Thoughts on Church Growth. . .

Though there may be some nefarious reason for their interest in church growth, the truth is that most of the folks on one end of that movement or another are honest people with a deep passion and concern for the lost.  I commend them.  Sadly, there are some on the side of things where I feel most comfortable who seem oblivious to the need or desire for the church to grow and unmoved by the prospect of their neighbors suffering for all eternity in hell (unless you believe like Pope Francis is said to believe).  The fact that these two aims (those already in the Church and those outside) have lived in such tension, antagonism, and conflict is not good for either.  It is not, I might add, about balance between them but about how the source and summit of our spiritual lives lived out from the Divine Service is what directs us to our vocation and calling to love, serve, and witness to our neighbors.  Yet we live in a time when mission and maintenance (as some have put it) are words at war with each other.  Within Missouri they are already well at work gearing up to the Synod President election in 2019 and the real and digital ink being spent influencing that election.  But there is just as much being played out on the outside of this election process and it consumes much of our time and energy -- each proving they are right and the rest are wrong.

The problems lie when we conclude that the Church exists exclusively or even primarily for those not yet of the Kingdom OR when we conclude that the Church exists exclusively or even primarily for the baptized.  It is not an either/or but clearly a both/and.  What is too often lost in the battle between the two perspectives is that it is the Lord's Church and the Lord will grow His Church in His way and in His time.  We are not franchise managers of a concern whose purpose is to grow profits (people) for an absent owner.  Neither are we custodians of the few who already belong and who need and desire to be cared for with the means of grace.  Those who call themselves pastors are stewards of the mysteries of God and part of that mystery (and therefore part of that stewardship) is the fact that God works through the means of grace to bring people to faith and impart to them the kingdom won on their behalf by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Church is the Lord's and the means of grace belong to Him and He grows His Church through those means - both maturing those already in the Kingdom by baptism and faith and by bring those not yet of the Kingdom into it by baptism and faith.  The means of grace are evangelistic.  No one with their head on right can admit anything other than this.  The means of grace are missional.  Yet while we are at it, it is prudent also to remember that programs, structures, and sociology, as helpful as they might be, do not grow the Church.  We have not been given the task of figuring out what people want and what works to make for great statistics.  We certainly have much to learn in the common sense of what barriers we inadvertently or deliberately put up to bar the doors and what things help us in the task of connecting people to the Church.  Yet, the Church cannot surrender our trust and confidence in the work of the Lord through His means of grace even to proven strategies and programs that fill the pews.  The Church is the Lord's and He grows the Church as He wills and when He wills.  Our job is both to preach this saving Gospel and live it (in part so that we do not become obstacles of His evangelistic purpose).  In other words, friendliness will not make the Church grow but unfriendliness will work against the means of grace.

In the end, what is too often forgotten is that our vocation and life as God's own baptized children presents the world with either the most compelling reason to listen or the most compelling reason to dismiss what is heard.  For too long we have thought that doing a good job was presenting the truth of Scripture and our confession as if the mind were the only object of our work.  Present the Kingdom reasonably, winsomely, and effectively and the Church will grow.  The problem is that we have so neglected sanctification that our people often neither expect nor try to live the new and different lives of a people in but not of the world.  The early Church was named the people of the Way because that way was lived in, imperfectly to be sure, but with passion and desire in the daily lives of the baptized as their vocation or calling in and before the world.  I recently reread the Didache, purportedly an instructional document from the early church talking about discipling those not yet of the Kingdom.  I was struck by the fact that they paid as much if not more attention to the Christian life as they did the content of the Christian faith.  In other words, life in Christ was not an intellectual assent to propositional truths but a real way of life in which the truth transformed the life.  That does not at all minimize doctrinal preaching and teaching but is a helpful reminder that we have been called out of darkness and into the light of Christ to do the works of Him who called us.

I sometimes wonder if a focus on justification without spending much time or sanctification and a definition of faith that is primarily knowledge, understanding, and intellectual consent have not combined to work against both our interest and our ability to reach out with the faith.  Poll after poll and survey after survey seems to suggest that being Christian counts for little in terms of the way our people live.  We believe doctrine but it ends up being theoretical doctrine and not the practical truth that shapes who we are and how we live.  No Lutheran believes that good works contribute anything to salvation but does that mean that good works are not worth anything at all?  I would suggest that because we believe, confess, and teach that good works cannot buy us salvation -- only a gracious God in Christ can give us this gift -- good works are made more valuable because they testify to our life within this faith, they manifest the eucharistic shape of that life, and they direct those good works done with thanksgiving to God toward the neighbor who can benefit from them.  And I also wonder if this is not the more profound means of manifesting to those not yet of the Kingdom what it means to be a baptized child of God, to believe in Him who has redeemed us by His blood, and to live under Him in His Kingdom now and forever.

But I do a lot of wondering and even some wandering -- you might even say meandering -- and so I ask you to give some thought to this all as well. . .

Move Over Bono. . .

For those who still get warm and fuzzies over the U2charists held a while ago, there is a new act in town.  None other than Beyoncé has taken over none other than Grace Cathedral for a mass (probably without Holy Communion?!?!) to herald another example of the crossover between secular music and their stars and worship.  In what has been described as a means to the transformative love of Jesus,  the Beyoncé mass is being led by the Rev. Yolanda Norton, a Hebrew professor -- although I doubt much Hebrew will be said or sung or even all that much that might be recognizable as worship -- except to those far out on the fringes of Christianity.  

By the time you read this, it will have been long over.  But I wonder if the effect will be -- since that is my concern.  For the Christian faith has not done well at previous attempts to mix pop culture and the faith.  It is, to recall Israel's problem, generally a problem that the faith is diluted or even lost and and replaced with the stuff from culture so that the Jesus therein is all but unrecognizable to those who know Him as His Word tells and His sacramental graces bestow.

Be sure and tell me if what you experienced on Sunday morning bore any resemblance to what Grace Cathedral offered on April 25.  If it did, perhaps it is time to consider a new church home. . .

For die-hard fans, the words “worship” and “Beyonce” have gone together for years.
Yet, probably not like this:  San Francisco’s stunningly beautiful Grace Cathedral will host a contemporary worship program featuring the music of Beyonce on April 25.  This “Beyonce Mass,” which is part of the church’s Wednesday night The Vine service series, is at 6:30 p.m. and admission is free. No, the megastar won’t be there — at least in person.

“Beyoncé? At church? That’s right!” says an announcement on the church’s website. “Come to The Vine SF to sing your Beyoncé favorites and discover how her art opens a window into the lives of the marginalized and forgotten — particularly black females.”  This service, of course, follows Beyonce’s triumphant performance at Southern California’s Coachella music festival over the weekend. Although, the church had reportedly been planning to do this Beyonce Mass before that performance took place.

This mass is part of the teaching series “Speaking Truth: The Power of Story in Community” at The Vine, a contemporary-style service that utilizes modern music in its teaching and was established in March 2017.  “The Vine is all about creating new connections as we explore, experience and share the transformative love of Jesus,” according to the church’s website.This special “Beyonce Mass” will be led by the Rev. Yolanda Norton,a professor who teaches a class called Beyonce and the Hebrew Bible at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, according to KQED.  “Even in class today, there was this great energy about continuing this conversation in the wake of Coachella, and what it means to do this worship service that taps into what I think is the essence of who Beyonce is and how that relates to black women, how we relate to God, and how we are seen in community,” she told KQED.

Art not so useless. . .

Art is like worship. In a practical, utilitarian world it seems rather useless and perhaps even foolish.  Art is just pretty stuff, the things we hang up in our homes to decorate the plain wall.  It has meaning only so long as we choose it to and it is something we discard when we are over it or when our interests or tastes change.  At least that is the estimation of the world.

But the art in the church is not just pretty stuff we put in the church to decorate.  Instead this art  connects with our faith.  Every icon, statue, carving, stained glass window or painting is a teacher and a voice that addresses us through our eyes in the same way words of the creed engage our mind.  We see the faith with those eyes and we are instructed in that faith just as words teach our minds.  But the goal here is not simply knowing for the sake of knowing but knowing so that we might believe and believing so that we might live the new life God has bestowed upon us in the living water that connects us to the death and resurrection of Christ.  Faith sees not simply a one dimensional figure but a message, a word, a voice that addresses us with the eternal Gospel and bids us to enter its mystery by faith.  Art is not sacrament but it might be said to be sacramental.  It leads us past ourselves and our likes or preferences and into God's gracious actions that reveal His grace and favor. The art around the Church not only instructs but directs the wayward and wandering mind back to what is happening within the liturgy.

There was a period in which we thought art competed with the message and distracted us from the faith.  So we extended our less is more idea onto the architectural forms of churches and they were left open and bare.  In the end this did little more than erase our memories and disconnect us from our past.  Even worse, they gave us the subtle encouragement to believe we were both subject and object of the Divine Service.  Finally, without forms and images to draw us back, our minds were untethered from visual anchors and we began to think only in terms of words.  Truth became propositions and faith became informed consent and the buildings lecture halls and theaters for performances. 

Luther was almost alone among the Reformers to suggest a place and purpose for the arts -- especially music.  But the others were suspicious of it all and restricted it all.   We are, in some respects, just beginning to recover our heritage of art and music from our history.  There are still some who complain about its cost and necessity -- not unlike the naysayers who whined about the cost of the ointment the woman used to anoint Jesus.  But what we have to offer the world is not beauty for the sake of beauty but beauty that befits the Word and serves its noble purpose of engaging us with the saving work of Christ.  Someday we may find that the world has proscribed our speech and placed limits on what we can do but we will always have the arts that hang in the great museums and the churches themselves that speak of Him who loved us even to death. 

The most beautiful painting in the world. . .

Aldous Huxley once called it “the most beautiful painting in the world” but for most of it was a faded shadow of its self and many could not see in it what Huxley saw.  So on Easter last the world saw the unveiling of the newly restored painting and perhaps began to see what Huxley did.  “The Resurrection,” is a masterpiece by Piero della Francesca, considered one of the most important of the artists of the Renaissance period. Finally, this restoration allows us to see the the power of the Lord Jesus, emerging from the sepulcher at the hidden moment of the Resurrection, while the four soldiers guarding the tomb sleep oblivious to the most profound moment in history.

Dating somewhere between 1450 and 1463, the author has captured the contrast even in nature,  barren and dead on the left and, on the right, the trees have come back to life, like the future of redeemed mankind. Sin has been overcome, and the promise of salvation has been kept.  The soldier without a helmet is a self-portrait bt the artist, Piero della Francesca.  He was a devout believer who left a testimony of his faith in the historical event of Christ's Resurrection.

See the restorer at work.  The transparency of the vivid colors used by the artist so profoundly affect Michelangelo that he chose this medium rather than oil for the Sistine Chapel ceiling.  It is said that the painting saved the town of Sansepolcro from artillery bombardments during World War II.  According to one account, British captain Anthony Clarke who had ordered the bombardment of the city rescinded the order after remembering Huxley and the most beautiful painting that resided there.

The future of the faith. . .

The future of the catholic and orthodox Christian faith certainly is shaped by those who preach and teach it.  But more than this, the future belongs to the faithful laity who hear the Word of God and keep it, whose fidelity, self-sacrifice, and commitment to the sacred deposit will insist upon nothing less than the truth from those who teach it and will pass on nothing less than this same truth to those who come after them.  These are those whose hope and love is manifest in the new life brought into the world and the faithful homes in which that precious gift is nurtured, directed, and protected.  We expect much from our leaders and we should but we must also recognize that the future belongs o those who by the Holy Spirit are determined to walk Christ’s “narrow way” with joy in the high and noble calling of their every day life as the children of God.

I must confess that for every foul and shocking thing that is perpetuated in the name of Christ by those entrusted with the sacred office of pastor and teacher of the faithful, I am encouraged by the faithful who sit in the pews every Sunday and give the Divine Service their full attention and devotion.  For every scandalous thing that is done by those entrusted with leadership in the Church, I am encouraged by the quiet and faithful work done by those who refuse to be led into temptation and darkness by those leaders.  For every failure of bishops, pastors, and the like to speak up and give unwavering testimony before the world to the unchanging Word of God, I am encouraged by those who refuse to be offended by Jesus and in their daily lives give honest witness to the hope within them.

Whether 20 or 200 on Sunday morning, the Church counts on these faithful and God works through them in profound ways to make sure that His voice will be heard and heeded in a world shouting so many other gospels.  The Church has never been guaranteed numbers to dominate but we have always been promised that the two or three who gather in the Lord's name are sufficient for the Lord to accomplish His purpose.  We admit that everything is His.  It is His Church and His ministry and we have been given the privilege of being admitted into partnership in this Gospel work not because the Lord needs us but because He wants to work in us, among us, and through us.  Nowhere is that more true than in the family, in husband who seeks to love his wife as Christ has loved the Church and given Himself up for her and the wife who seeks to love her husband with the respect and fidelity due such love.  It is a love reciprocated and multiplied in the children born husband and wife by the gracious gift and blessing of the Lord.  It is a love which becomes a sacred trust and noble work as children are brought up in the Lord and to know the Lord.

The truth is that a whole lot of moralizing has occupied our attention.  We are so very fixated upon what we think others should do that we have forgotten the morality of what we are given to do by the Lord's will.  Moralizing is the great temptation, of course, because it is so much easier to see the sin in others and to tell others what they ought to do or ought not to do.  But the morality that confesses our sin, seeks and believes in the forgiveness we have in Christ and, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, seeks to do better is the better cause than the bully pulpit.  This morality reveals its most profound character not in the great and pivotal questions of the day but in the course of ordinary life from within the common life of family together and the community of families.   I am not so sure our moralizing wins many arguments or makes a great difference for the sake of the world but I know that the morality of life counted sacred and family lived in love and responsibility offers the world a glimpse of something far too rare.

When I am about ready to throw up my hands in complaint, I remember the young families who sit on Sunday morning in the Divine Service, teaching their children the words of the liturgy, holding their hands together when we pray, and raising them up in the Church and in the faith.  Then I remember that the future of the Church and the faith lies with them.  Of course, it is the Lord's work and His power but it is manifested most profoundly not in the extraordinary moments of life but in the ordinary routines of home and church within the lives of the faithful.  It has always been this way -- even when we choose to forget it. . .

Kallistos Ware raises questions and more. . .

The Wheel is a journal of Orthodox Christian thought and culture.   According to its web site, It seeks to articulate the Gospel intelligently and constructively for the 21st Century—a pluralistic era which presents Christianity with new and unique challenges, demanding a creative re-imagination of its social identity and role in public discourse.  I am not personally familiar with this journal or its online activities. . . until now.

Writing in the foreword to the current issue, Met. Kallistos Ware has stirred the pot a bit.  The whole issue is directed toward the subject of sex, gender, orientation, and the Orthodox faith.  While the journal said it initially avoided focusing on the highly charged topic of humans’ existence as sexed and sexual beings, Yet such a question begs to be addressed by all churches.  In the light polling that  suggests members of churches may not hold to the stance of their church's official teaching on such  matters, The Wheel decided to accept the proposal of board member Father Andrew Louth for an issue that would refocus the conversation on gender, sexuality, and sex within the broader context of theological anthropology.  The Wheel notes this is not a topic alien to the Orthodox faithful: a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, for example, found that Orthodox Christians in the United States are not only broadly tolerant of homosexuality but also—despite some clerical pronouncements to the contrary—actually support same-sex marriage rights at a higher rate than the general public.

You can read his foreword for yourself here. . .

All that said, Met. Kallistos Ware has given a qualified endorsement to the issue and its authors as they address these topics -- though not always as many Orthodox would feel comfortable. It would not be unfair to describe Ware's introductory words as somewhat provocative, although they leave us uncertain as to where he actually comes down on the issues themselves.

I have read his foreword a few times and would not exactly say that Met. Kallistos Ware has come out for gay marriage. He certainly does appear to lay groundwork for such but leaves his own position somewhat vague with respect to the articles in the Wheel and the issues raised there. His words are certainly provocative and in respect perhaps unhelpful. Yet he does point to practical issues with which the Church must grapple in her conversation with the world – such things as are the typical fodder for debate as the world charges the Church with at least the appearance of unfairness when heterosexuals may freely choose marriage and homosexuals cannot. In this is also the somewhat confusing ambiguity and injustice in the way some in the Church treat those who say they are struggling to remain chaste but are promiscuous against those who will not be chaste but at least are monogamous (in same sex relationships).

While I am not prepared to address them as he does, these are exactly the issues that must be forcefully and faithfully addressed and I have not exactly heard Orthodoxy do so -- perhaps that is my fault and not Orthodoxy's but I read a bit and have not encountered the Orthodox position as publicly as it should be. Silence is not an answer, so Ware says.

I will say that I do appreciate how he extrapolates doctrine from liturgical rites and have always been intrigued by the second rite for those divorced. None of the rest of us has such a thing (though it would be beneficial even though some would not have the courage to use it). That is something perhaps we should address in order to have a clear position with respect to divorce and remarriage among church members (even multiple divorce and remarriage).

Clearly the whole idea of orientation is a modern challenge that few churches have directly addressed though it is certainly an issue begging for a formal and theological response. The issue of friendship is a timely one in a world so filled with technology that only seems to amplify loneliness, isolate us from each other, and deprive us of such loving relationships. Clearly Ware has baited the trap by suggesting the Church is a voyeur in its interest in what happens in the bedroom and that perhaps no harm is being done behind closed doors.

Ware is always interesting, often skirts the fringes of things, and has not helped the cause to open the doors to the wider GLBTQ+ community here – unless he has stirred Orthodoxy to address the issues with something more than “no” or silence. I am not sure his words have been helpful but it is still something less than an unqualified endorsement of gender, orientation, same sex marriage, and all other forms of sexual behavior practiced by the GLBTQ+. It remains to be seen if he is sitting on the edge of heresy in order to promote orthodoxy or if this is but the beginning of a wholesale surrender to the moment. In any case, I am sure this is not the last word we will hear from our brothers and sisters in Orthodoxy.

Confession of evil begins the good. . .

St. Augustine has taught us that, “The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.” So confession of sins begins what ends with the voice of God speaking absolution through the mouth of the pastor.  So our confession before the world begins with what is wrong, disorderd by sin, and distorted by death and then comes what God has done to forgive sin, restore His order, and bestow life that death cannot still.

The confession of evil is not the end.  But it must be the beginning.  Under the guidance of the Spirit we have been given eyes to see without the glare of the world or self to distort what is seen.  And in this vision we see that all is not well, sin is not a minor problem, and death is not natural.  In this vision we see that we are by the corruption of our nature sinful and unclean.  In this vision we see that death has held us captive against the will of the Father but because of our own rebellious wills.  In this vision we see that there is nothing we can do to repair what is broken or restore what is fallen.  Instead the only thing we can do is confess the evil.  But not only the evil.  We also confess the good that God has done, the mercy He has shown, and the grace in which we stand even now.  The Lord has done all things well and chief among them is what He has done to save and redeem His fallen creation.

The confession of evil admits that our good works cannot balance the evil we have thought, said, and done, and yet we rejoice that God even sees our good works through the great work of Christ and by His mercy rejoices in them.  Though they have no power to redeem us, they do have the power to glorify God and to mark us as those whom He has redeemed.  They also have the power to address our neighbor with the love that we ourselves have received from God.  God may not need them but our neighbors do and it has pleased God to give us this holy calling of love from our baptism.

It is for this we live now -- for the glory of God and for service to neighbor.  We have been created anew in Christ Jesus for good works and it all begins with the humble confession of the evil we have thought, said, and done, and the evils in the world around us that stand in opposition to the eternal good the Father has made known by the Spirit in His Son, Jesus Christ.

In the Presence of. . .

Sermon for Pentecost 3, Proper 5B, preached on Sunday, June 10, 2018, by the Rev. Daniel M. Ulrich.

There are some people you just want to be around; you want to be in their presence.  Professional athletes, musicians, movie stars, politicians; we want to be around these famous people; to be close to their greatness, to bask in their glory, even for just a moment.  This is how it should be with God.  We should want to be in God’s presence, basking in His glory forever.  But because of our sin, we hide from God.  We separate ourselves from His presence.  This is what our first parents did in the Garden of Eden. 

               Adam and Eve just committed the first sin.  They disobeyed the Lord and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  They listened to Satan and his lies.  They gave in to his temptation.  Taking the first bite, their eyes were opened and they saw they were naked.  They felt great shame; they felt guilt.  Thinking it came from their nakedness, they tried to cover it up; but that didn’t work.  Their leafy clothes couldn’t cover their guilt because their nakedness wasn’t the source...their sin was. 

               Hearing God in the Garden, they ran and hid.  They hid like a child who just broke their mother’s favorite vase.  They hid from God the Father, the One who gave them life, the One who wanted them in His presence.  They hid because they were afraid. 

Adam claimed this fear came from their nakedness, but they’d been naked the whole time, so why was it now a source of fear?  It was because in their nakedness they saw their guilt and shame.  They feared the punishment of their disobedience.  Adam remembered God’s word of warning about eating from that tree: “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17).  Adam and Eve realized they couldn’t stand before the holy Lord.  They didn’t deserve to be in His presence.  So...they hid.  And so do we.  We run and hide from the Lord.  We stay away from His presence.  We do this when we stay away from where God promises to meet us in weekly worship where His Word is spoken and His Sacrament given.

               There’s an old joke (although it’s not a funny one) that people give as the reason why they don’t come to church.  They say, “If I crossed the threshold of the church, God would strike me dead.”  In these words you hear an acknowledgement of sin; a realization that it has no place before God.  Sin must be punished with death. 

When we really take the time to look at who we are, we realize we’re sinners deserving this punishment.  There’s no way we can ignore our sin as it’s reflected in the mirror of God’s Law.  We see our great shame and guilt.  We stand naked before this mirror, seeing every ugly sin we’ve committed, seeing all the good we should’ve done but didn’t.  We know we don’t deserve to be in God’s presence.  With great shame and guilt we run and hide, we stay away from God’s house.  We stay away thinking God could never forgive us.  We stay away, not wanting to confess our sin and admit our guilt.  We stay away thinking we have to cover our sin up, making ourselves holy before we come to God.  And this is exactly want Satan wants.  He wants you to stay away. 

We think the devil wants us to sin big, to live a life of anarchy and pure evil.  But that’s not his goal.  What Satan really wants is for you to be separated from God.  He wants you to think your sin is too big for God.  He wants you to hold on to your shame and guilt instead of confessing your sin.  He wants you to believe you have to first become holy yourself.  Satan wants you to run from God and hide.  He wants you to be trapped in your sin, shame, and guilt.  

In the Garden, the devil thought he won.  He thought Adam and Eve were separated from God forever.  But God wouldn’t let this happen.  He wouldn’t let His children be taken from Him, so He promised the Savior who would bring them back.  In God’s curse of the serpent, He spoke the first words of the Gospel, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen 3:15, NIV).  God’s Savior would be stronger than Satan.  He would defeat Satan; He would crush him.  And He’d bring God’s people back into His presence.  This is the very thing we see Jesus doing in the Gospel reading.

               Christ cast out demons.  In fact, the very first miracle of Jesus that Mark records is Christ healing a man with an unclean spirit.  The scribes from Jerusalem however accused Jesus of being the one possessed.  But this can’t be.  Jesus explained saying, “How can Satan cast out Satan?...If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand,” (Mk 3:23, 26).  Christ wasn’t possessed.  What the people witnessed wasn’t Satan fighting Satan.  What the people witnessed was the promised Savior.  When Jesus cast out demons, He was showing that He was the promised seed of the woman.  He was showing He is stronger than Satan, that He came to redeem those enslaved to the devil, enslaved to sin and shame and guilt.  Christ came to redeem you and me, so that we might be in God’s presence forever.

               Christ defeated the devil, He crushed Satan’s head, not with a sword or a hammer, but with His sacrificial death on the cross.  In a great turning of events, the serpent's strike was his defeat.  As Jesus hung naked on the cross, He took your place, dying your death, the just reward for your sin.  The sinless Son of God paid the penalty of your sin.  He traded His life for yours, so that you might be forgiven, so that you might receive His righteousness, the very righteousness that covers the nakedness of your shame and guilt. 

               Christ brings you back to God.  Through His blood He brings you into the nearness of God’s presence.  He brings you into His presence in this very place as He comes to you in His Word and in His Sacraments.  In the waters of Baptism, the unclean spirit of your Old Adam is cast out and the Holy Spirit enters, giving you faith and forgiveness.  In the hearing of Scripture, the Lord proclaims all that He’s done for you.  In the words of Absolution, He takes your guilt and shame away.  And in the Supper, through the eating and drinking of Christ’s body and blood present in the bread and wine, you are brought into the presence of God, participating in a foretaste of the feast to come.  In all of this you receive a glimpse of God’s glory, the very glory that you’ll see in full in the everlasting life He’s given to you.  And this is exactly what God wants. 

Satan wants you separated from God, but God wants you in His presence.  That’s the plan He’s always had for you.  This is why He promised to send His Savior and this is why He fulfilled that promised.  God doesn’t want to be separated from you.  He doesn’t want your sin to keep you from Him.  He doesn’t want you to run and hide in shame.  He doesn’t want you to stay away because of your guilt.  He wants you to come before Him with faith, confessing your sin, receiving His grace, mercy, and forgiveness in Christ.  He wants you in His presence forever.  In Jesus’ name...Amen. 

              

What does the world see. . .

When the world sees churches built to mirror the bland expanse of the shopping mall, the world sees religion as a product marketed according to taste and preference, without truth strong enough to bind the disparate and diverse but weak enough to mirror the existing divisions and choices that mark the people outside the faith.

When the world sees worship that looks like a variety show on TV, the world sees a church that is grounded in the present moment with little to offer the pain and shame of yesterday except a diversion and a church that has no future so it can only glory in the moment with an entertainment designed to distract rather than offer the promise of something more.

When the world hears worship music that sounds like what is on the radio, the world hears the beat and feels the rhythm of the moment, of trend and fad, of user preference, that sounds like today without a connection to those who have gone before and without a bridge to what is to come.  It is music that exists for the individual and for the moment alone.

When the world hears preaching in worship that focuses on the person and on the moment, the world hears a motivational message designed to help the person help themselves to reach their dreams, to accomplish their goals, and to find the success in relationship or business or experience that will be enough to tilt the scales away from death.  It does not hear hope beyond the grave or healing that ill cannot touch or holiness no longer stained by sin.

When the world meets a happy Christian whose God has the job of making and keeping that person happy, the world meets a self-centered person whose God not only approves but serves this person centered in their pursuit of their own wants or dreams.  It does not meet someone who has been born again from this self-serving and self-righteous life and clothed with immortality and with a righteousness strong enough to set the individual free from the imprisonment of ego.

When the world sees a church whose architecture mirrors its horizontal direction, whose worship is absent the mystery of the Divine, whose preaching has forgotten sin and death, cross and empty tomb, whose music taps the foot but fails to address the heart with the living voice of the Word, and whose goal is personal happiness, the world sees a church desperate to find acceptance and approval and Christians who have the same rather pathetic need to be relevant or to be judged relevant by the world around them.  It does not see the heavenly city glimpsed in temples built with hands or the liturgy of the heavenly Jerusalem anticipated in worship and song or the Word that speaks and sinners are born anew in living water and fit for everlasting life.

Nobody in their right mind is suggesting that the doors to the church be closed and no voice or presence venture beyond the safe refuge of the sanctuary but when we open the doors and address the world around us, we had better have something more to offer them than a pale and shallow reflection of their own world complete with all its limitations.  We had better offer something more profound than a voice for social justice that has no moral compass but desire and no cause greater than the moment.  We had better show them in liturgy and song the vision of the future that inhabits the present moment but is not captive to it.  We had better preach a Word that has the power to bestow upon the fallen, the guilty, the shameful, the weak, the dying, and the sinner something more than a pallid acceptance of their brokenness.  We had better wash them with the water of life that kills what is already dead and gives life to that which had only death.  We had better be more concerned with being faithful to Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God whom the Father has sent to save us, than we are trying to be relevant to a world which finds our vain attempts to be cool laughable and pitiable.


The Church has not failed because we were the Church.  The Church, if it is failing, is failing because it is not the Church, its Gospel is not THE Gospel, and its concern is on today without thought or hope or promise for the eternal future that is the heart and core of Christian identity.  So the only option for the Church is not to abandon the world but to recapture our own identity so that we have something to offer the world and this comes only from a renewal born of the Word and Sacraments and the repentance that is the good fruit of the Spirit at work in those means of grace.

The struggle of God's Yes. . .

While most people outside the Church would probably agree that Christianity is a negative religion, it is, in fact, the opposite.  Some may find it hard to get past the changes in sex, gender, family, culture, and society that have required the Church to demur from merely echoing the positions of a world seemingly out of control and disconnected from its own history but that negative is itself a positive.  For the Church is not merely saying "no" but working to preserve a positive and gracious perspective that comes not from the mind of man but from the saving will and purpose of God.

Christianity is a positive religion -- positive about who God is and where all things came from and our place within it all.  While sin is a decided "no", the Lord has not allowed sin to have the final word and therefore neither can the Church.  In response to the broken and contrite heart, God's "yes" of forgiveness intervenes to rescue the lost.  This is not because of some inherent worthiness or nobility within the person but simply and wholeheartedly from the love that was willing to suffer and die to make this "yes" possible. 

The world is caught between a posture of redefining what is sin and what is not and holding the sins of the past against everyone who has trespassed against the holy causes of the modern day.  Consider the #metoo movement and its long reach decades into the past to mark the character of individuals whose accomplishments would have been lauded in another time.  Consider how a so-called Lutheran seminary in Pennsylvania could forgive nearly everything of its new president but her youthful connection to a group that suggested sexual attraction could change.  Consider how a world that insists upon rights for all is so quick to dismiss the rights of the child in the womb.  To suggest that Christianity is negative and the world is positive is to miss the contraction and the lack of redemption the world offers to those who have violated the holy contract of right and wrong (at least for this moment).

In contrast, the Church enters this whole conversation with a word largely forgotten by the world -- absolution.  Sin is recognized the sinner called to repentance not to isolate or eject him but to connect and restore him.  The central arena of Christian truth remains in the context of absolution.  The forgiveness of the unworthy and undeserving is made possible not by the atoning acts of the guilty but of the redemptive love of the innocent Son of God.  So the cause of forgiveness is laid not upon the guilty but upon those who have suffered offense.  The goal is not to cement the wrong and the division that results but to break down the wrong and heal the division with the balm of absolution.  The mandate of the Savior to His Church is to forgive as you have been forgiven, enshrined in the most universal prayer so that it cannot be set aside even in piety. 

The Church is and has been a positive force for the sake of the family, for the cause of children, for the education and training of people so that they are able to provide for themselves, for the causes of the widow and the child when neither had many rights, and for the establishment and maintenance of community in a world that has born the poisoned fruit of individualism (to the extreme).  The Church has been on the forefront of the aged and the orphan, of the sick and mentally ill, and of the cast out and cast offs the world could not tolerate.  While suffering so often with the technology that did not always understand or offer good remedy to the causes of suffering, the Church has identified and prospered not among the elites but among the poor and downtrodden.  The Church has been both patron of the arts and music while at the same time working among those at the lowest level of society and the most vulnerable. 

The current popular perception of Christianity has largely been negative because it has been born of a world in which government exists to do what the Church had done and in the midst of a social justice agenda that has allowed no dissent.  In the face of this, one might expect the Church to stick with the negative.  Yet as the pro-life march has shown, the Church continues to rally for the positive causes of life in a world which views it as a settled issue.  In a world in which the world uses sexuality, gender, climate change, and the like as photo ops for the elite, the Church is still at work in places where suffering allows no luxury and where real oppression silences any challenge.

So don't allow the world to steal the headline and falsely characterize the Church as a negative agency in a religion dominated by God's "no".  We know not this Christianity!  We know the faith that heralds God's "yes" of grace and mercy to a world insistent upon a most intolerant tolerance that treats virtue as a trend defined by the moment.  As a pastor I am most frustrated when our own members have bought into the fake news perspective on Christianity and the Church and fail to see the good work that is done quietly and yet profoundly week after week on behalf of guilty sinners, those living in the shadow of death, the broken and their broken families, and the hopeless who find it hard to trust anyone.  We do not offer simply food or money or the empty promise that we feel your pain.  We are there at work in ways that the world refuses to see reclaiming the world for God's Kingdom through the real power of the means of grace and the fruitful lives of good works that bear witness to this faith.  Your pastors and your congregations and your fellow Christians are all in the army of the Lord conquering for eternity with the power of the love revealed most profoundly in the cross and the glory glimpsed in Him who came not to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.

Update to Yesterday's Story. . .

According to the Philly Inquirer. . . May 30, 2018. . .

United Lutheran Seminary, a theological school with campuses in Philadelphia and Gettysburg, has received a $30 million bequest from an anonymous donor, described by school officials only as a woman who lived in the Midwest and died earlier this year.

The donation — one of the largest in the history of an educational institution affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — will be used to fund a faculty chair and student scholarships starting in the fall of next year.

It was announced May 18 on the school’s website before graduation — the first since Lutheran Theological Seminary in Mount Airy and its counterpart in Gettysburg merged last year after decades of failed attempts.

“This [donation] will have a transformative impact on educational opportunities for future leaders of the church for decades to come,” said the Rev. Angela Zimmann, vice president of institutional advancement for the 325-student United Lutheran Seminary. “We’ve been working to reduce their educational debt and make seminary education accessible to those who feel the call to serve, and this donation will have that impact.”

The bequest was made in memory of the Rev. James Franklin Kelly, a Lutheran minister who graduated from Gettysburg Seminary in 1920, and his wife, Hope Anna Eyster Kelly.  Rev. Kelly died in 1983 at age 89, and his wife died in 1973.  Rev. Kelly served as pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Wilmington from 1926 to 1953. He also led the congregations of Christ Lutheran Church in Erie and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Connersville, Ind., where he moved after he resigned from the Wilmington church.

According to obituaries in several newspapers, the Kellys had one daughter, Gladys Kelly Ellis, who died at age 95 in February. She had battled polio and rheumatic fever as a child and became a nurse as a tribute to the women who had tended to her.  During World War II, she worked at Fort DuPont in Delaware, helping treat prisoners of war. She later married George M. Ellis Jr., a prominent physician in Connersville, and the couple worked together in his office for 40 years. Dr. Ellis died in 2010. The couple had no children.

Zimmann said that she had met with the anonymous donor in December but had no idea that the bequest was $30 million until the benefactor passed away shortly after their visit.  “The executrix called and said, ‘Do you know how much?’ ” Zimmann said. “We were floored.”

School officials also have announced that Richard Green, who served as interim president of Lincoln University for two years ending in 2017, will become interim president of the seminary on June 4. He takes the helm following the departure of Theresa Latini, who was fired from her position as president in March after less than a year on the job.  Latini was dismissed after reports that she had once led an organization that supported reparative therapy practices claiming to turn gay men and women straight. Latini had long ago repudiated the organization and such practices, but did not disclose her affiliation with the group during interviews for the position. She had told the chairperson of the school’s trustee board about the association, but the official did not share the information with the remainder of the governing body until rumors began circulating on campus. Eight board members resigned during the controversy.

Green, a lifelong Lutheran, is a graduate of Concordia College, an ELCA school in Moorhead, Minn. He earned his doctorate from the University of Louisville. He has served as interim provost at both St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and Albany State University in Georgia.  He joins the seminary at a time when school officials are working to merge two schools, faculties, staffs, student populations, and campus cultures. The seminary is also coping with changes in theological education and religious practice and commitment that are remaking faith life.  Zimmann said she expects the $30 million donation will help the school confront those changes.