.  In reality the Church cannot stand too many race horses.  A few are okay and offer inspiration to the rest as well as their gifts to the whole but we would be in terrible shape if all our pastors were race horses.  

Most of us, me included, are draft horses.  We pull wagons and plow fields and carry riders and do whatever is needed to get the work done.  We know the route and do not need much attention to the reins but we have someone watching over us and our work just in case.  We eat a lot but we produce more than we consume – energy and effort given to the work we are here to do.  We can be a bit ornery sometimes but are mostly easy going.  We are probably rather ordinary in everything including appearance but strong, with faith enough to loan to those struggling.  We know the field and do not look behind us to count where we have been but plod along the path in the present, looking to the future, sure that the work we are doing will bring forth the fruit appointed.  We are solid and sturdy and look alike under the blanket and harness of clerical clothing and vestments.  We are not meant to stand out and shine but to labor where the Lord puts us for the work the Lord has given.  It is enough to be faithful.  Occasionally, we might shine.  The older ones who know the path and the field well train up the younger and the younger who are strong and impatient carry the weight while us older ones carry part of the burden and help to keep things in check.  

Of course, we all know about those who refuse to be tamed or ridden or wear a yoke.  They buck and snort, complaining about the work they never do.  They tend to be loaners or insist upon being at the head of everything, long enough to be noticed but not there to carry any weight.  They eat but do not produce and they are lazy and reluctant to be part of the stable or share the yoke.  We know about them also.  They are in the headlines for their screw ups are newsworthy and the leave blood and tears in their wake.  They break wagons and axles and turn them over spilling the fruit they were given on the side of the road as if it were less important than their own happiness or pleasure.  They dominate, sort of like wannabe racehorses, but their attention does nothing for the Church and makes every other horse in the stable look bad.  Yes, we have a few of those kind of pastors.  If God is gracious, not too many.  If we are faithful in our task of recruiting and nurturing young men for the ministry, we will not commend to many to the seminary to tame.  They will consume too many resources and will likely never be there to do the work the pastor is called to do.

For a long time now, we have not been doing the job we should in identifying, attracting, and retaining strong, stable, solid, and faithful men.  The fault lies with many – from pastors to lay folk to seminaries to bishops.  We have lately been doing better at the task of finding and commending men for the pastoral office.  But it is good to remember that we do not need to find the race horse or stallion in every pack.  We need draft horses to do the work without drawing undo attention to themselves  Think about this.  Good, solid, faithful, Lutheran men are exactly what we ought to be looking for to recruit for the pastoral ministry and sending to the seminary.  Bright, solid, attentive, teachable men with a deep and abiding faith are the prime candidates for the pastoral office.  This is who we ought to be focusing on instead of trying to find the next Kentucky Derby winner.  Someone who is in it for the long haul and who can carry the weight and do the work – that is our kind of guy.  You know some of them.  Find them.  Encourage them.  Pray for them.  Commend them to the Church.  And then welcome them back with open arms when they take up the yoke in your own field.  God help us, we need just these kind of men.

St. Augustine reminds us that a priest’s holy life can itself become an eloquent sermon.  I refer you to Book 4 of De doctrina christiana.  Augustine talks about the fruits of preachers of different levels.  Some wind up being celebrities and others saintly though less flashy.  Right now we need saints not celebrities, draft horses not race horses.  We need a deep bench and cannot afford to send the older ones out to pasture or fail to yoke them with the younger.  This is a team, a stable, and not a competition for greatness.  The battle in every pastor is inside himself, to be the best man God can make him to be for the sake of the Lord and the people given over to his care. 

Too short?

I know there are folks who will howl with laughter or frown in disagreement over me saying so, but the brevity of the Western Mass is something that seldom gets enough said about it.  Even with full choir and pews full of those to commune, the Divine Service or Western Mass does not take very long.  Count up its words in comparison to any of the Eastern Divine Liturgies.  The West has the shortest liturgy in regular use.  Aside from a few preachers who may compete with the brevity of the Western Mass form, even with sermon it does not take very long.  Between an hour and an hour and a half -- depending upon the extras sometimes introduced and the speed of the chanting and speaking -- and then you are packed up ready to go home.  It is shockingly short -- the time we spend meeting God where He has promised to be and responding to His generous grace supplying the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation!  It is, dare I say it, too short?!?!

Our age loves to shorten things and reduce nearly everything down to a set of Cliff Notes (remember those) or and an AI summation.  We immediately presume that the liturgy is too long, too complicated, and to imposing.  We need to figure out how to shorten it and how to dumb it down to the attention span and interest level of the average third grade child.  Or do we?  Is the problem the Mass is too long or the Divine Service too complicated?  I would venture to say that the liturgy is rather compact, a great deal packed into few words said and sung, and actions which say much with simple yet elegant ritual and ceremony.  Indeed, nearly everything explained takes more words and more time than the actual thing itself.  This is surely true of the liturgy.  Commentary and commentators use so many more words and so much more time to try and tell us what the liturgy says and what the ceremonies confess.  We do not need more words but we do need to pay attention to the words, rubrics, and ceremonies we have. 

Indeed, one of my complaints about most contemporary worship services done in what should be liturgical churches is that they consist of too many words and too many of the wrong words.  The discipline of the Divine Service is two-fold.  It is an economy of words but it is also a prime example of the right words.  That is worth noting at a time when the liturgy gets painted with false charges and contemporary worship services get a pass.  We are the inheritors of a rich liturgical legacy in the Western form of the mass and it is both profound in its brevity as well as profound in what it includes.  Before complaining about it, a word of caution.  Can you really do better?  Can you do better week after week after week?  And then there is the question of who checks up on what you are replacing the Divine Service with and if it meets muster?  If you cannot come up with something better or if coming up with something better means more words and more music, perhaps you ought to give the Western Mass rite another look.  It may even be too short -- not in the sense of too few words but not enough appreciation for its brevity and eloquence. 

Not a math problem. . .

Nearly all the explanations of the Holy Trinity treat the mystery of God as if it were a math problem.  Even the doxological stanzas of hymns seem intent upon talking in the same language.  Three in One and One in Three.  But I fear that this shallow and inaccurate way we speak of the Trinity has overwhelmed the mystery.  Yet the creeds do not speak of numbers or in numerical terms.  The creeds are essential, at least in part, because they refuse to make the Holy Trinity into a math problem with a mathematical solution.

The Nicene tradition expresses the mystery of the Trinity but without the math.  Its language is not in numbers but in terms of origin.  So we confess the Son begotten, the Spirit proceeding, the Father without any origin at all.  The reality is that saying God is “three in one” or "one in three" actually says nothing at all about the Trinity.  So all the ordinary metaphors are false because they begin and end with the math -- water as vapor, liquid, or solid or the three clover leaves.  We like the math.  Equations are solvable.  The goal of the Trinity is the make comprehensible the incomprehensible, to break down to size the larger puzzle of who God is so that we can understand Him, approach Him as more equals than creatures, and meet Him on the ground of reason.  But that is the problem.  God is mystery -- known only how and in so far as He reveals Himself.  The creed admits this.  Indeed, the Athanasian Creed makes it plain.  There we talk more about who God is not than who God is.  But none of us really cares for such a creed.

The soft underbelly of Protestantism and Evangelicalism is the desire and, could we say insistence, to forsake the creedal statements in favor of systematic statements about who God is.  When we make God a puzzle, we presume that puzzle is solvable.  When we begin to find words about who God is, we presume that you can reduce God to words.  When we begin to turn the Trinity into a math problem, we presume that we can come up with the answer and theology becomes simply showing our homework.  Though some would lump Lutherans in on this, I suspect that the problem with Lutheranism to the rest of Christianity is that we are not systematicians but exegetical theologians, theologians of the Word in which grand explanations are cast aside for the paradoxes that form much of the Lutheran vocabulary.  It is satisfying to no one and probably not even to Lutherans but when we simply accept the Scriptures and confess the mystery we are closer to the earlier church fathers than anyone else.  Protestants have Calvin and his ilk.  Rome has Aquinas and his kind.  Luther's works are largely exegetical and sermonic.  And most of the time we long for more.

Eternal subordinationism and all the rest of the giant words used to try and define the mystery of God all fall short.  We are, in the end, like blind men feeling along something we have never known before but trying with all earnestness to figure it out, name it, solve it, understand it, and explain it.  If we are smart blind men, we will know enough to simply confess what has been revealed and leave it at that.  God is who He says He is.  It may not add up at all.  It may not fit into any reasonable box.  It may not be explainable to a world looking for simple answers.  If we confess it, however, we will have done all that can be done about the Holy Trinity.  And it will be enough.  Some wax poetic about the day when God will answer all the questions we have of Him.  I have long ago concluded that we are not waiting for the answers but for the questions to go away.  When that day comes, I will rejoice and be glad.  When the questions go away, only God will remain. 

  

The sacrament of health. . .

I happened to listen to a conversation with kids and their parents over the issue of micro plastics and other bio agents in everything from food sources and packaging to water to utensils.  It was something I had not expected to hear.  The late teens and early twenty somethings wanted to make sure that mom and dad were getting rid of the plastic ware and changing the way they shopped and packaged items because the kids did not want to put these "bio hazards" into their bodies.  So in addition to getting rid of plastic straws and disposable plastic plates, cups, and such, they were objecting to plastic cutting boards and such.  I get it.  This is the generation which has lived with the warnings from the gurus of the health care industry and the global causes to clean up our messes.  It has hit home.  I guess we are back to using glass and other more permanent and "safe" resources.  Honestly, I would rather use brown paper bags in the supermarket over plastic bags any day of the week.  I recycle, too.  But there is a dimension to all of this that troubles me.

Are we approaching the idea that health has become a replacement for religious sacraments?  Is the new priest of the modern day life the physician in a lab coat and the new temple the institutions providing resources for physical and mental health?  I don't know but sometimes it is beginning to sound that way.  The problem as I see it is that the desire to protect our bodies can override the call to protect our souls.  Are we developing a cult of the body?  We already look at the body as a canvas for self-expression in everything from tattoos to piercings so how much further is it to focus on the body in other ways?  Owning the body and ascribing to the body a higher value than other aspects of our daily lives both contribute to the idea that the one who can relieve pain and suffering is the priest of flesh.

While it would seem natural to believe that death would be an enemy of those who encourage a cult of the body, a higher value than postponing death is controlling it so that it comes when it is desired.  This would explain the odd way that suicide, medically assisted suicide, and euthanasia are not adversaries of those who are devoted to the cult of the body but instruments to be used along with the tools of healing designed to relieve pain, eliminate suffering, and express themselves as a canvas of the body.  Our pursuit of pleasure and entertainment accords well with the idea that the body is one more arena in which we express ourselves and our truths.  This would then connect the idea that gender is a construct of the mind more than something defined by DNA or reproductive organs to the sacramental status given to the body and those who attend to it.  It would also explain why so long after COVID there are still folks wearing masks in public, keeping their distance from others and crowds, and living out their lives within the refuge of their homes (where they work and where the things they need or want are delivered to their door).

It is almost a religious devotion given to the practices of painting and piercing the body and pursuing what is defined as healthy lives.  Our struggle to find rest from the things that trouble us as well as rest for our bodies is one more aspect of the way we invest a spiritual character to the physical care of our bodies.  It also explains the esteem we give to therapeutic definitions of those who care for us and the ease with which Christianity has transformed from dealing with the weight of eternity to finding a way for us to be happy and at peace with ourselves today.  It is not that Christians do not care for the body or esteem it a gift of God's grace and a mark of His wisdom and power, we simply refuse to assign an ultimate value to the body or an exclusive focus upon the body as the definition of who we are and what defines our lives.  Our appearance, our unfettered pursuit of pleasure and entertainment, and our esteem given to the practitioners of health can be used as the ultimate distractions from the Gospel of sin and forgiveness through the merits and mercies of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Jesus did not come to repair our bodies but to replace what cannot endure to eternity with the new and glorious flesh like His which can endure forever.  He did not some to focus on our happiness and contentment in the moment but to build within us a profound desire for what the eye cannot see and the person cannot know except by faith.  

A repost. . .

From the Concordia Academic Blog.  To good not to be reposted.  Also, another reason for buying the Hymnal Companion volumes for Lutheran Service Book.

3 Hymns for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels—September 29

The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels is celebrated on September 29 of each year. Lutheran Service Book (LSB)contains hymns that fit wonderfully with many of the feasts and festivals, yet you might not know the history about why they were chosen to represent these days. Read about three hymns chosen in LSB for this feast day and the breathtaking history that ties them to St. Michael and All Angels.

Stars of the morning, so gloriously bright (LSB 520)

John Mason Neale (1818–66), in his Hymns of the Eastern Church (1862), called his “Stars of the morning, gloriously bright” (the original first line omitted the word “so”) “a Cento from the Canon of the ‘Bodiless Ones’ ” assigned to “Tuesday in the Week of the Fourth Tone.” A cento is a selection of stanzas from a longer original. A canon in Eastern Orthodox use is a long hymn of around sixty verses divided into eight or nine odes, and the “bodiless ones” are angels. The “week of the fourth tone” refers to the practice in Orthodox churches of singing Matins and Vespers using different liturgical formulas, or tones, each week. 

About the Text

There are four different canons titled “of the bodiless ones” in the Orthodox liturgical books, all assigned to Matins, with the fourth such canon assigned to November 8, the commemoration of the archangels Michael and Gabriel and the rest of the bodiless powers. There is also another canon about Michael at Matins on September 6, the “commemoration of the wonder that took place at Colossae through the archangel Michael,” although it is not specifically designated a canon “of the bodiless ones.” Neale’s hymn, though, is a translation of none of these: the most that can be said is that it draws upon some ideas present in the Greek texts.

For example, the Greek texts all emphasize the brightness of Michael and the other angels, as in stanza 1 of LSB, although the angels are never called stars (as in the first line of the English hymn) except once in a passing reference to Satan as the fallen Morning Star. Instead, they are called mirrors that reflect the brilliance of God. The angels are also depicted in the Greek as singing the thrice-holy hymn, the Trisagion, to God, as in stanza 1, line 4 of LSB. The idea in LSB stanza 2, line 4 that angels help human beings is also implied in the Greek, if not stated directly; the Greek texts also list various ranks of angels—cherubim, seraphim, thrones, dominations, virtues, powers, and so on—as does Neale in his original third stanza, which is omitted from LSB. Neale’s original fourth stanza, also omitted from LSB, cites the work of Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel; the Greek verses mention Michael and Gabriel, but not Raphael. These, then, are the similarities between the Greek canons and Neale’s hymn.

It is notable, though, how much in Neale’s hymn is missing from the Greek texts. The ideas about angels as ministers of God in LSB stanza 2 are present only obliquely, if at all, except for the image in line 4 of angels as helpers of humans, which the Greek does contain. The striking image in stanza 3 of the angels shouting for joy at creation is entirely absent from the Greek, as are the plea for angels to continue to assist us and the thought that one day we and the angels together will worship God, both in stanza 4. So of the four stanzas in LSB, only stanza 1 is fully reflected in the Greek, with only minimal correspondences in the other stanzas. The two stanzas omitted from LSB fare only slightly better.

Christ, the Lord of hosts, unshaken (LSB 521)

Peter Prange (b. 1972) wrote this hymn in the fall of 1999. While preparing for the observance of St. Michael and All Angels at the parish in Jacksonville, Florida, where he was pastor, Prange was not satisfied with the existing hymns for this occasion in the Church Year. He explains, “I could find no existing hymn that properly surveyed the scriptural truths of this important festival (not even a mention of St. Michael!), so I decided to write one myself.” The hymn was originally sung to the tune SIEH, HIER BIN ICH (LSB 353).

About the Text

Like all minor festivals, St. Michael and All Angels is properly and ultimately about Christ. Therefore, this hymn begins by telling not the story of Michael the archangel, but rather the story of Christ, who conquered sin, death, and the devil. The phrase “slams them in their steely cage” (stanza 1) is a vivid description.

Stanza 2 refers to the biblical account of war in heaven, with Michael and the hosts of heaven battling Satan. “Cast him earthbound with his angels” is mentioned in the alternate Gospel for the day, as Jesus says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). The hymn also describes Satan in terms such as “serpent” (stanzas 2–3), “beast” (stanza 2), “tyrant” (stanza 5), and “foe” (stanza 6).

Stanza 3 travels back to Eden and Genesis 3. The twisting of God’s command began when the serpent asked, “Did God actually say?” (Genesis 3:1). God’s cursing of Satan is also the proclamation of the first Gospel to the world (Genesis 3:15).

Stanza 4 begins, “Jesus came, this word fulfilling.” What word is that? It is God’s word of promise, which concludes stanza 3: “You’ll lie crushed beneath His [Jesus’] feet!” The trampling of Satan occurred at Calvary, with Jesus’ feet nailed to the cross. He “bore the brunt of our temptation” both “on the wretched tree” and earlier, when He was tempted in the wilderness for forty days: He strove with Satan, and He won.

The lightning imagery from Luke 10 appears again in stanza 5. The judgment of Satan bears mentioning. Jesus regularly refers to the devil as “the ruler of this world” in the Gospel of John. 

We finally hear about the present work of angels in the last stanza. The description of “angel legions” mirrors Jesus’ words in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:53). It is also an interesting term, as the satanic demons gave their name as Legion (Mark 5:9). The description of Satan’s “fiery grave” reflects Revelation 20:10.

Lord God, to Thee we give all praise (LSB 522)

Luther, his most valued partner in reform, Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), and their students paid relatively little attention to angels, perhaps as a reaction against medieval veneration of angels as mediators with their own power to direct events on earth. Nonetheless, angels were a living part of the Wittenberg theologians’ faith. In this hymn, Melanchthon expressed his confidence that God, who created the angel hosts, also marshals them for the conflict with Satan that besets individual believers, the Church, and society. 

About the Text 

God receives the praise in this hymn, not the angels, whom God created. However, the hymn extols God’s protection afforded by these angelic beings who, assembled in the light of their Creator’s throne, are listening to His Word, reflecting the typical Wittenberg focus on God speaking to His creatures. Melanchthon describes the angels’ watchfulness, calling attention to the fact that they, like God, never slumber nor sleep (Psalm 121:4) so that they can be waging constant battle against the enemies of God’s people.

Melanchthon’s deep convictions concerning the eschatological battle between God’s truth and Satan’s deception provide the focus of the hymn, as Melanchthon uses biblical images of the ancient dragon (Revelation 12) and the roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8) to dramatize the real threat to believers from Satan and his forces. This hymn takes particular note of the devil’s striving to divide the Church of Christ, a special concern of the Wittenberg reformers about 1540. 

Melanchthon’s confidence in God’s providing protection for His faithful is highlighted in stanza 7: the angel troop stands guard and thwarts the devil’s plans against us.

At the end of this rehearsal of God’s use of the angels to watch over and defend His people, Melanchthon returns to praising God, joining the human voices of those singing the hymn with the songs of gratitude and praise sung by the angels.

Sixteenth-century Lutheran church orders often retained St. Michael and All Angels (September 29) as a day of observance in the congregation, so Melanchthon may have had this festival in mind as he wrote this hymn. The day assumed a broader significance because it was chosen as the day for special thanksgiving for the harvest in Evangelical lands, replacing the Assumption of Mary (August 15), which had served as thanksgiving day in the late medieval ecclesiastical calendar. However, it is just as likely that this hymn simply reflects the piety of the Wittenberg reformers, who had confidence that God, who provides all for His people, had commissioned the angels as just one means by which His protection extends to the saints each day.

 

But we love those sins!

Though I have never seen where he said it, I have been told that St. Augustine did indeed say:  "People reject the Church because She speaks against the sins they love."   He should know.  He had many favorite sins along the expanse of his life before coming to faith.  He lived for many years in pursuit of pleasure, pride, and worldly desires.  He spoke these words as someone who had been infatuated with his sins until the rest he sought remained elusive and was rediscovered repentance.  He did not say this because it was a theory of his.  He got it.  Sin is addictive.  It captures the heart and transforms desire.  He hated calling his favorite behaviors sins and the whole idea of giving up those sins he loved.  He was speaking from his own painful experience. 

The Church does not tiptoe around our favorite sins (well, the Church should not be doing that).  Truth should not change to match our desires.  No, the Church is there to call us to repentance, to holiness, and to be free from those sins.  Lets be honest.  The call to repentance is uncomfortable just as repentance itself is uncomfortable.  God does not want us to remain as we are but is seeking to change us for our good and not for arbitrary or controlling purposes.  Jesus is “the light has come into the world, [but] the world loved darkness rather than light” (John 3:19).  We think people are rejecting our worldview or the specific truths of creation, fall, redemption, etc., but they might be rejecting the calling to live differently, according to different values, and for a different goal and purpose.  God is not trying to end the party but is providing the best wine at the end and more of it than we ever expected.  

Whoever has made peace with a cherished sin will naturally see the Church, the call to repentance, and worship centered upon the Word and Sacraments as adversaries.  That is Augustine's point.  As such, it is also good to remember that the Church is not the one condemning sin but the Word of God.  The Scriptures call us to repentance, to admit our love and addiction to our favorite sins, and to a new life lived in response to a different voice than that of desire.  So when people reject the liturgy or preaching or catechesis, we think it is about a liturgical or preaching or teaching problem when in reality it is about sin.  Maybe it was always about sin?  Maybe sin and forgiveness are not antiquated ideas in our modern era.  Maybe it is the same issue as Eden.

How many folks are needed to sustain a congregation?

In our age of declining congregational size, one of the most practical questions is how many people do you need to pay for a pastor, a building, and minimal programs to keep the doors open?  I often hear the number of 100 as a minimum to cover everything from pastor's compensation and benefits, building costs and utilities, a few other part-time folks, insurance, internet, and a minimal program of educational, social, and mercy work.  Note that this does not include the costs of a mortgage or loan repayment and that this might also include income from other than the offering plate (endowment, bequests, etc.).  I suspect that this is probably not far from the bottom number but it occurs to me that this might be setting the bar rather low on the stewardship end of things.

Comparing the situation with state churches, there are certainly might collected but this money is usually for mission support, support for those in need, and other charitable work.  Otherwise, the government (or, rather, the tax dollar from the populace) is the primary source of income for the church and covering the costs of clergy, building, and essential programs.  To be sure, this funding with tax money is from the willing and the unwilling.  There are automatically-collected "tithes" from those who agree to pay but there is money from other taxes collected for property assets considered to belong to the state first and the congregation second.  This remains the case even though the landscape has changed and the formerly religious lands have become, in reality, highly-secularized European nations today, including everything from with the Church of England, Scandinavian Lutheran state churches, and German churches (whose “church-tax” is given to state registered religions to which the people belong (from Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Union, other state-registered religions, including Judaism).  The German tax is 8% to a person’s income tax bill.  There are religions and churches which have chosen not to participate in this, including Muslims, Buddhists, Orthodox, free Lutherans, and other religious groups.  Individual Germans can opt out of the church tax but that means publicly renouncing their religion and forsaking the privileges of church membership as they may be.  It must be a significant cost greater than the money since about half of eligible taxpayers are still willing to pay it.

American statistics tell us that the typical Christian gives something around 2-2.5% of their income as their discounted "tithe" and this is probably responsible for that 100 person minimum number.  So, my question is, how many people would we need to sustain a congregation if these same people contributed what the German church tax collected or four times the present average?  I suspect that this would radically change the viability numbers and enable a much smaller group to still have all the accoutrements of church -- perhaps closer to the actual average size of 50 or less.  Anecdotally, I heard one person in one of our saltwater districts say that 50 folks would be a mid-size parish in that district and compare this to the average for the Missouri Synod a few decades ago which had one pastor serving nearly 200 folks.  Times have changed.  But for all the crocodile tears about the gray clouds on our future with a rather consistent decline in size over many decades, why are we settling for 2-3% of income as the benchmark instead of trying to at least match what a government collects in our fatherland, Germany?

Those who know me will know that I defend my Boomer generation to younger pastors and remind them that we are still in church and supporting financially the work of the congregation in greater proportion than our numbers.  That is great.  But what will happen after the Boomers are spending all their money on nursing homes or they are gone?  Those in the pews need to step up.  If the Church is to continue, it will only happen because we support the Church with our time, skills, prayers, and dollars.  If we do that, we will find that smaller congregations will survive and perhaps even flourish without spending all their attention to finding the $$ to pay the pastor and fix the building.  It is wonderful when a former generation provides generous gifts to sustain things long after they have joined the church triumphant but it cannot and dare not replace raising our expectation of ourselves and providing the support to keep even small congregations viable.   

We are all looking for the Church. . .

Honestly, there is no end of frustration to the Missourian peculiarity about calling the Synod "Church."  It is maddening that we seem intent upon trying to invent an idea of "Church" that is somehow distant from what, to everyone else, is simply Church.  However, it is equally frustrating and maddening to look for the big Church to solve all the problems and do everything.  Of course, the Church is always larger than what you see gathered on Sunday morning but it is never less.  In other words, what you see on Sunday morning is not a miniature version of the Church but the full thing.  Yes, there is more but the more is not more in the sense of the local being somehow deficient or lacking something.  It is the more of all those Sunday gatherings together.  

Where this is most frustrating and maddening is how everything is expected of or gets judged on the basis of the big footprint.  So in Rome it is as if there is only the Pope and the Vatican or, for us Missourians, there is only St. Louis and our elected SP.  Of course these are important but they are not everything.  I finally have had to give up on the illusion that I will find that perfect jurisdiction on the larger scale.  You will not find it in Rome or in Constantinople or in St. Louis or anywhere else.  But you do see it more nearly and clearly in the Sunday morning gathering.  This is not congregationalism but the essential truth of catholicity.  While we seem to stretch catholicity in search of the biggest expression of its wholeness, we end up disdaining the local expression of it.  You see that catholicity in the marks of the Church, the Word and the Sacraments and the ministry/priesthood.  That is where most of us meet Church and not on the seemingly grander scale of a basilica or cathedral or a bishop's throne.  Yes, the large version is important and wonderful but it does not replace nor make the local expression of the Church any less important or wonderful.

I have come to see that it is not about some GIRM or bishop or rule making body enforcing that which defines us but the local expression striving to be all that we confess.  That is my problem.  So often and too often the local group has lost sight of its own catholicity, willing to trade it all off for better numbers or treating the Church as if she were a social group or program instead of the Body of Christ.  The worship problem in Rome and in Missouri is not about enforcing more rules but about local expressions of the Church having lost their identity and reaching vainly into business or social models in search of an identity to replace what they have lost.  People and pastors who do stupid stuff on Sunday morning are not trying to be the Church but trying to win friends and influence people or meet people on the therapeutic level they have come to presume is the authentic version of the Church.  How foolish we are!  We are willing to trade the God who tabernacles among us in the Word that delivers what it says and the Sacraments that bestow what they sign for relevance or entertainment or feelings.  That is not a problem of rules or rule enforcers but of a people who have lost sight of who God is and who they are.  It is a problem of leaders who are wolves in sheeps' clothing, betraying the promise of eternity for a moment in the spotlight.  It is not that the sights have been set too high but too low and, in the end, having lost what is eternal for what is only momentary.

The solution will not come from Rome or St. Louis or some other address.  Everyone seems to be looking for the main office to fix things but they won't and they can't.  Catholicity on the larger level exists only because it is there on the local level.  I once despaired that one parish at a time was not efficient or effective enough but I have learned that it is the only way.  The only honest measure of the Church is Sunday morning where the shepherd serves the sheep with the gifts of the Good Shepherd.  Remember when the Army had as its slogan Be All that You Can Be?  Perhaps our slogan for the Church ought to say Be Who You Are.  The main office can never be the refuge that the local assembly of those whom the Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies is and always will be.  It is nice if you can find it but the real catholicity that matters is always local.  I wonder if this is not what the Augustana was trying to say in different words and what Missouri has struggled to say with its own confused expression of Church.  It is not that the congregation is the only Church or any real form of congregationalism but the local gathering with all of its tangible concreteness, formed by Christ for Christ, and possessing the fullness of the Church but not alone.

Yes, I am probably rambling but that is the meanderings of today. 

Worth a listen. . .

From a classmate and an old friend.  Wise words worth a listen.

 

In search of a sacrament. . .

I have often thought that there is no such thing as a non-sacramental Christian church.  The issue is not whether or not to have sacraments but which sacraments.  Either they are the sacraments which warrant the sanction and promise of Christ or they will be something else -- something invented or a designated hitter, so to speak, which fills the current ideology.

Prayer has long been the sacrament of choice for those who disdain the ones the Lord has offered.  It comes with the command of Christ and His promise to hear and answer so it must be good, right?  The problem is that when you turn prayer into a sacrament, it comes with the inherent pledge of Christ to do what the one praying has requested.  If the form is right, others are enlisted to pray for the same thing, and the name of Christ is attached, well, then, there is the sacrament.  Except that prayer has never enjoyed the designation of sacrament, though sacramental it might seem.  Nevermind that the history is not there, the desire is.  It was especially true of the Charismatics and perhaps of the Pentecostals.  In my first parish there was a huge divide when the prayers of the faithful for the healing of a child were supposed to result in the child recovering but the child died of the cancer.  How could God renege on His promise -- especially when it had the support of many united in praying for the same thing?  The prayer of the righteous availeth much but not necessarily the answer sought.  That makes it hard to really offer up prayer as a substitute sacrament.  Meditation may be like prayer but it is somewhat different.  Christians have flirted with this kind of thing for a long time and tried to position such inner contemplation into a sacramental wannabe but it has not yet convinced many -- except the spiritual but not religious who will settle for even a flawed sacrament if it fills their bill.

Prophecy was also a favorite of the Charismatics (and Pentecostals).  Speaking in tongues, sure, but it did not have the cache of a prophet telling us what God was going to do.  There is much talk of it in the NT but also with that conversation comes many warnings, not in the least from St. Paul.  Then there is the problem of prophesies that do not happen.  Ah, what to do with those who attempt to speak in the Lord's name but the Lord seems not to hear them or honor their words?  Hard to make a sacrament out of much disappointment.  Of course, that has never stopped us from venturing beyond the word of Scripture.  Still and all, prophets and prophesies are a disappointing substitute if you cannot be sure what is said is either from the Lord or reliable -- at least until after the fact.  Even Rome has its own flirtation with little girls who hear voices from God or have visions.  Many in Rome are beginning to question some of the age old devotion given to those prophets and their special words from Jesus or Mary.

Some have suggested that worship, specifically contemporary Christian music designed to motivate by emotion, as a sacramental substitute.  It probably is being used to set the mood and even more.  Jesus wants to raise us up but CCM is intent upon raising up Jesus, flowery language about honor and glory replacing the cues of Scripture or the songs that rehearse Christian faith and life amid suffering awaiting the resurrection and eternal life to come.  Mood songs do have powerful effect and that is why the music industry is so successful.  Whether you can translate that into a ballad that effects the means of grace is something entirely different.  Mood music with a beat you can dance to has always had its appeal but what my folks danced to on Saturday night was never thought to have a place on Sunday morning until folks began to assign to worship music the same kinds of duties and responsibilities that everything from Rap to Rock to Ravel's Bolero can do for the imagination.  The only problem here is that God has not asked to imagine Him but provided the actual means for His saving presence among us.  Too bad, though, because mood music is a tempting substitute.

What warms the heart is not always a fit replacement for the Word and Sacraments of Christ.  Try as we might, they do not come with the promise of God to deliver the fruits of His redeeming work through these means.  It is for this reason that Lutherans highly esteem marriage but find it not really sacramental in that definition.  Ordination and penance (absolution) have a pretty decent claim to the designation but not so much confirmation (especially the Western form of it which has no real correspondence in the East).  Unction is a fine practice but lacks the dominical word which gives the means its promise and power.  Good, yes, and salutary but not quite meet or right.  No, the best answer is to stick with the ones God gives and to trust them.  We Lutherans remind Christians all the time that the Word is not simply a written record or history but the living voice of the Good Shepherd.  In that respect, it is the granddaddy of all sacraments. 

A tragedy within another one. . .

According to the dictionary, a tragedy is not simply something terrible but a very sad event or situation, especially one involving death or suffering.  Those on every side should agree that when Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children–5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan– and then attempted suicide by jumping out a window– is a tragedy.  The fact that she did not die but lived only to be left paralyzed is perhaps less so.  

We all know about her defense.  She answered the charges against her with the defense of postpartum depression and psychosis. I cannot dismiss such a thing.  If you have been a pastor long, you have undoubtedly ministered to a family in that same boat.  Too many woman have suffered this to one degree or another.  The fact that a great number of women sympathized with her, supported her on social media, and expressed their concern publicly only attests to the fact that postpartum depression is not talked about enough or taken seriously enough.  What remains, however, is that her children suffered because of her diagnosis and her husband and extended family were left with multiplied grief for all that took place.  Of course, in hindsight family and medical personnel might have done things differently.  But her children are still dead while she lives.  Her grief has been compounded by the realization of what she did.  Whether that is enough for her to suffer is not quite the issue in her trial.  In the end, this trial ended with a mistrial–all of the jurors but one wishing to acquit her.  

According to the same dictionary, the word acquit means to decide officially in a law court that someone is not guilty of a particular crime.  It is a curious word.  Everyone admits she is guilty.  The issue is not whether she is guilty but whether or not she is culpable for the crime.  She is clearly at fault but were there circumstances which mitigate against the raw judgment of guilt which should be taken into account. Apparently one juror spoke out in public of the holdout, “He had the hardest time getting over the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.”  Here is the second tragedy.  Apparently the other eleven jurors could get over that fact that she had actually and viciously murdered her children.  Some lamented that the law required a unanimous verdict.  It is as if the attention has shifted away from Lindsay Clancy and onto the judicial system and this particular jury.  That is the tragedy.  That we can "get over" the brutal death of these children but cannot get over how many outside the courtroom and all but one of the jurors could is a tragedy of great proportions.  I find it hard to see how the feelings for abortion have not contributed to this state of affairs in which the killing of children is a lesser tragedy than holding the one who killed them to account for her actions.  As if that were not enough, the news has it that another mother has killed her two-year-old son and she particularly tied this to the crime and the trial of Lindsay Clancy, saying she was “inspired” by Clancy.  How is it that we have come to the point where the judicial status of the one responsible for the crimes has become a greater tragedy than the deaths of her children which she caused?  Could it be that this is a tacit admission that some lives are wroth more than others?  Who gets to decide?  Which lives should have value and which should not or should have a lesser value?  But is that not exactly what we have done with abortion?

Yes, the whole situation with Lindsay Clancy is a tragedy but hidden within that tragedy is another one.  We are already at the point of picking and choosing which lives matter and which do not.  Of course, this is not the first time this has happened.  The fact that it continues indicates that we have learned nothing from our errors.  And that is perhaps the tragedy that encompasses all the rest. 

 

Making it all seem normal. . .

If you would have told me fifty years ago that I would have encountered members of my parish or circle of friends who had employed or were considering the use of a surrogate (or becoming a surrogate mother) I would have laughed in your face.  On the surface of it all, it was absurd.  Neither the technology nor the possibility had entered the mainstream.  Well, they have now.  As a pastor I have counseled and consoled families struggling with infertility who think that surrogacy is not only reasonable but moral and a good solution for those longing for a child they cannot conceive without the help of technology and a rented womb.  Now I have not only known but been assured by those carrying a child for a sibling or child unable to conceive that they are not only doing the right thing but the noble thing, the good thing, and the moral and loving thing to borrow out their womb for another family.  While in some cases this is simply the borrowing of the womb, in other cases it is loaning out considerably more -- namely eggs or sperm or both.  This issue will not go away and will become even more normal as technology advances and the Church fails to address it publicly.

Let me say for the record that I am not unsympathetic to the plight of the childless longing to have a child.  It has touched my family and we have suffered the pain not only of the longing but of the choice not to afford the extraordinary and extraordinarily costly and immoral consequences of IVF and surrogacy.  It is a subject close to home.  That is what makes this even more difficult.  The heart yearns to provide hope and a possibility to those whose desire for a child has not been fulfilled.  The reality of the adoption situation has also changed and it is not as simple as deciding to adopt.  The abundance of choices to prevent pregnancy and the availability of the morning after pill have done a remarkable job of reducing the numbers of infants and small children who might be adopted.  Not every family is able to support a child with deep emotional problems or disabilities or physical ills -- though I remain deeply moved by and impressed by those who are able.  The adoption situation today with its open process often means that economic factors prevent others from competing as prospective adoptive parents and the chances offered to the birth parents to change their mind are not without their own impact on the adoption option.  Further, the government has done a good job of taking the Church out of the whole process (unless they play by the government's rules) and this has also changed the lay of the land for adoption and those who might consider it.  So please do not say that I am insensitive or uncaring toward those who find surrogacy and IVF to be their best choice.  I am.  But no matter how compassionate one might be, a wrong is still a wrong and both surrogacy and IVF are wrong.

I think it is pretty clear where Rome stands on this and it is certainly abundantly clear where the LCMS stands on the same matters but I am not at all sure how well or how effectively either communicates these stands or the reasons why.  Protestants as a whole are divide on these issues or simply silent -- leaving the individual consciences to make the determination of what is moral, good, and right.  I think it is true that this may well become our own moment's Roe v. Wade issue and that we are at the beginning of what might become an equally long process of discernment, information, and education on the topics of IVF and surrogacy.  Roughly one in six adults now faces infertility, and congregants are hungry for guidance and the numbers will only increase.  Across the board, studies have found that pastors want and need additional resources to equip them to address these issues and fear they are without the ability to make a difference in the minds of their people on these issues.  It is also clear that the silence of the churches has been interpreted by many within the Church that there is no moral stand on IVF or surrogacy except to proceed with caution and to act with their own judgment.

Surrogacy and IVF are but a few of the major issues facing our people and the Church.  We will need to to equip pastors and church leaders, to offers solid theological resources on a range of topics: beginning and end of life, AI, IVF, surrogacy, egg and sperm donation, embryo adoption, contraception, and genetic testing.  For too long we have acted in the Church as if this was not happening in our own backyards or that such things were not common nor a threat.  We cannot afford such foolishness any longer.  The challenges have caught us unprepared and behind the times to catechize our people within these issues but we dare not bury our heads in the sand and waste more time.  Yesterday was too late but we will have lost tomorrow unless we take advantage of today.  The market driven aspects of surrogacy and IVF are exploding as those who wish to be single parents and same sex parents desire children.  No, we cannot afford to wait to talk about these things openly and from the vantage point of Scripture and the morality informed by God and not by our own feelings or whims.