It is enough. . . another satis est. . .

Over the years I have watched as Roman Catholics observe the great and the ordinary of church and life with a Mass.  In some cases, it is an extraordinary occasion marked by a great choir, many priests, a full compliment of minor clergy, and all the, well, smells and bells.  In other cases it is a much more ordinary event without the festive elements of the liturgy but with the same Mass.  It is enough.  The Word preached, the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, and the faithful gathered to respond by communing and adding their own joyful voice to the song of faith gone on so long.

I have also watched as Lutherans have observed the great and ordinary fare of our life together and found that we are not content simply with the Mass -- whether festively adorned with choir and plenty of people in albs, cassocks and surplices, etc... or not.  More often than not we try to may the Mass even more special by the use of strange gimmicks and inventive tricks that are certainly testament to the creativity of the planner but seem to distract and detract from the Word and Table of the Lord.  We complain about the multiplicity of Masses from Rome for every occasion or event but our practice reveals a disconcerting lack of confidence in the Mass and a disordered desire to spice it up a bit with things of our own creation.

The sad truth is that on the greatest of occasions in the church's life we Lutherans often exhibit the worst of liturgical practice.  We cut and paste together all sorts of stuff because it is neat or cool or we like it or, worst of all, we want to make things even more special.  When we should show forth the best of liturgical practice because the light is shining on us during those occasions, we put forward our worst, our most trite, banal, and trendy practices.  Christmas, Easter, church anniversaries, church conventions and conferences, pastoral conferences, etc... end up not the places where the Mass is central focus but where we are.

This is strange for a people who confess that the Mass is observed among us more faithfully than among our opponents.  It is strange for a church body that confesses not only the sufficiency of the means of grace but insists that the regular vehicle of the Spirit and His work is not our own additions but the Word and Sacraments.  I am thoroughly sympathetic of this to make things special and have perhaps been a participant in what I complain about.  But I also understand that it proceeds from a problem of piety -- for most Lutherans the Mass is not enough, not nearly enough, and certainly not the source and summit of their own lives in the Spirit.

That is a painful and difficult admission for us Lutherans to make.  We have drifted far enough away from our Confessions that we are not merely content with the means of grace as the sources of, the nourishment for, and the objects of our lives of faith as the baptized people of God.  We find it very hard to resist the temptation to substitute what we think, feel, or do for the Word and Sacraments.  Whether in the area of justification or sanctification, our weakness is to steal away the energy of our lives of faith from the impetus of the Spirit and the means of grace and put in their place our own creative energies.

The whole goal of the liturgical movement (at least among Lutherans) was not about recovery of an early church ideal, the restoration of a pristine form from a bygone era, the vestments worn, the ritual actions of priest or people, or the like.  No, the real focus and goal of the Lutheran liturgical movement was the restoration of the Word and Sacraments as the Sunday norm for "ordinary" occasions and the festive norm for the special events in the life of the Church precisely because it is the core and center of the piety of the people.  The Mass as both source of our piety and lives of faith as well as the summit to which that piety and those lives of faith are focused was part of the cause of the Reformation.  It brought forth the best of human gift and responsive expression (think of Bach and the liturgical life of Leipzig during his lifetime) and it led to the most vibrant and vital shape for Lutheran faith and identity.  We recover what was lost not by reinventing Leipzig or any other place nor by picking one moment from the snapshot of our history.  No, we do so by remembering when the Word and Sacraments of the Lord were enough, were sufficient for us and for our lives of faith and piety as the baptized children of God.

The sad truth is that the ordinary Sundays of the church's life are often the places where we exhibit our most faithful liturgical practice, allowing the Word and Table of the Lord their central place as the focus of our liturgical life.  One thing I have to admit is that Rome believes the Mass is enough.  You can add choirs and legions of minor clergy or it can be simple, spoken, and "plain" but it is always the Mass -- the means of grace through which the Spirit works and the Lord bestows His gifts upon His people.  Once we Lutherans had the hubris to say "even more among us!"  Perhaps we choose not to say those words today or perhaps we know that they are not true among us as they once were.  This is where liturgical renewal begins.  Unless we can recover our faith in the means of grace as sufficient for us, the Word and Table of the Lord will have to compete with our petty and pathetic efforts to make the worship life of God's people more special than God can do Himself through His Word and Sacraments.

The Grace of God is too much for him. . .

There is a wonderful scene in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited that is done rather well in the movie.  Lord Marchmain has spent his whole life opposed to religion and as he lay frail and near death an argument ensures about whether or not a priest should be called.  Charles Rydeer insists:  "all his life, what he thought of religion. They’ll come now, when his mind’s wandering and he hasn’t the strength to resist."  But the priest is called.  He leans down to ask Lord Marchmain if he will confess all his sins and if he will pray the Lord that he is sorry from them.  And there is nothing -- no sign that he has confessed or that he was repentant.  The priest absolves "Ego te absolvo..." and makes the sign of the cross.  As the family gazes at this event it is Charles who prays for a sign, something small, for the sake of his wife.  But there is nothing small about it.  When it seems the Lord so angry with religion will take his anger to the grave, his arm goes up to his forehead and to each shoulder.  In what has taken a lifetime, the Lord has come to death in the veil of grace and in the clothing of Christ's righteousness.  It is the redemptive sign that steals the end for everyone in the family and the future of Brideshead.

As the priest leaves, he recounts:  "Not that was a beautiful thing to see. I have seen it happen that way again and again... the devils resists but the grace of God is too much for him..."  Every pastor has warmed at these words for we know them not as the scripted prose of literature or a movie script but the truth of so many bedsides and so many dying folks.  Death is mysterious to us but there is hidden in the mystery the grace of God that bids, calls, and woos the sinner even to the last and final breath.  I learned early on that you must be careful about what you say around those who seem lost to the moment.  They can hear more than we presume.  I have witnessed from my own experience just such a response from the dying.  It is not the simple tinge of memory or some final gasp of strength but the grace of God, the gift of God to the mourners and the comfort and peace that have too often eluded the dying in life. 

Many times I have prayed the Commendation of the Dying and the final words heard in the ear of the person were the wonderful words of Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart. It was a beautiful thing to see.  It always is.  Only God can take the horror of death and transform it into the gate of eternal life.  Only God can take the moment of our greatest weakness and transform it into strength by the victory of Christ.  Only God can enter the mystery of death with the greater mystery of life through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord, let at last Thine angels come,
To Abram's bosom bear me home,
That I may die unfearing;
And in its narrow chamber keep
My body safe in peaceful sleep
Until Thy reappearing.
And then from death awaken me
That these mine eyes with joy may see,
O Son of God, Thy glorious face,
My Savior and my Fount of grace,
Lord Jesus Christ,
My prayer attend, my prayer attend,
And I will praise Thee without end. - See more at: http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2013/10/then-at-last-thine-angels-come.html#sthash.2Xihix7A.dpuf

Lord, let at last Thine angels come,
To Abram's bosom bear me home,
That I may die unfearing;
And in its narrow chamber keep
My body safe in peaceful sleep
Until Thy reappearing.
And then from death awaken me
That these mine eyes with joy may see,
O Son of God, Thy glorious face,
My Savior and my Fount of grace,
Lord Jesus Christ,
My prayer attend, my prayer attend,
And I will praise Thee without...

Lord, let at last Thine angels come,
To Abram's bosom bear me home,
That I may die unfearing;
And in its narrow chamber keep
My body safe in peaceful sleep
Until Thy reappearing.
And then from death awaken me
That these mine eyes with joy may see,
O Son of God, Thy glorious face,
My Savior and my Fount of grace,
Lord Jesus Christ,
My prayer attend, my prayer attend,
And I will praise Thee without end. - See more at: http://pastoralmeanderings.blogspot.com/2013/10/then-at-last-thine-angels-come.html#sthash.2Xihix7A.dpuf

You can watch it here. . .

Headship in the home. . .

A million years ago my grandmother gave my wife and I a print of the Norman Rockwell painting of dad sitting in a chair in his pjs, smoking a cigarette and reading the Sunday paper, while mom and the kids are dressed up and headed to church. I believe it is entitled Easter Morning.  I love it.  Not because of what the painting shows but because he captured so well what it means to abdicate headship in the home -- the primary responsibility of the dad in the first place.

Sin has distorted the headship of the home to be about things like hierarchy, fear, and right.  God intended it to be first of all and foremost a spiritual headship.  Just as Adam delivered to Eve the words of the Lord regarding the garden, so is every husband and father charged with the spiritual headship of the home -- speaking the word of the Lord, making known the Gospel of Christ, leading the catechism, and taking responsibility for church going.  Fathers who do all other things well and fail in this have abdicated their spiritual authority to others.  Fathers who do nothing else well but who lead, teach, and take responsibility for bringing their household to the Lord and His Church, are not complete failures.

Rockwell may have been prescient since the accusation of the church today is that it is feminine.  The majority of the people in the pew, the majority of those taking leadership positions, and the majority of those who teach the faith to children are women and not men.  No one is suggesting that women do nothing in this regard but we are challenging the men to take up the cause that God gave them as the spiritual head of the household.  Read Luther's catechism.  Read the Table of Duties.  Dads are not just providers and protectors, they are the voices of God in the home and they are called by God to demonstrate before their children the posture of faith and faithfulness to Christ.

My dad was not perfect.  He still is not perfect.   But he did raise me in the faith and provided an example for me by making sure we were in the Lord's house on the Lord's day.  There are many things he did in addition to that but everything else he did is in the context of this one essential task.  I know I am not a perfect father and, sadly, all my children are now adults so I have no time left to redress my mistakes.  I beg their forgiveness always for my errors.  But I praise God most of all that all of them are Christian, that they are in Church, participate in the work of the Kingdom, and are faithful at His Table.  It is the eternal gift any parent gives to their children (with the ministry and aid of the Holy Spirit, of course).

What is torture? Abortion or Prohbition of Abortion?

Once again the United Nations has been up to no good.  The UN experts on all things moral and righteous met in Geneva to attack Catholic teaching on abortion.  According to the great and mighty UN, prohibiting abortion is a grave human rights abuse against women and the Vatican better do something about it.

The one and only American on the U.N. Committee Against Torture, Felice Gaer, went even further by labeling the Church’s position on abortion was a form of torture. Speaking calmly but forcefully, the Vatican representative, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Apostolic Nuncio in Geneva, labeled abortion as the ultimate torture.  It was a subtle statement of the obvious. 

Prohibiting abortion only inconveniences the life of the woman, putting her in no more danger than nearly anything else in life -- such as riding in a car, for example.  She is not obligated to keep her child but only to bear the child.  Abortion, on the other hand, is the ultimate torture because it steals the life of the unborn, tosses it away as if it were so much garbage, and treats all life as cheap and ordinary in the process.

Imagine that.  We live in a world where Muslims kill people for their Christian faith, where school girls are held hostage and forced to convert in Nigeria, in which Russia annexes Crimea and threatens the Ukraine, in which women are subject to everything from genital mutilation to subservience before Sharia law but the high and mighty of the UN have decided that being anti-abortion trumps all of this! 

Of course their minds will not be changed but at least we can expose the sham of concern for rights that is behind such ridiculous assertions.  It would be humorous if so many lives were not at stake.  The absurdity of their grave concern is an affront to the millions of unborn whose lives are discarded as so much trash and their lives considered unworthy of the least protection of the law while women are treated as the victims here.  What good is a right you claim for yourself at the expense of the child within your womb?

Religious but not spiritual. . .

I wrote down some notes from something I read that caught my eye.  I am religious but not spiritual.  Those who claim to be spiritual are the enemies of the faith.  They are not friends of Christianity or in some early state of faith.  They have chosen wrongly and what they have chosen is in direct opposition to the Christian faith.

We do not confess a spirit deity but the God enfleshed in Jesus Christ.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God who became incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary.  As we sing in the ancient words of the Te Deum, Thou didst not spurn [abhor] the virgin's womb" or in the popular Christmas carol O Come All Ye Faithful we sing "to be born of a Virgin He doth not despise..." 

Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world (1 Jn. 4:2-3).

This incarnate God-man then suffered not spiritually but in the flesh for our sins.  He bore the suffering of a whole world's sin upon His own shoulders.  He died not a spiritual death but physical.  He died and was buried not as a metaphor but as the greatest of all facts and truths.  This we confess in the Creed.

Our Lord, the Son of God and Son of Man, rose again on the third day -- not as free spirit or ghost but in the new and glorious flesh and blood in which those who believe in Him shall also be raised from death to life.  He showed Himself raised to more than 500 witnesses, not in the least were the apostles to whom He invited them to touch Him and His wounds.  He ate in their presence and spoke in words heard by their eyes and not in thoughts to their hearts or minds.  St. Paul insists that this physical, bodily resurrection is the hook on which hangs the whole of our faith and if we are left with only a spiritually living Jesus we are pitiful and still dead in trespasses and sins.

Jesus remains present with us not in some disembodied manner but incarnate now in the water of baptism, in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and in the voice that speaks and delivers what it says (absolution).  We do not gather to worship an absent Jesus or a Jesus who is but spiritually present but Him who comes to us in the concrete forms of the means of grace.  The Spirit, the most spiritual part of this whole thing, delivers to us not some hidden or gnostic knowledge of Jesus or His wisdom but opens our eyes to see, our hearts to see, and our minds to behold the Christ not of feelings or desire but of Word and Sacrament.

Jesus did not send out His apostles and His Church to do spiritual work.  The good works of Christians are not motive or intention but godly worship and life, showing forth the righteousness of Christ in the world, serving others in His name with His gifts and grace.  We do not feed the spirits of the hungry and leave the bellies to others.  We do not esteem the pro-life position without working for the protection and recognition of life at all stages -- from the unborn to the aged in their last breaths.  We do not teach a spiritual or moral path but train up our children in the way they are to go, walking in the footsteps of Jesus, trusting in His death and resurrection and bearing His cross before the world. 

I am religious but not spiritual -- there is no way I can conceive of a God apart from the God who is incarnate of the Holy Spirit by the Virgin Mary.  There is no God to worship apart from the worship this God has made possible by calling, gathering, enlightening, and sanctifying His Church to be His Church, the bride of Christ who presents her holy and blameless by His blood.  I do not pray to an idea or a creature of my imagination but to the Crucified and Risen Lord whom I meet in His Word and eat and drink in the Eucharist.

Those who are spiritual but not religious are not Christian and they know nothing of the God who did not disdain the ordinary of our mortal lives or this mortal world but came among us with great glory as one of us.  These spiritual but not religious types are the enemies of Christ and His incarnation, rejecting as ordinary that which is extra-ordinary by God's design and honoring the idea of God more than His revelation.  If you are a Christian of Scripture and Creed, then you, like me, will reject such Greek dualism and insist that we are religious and not spiritual, holding to the Scriptures "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" and singing loud and long "veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity..." 


Man cannot become God -- not even some spiritual imitation but God became a man exactly once, without confusing the natures.  The implications of this are the core and center of Christian faith, proclamation, and identity.  This leaves no room for private or collective mysticism, false division between flesh and spirit that elevates one above the other and seeks the spiritual while disdaining the material. None of us is God. None  will become God. We are not Mormons.  We will always be human and never be gods. Salvation is not the deification of the mortal nor the release of the spiritual from the container of the flesh, but the restoration of man to his right relationship with God,  now in creation and eternally in heaven, the new creation. Christ alone is the Son of God to whom has been given all power in heaven and earth.

The Incarnation has consequences for the way we see God's creation.  Though marred by sin, it remains His good creation. God's Son was incarnate in the flesh, like us in every way except sin, "and was united with the Dust and made it glorious forever." (CS Lewis)   He did not abhor the Virgin's womb, He does not abhor our humanity, our creatureliness but honors us and the flesh beyond all imagination by the Incarnation of His Son and His redemption of the lost and condemned by His own flesh and blood. Every other religion finds creation, history, and the flesh to be a curse or a prison from which the spirit must be rescued. Biblical Christianity believes, confesses, and teaches that God came into His creation and united Himself with it forever.

This Danish does not go down so well even with coffee...

This from The Telegraph:

Gay Danish couples win right to marry in church.

Homosexual couples in Denmark have won the right to get married in any church they choose, even though nearly one third of the country’s priests have said they will refuse to carry out the ceremonies. 

The country’s parliament voted through the new law on same-sex marriage by a large majority, making it mandatory for all churches to conduct gay marriages.
 
Denmark’s church minister, Manu Sareen, called the vote “historic”. “I think it’s very important to give all members of the church the possibility to get married. Today, it’s only heterosexual couples.”

Under the law, individual priests can refuse to carry out the ceremony, but the local bishop must arrange a replacement for their church.  

The far-Right Danish People’s Party mounted a strong campaign against the new law, which nonetheless passed with the support of 85 of the country’s 111 MPs.  “Marriage is as old as man himself, and you can’t change something as fundamental,” the party’s church spokesperson Christian Langballe said during the debate. “Marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman.”
 
Karsten Nissen, the Bishop of Viborg, who is refusing to carry out the ceremonies, has warned that the new law risks “splitting the church”.

My comments:

The trouble when we are unequally yoked with the state is that theology does not matter anymore.  Only the pursuit of civil rights that are blind to all distinctions -- no matter how moral or natural.  I actually hope that the church does split, split away from the state, split from those who have substituted a justice issue for theological truth, and split from the prevailing societal norm that membership bestows more rights and privileges than it does expect adherence to normative truth.

As is always, "historic" as a term literally means radical departure from established truth, doctrine, and practice.  Every radical shift from truth is deemed historic because it is the only word one can use for heresy and apostasy, since they sound bad.

Brick by brick the church falls. . . and so brick by brick she must be built up again. . . it is as it always was and it is as it shall always be until Christ comes in His glory to bring to conclusion all things with which we struggle this side of glory.

Debunking the Myth of a Sexually Tolerant Jesus

I might have thought it was over but you hear it more and more.  First Thoughts has a piece on it.  Marilynne Robinson is the source there although Tom Ehrich is off on that tangent as well.  It is the myth that since Jesus did not saying against same sex relationships or homosexuality, Jesus had a different view than the Old Testament, the apostles, St. Paul, and Christianity ever since.  Balderdash.

Robert Gagnon has already dealt with this myth...

...it is time to deconstruct the myth of a sexually tolerant Jesus. Three sets of Jesus sayings make clear that, far from loosening the law’s stance on sex, Jesus intensified the ethical demand in this area: (a) Jesus´ stance on divorce and remarriage (Mark 10:1-12; also Matthew 5:32 and the parallel in Luke 16:18; and Paul’s citation of Jesus´ position in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11); (b) Jesus´ remark about adultery of the heart (Matthew 5:27-28); and (c) Jesus´ statement about removing body parts as preferable to being thrown into hell (Matthew 5:29-30 and Mark 9:43-48) which, based on the context in Matthew as well as rabbinic parallels, primarily has to do with sexual immorality.

Simply put, sex mattered to Jesus. Jesus did not broaden the range of acceptable sexual expression; he narrowed it. And he thought that unrepentant, repetitive deviation from this norm could get a person thrown into hell.”

This is nothing less than an attempt to reinvigorate the old 19th century liberals' quest to separate the Jesus from the Church's proclamation, from the New Testament, and from Christian doctrine FROM the unknowable, mostly morality guru Jesus of history.  What a bunch of baloney!  Jesus did not directly address many things with specific words yet He spoke clearly... affirming the creation according to Genesis, the Mosaic authorship of the Torah, the unchanging moral compass of the commandments, the creative order of God in making them male and female, for marriage, and for procreation, etc...  It is ridiculous to try to separate Jesus from the New Testament, to have a New Testament Jesus distinct from the Old Testament that prepared His way, or to parse Jesus' words with such care that they are distinguished from the context or not meant to be normative for those who bear His name.


Here is the secret: Christianity is radically countercultural and deeply politically inconvenient. It is no party’s friend because its kingdom is not of this earth. It can seek the good and accomplish good through the work of earthly institutions, but it is our job as Christians to hold the hard line and refuse to give up any portion of our ethics to make ourselves politically palatable.

What is going on?

For the first time in history, Islamic prayers and readings from the Quran will be heard at the Vatican on Sunday, in a move by Pope Francis to usher in peace between Israelis and Palestinians.  Francis issued the invitation to Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit last week to Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.

I only hope that other folks are as scandalized by this as I am.  This is ridiculous.  Islam is not an equal faith to Christianity -- except in the strictly secular eyes of those religious freedom laws so noticeably absent in Islamic countries!!  Why do we live the charade that somehow or other we pray to the same God in different ways?  Why do we presume to give legitimacy in the hallowed halls of such an iconic Christian locale as the Vatican and St. Peter's? In my mind this is the worst kind of ecumenism and it portends grave political consequences for Islam with little benefit to Christian witness.

Destructive Forces in Christianity. . .

1.  The reduction of Christianity to morality has been one of the most potent forces for the destruction of the faith.  Liberals emptied the faith of its factual base, undermining the truthfulness of Scripture, the accuracy of the Jesus proclaimed through the ages, and the need for redemption from sin.  With a Jesus divorced from history and a Bible devoid of fact, morality is all that is left.  The liberals insisted that this was not simply all that was left but the essence and core of Christian revelation.  Those conservative Protestants who protested this liberalism ended up also reducing faith to morality because of their behavioral standards.  Though they used a distinctly different compass than the liberals, they nonetheless charted the vitality of the faith by the righteousness of the adherents. 
2. The rise of how-to Christianity has reduced Christianity to a mere assist to the dreams, hopes, and aspirations of mankind.  The heart is left unredeemed and the goals unchallenged so that the only thing left is the methodology -- how to achieve them.  The focus remains on the Christian, assuring that he or she can learn to become a better person, live a better life, achieve more satisfaction, enjoy a better job, etc...  Salvation is that which enables the person to reach their dreams -- a mere technique or enlightenment that enables the person to change their ways.  It is somewhat gnostic except that the secret path is less spiritual than practical.
3. Confusion of introspection with spirituality.  Navel gazing Christianity has led to second guessing nearly everything doctrinal through the lens of self as well as divorcing spirituality from Spirit.  The questions of life are met not by divine wisdom or revelation but by getting in touch with one's own feelings, wants, and desires.  The doubts about whether or not the person is getting all that could be gotten from faith, worship, prayer, etc... have led to a vagabond Christianity in which the seeker is always on the path of seeking, switching faiths and churches and guide books as regularly as clockwork.
4. The rise of the social gospel in which every problem becomes a cause and the redemptive work of the Kingdom to community organization has given us a local purpose but without much of a transcendent need or purpose.  Advocacy has become the holy sacrament of the social gospel and whether or not the cause of injustice, acceptance gay and lesbian marriage/rights, nature, or the poor, the pursuit of a strident righteousness of the position seems to be the piety of this sacrament.  It is essential legalism and coercion is an acceptable means to achieve the goal, enacting, and enforcing the ways and will of God on behalf of the cause.  It is not a stretch to see how this can turn into either an intense patriotism or the self-loathing of a people who cannot atone too much for their sins.  The desire for a theocracy in which one does not have to depend upon the individual conscience but can achieve the ends through the more efficient means of governmental intervention and law tends to devalue personal conversion.

To name but a few. . .

The Half Sacrament of Absolution. . .

Although Lutherans are hesitant to number the sacraments, Melancthon in the Augustana does rank the sacraments:  Baptism (AC IX), Sacrament of the Altar (AC X), Confession (AC XI), and Repentance (AC XII).  As to Luther's perspective, one might only note that if he did not actually call private confession and absolution a sacrament, he did certainly give it equal place and importance by putting it comfortably between Baptism and the Lord's Supper in the Catechism.  In the Large Catechism Luther defines the baptismal life by saying "Go to the confessional: this is what it looks like to drown the Old Adam and raise the New." (LC IV, 75)

The Apology (XI, 60-61; XII 40-41; XIII 4-5) attests to the Lutheran willingness to call private confession and absolution a sacrament.  This is far more than the mere refusal to abandon the practice as some Lutherans have suggested.  In fact, private confession is never treated as mere holdover from Roman theology or practice that eventually might disappear (FC SD XI, 37-38; SA III, IV, 1)

Kenneth Korby, commenting on AP XII, 2-6, said that if it is indeed wicked to remove private confession and absolution, then it is equally as wicked not to restore it where it has fallen into disuse.  If we think of sin but lightly, we also, by implication, think of Christ and His cross lightly.  One dare not forget that it is precisely the keys which Jesus gave to His apostles on the evening of that first day of His resurrection.

I grew up and was catechized at a time when even the official catechism of the LCMS omitted Luther's Brief Order for Private Confession.  A few questions remained but without a form to assist this from being mere theory or a blueprint to help teach actual practice.  For generations this was missing from our catechism and it became so alien to our people that to resurrect what had been an essential part of Lutheran piety was often seen as Romanizing.

The AP (XV, 40) insists that those who commune are first instructed (as to the Our Father, Creed, and Ten Commandments)  and absolved.  This only amplifies AC (XXV, 1) where we confess that the usual practice for us [Lutherans] is to commune those previously examined and absolved.  It is an interesting reference to First Communion practice in which private confession and absolution (the public and general confession and absolution being unknown at the time) was an essential component.

In other words, whether we have forgotten or not, we Lutherans confess that communicants undergo private confession and absolution prior to receiving the Sacrament of the Altar (at least first communion but the reference here implies every time one desires to receive the Sacrament).  Lutherans has then both a discipline of private confession (before communing) and a consolation form of private confession for the relief of the conscience so burdened.

Today it is like the kiss of death for a Lutheran Pastor to begin his ministry in a parish by addressing private confession.  Perhaps after some time of teaching and preaching the practice might be restored in form though it seldom becomes normal for Lutheran communicants.  How many of us Lutheran Pastors have sat for hours in the chancel awaiting the penitents who never came during the posted hours for private confession?  Nonetheless, we continue in the hope that some will come.  My own practice requires those who receive first communion to go through private confession and absolution -- at least once in their lives!

What is also interesting is that often those who object most to the occasion omission of the order or general confession and absolution from the Divine Service (as we do for baptisms) tend to be the most vehement against the reintroduction of private confession and absolution.  We have retained the discipline of confession prior to communion but it has become a generic form in which there is no personal address and in which we name no sins specifically (except perhaps in our hearts).

Some of this you can find in the excellent article by Jody Rinas in the current issue of Logia; the article is entitled The Sacramentality of Private Confession. 

Christ gives His Spirit to His Bride, the Church

Sermon preached on Pentecost, June 8, 2014.

   Three times over the last weeks we heard Jesus say to His disciples, “I go to prepare a place for you.  When everything is ready, I will come and get you that you may be with Me, where I am...”  To us they are words.  To understand what Jesus is saying about the Church, you have to connect to the context.  So jump back 2,000 year with me to a time when families arranged their children’s marriages.

     The families would conceive a suitable match and, if there was no objection from their children, then a ketubah or contract was written up.  Then the negotiation of the dowry, and, when the price was paid, the marriage covenant was sealed.
    The young man would go to the house of his bride to be and light a candle, sitting at a table across from his beloved.  The families were there in the background keeping a watchful eye but at a distance.  The young man would take a skin of wine and pour a cup and slide it across to his intended.  As she drank, he said, “I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go, I will come again and take you to myself, that you may be where I am...”  "When will you return?" She asked.  "Only my Father knows."  Then the young man would leave to return to his father’s house to prepare a place for him and his bride to live.  The wedding awaited completion of the room on his father’s house.  (Think of Jesus' promise to prepare a room for us in His Father's house.)  From then on she wore the veil that showed she had been bought with a price and was not her own, she was his.
    Today on Pentecost we see how those words of Jesus are lived out in the life of the Church.  Our Lord spoke them first to His disciples at the Passover in the Upper Room, the same Upper Room where they would wait for the coming of the Spirit.  His disciples have repeated them in every generation to the Church. This is our Upper Room.  The words He spoke to them, He speaks to us.  We are His bride, the Church. We belong to Him.  He has promised that He will return to take us to Himself.  The contract has been written and the price paid with His own life on the cross.  The Church belongs to Christ -- we belong to Christ.  Now we gather to drink the cup of His blood and remember His promise.  So deeply is this marriage imagery embedded in Christ and His words to His Church, His bride -- but we so often miss it.
    The message of Pentecost is that we are not our own.  We belong to Him.  We wear the garment of His righteousness before the world to mark us as His.  Though we long to know when He will come to seal us to Himself for all eternity, our Lord says “only the Father knows” the day and the hour.  And that is enough for us. 
    We have His cup in the Eucharist.  As we drink, each time we drink, we remember, “I am going away but I will come back for you.  Do not fear.  I have give you the Spirit, the Helper.  He will teach you and guide you and keep My promise before you.” The Church is the beloved bride of the Lord, born of His Spirit.
    Just as the bride of old awaited the preparation -- generally a year of waiting -- so does the Church as the Pentecost people of God wait for Him to return in His glory for His bride, for the marriage supper of the Lamb in His Kingdom without end, and for the eternal consummation of our live together where sin is done and death cannot touch us.
    We are not alone.  We are not on our own.  We have His cup and His Word.  He has given us His Spirit – leading, guiding, keeping us in faith as wait for the day He comes to finish what He has begun.  We are the betrothed of the Lord.  We are not our own.  We cannot give our selves to another because we belong to Him.  Our only call and vocation is to be faithful to our Lord.
    Individually we are many.  We speak many languages.  We come from many cultures.  We call many places home.  We span time and the centuries.  But we are one in Christ, we are the Church, His bride.  One Lord.  One faith.  One Baptism.  One Spirit.
    Even now He is at work in us keeping us holy and blameless by the power of His absolution, washing our sins away and reminding us who we are that daily through repentance we might be reborn in hope, His pure bride without blemish or stain.  All so that when He comes, we may be ready.
    This is Pentecost.  The day we acknowledge His promise given and the Spirit imparted to His people.  We come to await the finish of what He has begun.  We remember the past but our focus is on the future.  As Christ is preparing for us, we prepare for Him, daily repentance, confessing our sins, being restored by holy absolution, listening to the sound of His voice as His solemn promise, and drinking His cup as we remember, rejoice, and look forward to what is to come.
    The Spirit is at work in us.  Though hidden, He is powerful. Though quiet, He is faithful.  Though pointing to Christ, He is the Holy Spirit of the Holy Trinity.  As long as we are kept in the Spirit and by the Spirit, we need not fear.  The promise will be complete, the promised future will come, and we shall be ready.
    Jesus says, “If you love Me, you rejoice with Him.  If you rejoice with Me, you remember the promise.  I tell you this before it happens so that when it happens you may believe Me.”  Pentecost as the long season of waiting around the Word and Table of the Lord reminds us that we are not our own, we have been bought with a price.  St. Paul encourages us and warns us at the same time:  “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Him.”
    Friends, now is the time of holy waiting, giving ourselves to the holy calling of worship, witness, prayer, and service.  Now we wear the white robes of our baptismal clothing before the world that the world may know we are not our own, we belong to Him.  We have been bought with a price.  We belong to Christ. And He will come to take us to be with Him.  That is the wonderful marriage imagery of Jesus’s promise and of our identity as the Church, the bride of Christ.  So, keep faithful.  Do not stain your wedding garment with sin or unbelief.  Endure!  He is coming.  That is the Spirit's focus and ministry to us and among us everyday!  Christ the bridegroom will return for His bride, the Church.  All we are called to do is to be faithful to His coming.  God grant it.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

Shrinking the Faith to Grow the Church. . .

It is an oft repeated complaint that the Church has abdicated the Gospel in favor of the Western egalitarianism of the present age.  It is also an oft repeated complaint that the Church will die unless she remains relevant and adapts (dare I say adopts) the values and structures of Western egalitarianism.  This conflict becomes pivotal in such things as the ordination of women, the acceptance of gay and lesbian sexuality and marriage, and a few other hot topics.  But it is also a deep divide when it comes to the use of modern sounding music and a worship "style" which abandons all remnants of the Western Mass form in favor of an entertainment style service supposedly less offensive or off putting to modern folks.

In the end it is the classic dilemma of trying to shrink the faith in order to grow the church.  This is the failed strategy not only of the modern age but of any age and time that has sought to smooth the rough edges of Christian faith and teaching to make it easier to hear, easier to heed, and easier to believe.  We are certainly not the first who have attempted to reduce Christianity to a smaller doctrinal bite with the promise of a better and a more appealing taste.  This always leads to a faith emptied of content but left only with behavior as the focus, concern, and direction.  This path leads to an end to calls to repentance, an end to preaching of the forgiveness of sins -- indeed of sin itself, and an end to the cross as the center of the Church's proclamation and life.  A cross-less Christ is certainly less offensive but so much less offensive that it leaves us wondering why bother with the faith at all.

We Lutherans have been victims of those who have tried to shrink the faith and grow the Church -- on both sides.  On one hand we have the emptiness of a Gospel without much historical mooring in which Scripture contains the Word of God but is not that Word and in which myth and legend are intermingled with fact and truth so that the only thing left is symbolism.  The ELCA has perfected this kind of shrinking of the faith until there is no heresy except the rejection of the modern Western egalitarian ideals of speech, behavior, tolerance, and acceptance.  But that communion had bled off members from the get go and its promise of form without substance has left most folks flat.

On the other hand we have the Lutherans who practice a slightly more liturgical evangelicalism with its focus on personal preference, feeling, desire, and the goal of happiness.  This side has stripped the Church of altar, pulpit, and vestments in favor of stage, dramatic lighting, big speakers, and the typical polo/khaki or tee shirt/jeans uniform.  Sans creed, Eucharist, confession and absolution, this is a formless shape which easily adapts and adopts the prevailing trend of music, culture, and message to remain ahead of the curve.  While this has certainly filled the seats, there is no evidence that it has grown the Church.  Indeed, the mournful admissions of the Willow Creek model have shown just the opposite -- people come but they do not follow.

It is certainly politically incorrect to suggest that whether the Church grows or not (at least in our humble estimation and measurement of that growth), shrinking the faith is not an option.  Inevitably those who choose faithfulness to the eternal over slavish indulgence to the moment are deemed the narrow, judgmental, and obsolete folks who choose maintenance over mission.  So be it.  We have been given no charge to redefine the faith to grow the Church nor have we been given any promise of blessing upon our endeavors unless those efforts be guided and shaped by faithfulness.

I believe it was Dean Inge who said that the church who marries the spirit of the age will be a widow in the next generation.  Whoever the source, it is a classic statement of the inherent weakness of shrinking the faith (minimizing what is to be believed, confessed, and taught) in order to grow the Church.  We are not without options in our choices of how to shrink the faith.  From ELCA mainline Protestantism to evangelicalism and its entertainment and self-improvement focus, we are gravely tempted to make it somehow easier to believe and easier to follow Christ.  In the end, we only diminish Christ and His work and make believing and following either irrelevant or unnecessary to the modern world and psyche.

Whether it is about sex or marriage, about the f actuality of the events in Scripture, about the pursuit of desire over faithfulness, we have watched as the relentless march of modernity has influenced the Church's faith and life but for what end?  Are there more believers?  Are the believers more faithful?  Do they walk more obediently to the heavenly vision?  We can be smug because we do the liturgy better even though we believe its words less or we can be smug because we are on the cutting edge of cultural change but the pride of both will certainly be appropriately rewarded on the day of reckoning.  Humble faith trusts the Word of the Lord, meets the Lord where He has promised to be found, and serves the Lord by faithful believing and living the Gospel of the cross and this, Scripture tells us, will receive reward beyond all imagination. 

Smuggling Roman Ideas into Lutheranism. . .

An account of Dom Gregory Dix and his liturgical legacy included the oft repeated charge that this author had devoted his whole career to "smuggling Roman Catholic ideas" into the Church of England.  Whether or not the charge is true of Dix, the charge is a commonly made accusation against Lutherans who reintroduce such things as chanting, Eucharistic vestments, incense, kneeling, bowing, genuflecting, and any of the fuller ceremonial pretty much lost to Lutherans since the 19th century (at least).

Often those Lutherans who reintroduce such practices are accused of "Roman fever" and it has not helped the cause when some of those who swam the Bosporus or Tiber were advocates of the fuller ceremonial and liturgical life Lutherans once enjoyed before their piety was hijacked by Pietism, Rationalism, and a resilient Protestant spirit.

I am not qualified to judge Dix or his legacy.  I cannot evaluate the whole of his work although I have learned much from his books on The Shape of the Liturgy and the little volume on tabernacles and reservation, to name but two.  Whether he was an "anglo-papist" as some charge or not is not a question for me but for others.  In this regard I defer to the well qualified opinion of Dr. William Tighe of Muhlenberg rather then the accusations of Bishop Colin Buchanan.  That said, those who have a personal preference against their own tradition's catholicity have a convenient and often effective charge to use against those who attempt to recover and restore such catholicity that is authentic to their confessional and liturgical identity.

When you cannot argue with your own Confession, you can always demean the integrity and practices of your opponents.  Such has been the way of Lutheranism for too long.  Confessional Pastors have for too long been told to accept egregious examples of parish practice that violates the specific word and the general spirit of the Lutheran Confessions.  They have for too long been made to feel that they are the problem instead of the very Protestant Lutheranism common to much of the last century.  They have been accused of "Romanizing tendencies" when they desire nothing more than simply to be Lutheran in theology AND in practice.  They have been told to go very slow because people will not understand (never mind that the missionals come in like gangbusters, ignore parish structures, by-pass constitution, and impose radical new forms of worship, piety, and outreach -- seemingly overnight -- and are lauded as those on the cutting edge of things who will save a moribund Lutheranism in irreversible decline.  Baloney.

If I wanted to be Roman Catholic, there is little that would stop me.  If I wanted to be Orthodox, there is little that would stop me.  The truth is that I am old enough and with enough experience under my belt and my position secure enough to the fact that I do not fear authentic, confessional, and catholic Lutheranism any longer.  I am not intimidated by those who impugn my motives or my integrity.  And I believe my parish work and congregation has proven that liturgical is not in opposition to vital, mission minded, and vibrant parish work in the Name of Jesus.

It might be easy to label the charge against a Dix or a Piepkorn or, dare I include myself here, a Peters who has"Romanizing" tendencies or having "Roman fever" or a "smuggler of Roman ideas" but the charge is patently false.  And it is for those who refuse to be content with Lutheranism Lite or a thinly veneered form of Evangelicalism that parades as Lutheran.  Now is not the time to fear or to live in fear of those who whisper their charges against you and the work you do.  Lutherans unite. 

Another one bites the dust. . .

Congress and state legislatures don’t make the laws in these USA anymore. President Obama does what he pleases outside the legislative process.  Judges nobody elected have taken over deciding what will be the law of the land.  And then we wonder why folks have little confidence in our political and judicial institutions!

Of course this is about Wisconsin and US District Court, Judge Barbara Crabb, struck down as unconstitutional Article XIII, Section 13 of Wisconsin’s state constitution, which reads: “Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.”  The people of Wisconsin voted in a referendum to amend the constitution with that article in November 2006.  This is the Wisconsin which has had liberal (wasn't one even socialist) mayors in Madison and Milwaukee and yet the state voted to retain what was the status quo in 2006.  So don't complain when gay marriage ends up the same kind of dividing wall as abortion (another usurpation of the legislative process). 

The issue is this.  Judges get to decide without recourse as to their decision.  In the mean time, things wind their way to the SCOTUS but by the time it gets there, the thing has already become normative.  Judges need to stop making the law and start explaining and applying it. 

This is not simply about the issue in question but the process.  How do we add a voice to the public square when the courts suddenly end the conversation?

The Shelf Life of God. . .

Those of you who use Remembrance brand prepackaged communion cups complete with a tidbit of unleavened bread and 100% grace juice should be happy to find out that this has a one year shelf life.

It is not clear if this is the shelf life from the date of manufacture, from the moment of consecration, or for the reliquae after the distribution.  Though it is surely true that few if any churches that hold to the real presence would use such, well, ready to serve versions of Jesus, it could be very comforting for those who do to know that Jesus comes with a shelf life... one year... from, ah, well, a year.  And not a bad price either, on sale for $69.99 for a box of 480!  Why, it is truly a bargain!!

Implications of Jesus the Teacher. . .

No one denies that Jesus is the Teacher, that He taught and still teaches.  What is problematic, however, is when Jesus is primarily or exclusively teacher.  The non-sacramental churches emphasize the role of Jesus as teacher as the primary role of Jesus in the life of the Christian.  From conservative to liberal, Jesus is seen as the teacher of new life, of new morality, of righteousness, etc...   These have done their work so well it is not uncommon for Lutherans and Roman Catholics and even the Orthodox to look to Jesus as the preeminent guide to the answers we seek about life, about how to get ahead, how to be happy, how to be good, how to be wise, etc...  In a sense Jesus becomes a medium whose job is to lead us to the answers that lie somewhere else.

Sadly, Jesus the teacher does not have to be incarnate or real.  He can be myth or legend and be as effective.  But the unique thing about Christianity is not what Jesus taught but who Jesus is.  Jesus did not whisk away the Law and institute a new morality but fulfilled the Law and changed our relationship to it so that it could be guide as well as curb and mirror (our favorite Lutheran terms).  He insisted over and over again that He spoke not on His own but the words of the Father and did not His own works but the works of the Father.  The new thing about Christianity and what distinguishes Christianity from all religions is the person of Jesus Christ, son of God in flesh and blood, by the Holy Spirit and from the Virgin Mary, who suffered in our place for the sins of all mankind, whose death atoned for us and set us right before the Father, and whose resurrection from the dead imparts to us the life that death cannot overcome.  This Jesus must be an historical person, a real fact, and all the events of His life true or it all falls apart.

Philip had some of the same idea when he asked Jesus simply to show them the Father.  Philip had heard Jesus words and found them hard to digest so he asked Jesus for something simple, concrete, and basic.  Show us the Father (give us a sign) and then we will know who You are and follow You.  There is not much difference from this and the way we come to Jesus.  Theology is all well and good and doctrine all fine and dandy but what we really want are answers to the problems we have identified -- at home, at work, at play, etc...  We tolerate Jesus as Savior because we want Jesus the teacher.

The Joel Osteens of the world have done a superb job of emphasizing Jesus the teacher.  Jesus teaches you to be happy, He shows you how to have a better marriage, better children, better time at work, and better life.  Listen to Him and follow His Word and you will get where you want to go and become the person you want to be.  When it works right, you get your best life now.

But Jesus it not guide or teacher in the sense that the answers lie outside of Him.  He is the answer.  To Philip's question we hear the big sigh of Jesus "How long have you been with me Philip and you still do not get it?"  The Father and I are One...   Jesus is not a gimmick of God nor is He a tool for us to use.  He is the revelation of the Father and the full gift of God to His sinful creation captive to death.  Christ does not give us answers -- He IS the answer.

Christ is not a coach helping us figure out how to win the game or the teacher who shows us how to ride the bike of life on our own.  Christ is not the sage who delivers wisdom from on high which we take back down the mountain and put to work in our lives to get what we want or where we want to be.  Christ is not the spiritual guide who leads us to a loftier plane of existence or a higher moral life or a greater sense of well-being.  He is the way -- He does not show the way.  He is the Truth -- He does not reveal to you truth outside Himself.  He is the Life -- He does not lead you to a better life now or at some other moment.

All those who doubt the facts of Jesus but who still desire to keep the religion transform Jesus into the model, the teacher, the bearer of the new life that we, too, can achieve when we shoot for that which ennobles us.  Was it not Goethe who mused that the teaching of Christ are more fruitful than His birth, death, and resurrection?  But it is just the opposite.

We are baptized into Christ -- into His death and resurrection.  Our lives are connected to His life, His death, and His resurrection.  We are buried with Him by baptism.  We rise with Christ to new life now and eternal life.  All that we are and all that we receive are intertwined with Christ and not apart from Him.  We receive this not from a teacher but a Redeemer who teaches, and from the means of grace wherein the fruits of His redeeming work are imparted to us by the Word of His promise.  The message is not about Jesus or ab out life or about morality.  Jesus IS the message, the way, the truth, and the life.

We might be able to do away with dogmatics text books or books on morality but we cannot do away with the Mass for there is where the living Lord comes to us His people rich with gifts of grace that give life to the dead.

My favorite picture of D-Day

My favorite picture of D-Day... after the landing and the battle and the dead and the wounded... soldiers gather on the beach for the Mass...

Set out for the deep and lay your nets. . .

What kills the Church more than anything is when we settle for less than best, when we become comfortable with mediocrity, and when we choose what it easy over what is difficult.  The Church has not failed because we set our sights too high; all our failures have come when we set our sights too low.

John Paul II said once "Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."  He got it right.  The fear of failure is often the singular cause of our easy goals and hopes.  We are so afraid we will fail, we find it easier not to dream or hope or expect or even trust in the Lord for great things, only for small.

I know it of myself and I know it in the congregations I have served.  Settling is death.  It kills the spirit of the community and it dooms us to succeed only at that which is mediocre, trite, and banal.  Let me be clear here.  I am not directing us to be self-important snobs.  I am not thinking of an entrepreneurial spirit or even the spirit of adventure.  I am not speaking here of unbridled optimism or of the independent streak of the pioneer and his or her can do attitude.  I am speaking of faith. 

Luther once said that something must be dared in the name of Christ.  He got it right.  We cannot wait until all our ducks are in a row, until we have banked all our resources, until the last volunteer is signed up.  The Church will die waiting for the risk to be minimized and the goal set low enough so that we can call our failures successes and comfort ourselves with small victories.

I see this in our stewardship of God's resources when what we can afford trumps everything else.  I see this in the way we lay our plans.  I see this in the way we turn the other cheek to beauty and settle for what will get us by.  We look out at the pews and we clergy wonder why our people are so fearful, so hesitant, and so unwilling to trust in the Lord whose mercies are new every morning and whose grace is the profound suffering that gave us life on the cross.  They only mirror our own fears and insecurities. 

Preachers who wait until late in the week to begin thinking about the Sunday sermon have condemned themselves to what is passable or what will fill the time slot instead of wrestling with the text, putting to bear the full resources of the mind and heart, and laboring to write as nobly as the Gospel we proclaim.  Parishes in which we settle for squeak boxes instead of organs and pay a pittance to someone to play the wretched instrument because we are sure we cannot afford better (the Church of Bach where Bach cannot be played because the organ cannot handle it and the organist is unskilled).  Missionaries who are forced to beg from us for a dollar here and a dollar there while the field is ripening as the clock clicks away the time.  I could go on... You know better than I what this is about.

Jesus did not die so that His Church could play it safe and easy.  Jesus did not rise so that His Gospel would take second place to comfort, convenience, and affordability.  High expectations go with the Gospel.  We are daily and richly confronted with the currency of our salvation -- not silver or gold but the holy and precious body and blood of Christ in suffering and death.  But it is too dang easy for us to allow God to be generous while we choose what is ordinary.  There is nothing ordinary about the Gospel.  There is nothing ordinary about the means of grace (for even there the ordinary element is transformed into the spectacular by the Word and Spirit of the Lord).

It is like we sniff with Judas and the other disciples about the waste of expensive ointment on Jesus because we know if this woman is lauded for it, we might be expected to return to Him something more than average. As I look out at my own parish, I so often wish that someone would speak up at a meeting and just once challenge us "Why not???"  Why not increase our support of missions... why not support the work of another called Pastor in our midst... why not expect every member in worship and Bible study every week... why not sing in the choir or serve as acolyte or teach Sunday school or work in the food pantry or whatever... 

We all know why not...  Trust is not easy, beauty is not affordable, sacrifice is not without pain, service is not without cost... We are like the Emmaus Road disciples who do not recognize Jesus in our midst... The crucifix stands before us but we are distracted from its glory... the Word is read and proclaimed among us but we hear only the voice of the Pastor... the table of the Lord is set but we smell only bread and taste only wine... all because we fear that if it is all what it claims to be, we cannot remain the same old people we were... and that is exactly the point!

Problems of Preaching

The problems of preaching are well known and have been addressed in a variety of ways by a variety of people.  T. David Gordon has a nice little book that offers a perspective on the problem of preaching which he has called Why Johnny Can't Preach.  I have taken to this little book.  The author refuses to allow preachers to hide behind the traditional excuses of the video game and short attention span of culture.  Surely these are part of the problem but it is not a problem only of the hearer.  It is also a problem of the preacher.

For the preacher, living in an oral culture and one in which our communication is mediated and not immediate, is a distinct problem in learning how to preach.  Gordon speaks of how an oral culture makes it difficult to distinguish the insignificant from the significant.  We tend to speak more words on a phone call then we would write in a letter but more words do not always lead to better communication.  In fact we have more words with less meaning.

Added to this is the lack of organizational skills to our communication.  When you speak on the phone or write on Facebook, you do not think about what you say.  You speak.  You hit the keys on the keyboard.  The words flow but not in an organized way and without benefit of knowing where you hope to end.  Like phone conversations, sermons today tend to be all over the place.  The hearer may be accustomed to this splatter of words but familiarity does not necessarily lead to informed listening.  In addition, our conversations have no directed purpose or goal and therefore sermons tend to mirror mediated communication forms, leaving the people without something clear and understandable to take home from the sermon.

When most of our communication is oral or through social media, we lack the ability to see how people receive our words.  Preaching anticipates a response.  The preacher who spends most of his time in mediated communication finds the sermon an anomaly.  Since it is not even close to his usual forms of communication, content is not the only issue the preacher faces when he enters the pulpit.

Gordon also talks about how education has changed.  Students do much less writing than in the past.  Not only do they lack penmanship skills, they lack the ability to organize their thoughts, summarize their meaning, and emphasize major points over less significant words.  In the past, logic was a component to a secondary education.  People were taught how to think.  The shift to a task oriented educational model leaves little room to learn how to think, organize your thoughts, and speak persuasively (apart from sentiment).  According to Gordon, our seminarians communicate at the same level as seventh and eighth graders of previous generations.  This is one of the reasons why visual tools like PowerPoint have been used so much.  The visual image is the replacement for the well thought out and clearly articulated homily.

I think Gordon has hit the mark here.  It is not just a problem at the seminary level.  In fact, as Gordon puts it the seminary and its curriculum cannot make the seminarian an adult by the day of graduation.  I can speak personally to the difficulty that many seminarians face in organizing their time, their resources, and their tasks.  The stereotypical ADD culture is not anecdotal but real for many seminarians.  This is even more critical since the Pastor is largely in control of his schedule and the parish depends upon the Pastor being able not only to organize himself and his time but to attach priorities to the various tasks before him.

Take a look at his book... it is a good read. 

Well said. . .

A confessional church is a singing church. As she sings, she makes her good confession, a confession both in word and music. As the sainted Martin Franzmann once said, “Theology is doxology. Theology must sing” (Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets: Sermons by Martin Franzmann [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1994], p. 92). Theology cannot remain mute words safely bedded down between the covers of a book; it must leap off the printed page, exit the mouth, and fill the air with holy sound. Theology must be given a voice. The lips, not the pen, are the best instruments of theological expression. Although doctrinal books, commentaries, journals, and essays serve well as mediums of confession, they all play second fiddle to that which is articulated within the liturgy. The dogmatics of Francis Pieper must salute the hymns of Paul Gerhardt.

Please read the whole post by Chad Bird here. . .

Perhaps the greatest misunderstanding of hymnody lies in the mistaken idea that we sing because we like to sing and we sing what we like to sing.  Singing is, especially in the Lutheran Church, confessing.  The sound of a congregation singing the great hymns of the faith is not the sound of a people doing what they want or like but Christians witnessing to the world in the most profound and joyful way what it is that they believe, confess, and teach.

I had a cartoon for years that showed a Pastor heading over to the hymnboard and pulling a slot machine like lever.  The numbers swirled until a new set of hymn numbers was set.  Unfortunately that is both the common perception of those outside the sphere of worship planning and the dreaded reality of pastors who don't have a clue what they are preaching about until the last minute and who view the hymns as so much window dressing (dare I say scene stealers) from the main focus of his preaching.  How wrong they are.  When done well, the hymns, lessons, and liturgy form a unified whole into which the sermon is woven so that when people leave the church singing the hymns of the service they are also singing the lessons and sermon (and therefore confessing their faith in song).  When done poorly, everything is disconnected and they all stick out as not belonging to each other nor heading in the same direction.  People who leave such a worship service often know something is wrong, though they do not know what, and people who leave one when all is done well know that something is right, though, again, they may not be able to identify what is the right that makes it all fit.

Franzmann, himself the noble author of some of the most profound words put to melody by a modern hymn writer, has it exactly right -- theology must sing! 

YOU are focus of Christ's heart, mind, and work...

Sermon for Easter 7A, the Sunday after the Ascension, preached on June 1, 2014.

    If you want to know what is on the hearts of people, listen to their prayers.  For in our prayers we reveal what we think, what is most important to us, what we fear, and what we want.  Even when we fail to pray, we are expressing something – perhaps  that we don't believe God hears or answers or that we are ashamed of what is inside of us or that prayer is not important.
    God knows what is on our hearts before we pray and what is on our minds before we give words to the thoughts.  We do not pray to inform Him but to own what is in us, to confess the things that are wrong, and to express our trust in His good and gracious will.  But how do you know what God is thinking?
    The truth is most of us fear that God holds His thoughts close to Him, that He deliberately hides Himself from us to leave us guessing.  But we would be wrong.  Just as our prayers reveal what is on our hearts and in our minds, so do we learn the heart and mind of God by listening to the prayers of Jesus, His Son. 
    Today we find that the heart of God is not hidden but made known to us.  He deliberately has revealed Himself to us – not only by Jesus' teaching but also by His prayers.  It helps to know the setting.  The setting helps frame the words of the prayer.
    The setting for the Gospel for today is Maundy Thursday.  It is just before Jesus is betrayed to His suffering and death on the cross.  John does not give us much of the Upper Room but his Gospel tells us much of the heart and mind of Jesus as the events of our salvation unfold.
    Jesus is with His disciples – the disciples soon to be tested by the shock of one of their own betraying Jesus, by the sorrow of the suffering Jesus endures, and by the sadness of the death He dies.  We might well understand if Jesus were only thinking of Himself but He is thinking of His disciples and not only of them but of those who will believe through them.  His mind is on the future His death and resurrection will create and upon the Church created by His death and resurrection – even you and me.
    That is the setting, but what of the actual prayer?  Listen to what is on Jesus' heart and in His mind.  He prays for glory. Not  the kind of glory we think of – not fame, acclaim, and awe.  No, Jesus is thinking of the glory that His death and resurrection will create.  He is thinking of a church, of sinners redeemed by His blood, washed new in baptism, given the eyes and ears of the Spirit to know His Word, and those whom He would feed and nourish at His table.  In other words, Jesus is thinking of YOU!  His glory is the salvation of those for whom He died!
    What is on the mind and in the heart of God?  YOU.  You are.  Jesus reveals to us the mind and heart of the Father who is focused upon those for whom Christ dies, that we might know the Father, the embrace of the waiting Father for His prodigal sons and daughters.  What is on the mind and in the heart of God?  The Church, created from the blood of Christ.  Those who have been called by the Spirit, washed in the blood of the Lamb, set apart and marked by His Word, and kept by His Spirit through the food of His table.
    We fret all day long about the troubles and trials of this mortal life.  Look at the length of our prayer list in the bulletin. We worry about what God knows of us, knows of our lives, of our troubles, of our secrets, and what He cares of them.  How foolish we are!  God is focused exactly upon us.  He knows us all and He knows all of us.  Nothing is hidden from Him.  We pray not to inform an unknowing God but to commend with faith all the weights, worries, and wonderings of our hearts.
    All is met in Christ.  All our needs are met in Christ.  All our past is atoned for by Christ.  All our future rests on Christ.  He has nothing to inhabit His heart and mind except you and me.  How sad it is that we forget or fail to even acknowledge what God knows and cares for us!  Jesus is even now lifting YOU before the Father, interceding on our behalf. 
    His intercession for us does not end until time ends, until the distance between earth and heaven is fully bridged, and we are where He is in the forever of His promise.  Until then there is nothing more dear to Him than you and me, all our troubles, trials, sins and death.  But foolishly we pray as if somehow or other we were in doubt about whether or not God loves us or how important we were to Him.
    God's focus is YOU.  The cross for you.  His suffering for you. His death for you.  His resurrection for you.  But what of you and your focus?  Today in this bridge Sunday between Ascension and Pentecost we pray the Lord that we may be comforted by His concern, guarded by His Spirit, and sustained by His grace... until the day when He comes to seal us unto Himself for all eternity.  Amen.

No Consensus from the Fathers. . .

The new manner of studying patristics seems to highlight the differences instead of focusing on the commonality of the fathers.  So, for example, the basic premise begins by rejecting the idea that there is any orthodox consensus about anything -- from the Trinity to justification to Eucharistic theology to the church...  Each of the fathers is best understood, so they say, individually.  It is, I am afraid, an easy way of forcing upon the fathers of any previous generation the same conflicts, disagreements, and fragmentation we find in modern day Christianity.  To be sure, the whole thing is exacerbated when we view the fathers simply as raw material for our own argumented positions and simply proof text quotes out of context in order to accord the fathers with our own views.  That said, it is troubling to cede to the fathers such a rampant diversity that would make it seem unlikely and implausible even for the Nicene Creed to have any uniform and dogmatic status.  I wonder if there is not another way. . .

Conflict, controversy, and challenge certainly sharpen the doctrinal pencil.  I would hesitate to say that doctrine evolves, I do not believe it does, but certainly how we speak of the changeless truth is different when debate and denial force us to be more clear than we were.  The Church sharpens her pencil often over history -- sometimes in response to heresy from within and sometimes in response to challenge from outside her walls.  That is a good thing.  The Reformation certainly sharpened the pen when it comes to the subject of justification.  Now to say that none of the church fathers agree with Luther is certainly wrong.  It is equally wrong to say that the church fathers approached justification exactly the way Luther did (speaking here both personally and doctrinally).  Where once there was no need to delineate the fine lines of truth, there may be need later to do just that.

The Augsburg Confession, for example, speaks rather sparsely about the subject of call and ordination.  Rite vocatus is the crux of the affirmation given by those who wrote what they believed, confessed, and taught.  It is language that now requires a sharper pencil -- in the face of deacons doing Word and Sacrament ministry sans ordination or pastors going through a somewhat different call process and procedure than Luther did.  It is not that the doctrine evolves or changes from one time to another.  But it is true that this was not necessarily an area of great disagreement with Rome (though it turned out to be one of more consequence).  So the sparse language of the Augustana subsumes the Reformers' affirmation of the practice of the Church to that point (training, examination, ordination, and local assignment or call).

In the same way one might be hard pressed to find justification expressed with the same nuance, detail, or vocabulary in the early church as we Lutherans might express now.  That does not mean, however, that justification was in disarray or that there was no consensus among the fathers.  What it means is that the pencil was not as sharp then so that broader language was not in opposition to one framework of how the sinner stands before God as much as it is spoken of in a host of ways, imaged differently from father to father and from age to age. 

It is my conviction that we needlessly impute to the fathers a modern day diversity shaped by the truth that there is no truth when, in reality, they would look upon such divergent ideas with shock and horror.  That one may speak of a common truth with different images or vocabulary is not the same as speaking different truth.  The fathers were not hesitant to be adamant about their insistence upon specific words or formulations when these were required (think homoousios).  But they were also comfortable with a variety of ways of speaking dogmatically when the mystery of the faith is being described in words that labor to hold the fullness of the truth in a succinct formulary.  We have lost some of that.  We confessional Lutherans sometimes parse the words of enemies and friends alike insisting that unless they match perfectly with our own, they are deficient.  Maybe they are and maybe they are not.  We must be careful about rushing to judge as defective that which does not intend to contradict the truth.  In the same way, we must be careful about presuming the early Christian fathers approached things as we do and that they found unanimity as impossible as it might seem in our modern era.

Ancient ideas about marriage. . . indeed!

It may come to a surprise to some of you, but I have no interest at all in “Marriage Preparation”.
The whole Roman Catholic “Pre-Cana” scheme leaves me cold – especially since it includes the prohibition of contraception and (by implication at least) of pre-marital sex. The idea of celibate priests counseling couples about their married life is absurd.

I’m not sure I have ever married a virgin. If I have, I apologize here and now! But most couples I have married have lived together for months and often for years, and I am convinced that their marriages will be the stronger and more lasting for that. It is time that the Church abandoned the ancient ideas of marriage and recognized this fact.

When a couple asks me if I will marry them, I ask them to come and see me, so that we can talk the whole thing through. I ask if they have been baptized and why they would like to be married in St Clement’s. I tell them about the church fees and about what they have to do about the music. I ask them to come on a Sunday to talk with me and the organist about what music they would like at the wedding.

And then – that is that! And quite enough too.

So saith The Rev’d Canon W. Gordon Reid, Rector of St. Clement's Episcopal Church, Philadelphia. . .

There are many things that could be said but I will hold my tongue.  Suffice it to say that with rectors like the good Canon Reid there is hardly any reason at all to seek out a church wedding except that you like the ambiance of the place.  He apologizes for ever presiding at the wedding a virgin (or, God forbid, two).  He finds no sense in restraining sex to marriage (or, we might wonder, extra marital sex).  He applauds cohabitation as the real premarital preparation but, if it is so grand, why bother with the wedding at all.

Lutherans do not speak of marriage as a sacrament but we attach a sacramental understanding to the marriage of one man and one woman, God's creative design and the image of His Son's redemptive relationship to His Church.  Roman Catholics, of course, go very much further as do the Orthodox.  However, even many liberal Protestants attempt some manner of churchly ideal to the relationship between man and woman.  Except, it seems, Fr. Reid.

So there is the picture of the Christian liberal view of marriage, optional, non-sacramental in any way, for niceness but not necessity, unrelated to sexual behavior, no mention of children, and, with some allowance, not prohibitive of consensual sex outside of marriage either.  It would seem that having thoroughly capitulated to the power of unrestrained desire, such a Christianity would have little to offer husband or wife (or, for that matter, any other version of marriage).

What Fr. Reid has left us with is a Church that is merely a location, with nary a word to say about the character of the life together for those who enter into Holy Matrimony.  It seems that he wants churches not only out of the marriage business (except to provide a venue for a fee) and to shut up about the subject as well.  With such embarrassment or shame at what the Church has said up until modern times, Ft. Reid has his work cut out for him.  We can only be encouraged by the fact that his quest to relieve marriage of ancient (Christian) ideas will be aided by the self-centered, godless, and pleasure seeking people who find that marriage is likewise too encumbered by responsibility, duty, sacrifice, self-denial, fidelity, and faithfulness.  Lord, help us from those who would help the faith by such unfaithfulness!!

A little something to think about as the wedding month and wedding season hits full stride!

Carrying water. . .for others. . .

I was reminded a while ago that carrying water was a job reserved for the lower servants on the totem pole of authority.  I suppose that there is much truth in it.  The Samaritan woman at the well was probably as shocked that Jesus was there at the well looking for water (woman's work) as she was He spoke to her.  In John 2 the servants of the household in charge with filling the big, clay water jars were treated to a miracle all the high highfalutin folks at the wedding missed.  That is the surprise of it all...

In the Church, visiting the aged and the infirm is like carrying water.  It is the job we talk ourselves out of because we just don't have the time or energy to do it now.  So, that means it never gets done.  Chalk it up to good intentions.  I had a visitation pastor who carried most of the water for the elderly and home bound -- until he died.  The primary responsibility again fell back on me.  I missed it when it was done largely by another but at the same time it is not always easy.

There are folks who are hard to talk with.  They do not say much and leave the burden of the conversation largely on the visitor.  It can get tiring to keep the dialog going when it seems mostly one sided.  I have been fortunate to have had shut ins with keen minds who loved to gab.  We had some great talks (about everything from life when you don't leave your home for months on end to the religious themes of authors like Flannery O'Connor).

There is a different pace about visiting the shut-in.  You dare not rush nor should you come with an agenda in mind.  You come to let them speak and to give them an opportunity to open their heart to another.  You come to speak to them God's Word, to comfort them with the grace and mercy of the Lord, and to give them the gifts of Christ's body broken and His blood shed (in the Communion). 

I have learned over the years that society and family have less and less time for the aged and infirm.  Oh, to be sure, there are amazing exceptions -- faithful spouses and children, family and friends, who go well past the call of duty and whose devotion keeps their loved ones engaged and alive longer than they might have been.  I laud them for their faithfulness even as I know how hard it will be to know what to do with their time when their loved ones enter death's sleep in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.

I have also learned that the aged are a great deal smarter and wiser than you might think.  They have become my counselors and their hope has encouraged my own more times than I can count.  They are attuned to what is going on in their families.  They hope that you will have enough courage to listen and to talk about the elephant in the room -- death).  They are sustained not by medicine or physicians but by the Word and Sacraments of the Lord and by the care and love of their families and friends.  And they are most grateful for the time you spend with them.

Pastors end up carrying water for those who cannot or do not or will not.  We bring the church to the homes of those who can no longer attend.  We represent not only Christ but also Christ's body, their brothers and sisters in the faith.  We go because it is our job and but it has become, for me anyway, a joyful duty.  All in all there are many aspects of my life and job as a pastor I would give up in a minute.  Visiting the elderly and home bound is not one of them.  I will gladly be the water boy for the people of God in this duty.  I hope other clergy find in this part of the calling the same joy.