The Cry of Faith. . .

Sermon for Pentecost 21, Proper 23C, preached by the Rev. Daniel M. Ulrich on Sunday, October 9, 2016.

Has there ever been a time in your life that was so difficult, so physically and emotionally draining, so hard that you had no idea what to do? Have you ever been in desperate need and wanted to pray, but you didn’t know what to say? Some of you may quickly answer yes to these questions, others, maybe not. But no matter what your answer is, the truth is all of us are in need. Our need is so great that we can’t meet it on our own. We have no idea what to do or say, so we simply cry out. But as Christians we don’t aimlessly cry, going around simply making noises of desperation and disgust. No, we cry out in faith, “Lord, have mercy.” And He does.

We are people in need; always in need of something. The rumblings in our bellies tell us we need food. The bills in our mailboxes tell us we need money. The fevers, coughs and sneezes, the aches and pains, the x-rays and MRIs tell us we need healing. Feelings of loneliness and isolation tell us we need family and friendship. We need because we’re creatures. No matter how independent we are, we can’t survive on our own. We’re dependent upon one another, we’re dependent upon our Creator, God the Father.

The ten lepers in our Gospel reading are a perfect illustration of our need. These ten real life men were in need. Their situation was a dire one. First, they were afflicted with a terrible skin disease that could lead to their death. There was no cure for leprosy. If one had it they simply had to wait: wait for the body to heal itself, or wait for it to spread and kill the body.

If this wasn’t enough suffering, these men were quarantined, separated from loved ones, from the whole of the community because they were unclean. In Leviticus we hear God’s Word concerning this. “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp” (Lv 13:45-46). These ten were outside the village, alone, isolated. They were in great need: in need of physical healing, in need of restoration, in need of life.

We have the same need. We need the physical things of life: food, drink, clothing, shoes, house and home, family, friends, government, peace, health, and the list can go on and on. We need healing. No one is immune to sickness. Viruses and germs infect young and old. Cancers grow all over our bodies. Heart attacks, strokes, and the like leave lasting effects. These ailments are physical signs of sin, sin that entered the world when our first parents gave in to the devil’s temptation, sin that destroys God’s creation.

Sin doesn’t just leave physical damage though, it also damages our relationships. Our sin separates us from one another. Like the ten with leprosy disconnected from family and friends, our sin disconnects us from ours. Our hurtful, selfish, sinful words and actions pit husbands against wives, children against parents, siblings against siblings, friends against friends. Our sin disconnects us from God, our Creator who gave us life. Sin makes us unclean, and nothing unclean can come into God’s holy presence. Therefore we’re quarantined, isolated from God and others. We need restoration, but we can’t restore ourselves.

The ten lepers were helpless in their need. They could do nothing to heal or restore themselves. All they could do is cry out. Seeing Jesus they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (Lk 17:13). And we do the same. Helpless in our need of healing and restoration, helpless in our need for life, we cry out. We lift up our voices to Jesus our Master; we cry out the Kyrie, in faith we pray, “Lord, have mercy.” And God answers this prayer with His unending mercy in Jesus Christ our Savior.

Hearing these ten men cry out, Jesus healed them. Christ cleansed them from the disease that attacked their bodies, He restored them back to the community, He gave them life, and He does the same for you and me.

Jesus overcomes that which we can’t, our sin. He did this on the cross. Sin causes death, it causes our death. We should be the ones who die because it’s our sin. But in mercy, God sent His Son who had no sin to take our sin, to die our death. And in this sacrificial act, Jesus fulfilled our need.

Because of the cross, God answers our prayer for mercy. He heals us of our sin, the disease that makes us unclean. He washes it away with the waters of Baptism. He forgives us and restores us back into a right relationship with Him. Jesus’ forgiveness overcomes the hurtful, selfish, sinful words and actions that separate us from one another. When we sin against one another, we repent and we forgive.

Jesus’ cross gives us life, both of body and soul. While here on earth, we physically suffer the consequence of sin in sickness and disease. Sometimes the Lord will provide us with healing through the hands of doctors, nurses, and the use of meds. Other times He may not. But this doesn’t mean isn’t merciful. He is, for He promises you everlasting life in heaven. This life will be free from all suffering, from viruses, cancers, and all disease. When we endure physical sufferings we look forward to that life to come, knowing God has graciously given us life in Christ.

When one of the ten realized he was healed, he returned back to Jesus, praising God and giving thanks. This faithful man couldn’t help but do this, for in Jesus he was given everything he needed, and so are we. So we follow the example of this faithful man. We return and praise God, we give Him thanks. We do this as we speak of God’s mercy in Christ and as we show mercy to others by helping them in their needs.

Yesterday we hosted the LWML Zone Rally. These women are all about showing God’s mercy toward others as they sew quilts to help keep people warm and as they donate their mites to financially support other mercy works and the great need of spreading the Gospel to others. We do likewise. We praise God for His mercy, telling others what He has done for us. We return thanks to Him by giving our offerings and tithes, supporting the proclamation of Jesus’ cross to our brothers and sisters who are in desperate need to hear this saving Gospel message. Having received God’s great mercy, we can’t help but do this.

We’re a people in need, in need of healing, restoration, and life. Unable to meet our need, we cry out in faith, “Lord have mercy!” And He does. God mercifully answers our prayers through Christ our Lord. He heals us of our sin, He restores us back into communion with Him and others, and He gives us life everlasting. And we respond to His mercy with thanksgiving and praise. We give back to Him from the gifts He has given to us. We sing His praises and tell others what He has done. We share His mercy with others in need showing forth the mercy He has given to us in Christ. In Jesus’ name...Amen.

Listening to the radio. . .

While absentmindedly listening to the radio, NPR, I believe, an on air conversation piqued my interest.  These were obviously 20-30 somethings and they were talking off the cuff about politics, the election, and things in general.  I was surprised to find out the depth of the roots of political correctness and the general presumption of the goodness of toleration, globalism, unfettered immigration, and diversity and the intolerance of the bad things of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and Islamophobia.  About these there was no debate nor was there any question.

As the conversation went on, I discovered that I was almost by nature a racist, xenophobe, homophobe, and Islamophobe since I was born in the Midwest, live in the South, and am an orthodox Christian.  It comes as news to me but apparently not news to them.  Though they were not all from the salt water regions of the US, they were all pretty united in their certainty that Clinton's description of the basket of deplorables were guilty of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and Islamophobia and were not to be tolerated.

I am not a supporter of Trump and neither am I supporter of Hillary.  I am not enamored of Gary Johnson and will vote for the one I figure will do the least damage to the positions I hold against the deplorable legalization of abortion, for the traditional definition of family, in support of the freedom of religion, and against our modern day scourge of terrorism (which seems to have one overriding thing in common that should not be overlooked).  I did not come over with the Pilgrims but am a Johnny come lately -- part of the fruit of the late immigration of the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.  Although I had not felt it before, as I listened I felt a distinct wall between those speaking on air and me listening in my car.  I suddenly realized that I was the kind of person that these speakers found contemptible and my opinions intolerable.

The truth is that there are bigots and brutes on all sides and in every corner.  But it troubles me that by nature I was assigned a persona when it was not me who had changed views but culture which had moved at a very fast pace and very far away from me.  I tend to think that most folks like me are neither bigots nor racists and are not phobic toward any of the sacred groups mentioned.  To disagree is not to become phobic and to hold to different values is not bigotry.  Again, my point is not that I moved but the world around me moved rather quickly to distance themselves and politically correct positions and speech from where I was and remain.  I am not sure what to do about that.

The congregation I serve has many young folks in that demographic who are not at all like the the folks I listened to on the radio.  They are also not stodgy nor curmudgeonly like I am.  They are just honest Christian people who believe the values they were taught even as they are remarkably without prejudice.  While my prejudice is often the source of complaint, it seems that the real prejudice lies with those who can no longer stomach what only a few years ago were the ordinary positions of ordinary people of all ages, in and out of politics.I don't think I am bitter but maybe I am.  If I am bitter it is not because I am a frothing at the mouth neo-Nazi.  It is because I have been marginalized by culture on the move away from me, by political opinions that refuse to tolerate disagreement, by judicial activists who cannot convince with their arguments and who must legislate me out of business from the bench, and by the smug elites who have decided their is no place for me and my neanderthal kind in their progressive vision of the future.

It is no longer a culture war we fight to win.  It is a fight to survive and to continue to believe, teach, and confess what is no longer popular and probably detestable by those who have moved on past me and the antiquated positions I hold.  I wonder if you might not feel somewhat the same.

Attachments included. . .

Have you ever noticed how many pieces you have left over when you put something together?  Have you ever felt the fear of reading the words "attachments included" when you opened up a package?  Have you ever felt that sinking feeling when you downloaded an attachment to an email from an unfamiliar sender? Attachments can be great.  They can also be a nightmare.  Let me rephrase that.  Most of the time they are a nightmare. 

I have a bucket of things in my garage -- I have no clue what they are, what they are for, or what to do with them.  They came as attachments to various stuff.  I dare not throw them away because I just might need them someday.  Someday my kids will come across this bucket, scratch their heads and laugh as they toss it out.  And the next day they will desperately need some widget from the bucket.

Life is filled with attachments.  Some of them are great.  Marriage, family, friendships, neighborhood, work, leisure -- these are all attachments to our lives and most of them are great most of the time.  But sometimes they are just a pain.  They take from us (even more than we expected).  When the pastor pronounces you husband and wife it seems grand and easy and then one day when things are not grand or easy you wonder if you made the right choice.  It is a great moment when they lay that little baby in your arms for the first time and then there are days when you wondered why in your right might did you ever want to be a parent.  Usually what changes how we feel about attachments is how much they take from us vs how much they return.

The attachments of the world always take -- even when they seem to give.  Remember the old movie about home-ownership?  The Money Pit.  You have that right.  I seem to spend more time at the home center than I do at home.  When that first paycheck was placed in your hand, you thought you were on top of the world.  Now the dollars fly out of your pocket to bills you never dreamed you would have. 

When Jesus said "God or mammon" He was not trying to rain on our parade but to awaken within us that all attachments are not the same.  The attachments of the world take.  The attachment of the Kingdom of God is the only one that gives.  One creates anxiety and one exudes comfort and peace.  One is filled with the fear of losing it and the other bestows the confidence of owning what you have only because it was freely given.

At the heart of stewardship is some fear.  You cannot avoid it.  Worldly things and worldly attachments are filled with fear.  The answer is not to reason your way out of it.  The answer is faith.  We trust what we do not see more than what we do see.  We have more confidence in that which we cannot earn or possess than the things God has freely given by grace, through faith.  Money is never the source of the problem.  It is merely a symptom.  Faith is the problem.  We want to believe but we are conditioned to believe that attachments take more than they return.  And it would be true. . . except for the things of God.  So the daily struggle to believe in spite of our unbelief. . .

Worldly attachments are not always bad but they always have a cost.  Only that which God freely gives in Christ who paid for them are free.  God or mammon. . . it is not a threat but a dose of honestly almost too much for us to handle.  Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief. . .

Rethinking some things about hymnody. . .

One of the great fruits of the introduction of the 3 year lectionary has been the flourishing of new hymns written to accompany the lectionary texts not previously heard on Sunday morning.  I remain encouraged and enthused by the many and profound texts and tunes that were given birth by the inclusion of so many new pericopes in the Divine Service.  We can and should be grateful for this new birth of hymnody.  Sure, there are those who complain that not all new texts are sturdy nor will all endure.  This is surely true and yet it is not always apparent which texts and tunes survive and which fall away.  Some of these lesser children of the lectionary have endured way past their prime (at least in my estimation) and others have fallen into obscurity before they were given a real chance.  Oh, well.

Though I have lived in tension with regards to the 3 year lectionary vs the historic or one year system of readings appointed for the Sundays, one of the magnets that continually drives me back to the 3 year is that rich flourish of hymnody that has accompanied the move from a one year to a three year system of repeated readings.  That said, I do note that there has been a cost and a high one.

Part of that cost has been the almost universal idea that hymns are primarily, if not universally, appointed to fit the lectionary.  This idea is so pervasive that many of those planning the hymns to be sung find it hard to justify the appointed Hymns of the Day precisely because they do not see the direct textual connection with the readings appointed for that day.  It is true that some of them, many of them, perhaps, are thematic more than textual with regard to the appointed pericopes of the day.  While it is good that we weave together hymns using the readings themselves to draw everything together into a fabric, it is also true that many of the good, even great, hymns of old simply do not relate to a specific text and have fallen into lessor use or out of the realm of the familiar within most congregations.

Lutheran hymnals since the move to English have always struggled with what to do with the hymns of their heritage.  Many of them were non-liturgical (not tied into the lectionary or particularly to a season of the church year) and some of them were a little to directed toward us than we feel comfortable in our God directed idea of Gottesdienst.  Survey after survey of use has shown that our people tend to like and sing more American and English hymns than the Lutheran hymns of our heritage -- almost to the point that we have become strangers to the hymnody that flourished in the post-Reformation period.

The great hymnwriters of old, like Paul Gerhardt, are often unknown to Lutherans today and their hymns (complete with many more stanzas that folks tend to want to sing) are also strangers to our people and to what we sing on Sunday morning.  The hymns we have included have generally been cut and pasted to reduce 12 stanzas to 5 and 20 stanzas to 7 -- thus eliminating some of the hymn's developmental logic and witness.

The absence of a family altar where the family sing hymns in the home, the lack of hymns such as these in use for Sunday school openings, and the virtual absence of the daily offices from parish life have conspired to remove from us part of our best heritage of hymnody and devotion. 

Why the demise of these great Lutheran hymns?  Probably the experts have decided that there is not much use for such hymns.  Probably because of their length, the folks in the pew do not miss them.  Probably because they have not been translated or translated well.  Probably because we think more globally than domestically (and Lutheranism is here profoundly domestic, as Gracia Grindal has noted). 

What can we do about it?  We can re-introduce our people to their heritage.  Matthew Carver has certainly done a bang up job of translating hymns not previously accessible in English (with all their wonderful peculiarities and many stanzas).  Some hymn writers are becoming more attentive to the need to translate and recast these songs of our past.  The gift of desktop publishing has placed all of their efforts within our reach.  So let us try to reacquaint our people with these strongly vocational, manward oriented, and richly ornamented songs of the faith that are both theologically faithful and rich while also profoundly poetic.  In any case, I am reminded that these sturdy hymns of old deserve a wider usage and will try to keep that in mind as I plan the hymn calendar for my own parish.

The devotion of the devout. . .

Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice presidential nominee played weekend prophet and theologian when he told activists in the Human Rights Campaign that the Roman Catholic Church will eventually change its teachings against same-sex marriage.  He is surely following the lead of Joe Biden, the current Vice-President, who presided at a same-sex wedding (after receiving special dispensation not from the Roman Catholic Church of which he claims to be a devout member but from the Washington, D.C., government).  Kaine is a devout Roman Catholic as well as a U.S. senator from Virginia and a former governor of that state. 

"I think it's going to change because my church also teaches me about a creator who, in the first chapter of Genesis, surveyed the entire world, including mankind, and said, 'It is very good,'" Kaine said. He then recalled Pope Francis' remark that "who am I to judge?" in reference to gay priests.

"I want to add: Who am I to challenge God for the beautiful diversity of the human family? I think we're supposed to celebrate it, not challenge it," Kaine said.

The shock here is not that Biden or Kaine have come out in support of same sex marriage and have used their good offices to support it.  The shock here is that both are self-described and media lauded as devout.  Devout must not mean totally committed to a cause or belief.  The meaning must have changed.  For now it must surely mean claiming to be good Roman Catholics while breaking with the church over major doctrines.  Lest we be smug, we have many devout Lutherans as well -- folks who routinely defy and denigrate the public doctrine of the very church they claim to hold membership.

I had thought that devout had synonyms like devoted, committed, loyal, faithful, staunch, genuine, firm, steadfast, unwavering, sincere, wholehearted, keen, enthusiastic, zealous, passionate, ardent, fervent, etc...  I guess I was otherwise occupied when the word changed and became a synonym of disloyal, faithless, false, fickle, inconstant, perfidious, recreant, traitorous, treacherous, unfaithful, untrue, etc...

We have no shortage of such devout folks in a whole variety of churches and I suspect that the very same devotion they show to the doctrines of the churches, they also show to Scripture itself.  It has become fashionable to show patriotism by criticizing your country, remaining seated during the national anthem, or behaving badly while representing America in some official capacity.  It has also become fashionable to speak and act at odds with what your church believes, confesses, and teaches -- as if you were aloof from and too smart for all that faith stuff.

Yes, I am being sarcastic.  I am being sarcastic because I don't know what else to make of those who believe that piety is best shown by challenging what your church believes and confesses.  If that is your belief, then do your church a favor and change to another church that mirrors what it is you do believe.  No one gains when their public witness for the church of their choice is one of doubt, rejection, or disbelief.  Now, if it is true that your church believes something contrary to Scripture and its catholic doctrine and practice, then you may be permitted to disagree to call your church to reform and renewal.  Luther learned that there are limits even to this.  But if you are rejecting what your church believes and teaches because it is politically unpopular or out of step with culture or in conflict with political correctness or appears to be narrow or judgmental by those with whom your church may disagree, well then just do your church a favor and either be quiet and smile a lot or quietly leave for a church that does not want to be faithful.  Lord knows there are enough of them!

The ELCA is a great home for those who want a Lutheranism that stands out and against what Lutherans historically believed, taught, and confessed -- especially about same sex marriage!  There are plenty of church homes that would be happy to welcome Tim and Joe and all the other Roman Catholics who presume to know better than Scripture and tradition what is right and what is wrong with regard to GLBTQ agenda.  Get to know one and find a friend.  But don't stand up in public and denigrate what your church confesses and act in stark contrast to clear church teaching and then claim to be devout or allow others to say you are devout.  It makes a mockery of your church, you, and the very word itself.

UPDATE. . . .

Gretta Vosper, the United Church of Canada minister who did not believe in God, was given a standing ovation by her congregation after her first Sunday service since being a United Church report branded her self-described atheism as grounds she was “not suitable” to carry on. So I was surprised by the United Church's decision to remove but not by the response of the congregation where her atheism has been front and center for a long time.  Another form of a devout adherent who sees no contradiction between rejection of what a church believes and being called a fine, upstanding member...

The Word of the ESV endureth forever. . .

Beginning in the summer of 2016, the text of the ESV Bible will remain unchanged in all future editions printed and published by Crossway—in much the same way that the King James Version (KJV) has remained unchanged ever since the final KJV text was established almost 250 years ago (in 1769). So the word has come down from Crossway and with it a list of those 29 verses and 52 words being changed.  The text of the ESV will no longer be updated but will remain as is following this update.  Read it all here. . .

I must admit to being rather surprisingly relieved by this.  No, I do not consider the ESV the perfect translation (not even the KJV merits this judgment) but as a pastor I have tired of the constant meddling with the text to the point where it is not enough to know the version but the edition of that version.  It is a pesky problem when Bible studies bog down on minor translation differences (although the major ones can be useful studies in and of themselves).  I am happy that we will eventually have an ESV without the changes that have turned the NIV into something different than it was first envisioned.

Updates are helpful sometimes but continuity is also very helpful.  It is, after all, not the Word of the Lord that has changed but how convention has decided to render that word into a language other than the original that has changed.  Of course language changes, evolves, and transitions and we will have to deal with some of that with an ESV that ignores those changes.  But the truth is that we have not suffered so greatly and the KJV has remained essentially unchanged and ever popular despite the fact that editorial committees have not updated its text.

In the beginning I was enamored of all the changes.  I have a dozen or more versions on my bookshelves (everything from The Cotton Patch Version to the New Jerusalem) and I thought it was the cat's meow.  But at that stage of my life I saw the Bible as a fluid word subject to change -- if not in text then in meaning.  Instruction and maturity have taught the error of my youthful ways.  Fascination with change is its own weakness, especially when it comes to Scripture.

I recall most passages in some form of the KJV/RSV that were the two most predominant versions of my youth and I learned the Catechism in the same way (1943 copyright).  The constant juggling of words is important more for the restraint of past exuberance over change than the deficiencies of the older texts.  In most cases, we are restoring rather than revising, going back rather than breaking new ground (both with catechism and with Bible translation and updates).  The years have taught me that what I thought was cool as a youth are at odds with the way we learn and our ability to meet together at the same texts even though we are separated by generations of time.

Having only recently upgraded to an IPhone SE, it is disconcerting to think that the 7 is already out.  I am more than happy to have some problems fixed but after a while the constant need to upgrade to new technology makes the devices only more expensive and more trouble.  These are, after all, only means and not ends.  So it is good that we distance Scripture, catechism, and even liturgical change from the way commerce views the introduction of a product new and different but predictably more pricey than what it replaces.  Incremental changes in the church are best and I for one laud the folks at Crossway for saying this is the text for today and for all the foreseeable future.

UPDATE:  The Text will be open to update after all, though seldom and minimally, it is hoped.  It turned out the world was not as ready to accept a constant text for Biblical and liturgical usage and Crossway changed its mind.  That said, I kept what I initially wrote.

Here is what Crossway has to say:  “The means to that goal, we now see, is not to establish a permanent text but rather to allow for ongoing periodic updating of the text to reflect the realities of biblical scholarship such as textual discoveries or changes in English over time,” stated Dennis. “These kinds of updates will be minimal and infrequent, but fidelity to Scripture requires that we remain open in principle to such changes.”

Where 2, 3, or 16 are gathered. . .

THE final parish meeting of the Holy Trinity Church, in the centre of Bath, took place on a rainy day in February 2011. Anglo-Catholic congregations had worshipped here, under the hammer-beam roof and monuments to heroes of Napoleonic wars, for nigh on two centuries. Now a £40,000 ($52,000) bill for electrical repairs had succeeded where a German bomb had failed: the church was to close and it was time to wind up its affairs. Formalities concluded, parishioners filed in for a final mass. “Forgive us as we confess our negative feelings and fears for the future,” ran a closing message on the website. Today the building is listed for sale on the Church of England website, offers invited.

So begins an article in The Economist on the demise of Christianity in Britain.  As if this were merely anecdotal, the story is fraught with disappointing statistics.   In 2009, showed Britons without religion slightly outnumbered those saying they’re Christians (now increased to 49 percent vs. 43 percent). And since 2004 baptisms are down 12%, church marriages down 19%, and funerals down 29%. Nowadays a quarter of Sunday services are attended by 16 or fewer worshipers.

In 1979,  5.4 million Britons attended church.  That dropped by a million in 10 years and then to 3.7 million in 1998.  Fast forward and in 2020 it is anticipated that fewer than 2.3 million will be in church on any given Sunday.  Now it is certainly true that in a few places the church in Britain is thriving but in most parts of the country it is dying.  Gallup found in polling that The UK was pretty much at the bottom of the religious fervor of some 65 nations surveyed.  Though woven into the fabric of life in Elizabeth's realm, Christianity is becoming merely a memory, an aspect of heritage that seems to have little impact or influence on the character of British life on the whole.

So what does this matter?  First of all, Europe has been a fairly reliable barometer of the direction of things in the US.   That is not to say that everything that happens in Europe happens here but, without taking pains to avoid it, it is a trend that we will encounter in America sooner rather than later.  In addition, the relative poor health of Christian faith and life in the so-called developed world only further distances us from the mission fields that we once planted -- areas where Christianity is not only living but growing.  Finally, it is testament to the legacy of civil religion in which doctrine takes second place and a spiritualized version of moral progress takes over the preaching.  We would do well to take note of that last point.  Christianity in America cannot survive as a civil religion rich in spirituality but devoid of actual doctrines nor can it survive as a voice for the moral improvement of man and society apart from the center of the creed -- the God who has revealed Himself in flesh in His Son and paid the cost of our redemption so that we may be forgiven and restored to Him who created us.

The example of the British is also poignant in the fact that just as ceremony cannot be separated from actual doctrine, neither can doctrine live apart from the worship life wherein that doctrine is confronted, confessed, and carried forth in daily life.  We have witnessed first hand evangelicals who have abandoned all catholic ceremony and ritual and with it the very tenets of the orthodox Christian faith and in Britain we have witnessed the ceremony and ritual carefully preserved and eloquently executed but completely empty of its meaning.  Neither can be a refuge for faithfulness and both are key, along with orthodox catechesis, or the faith in lands once well known as Christian will be a memory in a few generations.

Debunking a myth

The common myth, fed certainly by the 24 hour news cycle and the need to keep us tuned into the media, is that violence, war, and terror are more today than every before.  It is a common perception but it is a myth.  Violence around the world is actually on the decline when viewed over the expanse of time. The truth is that there are less wars and less people dying in wars than there have been in long, long time.  It certainly does not mesh with conventional wisdom or with the media's constant hawking of threats but it is true.

Everyone from Glenn Beck on one side to Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker agree, the world has become incredibly peaceful.  It just may be that today we are in the most peaceable era in the existence of all mankind.  According to Parker, "The rate of documented direct deaths from political violence (war, terrorism, genocide and militias) in the past decade is an unprecedented few hundredths of a percentage point."

Of course, the rate of violence declines but the increase in population means that there are still many people dying.  Consider that prior to 187o, there were just 50 or so independent countries and today that number has nearly quadrupled.  So there is more "friction" between the nations but fewer real wars.  Even then, the friction is not translating into armed conflicts.  Those who plot such statistics define a war as having casualties of 1,000 or more.  Sure, the armed conflicts in the Middle East has picked up a bit in the past 5-10 years, after a period of decline, but that said, the news may just give us a false picture of how dangerous the world really is.

I write this not because I think we should all breathe a sigh of relief but because too many of us have become addicted to the news, defined by our fears, and our lives shaped by threat.  I have had many people come to me who were on the verge of being crippled by their fears and have told them to start by stopping watching the news.  The news is a business and its use of technology has brought every skirmish into our own living rooms and bedrooms to the point where we live in fear of an amplified threat that is overstated and, on the other hand, we live somewhat immune to the real threats that ought to occupy our attention.

The physical threats are easier to identify but the spiritual threats are much more hidden and yet also much more real.  In our obsession with physical wars and violence, we may have grown somewhat complacent to the other side of the equation.  The loss of personal responsibility, the acceptance of a diagnosis instead of personal accountability for behavior, the victimization of our culture, the growing intolerance of those who disagree with us, and the lack of a commonly held fabric of values and history to bind our diversity together into one nation and one culture... these are just a few of the things that threaten our America every bit as much as the enemies who have their fingers on a trigger.

The peacemaking of Scripture does not paper over such real threats nor does it allow us the comfort of choosing which ills to address and which to overlook.  Now more than any other time, our culture is in need of an anchor in truth and a moral compass and Christians are uniquely poised to offer both (without falling into the trap of merely being naysayers to everything).  We need to explain and not just defend the truth of God's Word and the moral foundation built upon it.  We need to offer the real peace of God's abiding presence and abundant mercy to those who see only danger and threat in the world around them.  We also need to call us all to personal accountability and personal responsibility for the choices we make and the actions we take. 

The media have not only done a great job of creating an atmosphere of fear that has distorted the reality of wars, violence, and threat.  It has also done a great job or marginalizing Christianity against the real danger to our common values and personal accountability that were once the hallmarks of our American culture and life.

Do your duty. . .

Sermon preached for Pentecost 20, Proper 22C, on Sunday, October 2, 2016.

Have you ever had one of those horrible moments when someone asked if you noticed but you were not sure what you were supposed to notice?  In our great need for affirmation, we act like little children who must tell anyone who will hear what we did.  Over and over again we tell the battle stories of our lives, the misery of our work, the problems we have at home, and on and on.  But the truth is most of this is ordinary stuff.  We want someone to notice, to listen, to understand, and to affirm us but most of these are the daily duties of our mortal lives for which we are ought expect no special commendation.  Jesus said in the Gospel for today:  “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.”

So what is our duty?  What are the things for which we ought expect no special commendation?  Jesus tells us.  Do not tempt others to sin.  Shape your lives so that they do not invite others to do the wrongs you have done.  Speak so that those around you will not will not be drawn away from the Lord.  This is not simply our duty to the Lord but to our neighbors, to those around us.  Our first duty of love is not to tempt those around us to sin.

And with this is the call not to ignore the sins of others that will lead them astray.  In other words, when we sit silent before the wrongs of those around us we only confirm them in their sin and lead them to unbelief.  The duty of love requires us that we not fail to rebuke the sins of those around us lest our failure to speak encourage them to condemnation.  There is no live and let live in the kingdom of God.  Love compels us -- not superior righteousness or moral superiority but love.  Love called us to repentance and love calls our brothers and sisters back to the way that is Christ.

Just as we are not to tempt others to sin nor stand silently by as they follow the path of sin to their destruction, neither can we fail to forgive those who repents.  Not because they deserve it but because God has forgiven us unworthy sinners, we forgive those around us.  Even if they sin against us the same sin seven times a day, when they come to us and by their repentance ask to be forgiven, we forgive as Christ has us.  Forgiveness is not a reward for those who have reformed their lives but the means by which the sinner is reborn in grace.  Love forgives.  As we have been forgiven in Christ.

Our duty is not to tempt, not to contribute to the sinfulness of those around us, and not to fail to forgive them.  But love does not stop there.  The duty of love is to serve those around us – our family, our neighbor, our employer, and those in need.  Love does not choose whether or not to serve but love serves as Christ has served us in love.  His love is our motivation.  Not the worthiness of those around us, not whether or not the needs comes at a convenient time, not if we want to serve those around us, but as Christ has loved and redeemed us, so do we love and serve those around us.

Of course the weight of all this duty of love seems too much.  Like the disciples of old, we cry how can we possibly do all that is asked of us?  If we are going to do all this, then we will need more faith. “Increase our faith” we cry.  The burden of love is too much for us.  The temptation to us is to run from love for its duty seems too great and we fear we will never obtain the faith we need to satisfy love’s duty to our neighbor.  Faith does not wait until stronger to act nor does it wait for a better moment.

Jesus insists we do not need more faith but to use the faith we have.  Our duty to our neighbor cannot wait for us to grow enough faith to make this love easy.  No, indeed.  Even if we have the faith of a mustard seed, we have enough faith to live our lives in faithful response to God and in faithful love and service to our neighbor.

There is a part of us that believes if we have the right explanation or instruction, we will figure it out.  There is also a part of us that cries for a miracle to confirm that this is what we are to do and that we can do it.  Uprooted trees and miraculous signs are great but we don’t need them to ease the way.  The way is not sight.  It is faith. What we need to exercise our faith and confidence in Christ, to live out what we proclaim. 

Then there is the final shibboleth.  Will it make a difference and will anybody notice? If loving our family, neighbor, employer, and the poor will not make a difference we can see with our eyes and really improve their lot, what is it worth?  Why bother?  If nobody notices and I receive no credit for what I do, why bother?  These are the ways we work to justify our lack of love for our neighbor and our failure to warn the sinner of the consequences of his ways.  But these are not the words of faith.  These are the words of unbelief.

Every day we know God’s mercies new – not because we deserve them but because it is God’s nature to love even the unworthy and undeserving.  We come together today before the cross where we meet the ultimate love for the sinner.  Here we see that Jesus is not asking anything from us that He has not already done for us.  We love because He first loved us.  Our love is not noteworthy because it is love in response to the love that saved us through the cross, bearing the full weight of our sin in His suffering, and dying that we might live.

Living our lives in response to that love means asking for no special notice or reward for what we do but living toward our neighbor as Christ has lived for us.  Of course this is hard.  It goes against our sinful natures that want to live only for self.  It goes against the world which pleads to be noticed, affirmed, and rewarded.  Though we live in a world conditioned by sin to act because of reward, you and I were reborn in baptism to live different lives, new lives, lives shaped by Christ’s life for us.

Today Brooklyn joined us in God’s kingdom through the waters of baptism.  She was planted in the Kingdom of God and the Holy Spirit lives in her just as you and I have been planted in God’s Kingdom and the Spirit lives in us.  The way of this Kingdom means being in the world but not of the world.  You and I live apart from the world not in physical place but in the kind of lives we live.  The way of this life and the way of the Kingdom of God is faith – faith that move us to do what is love’s duty as Christ has loved us.

The way of the Kingdom of God is not self-serving nor it is for personal gain or glory. The way of this Kingdom is faith.  As Christ has lived a holy life, so do we strive for holiness lest we tempt others to sin.  As Christ called us out from the way of sin and its death, so do we call those around us to repentance.  As Christ has forgiven us and still forgives us, so do we in Christ forgive.  As He has provided for us for this life and for eternity, so do we take up the cause of those in need.

You are not a victim.  You earned the curse sin has caused you.  You are not a victim. Christ has loved you in spite of that sin.  He went to your cross, to wear your suffering, and to die your death.  He has called you to faith so that you might live in this hope, rejoice in this mercy, and be transformed by the power of His love.  You are bit a victim.  You are most of all the privileged who have received the mercy of God.  You know the privilege of God’s grace and what it means to be called the baptized children of God.  The world claims victimhood; your claim is grace.

So do what is your calling and your duty.  Do not tempt others to sin by your sins.  Live holy lives as much as you are able and if you fail let it not be because you did not try.  Go to church.  Raise your children in this faith.  Serve the Lord through the ministries of this church.  Support this church with your tithes and offerings.  Forgive those who hurt you as Christ has forgiven you.  Use now the faith God has already supplied you and do not wait for perfect faith or perfect timing to live out your baptismal new life. 

And at the end of the day, we struggle not to whine because this holy calling did not change the world or because we did not enjoy our service or because nobody noticed what we did or recognized us for our efforts.  Faith acknowledges our debt to grace, rejoices in the love that has saved us, and claims the duty of that love in our relationships here on earth.  We are all unworthy servants.  Even when we do our best for the Lord, we are only doing our duty.

But do not forget this.  What the world never notices, the Lord sees.  What the world does not credit, the Lord knows and has promised everlasting reward.  Let this be enough.  God has given us the kingdom.  Amen.

Square pegs in round holes. . .

Preaching has been described in many ways.  Some suggest preaching is to the unconverted and is a call to faith.  Others insist it is for the Christian and is to nurture an existing faith.  Some would focus preaching on changing behavior.  Others would instruct the mind hoping that the heart and life will follow along.  Some believe it is the preacher's job to inspire.  Others see the preacher's task to call the people to repentance.  And I could go on.  Of course, there are those who believe it is a little bit of everything but then it usually is not much of anything.

Perhaps the kind of preaching that offends me most is the sermon that answers all the questions with a Bible passage, vignette, or moralism.  I confess I grow very tired of those who tear out pages from the Bible and paste them against the questions that inevitably rise from the hearts of the faithful living in a world less than friendly to their faith.  It is just as tiring as those who abandon any pretense of the faith or of Scripture and have turned the sermon into a motivational speech designed to help people help themselves.

The answers of the Scriptures do not fit the questions posed by the world (at least apart from the Spirit's work opening the heart to faith and the mind to understand the mercy of God).  I am not saying that the Scriptures do not answer the real questions of man's need but that the natural man does not understand his plight nor does he recognize the voice of God in His Word or the answers of that Word.  To the world, the Scriptures are square pegs that do not fit in the round holes of the self-described wants and needs of people apart from the prompting of the Spirit.

For all intents and purposes, the internet is a better deity for the natural man than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The internet seems endless and yet easily accessible.  It is both expansive and personal (in a manner of speaking).  Its answers are entirely relevant and if you dispute them it will offer different answers to suit you.  It is the source of a virtual world that competes with the other world around you and becomes your refuge and retreat when you cannot stomach the other reality.  The internet preserves us and our images -- thus offering a suitable substitute for eternal life to a people who have made something of a peace with death.  It dispenses with the unsavory idea of guilt or shame and allows us to indulge our desires without inhibitions in relative anonymity.  It creates a virtual sphere of friends and family that make it easy to live apart from and to dispense with the more messy face to face of real relationships.  It is the round peg for our round hole -- the ultimate magnification of self and preference across the face of the universe.

The preaching of the Church does not attempt to shove the square pegs of the Scriptures into the round holes of the world's interests or concerns but proclaims an other worldly kingdom that has dawned here but opens something that is in but not of this world.  In the face of this new reality, the old questions are no longer either urgent or relevant and new questions lead us deeper into the mystery of God and His merciful acts.  Preaching the Kingdom means preaching the new reality which is defined not simply by what we see with our eyes but what we know by faith.  The people in the pews are not kept by inspirational stories designed to help them achieve their own dreams any more than they are kept by pat answers that explain away all that is around them.  What keeps them is the transcendent kingdom ushered in by the immanent God who wears our flesh, suffers in our place, dies our death, and rises to give us life brand new.

Because of this the world will always find faithful preaching somewhat irrelevant or irrational.  Its questions are round holes while God is speaking in square pegs.  Only faith can open the ears to hear and the mind to begin to comprehend the mystery of God and our place in all of this.  Preaching confronts us with the new reality born in us by baptism.  Preaching does not make sense of the world or answer all its questions but delivers the new reality manifest in Christ Jesus.  In the face of this, the old questions will either be rewritten or completely abandoned.  This preaching does not make it easier to understand or deal with the world around us but gives us a perspective in which to frame both the joys of this world and its sorrows.

The problem is that too much preaching tries to answer the questions the Scriptures do not answer or reduces the Gospel to mere motivational encouragement that justifies and legitimizes the natural desires of the heart. Either way it is a square peg in a round hole that satisfies no one.  Look at the question that come to Jesus and His answers.  Should not the preaching of this present day parallel the way Jesus directed the hearer beyond self and the moment into the kingdom born of His own death and resurrection?  If you want answers, the internet is your god.  Don't squeeze God into openings into which He cannot fit.  Preach the kingdom.  Preach Christ crucified.  The Spirit will awaken faith in the hearer and create the questions that will lead the hearer to the one and only answer -- Jesus Christ.

A Wedge Issue. . .

One of the most common pursuits of modern Bible scholars is to pit one author against another -- as if the Scriptures were a patchwork quilt of different authors with different messages and with different estimations of God.  So we are often told that Paul does not sound much like Jesus but James does sound more like Jesus.  In particular, the Pauline descriptions of justification are seen as purely a Pauline perspective.  On another forum one such "scholar" said: "justification" is a concept that comes from Paul much more than from Jesus.

Intrinsic to this point of view is the judgment that Scripture does not have one message but many and the many different points of view represent best guesses from which the scholar can learn bits and pieces but nothing even approaching one message from the two Testaments.  According to these scholars, the Scriptures are a deep, dark book that us only the barest glimpse of God and a book so hard to understand that only the scholar and correctly discern its content.

The primary difference on Scripture between conservatives and liberals lies precisely on this issue.  Conservatives believe the Scriptures are clear and the message plain -- Jesus Christ.  As I often tell my new members' classes, the Bible has one message -- Jesus Christ -- and there is a unity between Old and New Testament and among the various authors.  On that same forum, another contributed put it this way:  since it comes from Paul, it comes from Jesus. While this seems to be simplistic and naive, it is just the opposite.  It is the deep and profound perspective of faith and the consistent understanding of the faithful over the ages.

According to the scholars trying to make Matthew say the same thing as Paul or John is doing a disservice to the Scriptures and to each author's own perspective on things.  I would disput this and insist that the opposite is the case.  Trying to pit Jesus against Paul and Matthew against John and so on does a grave disservice to the Scriptures and to Christ who is the key to those Scriptures.  While every conservative commentator worth his salt pays attention to the distinctives we see in the various individual authors, no one worthy his salt attempts to divide the Scriptures or turn the various authors into enemies competing with each other over their own perspective of who God is and what He has done.  In fact, this perspective leads to the inescapable conclusion that God cannot really be known at all and that the only authentic approach to God or to His Word is that of many blind men trying to discern who the elephant is and what he is like from their own little viewpoint.  The end result of this is that there is no doctrine or truth that trumps any other and every viewpoint and individual judgement is equally defective (except, of course, those of the scholars who alone are able to transcend their limitations).

Who is facing whom?

Earlier this summer Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, caused a stir by suggesting that the Church return to the practice of priest and people facing the same direction during the Liturgy of the Sacrament, a change the liturgical scholars describe as ad orientem.  Cardinal Sarah proposed that this change begin on the First Sunday of Advent this year.

The posture of priest and people facing the same direction in the prayer of the Canon of the Mass was introduced post Vatican II.  This versus populum position has become a big deal among those who insist on liturgical reform and those who decry the innovations of the post-Vatican II liturgical renewal.  I would suggest that the postures are somewhat misnamed.

Since the liturgy is not about us, there is no such orientation as facing the people.  It does not matter which direction the priest or the people are facing, the orientation of both priest and people is to the Lord.  Yes, I do understand the significance of the ad orientem and versus populum.  But priest and people facing the same direction or facing toward each other has marginal difference since the priest does not ever perform for the sake of a people who act as spectators.  Such is the first fallacy of ad orientem and versus populum.  The whole liturgy is toward the Lord who delights in serving us with His gifts. 


The one big improvement that ad orientem might address is the problem of pastor or priest who has the mistaken idea that he is performing.  There is a continuing problem of the priest-pastor-celebrant who imposes his own personality on the liturgy.  Now that kind of personality will do the same thing whether he is facing the people or both are facing the same direction.  Yet the posture of ad orientem might discourage it a bit and for that reason we ought to give it every consideration.

The problem of performing priests/pastors and people who come to watch or be entertained is a problem not simply a matter of changing posture but of  preaching and catechesis.  This will not change by a simple reordering of who stands where but requires liturgical catechesis as well as catechesis in the faith.  If God's people are going to understand the liturgy as an act of worship that equips us for God's service, then they need faithful instruction and training.  For Lutherans this means not simply teaching them the Scriptures but teaching them the liturgy that forms the source and summit of our piety.

Part or that catechesis means confronting and deconstructing the nonsense and fallacies too many people bring to the Divine Service -- people who have no instruction to counter what they presume.   If there is a change and a pastor or priest changes from versus populum to ad orientem, that does not mean “the priest is turning his back to the people” any more that he is facing the people when he stands behind the altar. 

What is wrong with this picture?

The photo was taken at a Valpo Liturgical Conference.  Once these liturgical institutes commanded great attention.  I fear that they are mostly forgettable, having become the domain exclusively of the ELCA and their social agenda.  The majority of clergy presiding were women (even though other photos show the majority of attenders were men).  We can lament this.  But there is more to this and the leftward drift of a liturgical conference that once boasted folks like Kenneth Korby speaking on such Lutheran topics as private confession.  Look at the photo.  The Valpo Chapel of the Resurrection was built to seat something like 3500 -- for the daily chapel and festival services of a university in northwestern Indiana intent upon being Lutheran.  Apparently the attendance has fallen off to the point where there is no need to use most of the chapel or its fine organ resources.  Instead, a small chapel has been created in the midst of the great assembly.

The altar is in the center with folks facing each other in order to face it.  It is a small altar and small pulpit in the shadow of the grand cross, mighty altar, and elevated pulpit where giants once spoke to the assembled college community (thinking here of O. P. Kretzmann).  What is left is a modern chapel adorned with the faces of the people as the primary liturgical art.  I know that there are some who will laud the decision to make a chapel within the nave of this large and imposing structure and it is certainly more intimate.  But what it does do is testify to just how small the Lutheran presence in chapel and worship has become to a large and diverse Lutheran university and its student population.  That is my point.  The artistic design of the chapel is secondary to the fact that this chapel lives in the shadows of a history and identity that once was an imposing identity upon the whole campus but it is certainly not one today.  This is a picture of the problems most Lutheran colleges and universities face.  What does it mean to be a Lutheran collegiate institution?

Chapel is not alone in answer to this question of identity but it was once a place where the unmistakable locus of the university's soul rested.  It is easy to pick at Valpo since it has formally distanced itself from its past and its once unofficially close association with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  It is easy to raise questions when ELCA colleges and universities claim a Lutheran legacy more than a Lutheran identity.  It is not so easy when it is a question facing the wholly owned Lutheran schools that make up the Concordia University System.  But it is no less urgent.  We are good at words.  We need to be better at the reality of what life on an LCMS campus is like.  Faith is not to be merely tolerated or even given a nod on these campuses but permeated throughout the classroom, dorm, and chapel.  This is a work in progress and I am thankfully for those administrations which face this question head on every day.  It is not enough to survive but if we are to survive, it ought to be as Lutheran institutions of higher education -- without apology.  Much less and we are little different than our secular counterparts except we charge more and have a small chapel available for those who want it.  Pray for our schools, folks!