Putting face to a uniform. . .

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

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

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

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

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

The worship laboratory. . .

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

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

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

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

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

To be judged. . .

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

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

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

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

Niche Marketing. . .

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

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

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

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

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

The reduction no one is paying attention to...

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

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

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

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

 

Social work in the political sphere. . .

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

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

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

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

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

Truth as a construct. . .

Epistemology is that part of philosophy which is concerned with forms of truth.  Epistemology asks: “how do we know that something is true?” In essence, what is truth?  When I was in college, epistemology generally was organized around four ‘classical’ or ‘common’ theories of truth.  Nobody thinks a philosphy class is practical and by nature we presume that this is the domain of academicians and not ordinary folk.  This is not quite the case since it is precisely truth that is at stake in the modern controversies that affect our political, social, and religious lives.

If you wanted a summary of the four theories of truth, it might look like this.

• The correspondence theory of truth — that whatever corresponds to observable reality is true.
• The coherence theory of truth —  that claims are true if they follow logically and coherently from a set of axioms (or intermediate propositions).
• The consensus theory of truth — that what is true is what everyone agrees to be true.
• The pragmatic theory of truth — that what is true is what is useful to you, or beneficial for you.

In modern thinking, truth is not something that exists apart from our judgment or agreement.  In fact, truth is a construct.  Truth is really what we make up for ourselves to explain things around us.  Truth is therefore not universal at all but subjective and personal.  Truth is what I say it is.

When truth is subjective to the individual or when it depends upon the agreement of people, truth is no longer foundational but marginal.  Truth changes and everything else changes.  Everything else changes and truth changes.  We all say this during the pandemic.  What some labeled misinformation turned out to be truth and what was promoted as truth and science turned out to be misinformation.  Science attempts to live largely within the first to theories of truth while politics and society live within the latter two theories.  So where does religion live?

Christianity does not claim to be a truth but insists it is the truth -- the objective truth that does not change no matter if people do not believe it or society as a whole does not hold to it.  The problem is that we live in a culture in which this kind of objective truth no longer exists and the only truths that do are the ones we all agree upon or the ones we find individually helpful.  Because truth is a construct, there is no absolute truth at all and certainly no religious absolute truths -- no matter what Scripture says.  All of this has become possible and even largely accepted by many Christians because we have presumed a difference and distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of the Bible.  When this became somewhat normal or usual, the ability to know something definitively was lost.  

As a culture we are suffering the fact that we no longer are bound by any truth -- not a religious truth nor a scientific truth.  We have not truth left but the ones we agree to hold and the ones individuals may find beneficial (but only subjectively and if they tolerate conflicting truths others find beneficial).  The roots of our political conflict as well as the fruits of the decline of Christianity as the truth lie in the fact that there is no objective truth anymore and we cannot solve any problems as long as truth itself depends upon acceptance by a larger group or what the individual finds privately beneficial.  In the end, the political disagreements are less about policy than about truth and the religious disagreement between orthodox Christianity and what passes for Christianity today is less about doctrines than about the nature of truth itself.

 

The Culture of Rights. . .

One of the most profound signs of sin's presence in the heart of a child is how quickly the child learns that word mine.  It is probably not learned but always there, waiting to reveal itself as soon as the first occasion comes along when something the child wants and has claimed is taken by another.  On the other hand, the whole idea of sharing and especially of sacrificing your wants for the sake of another must be taught.  It is not natural at all.

I have often said that adults are extra large sized children.  It is not far off from the truth.  We have not outgrown our childish desires nor have we erased the want from our hearts that still says mine to the things we want.  One extension of that childish selfishness is all the talk of rights -- rights that predominate every discussion of politics, society, commerce, and even religion.  In fact, the whole conversation of rights has stifled so many other conversations so much more profound, necessary, and beneficial to us as a people and a nation.  Sadly, it does not seem to be diminishing at all.

The perspective of my right automatically sets the individual against the wider community as competitors and even enemies.  The privilege of individualism has become radical and the nature of personal autonomy has become victimhood in search of someone to blame and someone from whom to extract damages.  How tragic that we seem paralyzed by this insistence of rights that belong to or are owe to or damages deserved by those who rights were infringed upon!  I am not at all saying we should be immune from the infringement of abuse upon the powerless or justify oppression.  What I am saying is that this has become the only way we talk about our life together and even our faith.  No society and no religion can be sustained when the conversation is premised upon what is my right.  It is the poison that divides and distorts and will destroy that society and that church.

The order of God's redemption is characterized by the sacrifice of right.  Jesus who has the authority of God lays aside what is His right to become the servant of all.  The fruits of His redemptive work are displayed in a people who take up not their right but the cross, denying themselves and following Him in love, service, and sacrifice.  They do this not because it adds to or accomplishes their own salvation and therefore benefits them personally but solely because Christ did this for them.  Love one another as I have loved you. The whole nature of religion is not to demand but to rejoice in what is given to us as the unworthy and undeserving who nonetheless have received grace upon grace.  Yet the Church has learned the bad example of this childish selfishness and now we automatically think of rights in nearly every decision.  Rights predominate the rationale for who should be ordained, who should be married, who should have or not have children, and even the most sacred character of life itself.  Jesus is remarkably silent upon the idea of rights and yet we in the Church seem powerless to listen to Him instead of the culture around us.

Our national government and even more local expressions of governing authority are increasingly being used to act as the arbiters of what should belong to whom, not simply redistributing wealth but assigning privilege based not on merit or common good but the claim of the individual.  The government spends more of its income in wealth redistribution than almost any other developed nation and yet the lie of the privileged class that pays no taxes and receives all the benefits continues simply because fact cannot undo the idea of a right that is owed.  Again, I am not at all saying that the poor should be overlooked or the cause of those oppressed ignored but that the politics of and a government based upon class distinction or warfare cannot be sustained and will destroy itself.

I suspect that the culture of violence in our land is fueled more by this idea of what is owed to the individual than even by the plethora of guns around us.  It is the idea of right that makes us suspicious of one another and has turned our lives into the pursuit of safety behind the fortress of what is owed to us.  As soon as “rights” replace responsibility in the conversation of a culture and society, we are left with a competition to the death over who gets what.  The fight for survival is always brutal and this is what our lives have become -- hard, unwavering, and unrelenting in their pursuit of what we think is our right -- based on sex, gender, ethnicity, and immigration status.  This is not the republic that was founded in America but a chaos of moral uncertainty and the surrender of reason to desire.  Liberty is what generations died for and not the freedom to do as we please no matter how we couch our present state of affairs into the eloquent language of our founding documents.   Liberty means to be free from oppressive restrictions or control imposed by [especially governmental] authority upon our way of life, behavior, or political views.  Freedom is the right and therefore power to think, speak, and do what I want no matter how others think, speak, or act.  The only constraint on freedom used to be how it affected others (can't yell fire in a crowded theater).  Now the direction of our culture and therefore our government has also placed restrictions on those who oppose that direction -- a selective freedom.

Sadly, the Church has learned this kind of vocabulary and has begun to apply it in ways that will ultimately overshadow the very Gospel itself.  Just as the culture of rights will be our undoing as a nation and society, so it will be the end of the Church.  What Satan cannot do to us, we will ultimately do to ourselves.

Dying to live. . .

We seem to remember too well the part about those who have died in Christ rising in Him but we have skipped over too easily the part about dying.  Our preoccupation with how we live in defining us as saints is not simply tragedy but a destructive omission.  The saints are those who have died in Christ.  This baptismal language is meant to remind us not what we ought to do but what has been done to us and for us when we drowned in the baptismal flood.  The saints are those who died.  There is no life apart from that which is born of our connection to Christ's death.  But this dying in baptism has profound consequences for who we are and how we live.  

Live free or die is a great slogan for a state in the time of the American Revolution but it has become for us the idea that living means the freedom to live as you please and do as you please without even the Law able to question or constrain or guide your choices.  How odd this is!  Jesus insists that the shape of our baptismal life is not life but death -- denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following Him and not your own ways or will.  This is the great mystery.  He was born to die and we are born again also to die.  This has become the forgotten fact of a Christianity in pursuit of pleasure, self-expression, and self-interest.  

The saints are those who died in Christ and who continue to die every day.   "For Your sake we are being put to death all day long," says St. Paul in Romans.  And to the Corinthians:  "For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh."  Then there is the letter to the Galatians:  "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."  I could go on.  Self-denial is not an option but the way we live out our baptismal new life.  It is marked by dying over and over again.  Even marriage is thus defined -- husbands who die for the wives and children daily and wives and children who learn from him also to die to self.

It seems that we talk too much today about our freedom and not enough about the self-control that reigns in what we think, speak, or do.  It is not about sex but about everything.  I used to have a joke that said everyone has a right to MY opinion.  I laughed when I read it but self-expression has become something bigger than it was intended to be without any constraint of goodness or morality.  Social media is corrupted by unrestrained self-expression.  No, the government is not equipped to be the power over this but we ought to be a power to ourselves -- especially Christians!  I love how one of my favorite hymns sings keep me from saying words that later need recalling.  It is a little death.  Stifling the need to speak.  The saints are those whose lives are marked by many little deaths precisely because they have died in Christ and live in Him.  I only wish we talked about this more.

An All Souls thought. . .

On what was once known as All Souls' Day, it might be worth a moment to reflect a bit on the nature of the cause of life and the collateral damage that raises questions about how we use our technology.  Even Donald Trump has jumped on the bandwagon in support of IVF.  He says he intends to make it free for all who want to use it.  I know it could be a campaign promise he does not intend to keep but I will take him at his word.  We already know that Kamala Harris is onboard for any additional spending for any purpose except restricting abortion in any way so I think I am safe in presuming she will match his rhetoric here as she has done on the issue of taxing tips.  My question is how beneficial this is -- indeed, how beneficial it all is.  In other words, at what cost is each life through IVF?  From the sons of Bethlehem whom Herod slew to these martyrs who suffer because we also have allowed no value to life, the crosses of our cemeteries represent only one small glimpse of the many who have died because we esteemed the dream and our ability more than the thing itself -- life is precious!

For all the talk about the promise of reproductive technology, the soft underbelly of the success is that for every child conceived, many more are aborted.  Whether they are aborted immediately in favor of those deemed more viable, shipped off to the freezer to be forgotten or lost, or aborted in the womb after implantation because the client desires only one baby, the end result of each "success" is death many times over.  The marketers have done a great job of focusing on the dream of a baby and hidden the dark secret of the collateral damage to provide that one life.  This is, after all, not an accidental cost but an essential one, one well known before the first steps of the procedures are begun.  It is costly in dollars and it preys on the vulnerable who have tried everything to conceive naturally and are unable as well as those who treat the child as a purchase and a plaything owed to them.  There is little in the process or the many stages of the procedures to detail to the people involved what will actually happen to the fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses that are not used, needed, or wanted.  They are, as it were, byproducts of IVF and nothing more than medical waste.  Is this what we have become as a society, nation, and people?  Have we become so callous to the cost of our "dream" that we will allow any cost to the sanctity of life in order to achieve that "dream"?

On All Souls' Day we do not only celebrate the faithful without name and of great number who have lived and died rather anonymously in the Lord (except to Him, of course).  No, we also celebrate the great mystery that is God's gift of life -- from the breath breathed into the dust in the hand of God in creation to the breath of life still breathed into the fertilized egg so that everything that child will be is already there from the first moment of that child's existence as a mere fertilized egg.  Life is not a puzzle to be unraveled nor is it a problem to be solved.  It is a mystery and a gift to which each of us are called to preserve, protect, nurture, and nourish to this mortal life and to everlasting life through our Lord Jesus Christ.  

Alexander Schmemann speaks of this:  “Every entrance of a new human being into the world and life is a miracle of miracles, a miracle that explodes all routine, for it marks the start of something unending, the start of a unique, unrepeatable human life, the beginning of a new person. And with each birth the world is itself in some sense created anew and given as a gift to this new human being to be his life, his path, his creation.”

I fear that what is missing most is precisely this sense of wonder, the awe before the miracle, the reverence before the mystery, and the faithful stewardship that cares for what God continues to give even to His fallen creation.  While Christianity certainly heightens this sense of wonder, awe, reverence, and care, no particular religion is required to look at the nature of life and conclude that this life is not a plaything or a problem but a gift, heritage, and blessing.  Until we learn this, we will have foolish talk from left and right that seems intent upon being the highest bidder in a high stakes game of chance with the very thing we cannot afford to take chances with!  

Its getting more and more personal. . .

All Saints' Day has always been somewhat emotional.  Even when the names read off and the bell tolled for strangers it is a poignant moment.  Now that I have been at this place more than 31 years, it is even more touching.  The names read off each year are not the names of strangers but friends and family within the Body of Christ.  I knew them, laughed with them, cried with them, and buried them.  I look at their families still in the pews and remember where they all sat week after week.  With each passing year, I know now more profoundly the meaning of the Psalmist's words, Precious in the Lord's sight is the death of His saints...  It is also made even more significant now that I am the oldest generation of my family and have laid to rest grandparents, parents, in-laws, aunts, and uncles.  The Lord is telling us that we are not just names to Him nor were those whom we loved and with whom we shared the faith.  God knows us all better than we know ourselves and He is moved by the sorrow of death so much that He sent His only-begotten Son to restore us to Him and to the life death cannot overcome.

I fear we spend too little time remembering the saints, giving thanks to God for His mercies toward them, encouraged by the witness of their faith in suffering, and urged on to finish the race so that we may be with them in eternity.  Thanks be to God that He was not content to merely remember their lives and celebrate this memory.  Thanks be to God that He was not content to make His peace with death but took on our enemy as His so that we might be free.  Death is a solemn moment even for the Christian who knows that death is not the end.  It is the gate or door through which we pass with Christ to our own joyful resurrection but death always leaves sorrow, pain, and emptiness in its wake.  For this reason St. Paul urges us not to grieve like those ignorant of the hope within us but recognizes that we still grieve.  Indeed, unresolved grief is one of the most enduring and torturous disorders we suffer in this mortal life.

All Saints' Day is with us once a year but it is glimpsed in every Divine Service.  When we get to the Sanctus, we do not stand there alone to sing.  We are bidden by the Proper Preface every week to join with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven.  Hidden in that moment is the promise of what will come when on that day the Father has appointed Christ will come not as baby to a manger but as he victorious Lord to judge the earth and to receive unto Himself all who have died.  He will reach into the dust of the earth, raise up the dead in Christ to new and glorious flesh and with the judgment well done, good and faithful servant He will receive us into everlasting life.  Easter is surely the celebration of this promise but no less All Saints' Day.

There comes the day when you realize that there are more days behind you than before you.  No day in this mortal life is certain but as age brings you closer to the end that waits for all people, the moment we have to remember, give thanks, be encouraged, and be consoled by those who have departed this life in faith is a precious one.  Happy All Saints!

Don't blame the Reformation. . .

As we pause to remember the Reformation, we cannot do so without also confronting some of the myths about that Reformation.  Chief among them is the whole idea that Lutherans are Protestants.  While there was a brief period in which that term could have applied to Lutherans, no Lutheran should feel comfortable under that banner today.  Part of this discomfort lies in the way the autonomous individual has become the hallmark of Protestant thinking and identity and how this has been absorbed by politics and social and individual thinking outside religion.

One of the sad byproducts of the Reformation was succumbing to the temptation to define humanity by the intellect and the will and to presume that the Gospel was primarily motivation or inspiration needed so that people could understand themselves and the world in which they live and make better choices (especially when it comes to behavior).  Perhaps the die was cast when Erasmus issued forth upon the freedom of the will and Luther responded with the bondage of the same.  In any case, religious information has become the sacrament of conversion and improvement in human behavior.  The world around us has certainly jumped on that band wagon though with sad results. 

The reduction of life to information and choice is a corruption of the Scriptures and of catholic tradition but it is also a destructive foundation that cannot and will not support our lives as individuals or our lives together as a family, community, and nation.  Upon emigrating to America, C. F. W. Walther once complained that American churches had become lecture halls and worship and faith all about information and morality.  He saw Lutheranism as anything but this kind of church or theology.  But the criticism is easier than mending the whole idea that it all boils down to matters of intellect or will.

You have seen how quickly this idea has spread.  The volumes written to systematize and organize Christian theology have resulted in one that is certainly less Biblical but it is also not authentic nor does it bear witness to the Word made flesh.  Most of these volumes are an attempt not to teach what Scripture says but to impart understanding and knowledge that is largely an appeal to the mind and the rationale for this is to improve decision making.  Gone is any real sense of beauty or mystery and present in worship as well as theology is the decision to make things black and white.  Even where this is absent today, the spirituality is without foundation in Scripture except for an occasional proof text that functions like the meme in social media to illustrate rather than encounter the living voice of God.

Those who design churches have taken this to heart, emphasizing the horizontal over the vertical and turning altars into tables whose scale and position are not allowed to detract from the pulpit.  Even the modern churches with their Lucite podiums want people to know that the one speaking is the center of attention.  The sacraments are also rans in the whole idea of how we go to God and absent from it all is the very idea that God has come to us.  Success in churches is measured not by fidelity but by numbers and especially by likes and consumer ratings.  Christianity then quickly morphed into a media of religious morality (information+decision) with the only real debate as to which morality is better than others.  The poverty of Protestantism is that there is no Biblical ethic that cannot and will not be surrendered to the supremacy of the individual and no judgment valued except happiness and self-fulfillment and self-expression. This is now so commonplace that many conservative Christians and Lutherans are surprised that this is not how it has always been.

Christians became consumers and worshipers became an audience and truth became whatever you would summarize or consolidate in a few clear words.  It is no wonder that Biblical illiteracy is greater now than ever.  We do not want to hear God's voice.  We want to hear our own.  It is here that the Lutheran Reformation lives.  Luther was not appealing to an individual conscience but the common conscience of God's revealed truth.  His interest in education was tied to his desire to see people hear in Scripture the voice of God acting and doing what He has said.  The Church in Luther was not some community of like minded thinkers but the place where the Word spoke, a voice absolved, water gave new birth, and bread and wine tasted of the body and blood of Jesus.  The driving force here was not the individual or information or a choice but the Spirit calling, gathering, enlightening, and sanctifying.  This is a profoundly mystical understanding of what for most has become a decidedly banal and ordinary definition of and character to the Church. 

On this Reformation Day it would be good for us to remember that what Protestantism has become is an even greater danger to the Christian faith and life than the errors and abuses of medieval Roman Catholicism.  When he rode into town like a knight to restrain the extremists who thought they knew him, Luther did not but maybe should have foreseen what this would look like down the road.  If he had, he might have had a chance to make it clearer that this was not the Reformation he had envisioned.  In any case, the worst of Lutheranism and the whole of Protestantism have little to do with Luther and the Great Reformation and everything to do with the pursuit of ideas that cannot be supported by Scripture or found in the catholic tradition.  Until we learn this, the celebration of Reformation Day might be best surrendered to the forces of Halloween.  As the Reformation was in search of an anchor stronger than popes or councils, today it is in search of an anchor stronger than the preferences and desires of the individual.  Because of that I literally wince when someone defines Lutherans as Protestants.

Don't Google It. . .

One of the byproducts of our digital age so fixated on technology is that we have become dependent upon this resource and cannot function without it.  Math has become less the answer to the problem or even the formula to get it but the tool that gives us the answer without bothering for us to think at all.  We trust the digital tools in part because we do not know any better.  We do not know if the calculator is correct or not because we have nothing to compare its answer to.  The same is true for a host of facts and information memorized in the past but now we rely on Google and soon AI.  Technology has gotten smarter but we have become more ignorant in the process.  We have all watched someone at a register paralyzed when we changed the cash we gave them after he had already punched it into the machine and been told what change to give.  There was a day, believe it or not, when a good mechanic could diagnose what was wrong with your vehicle by listening to it.  Now a computer will tell him what to do and he has become the technician instead of the master.  The same is true of medicine where technology wins out over experience, intuition, and education everyday (not to mention the arcane rules of payment!).

Are we better for it?  Some say yes.  The self scanner at the supermarket is better than a real person, right?  The AI chat or phone queue is better than a real person, right?  Is it better for us to know where to go for our information rather than to know it ourselves?  Is it better for us to cede to technology what we once knew and could do for ourselves?  The mighty Musk tells us we will all be better off when AI takes over our jobs and lives and we do nothing.  Will we be better ff?  When the day comes and I hang up my hat I will walk out the door with 32 years of institutional memory.  People think I am concerned about giving up power or control but I seem to be almost alone in worrying about the loss of this institutional memory.  Just Google it, right?  When my wife retired at the height of her knowledge and expertise as a nurse, her employer saw her as a budget line.  Is that all she was?

Sadly this whole thing has had a profound effect upon the Church.  Our people do not know Scripture, do not memorize the Catechism, do not know their hymns, do not recall great prayers or collects, and do not seem to think this is a problem.  We live in a Google age in which we do not need to know anymore than where to go.  AI pastors already dispense spiritual counsel over the internet.  Why bother with flesh and blood?  The lesson of Covid to some is that we do not need the Church or to be in worship or to have a pastor.  We have the world wide web.  Is this advancing the cause of Christ in the home or in the Church or in the world?  Does it glorify God that we know Him more by caricature than His Word?  More by what we imagine Him to be than what He has said?  Does this have consequences for us as people and as a Church?  We live in an age of Biblical illiteracy which affects us more than we know and not for our good.  Without our knowledge of His Word and our ability to discern truth from error based on that Word we are now more than ever vulnerable to that error, to the devil's taunts, to the world's temptations, and to our own weaknesses.

 

The word sin taught us. . .

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder -- or so sin has taught us.  We do not know what beauty is.  We must be taught and it must be revealed to us.  That does not keep us from thinking we know what beauty is and, more importantly, how to distinguish it from its opposite.  How arrogant we are!

The Lord created all things in beauty.  He was not shy in telling us this.  After calling from nothing the something of His creation He did not shrink from telling us it was good.  In fact, even the foreknowledge of what we would do with His creation and with our selves did not keep Him from glowing over the man He had made.  He was very good!  All of that came to a crashing halt when our first parents chose their way over His way and sought to become an equal to their Creator.  Then what we had only known as beauty was challenged by and a shadow cast over it by ugliness.  Sin is the source of ugliness but we have trouble convincing ourselves that such is the case.

Sex which was created in beauty became ugly with lust driving it instead of love and pleasure its object instead of a child.  We took what God had made so wonderfully and made it into something that shamed Adam and Eve even without the benefit of internet porn or a hook up culture or consensual desires that have no bounds but what you choose.   The shape of gender which obviously reflected man's need for woman and her need for him was too beautiful to be left without challenge and we took this holy order and rent it asunder with divorce and adultery and genders invented to glorify the power of desire most of all.  Creation itself was raped and pillaged until mountains collapsed under the might of our power and valleys rose up just because we were sure we could do better.  Life was built with a purpose for work that helped to define us as well as provide for us until we decided work was evil and leisure was good.  Now the most prized inventions of our technology are those that replace work and allow us the freedom and resources to pursue our childish desires with reckless abandon.  We have taken what God created in holiness and beauty and turned it into something cheap and ugly that even disappoints us.

The most grievous sin of entertainment worship and the churches which are temples of "me" is not that it all offends God but it perpetuates the image of ugliness that we mistake for beauty and good.  The worst consequence of our libertine sexuality and our application of choice to gender is not what it does to morality but what this immorality does to us.  It makes cheap what God has valued with the priceless blood of His Son and it makes common His nobility placed on us in His image.  What were once facts are not ideas or preferences.  What was once clear through our vision of God has become muddied and opaque under the guise of freedom and a culture of rights.  When we as the Church ceased to look to the Word of God to find rescue and release, we did not stop looking.  Instead we looked past God and into the mirror of ourselves, our wants, and our desires.  We drank so deeply from this poison in our glass that we ended up blind and broken -- something obvious to everyone but ourselves!  Seeing we did not see anymore as beauty gave way to ugliness. Sin took so much from us and the only thing sin left to us was our strong will to be who we want and to do what feels good now.

The liturgy beckons as the voice of God to surrender the ugliness of sin and its desire and begin to learn beauty.  The house of God dare not be like the living rooms in which we plan and carry out our sinful desires.  It must be something holy and sacred --- not simply because of its noble function and purpose but because beauty is God's gift and blessing.  Where Christ is, there is the challenge to all the ugliness we can invent and only where Christ is their hope beyond the mess we cannot clean up.  Churches would do well to think in terms of beauty -- beauty which contrasts with the bare walls that have become mere screens to the gods of technology where we film ourselves because we love that subject best of all.  This beauty is not for the sake itself but for the sake of us for whom our beautiful Savior came. 

Slogans are not faith. . .

Sermon for Reformation Day Observed, preached on Sunday, October 27, 2024.

Slogans are great for advertising.  Everyone of us knows that America runs on Dunkin or Eat More Chikin or We have the meats or I’m loving it or better ingredients, better pizza.  But a slogan cannot make up for what is missing – good food.  Slogans can pique your curiosity and bring you in the door once but they cannot keep you coming back.  The same is true for church slogans.  A slogan cannot replace the truth.

We Lutherans are good at slogans.  We have the solas – sola Scriptura, sola gratia, sola fidei.  We have Law and Gospel.  We have Word and Sacrament.  We have means of grace.  We were once known as the Church of the Lutheran Hour.  But slogans cannot make up for unfaithful doctrine or unfocused preaching or music that feels good but says nothing of Christ and His work.  In order to have a reason for coming back, we need something more than a catchy slogan.  We need the truth that endures forever.

In the Gospel today is a phrase that has become a slogan.  The truth will set you free.  We all know how that slogan has been used and misused by every group or cause looking for a snappy phrase.  Jesus does not give us a slogan.  We should not be content with a slogan. Jesus gives us Himself and we should not be content with anything less.  His words are truth you can take to the bank.

St. John says that Jesus spoke these words to the Jews who had believed in Him.  These were not Christians who had believed but had stopped believing.  Nor were they Christians who believed so profoundly that they had no doubts or fears or worries any longer.  These were a people who believed but whose faith was constantly challenged, whose hearts were troubled by things that did not seem right, whose minds were anxious over things that did not make sense.  Their faith was young and therefore their faith was in danger.  Jesus does not speak to condemn them or even to tell them not to worry.  Jesus loves them and He addresses them so that their faith might be strong, they might be strengthened in Him, and brought by His grace to everlasting life.

Jesus is not talking to an arrogant crowd of people who denied the obvious.  He is not talking to people who reject the truth for the lie of their history as they remembered it.  It is not about if they had ever been slaves or not or who were the legitimate sons of Abraham.  It was about people just like you and me who live for the high moments when faith seems easy and life in Christ a snap.  People like you and me who dread the valleys of the shadow and the struggles that make Christian life hard.  Jesus is warning them and warning us.  You will fall away unless you remain rooted and planted in Him.  Only those who abide in Him and in His Word will remain His disciples.  The rest will wither and die and fall away at the first sign of trouble.

Faith is hard enough in Christ.  Apart from Christ it is impossible.  This is as true today as when Christ addressed a crowd that had become disillusioned by all His talk of the cross and His description of their lives of faith bearing their cross and following Him.  It is the same as when Luther woke up to find the Church had remembered everything except the truth of sins forgiven, life restored, and salvation freely bestowed in Christ.  It is the same as when you turn on the news or get the bad news from the doctor or struggle to make the financial ends meet or keep your marriage and family together.  Bette Davis once said that old age is not for sissies.  Faith is not for sissies either.  It is hard and we endure not because we are strong or mighty or right – no we endure only because we abide in Christ.

We have two temptations.  Either we think we are mighty oaks who will always survive the storms of life or we fear we are little saplings vulnerable to the slightest breeze. We are neither.  We are the planting of the Lord and He has promised that we will endure.  But we will only endure as long as we are rooted and planted in Christ and His Word.  We are not as weak as we think for in Christ we are the strongest of the strong – not even death can steal from us the life our Lord has planed in us by baptism.  Nor are we strong apart from Christ.  Faith without anchor in Christ and the nourishment of His Word and Sacraments will die.  Faith in Christ is anchored in the eternal love that once in time suffered and die for our salvation and His refreshment turns the weak into the mighty.

Everything depends upon Christ and His Word.  Slogans will not save us, nor will bravado.  Our enemies cannot steal us from His grasp nor keep from us the gifts of God appointed for us in Christ -- so as long as we abide in Him and in His Word.  Our kinship with Abraham is not a matter of DNA but of faith – faith that trusted in aged bodies to give birth to the son of promise.  Faith is what saves us -- faith in Christ alone.  In order for faith to live in us, the Word and Spirit must give it birth.  In order for faith to endure, we need to be connected to Christ through His Word and Sacraments, living close to Him where He is.

These are good words for youth ready to confess their faith and make an adult sized promise to remain in this faith and church as long as they live.  These are good words for Lutherans tempted to make a deity out of their heritage instead of heeding the example of the faithful in trusting Christ alone.  These are good words for a people who believe but who find believing hard and the Christian life an obstacle course.  Abide in Christ.  That is no slogan.  That is the font that washes clean the sinner, the absolution that lifts sin's burden of guilt and shame, the Gospel Word that speaks the Good Shepherd's voice, and the altar that feeds the sinner upon Christ’s flesh and blood.

God is warning us.  It is possible to fall away, to lose your way, and to substitute the legacy of a past for the living hope of the present.  If we live by slogans we shall surely die by them.  But if we are anchored in Christ through His Word, we shall abide in Him to everlasting life.

The Reformation insisted that the cross where Christ paid the price of our redemption could not be just one of the many things we believe and confess, it is THE thing on which the Church and every Christian stands or falls.  The reformers were calling us and every Christian to dig deep into the soil of God’s Word or risk being plucked from the faithful by the cares and distractions of this mortal life.  When we insist to those being confirmed today that they must worship and read God’s Word and commune we are not putting a rule upon their shoulders but teaching them how they will abide in Christ and where Christ has made Himself accessible and available to them and for them.  When we come with our faith in tatters because it is hard to be faithful in a faithless world, the Lord points us to the victory won upon the cross, sets us free from the prison of our worries and fears, and walks us to everlasting life.

Faith is not decision made once but daily and weekly living near the Word of God and nourished by the body and blood of Jesus from this altar.  It is nothing to know Jesus for a moment unless that knowledge endures and leads to everlasting life.  For this to happen, we need to abide in Christ.  Our call to God to save us is also a call to be daily and weekly kept by the power of His Word preached and the power of His body and blood to impart eternal life to us.  The Church, baptism, and faith are not accidents but God at work deliberately clothing us with Christ so that we may be in Christ and be kept in Christ to life eversting.  Intentions and slogans will always fail us but Christ will not.  Abide in Christ and you will endure as His children forevermore.  That is the message once spoken to Jews who believed in Jesus and that is the Gospel we hear today.  Those who abide in Christ shall live forever.  Amen

Leave me alone. . .

There seems to be a rather profound political division in America between those who think the government and our leaders are doing too much and those who think they are not doing enough.  It is a rather classic controversy between those who want to be left alone and those who insist upon being being noticed.  I am not sure how it falls along party line but I think it is pretty obvious that the folks who do not want an interventionist government are more on the Republican and Trump side than Democrat and Harris side.  Although it is a great divide of distrust, it is also a philosophical difference.

We all have people we do not trust in America.  As is rather obvious, I do not trust the experts whose expertise is driven by ideology nor do I trust the educational elite or the media elite or the entertainment elite or the big pharma/corporate medicine cartel.  Although I have not trusted them for a long time, after the pandemic I trust them even less.  I do not understand how thinking people could be corralled so easily by their fears to believe in masks, social distancing, or a vaccine that does not quite prevent what it was invented to prevent.  I do not impose my choices on others in this regard and you are perfectly free to disagree with me, thank God!  But I do not want to have the choices of others imposed upon me either.  And I refuse to grant that because someone makes gazillions in Hollywood or reads the news from a teleprompter or confuses ideology with education that person has a better opinion than mine.  Taylor Swift is free to vote for whom she chooses but we are all fools if we are influenced by her choice.  The same is true on every side for every political color or candidate.  Truth should not be red or blue.

Others do not trust industries or corporations, real estate tycoons or those who wear the uniform of a soldier or police, or those who hold to values we all once held a generation or so ago.  I get it.  The old establishment of politics, government, the ruling class, and such have let you down.  You do not understand why we would not use force to accomplish the good the people are not choosing for themselves.  For you society is not changing fast enough and you have had it up to your eyeballs with those who put a monkey wrench in the work of transforming America by executive order and governmental rules.  You are free to have your opinion.  But again, truth should not be red or blue.  Without truth in common, we are only our divisions and without a moral compass shared we are all over the page in our recognition of what ought to be done in the name of America.

What I do say is this.  America was founded as a place where the government was not our conscience or our God, where a minimal government was preferred over one that constrained too much of our freedom, and as a place where we all have a right to be left alone as long as we are not directly harming someone else.  I think the truth is that those on both sides are voting more against each other than for the standard bearer of their cause.  Harris may not be the spawn of Satan but neither is she the Messiah.  Trump may be an egotistic sleazeball but he is not the end of the world.  One candidate has made it clear that Christians may not be welcome nor will the freedom inherent in our land protect them from the grip of the government while the other wraps himself up in the fabric of religion in ways that are bound to make orthodox Christians uneasy.  In the end, however, I am more for the one who will leave me alone than I am for the one who promises to remake America and right all our wrongs in the name of progress.  Sure as shootin, progress will come at a cost and it may well be the liberty that protects my right to worship without fear or threat from the government.  If I need improving (and I surely do), the Holy Spirit is the agent to do it and not the government.  Of all the rights so valuable to us in this blessed nation, none is as valuable as the right to be left alone.  It is this that moves my heart more than political promise or fear.

Is the Reformation still relevant?

In case you were wondering if the Reformation was still relevant, here is one reason why it is:

I guess the Pope did not read where Jesus said He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life -- the only way to the Father in heaven.  In any case, despite his age, Pope Frank is pretty much in sync with the times and those who actually do agree with him.

If there was even a cause or reason for Lutheranism to remain vibrant and vital, it is in the strange and unChristian wonderings of this occupant of the throne of St. Peter.

To all my Roman Catholic friends:  This people is worse than an embarrassment.  He is a scandal to the faith and does more harm than good every time he opens his mouth.
 

It's embarrassing. . .

One of the reasons people sometimes give for not going to private confession is that it is embarrassing to say out loud your sins.  Guess what.  It IS embarrassing.  It is surely embarrassing to confess your private sins with someone else listening.  We have tried very hard to presume that sins are not that much of a problem and that sin is nobody's business but yours.  But it is still embarrassing.  That is not the worst of it, however.  The embarrassment lasts for a moment but the consequence of sin is eternal.  It is not the embarrassment that required Christ to become incarnate for nor is it the embarrassment for which He died.  Sin is a  much bigger problem than a little embarrassment.  You need to get your head wrapped around that. 

Pastors are seldom embarrassed by your sins (we have heard it all before and we have our own sins to confess).  Pastors are impressed with the courage of those who own their sins and name them before the pastor.  It demonstrates a deep and profound faith.  It means that you get that the problem with sin is far bigger than the embarrassment.  It means you know that sin is not some mere inconvenience to us but literally is the reason for death.  If you are afraid your pastor might be embarrassed by what you confess before him, you are letting a little thing get in the way of a big thing -- the comfort and consolation of absolution.

No, Lutherans do not have to go to confession.  We do not have to eat foods we enjoy or go places either.  But we do.  Confession is valuable because Christ is there forgiving the sins that we have trouble forgiving and leaving at the foot of the cross.  Confession is for all ages, too.  You are not too young to confess your sins and you are not too old.  Try it out.  Give it a chance.  Do not be stymied by the feelings of guilt or shame or embarrassment and skip something that is a real and blessed gift from God.  Confession is not something to admire but the most practical of blessings for our everyday life.  Yes, we confess our sins on Sunday morning but there the confession is sufficiently general as to make it easy not to name the sins that trouble our consciences.  In private confession we get to confess precisely those sins and the pastor pronounces clear and personal absolution.  And unlike a general absolution, the pastor speaks your name and applies the forgiveness to that particular sin.  

If embarrassment is the big impediment keeping you from the grace of this sacramental act, get over it.  Embarrassment is not the big problem with sin.  Besides, half the sins people are embarrassed about get broadcast over social media anyway.  Why would we be embarrassed about them within the context of private confession before the pastor when we seem unfazed by them on social media?  The problem with sin is not that it is secret but that its effects affect are not.  Honestly, if you have been thinking about trying private confession, why not go to your pastor and set up an appointment now.  He will be duly impressed with the seriousness of your faith and you will walk away with a new understanding of how grace works.  It is a blessing just waiting for YOU.

What he does. . .

Those of you who know me know that I hate to be political especially in an election year.  That said, there is something worth our attention as we consider people both in secular office and in the life of the Church.  It is the difference, perhaps distinction, between rhetoric and actions, between words and deeds.  

Over the last four years or more we have heard many words from Democrats about the centrality of the family and bringing America together over the political divide and working together across the aisle.  But in actions we have witnessed a profound shift to the left from Biden and Harris.  On the other hand, Trump seems always to find a way to embarrass us with his bravado, ego, and insensitivity but his actions as President were profoundly friendly to the cause of religious freedom and to the cause of life.  Sometimes you have to look past what people say to what they have done.  I think it is true for most conservatives that this is the only way we can support a man like Trump.  On the other hand, those on the left are in a similar predicament.  Harris keeps reminding people that she has a gun even though she is decidedly on the other side of the second amendment most of the time.  People who want to strip the people of their firearms are willing to look past the words of Candidate Harris to see what she does with it all.  

The interesting thing here is neither Trump nor Harris.  They are both old news in a sense.  What I find most intriguing is how this same idea relates to a guy like Pope Francis.  His words have been sometimes a comfort to people who take the Christian faith seriously but his actions have been shockingly liberal.  He appoints people to leadership positions in the Roman Catholic Church who have challenged and even ridiculed the faith the Catechism of that body confesses.  Prime is the example of the Roman Catholic position on homosexuality and gender identity.  Yet even here Pope Francis is an enigma.  He publicly admits what appear to be his own doubts about the traditional teaching on such matters.  Even when his words have been good (on surrogacy, for example) his actions have been downright scary to orthodox Christians of all stripes.  He has appeared to be a breath of fresh air in the sale Vatican and yet he is the most controlling and vindictive of the modern popes and though he speaks of synodality he runs his part of the enterprise with a very heavy and centralized hand.

It is all a reminder that words matter but sometimes what matters even more are what people do.  This is especially true of politics but it is also true of religion.  I fear that this is the wave of the future -- political figures and religious leaders whose words and actions are not at all in the same vein.  If that is the case, we are in trouble.  We have little to judge our politicos by except their words and, when elected, their actions.  We have little to judge our religious leaders by except their words and, as we can see them, their actions.  It is a tragedy that our leaders in church and in state seem to say one thing and do another.  Even when the doing is better than their words, it leaves us more cynical than ever and more apt to disengage from both religion and politics.  And that is a bad thing!

It is time for us to take off the masks and to be who we are.  This would better serve the political process but it would also better serve our trust in people and institutions all around us.  Consistency is what we are looking for.  Without it we continually feel that we have been mocked, deceived, and bulldozed and have nothing to show for us except the scars.  There was a time when politicos were fairly reliable and consistent, when governing and religion were defined by principles and when a handshake actually meant something.

Curious. . .

I am a product of the old system of educating pastors in the LCMS.  Junior college, senior college, then seminary -- all steeped in a classic liberal arts curriculum heavy on languages.  Hebrew was one of the hurdles to go through in order to find your way through the Senior College and into Seminary.  I wish I could say I was a star pupil.  I was not.  But enough of it seeped into my brain to make it through and I am rather grateful for that.  What is interesting, however, is that Hebrew is a bit like text criticism.  We do that stuff but I am not sure our heart is really in it.  Yes, it does matter what the text says and in order to know that you need to establish what that text is.  But, no, Christendom did not receive the Old Testament in Hebrew but largely through the Greek translation of the Septuagint.  And whatever you think of the text, we are bound to the accepted text as the Word of God (complete with the ending of St. Mark's Gospel).  So it has made me wonder why we spent so much time learning Hebrew and deal with textual criticism.

As others have said well before me and better than I, the early Christians knew Christ through the Greek text of the Septuagint.  Theirs was, after all, a Greek world of thought and the New Testament is a book in Greek, albeit Koine.  From what I am able to discover, most New Testament quotations seem to have their roots also in the Septuagint more than in the Hebrew text.  Yet I have this large volume of the Masoritic Text of the Hebrew Old Testament on my shelf in testament to the idea that this nuance did not matter -- we learn the text in its original tongue.  If all else fails, buy yourself and interlinear (aghast, you say, that I would even mention such a thing!).  

All of this is a way of reminding ourselves, no matter how interesting or compelling the arguments over the text, we are bound to a text that we do not prove to be original or authentic every time we open the pages of the Bible.  Even Rome holds up a translation as the most authoritative text -- in this case neither Greek nor Hebrew but Latin!  St. Jerome continues to be fairly persuasive, it would seem.  It is not without merit to know how we got to the text we have but we do not get to pick and choose in this text which parts we agree with or which we do not.  We might argue with the translator over which word accords best with the original but these are side arguments to the basic truth that we deal with the text we have.  That said, the New Testament and the Septuagint are replete with Greekisms that cannot be denied and they have made their way into the Creed as well as Scripture.  All in all, it is not such a big concern.  We are not conspiracy theorists like Dan Brown.  It is what it is.

Though we love the Latin phrase, ad fontes, the text is not quite an open question.  Even if we have not numbered in our confessional documents the number of books, we have accepted the canon as received and work from that to get where we are.  What we decidedly do NOT do is read back into the past modern presuppositions and conclusions.  Though this is difficult, it is not our job to read back into Scripture the modern lens with its vision and values.  Curiously that does not prevent the occasional preacher from actually saying "If Jesus were alive today...."  May I argue with you, sir?  So there we are.  Some things interesting are not essential and some things essential are not quite as interesting as the old arguments over which words of the Bible belong there.