A Great Reversal. . .

Sermon for Advent 3A, preached by the Rev. Daniel M. Ulrich on Sunday, December 11, 2016.

And Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them." (Mt 11:4). 

Opposite Day was always my favorite day of the month in grade school.  On this day the alphabetical order was reversed, and I got to be in the front of the line.  I got to lead everyone to the lunch and to recess.  This was a great day of reversal, and I loved it.  But there was a problem with Opposite Day...it was only one day.  This reversal wasn't everlasting, but the reversal Christ brings is.  Jesus came and reversed all that sin and Satan did.  This was His purpose, to undo that which Satan did, to reverse the sin and death that infected God's creation.

On the sixth day, after God had completed His work of creation, after He spoke the sun and moon, the plants and the animals into existence, after He breathed life into Adam and Eve, He looked at all He made and it was very good (Gn 1:31).  Life was the way it was supposed to be.  The earth brought forth food.  Adam and Eve's work in the Garden was enjoyable.  Everything lived, there was no disease, no death.  There was peace and harmony between our parents and creation, between God and man.
   
Life was going the way God designed it...until we disobeyed God.  Instead of listening to and trusting God, our first parents listened to Satan.  They trusted his lies and gave into his temptation.  Satan led us away from God, he led us into sin, and this destroyed God's perfect creation.  From that moment on, death and destruction filled the earth. 
   
No longer was work enjoyable.  The pain of childbirth would be increased for Eve (Gn 3:16).  The ground would bring forth thorns and thistles, and Adam would have a difficult time harvesting food (Gn 3:17).  Peace and harmony were no more.  Sin separated us from one another, and it separated us from God. 
   
At the Fall, life seemed hopeless, but it wasn't.  God gave our parents hope, He gave us hope in the promise of the One to come who'd reverse all of this, the One who'd defeat Satan. 
   
God cursed Satan saying, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel" (Gn 3:15 NIV).  This was the first proclamation of the Gospel.  God promised that He'd send the One who'd conquer Satan and restore life and creation back to the way it was supposed to be.  Adam and Eve trusted in this promise, and so did all of God's people throughout the generations. 
   
God continued to give His people hope in the coming One as He spoke through His prophets.  Through Isaiah He said when the Messiah came the wilderness and desert would be glad and blossom (Is 35:1-2).  Waters would break forth and the burning sand would become a pool (Is 35:6-7).  The weak would be strengthened (Is 35:3), the blind would see, the deaf would hear, the lame would leap like a deer, and the mute would sing for joy (Is 35:5-6).  When the promised One came, there'd be peace and harmony.  There'd be salvation for the righteous ones of God and the unrighteous would be punished. 

This reversal came in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary on Christmas Day.  He's the promised offspring of the woman who defeated Satan.  He crushed that liar's head, not with a club or sword like we'd expect, but with His very own sacrificial death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.

The cross is the Great Reversal, where sinless Jesus took our sins upon Himself and died their death so that you might live.  Christ your Savior suffered our punishment so that you're forgiven your sins.  He took our unrighteousness and gives you His righteousness.  He gives you salvation in the kingdom of heaven.  In this kingdom there's no weakness, blindness, deafness, disease; there's no sin or death.  In this kingdom, you live in the peace and harmony that God intended for His creation.
   
The reversal that Jesus brought with Him isn't always easy for us to see because it doesn't look like what we're expecting.  John the Baptist even had a hard time with this.  He proclaimed the coming Messiah, the promised One spoken of to Adam and Eve.  He called people to repentance because the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Mt 3:2).  He spoke of the promised salvation for God's righteous ones and the destruction of the unrighteous.  He knew Jesus was the One, the Lamb of God, but he didn't see the kingdom he expected.  Instead, John saw the bars of a prison cell, and this didn't make sense to him.  He did the Lord's work and yet he was suffering.  So he sent his disciples to Jesus asking, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?" (Mt 11:3). 

Jesus's answer confirmed that He was the One.  He pointed John to all the miracles He did: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and even the dead are raised.  Jesus was doing all that the prophet Isaiah and others said He would do.  Jesus' miracles showed He was the One and pointed to His salvation. 

We don't always see this salvation though, and like John we might ask, "Is Jesus the one, or should we look for another."  We still see the darkness of our sin as we continue to give into Satan's temptations.  We see family members suffering all sorts of disease and sickness.  Death is all around us.  With all of this we can begin to question.  Did Jesus really bring a reversal?  Did He complete His work?

Yes!  Yes He did.  Christ has already defeated sin, death, and the devil.  His reversing and redeeming work was completed on the cross.  It was completed when He cried out, "It is finished" (Jn 20:30).  It was completed when He rose from the dead and walked out of the tomb.  And we'll see this completed, everlasting reversal in full when He comes again.  But until then, we see and hear of it only with eyes and ears of faith. 
   
With eyes of faith we see it in the waters of Baptism as those waters flow over our heads, cleansing us of our sins.  We see it in the bread and cup of the Lord's Supper that is Christ's sacrificed body and blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins.  With ears of faith we hear the good news that's preached to the poor.  We hear the Gospel of our Savior proclaimed.  We hear God's absolution spoken, applied to our sins, forgiving them.

With opened eyes and ears of faith, we wait with certain hope for Christ's second coming.  Like a farmer who patiently waits for his harvest, we wait patiently with steadfastness for our Savior.  Christ's birth started the reversal of everything that sin and Satan did.  Jesus' miracles were signs that He was restoring life back to the way God created it to be.  Christ redeemed us from Satan's control with His blood, and He saved us from death with His death.  Jesus' death and resurrection reversed it all, and when He comes again, we'll see this complete reversal, we'll see our salvation fully revealed.  In Jesus' name...Amen. 

To inform or to address. . .

We live in the information age and yet the truth is that we are remarkable uninformed.  We gain information from an unreliable source (the internet) and have trouble distinguishing truth from error on that medium.  We have a greater distrust of news agencies and news personalities than ever before.  We read less but seem to think we know more than ever before.  We are not easily argued from our default views -- except when to be confirmed in what we always suspected.  We have been told over and over again that half of everything we learn will be obsolete in a matter of a decade or two.  We seem to have taken this too much to heart. We worship an information deity.  We bow before the almighty internet with its seemingly endless supply of information and its willingness to let us decide what to do with it or about it.  We are bloated when it comes to raw information but we struggle to know what to do with it and we are increasingly passive before the mountain of information at our fingertips or hidden in our brains.

The Protestant side of Christendom has historically seen the function of worship and our association with the Word of God in terms of information.  We have come to believe that knowing as much as possible about everything is great piety even when that means we know very little about them.  We tend to treat the task of the preacher as one of information.  Inform the people what they are to believe and do and they will do it.  Faith easily equates to obedience in this scenario, or at least assent to the information.

After the Reformation, the Scriptures were emphasized in a new manner. They because primarily sources of information and the task of the preacher because the call to inform or convince the people using the information gleaned from the Scriptures. It was the job of the pastor to instruct the believer, to teach them of right and wrong and the consequences of the choices faced and the need to choose wisely. For too many people, Christianity became the arena of the mind, faith the subset of doctrinal truth propositions, and intended outcome increasingly moralistic and behavioral in focus. This has gone on so long and is so common in the domain of Protestant America that most of us presume it has always been this way.  Before the Reformation the typical piety of the Christian was mystical - focusing upon the communion with God in the Holy Communion.  After the Reformation that piety was increasingly individual and moralistic; it was all about information to change behavior.

It is a struggle not to think of ourselves as an audience, not to see the Scriptures primarily as information, not to think of faith as the assent of the mind, and not to judge worship on the basis of its intellectual or emotional appeal.  Let us come into His presence and kneel before the Lord, our Maker and Redeemer.  That is the perspective of the means of grace.  God has not come to reason us into His kingdom or even to argue us into faith.  He confronts us with what He has done, with His eternal and incarnate Son who has accomplish salvation, and bestows upon us the Spirit who brings us into this mystery through faith.  If politics has become a reality show, worship has no less taken on this characteristic.  But this is unfaithful to God's purpose and plan and to His self-revelation.

Lutherans may be severely tempted to look and act and sound like Protestants but we are not.  We have not forgotten the mystery in favor of a reasoned conclusion.  Luther was a man of the Word, to be sure, but He was also a man of the visible Word in sacraments that are what they sign and that bestow what they symbolize.  Sometimes we need to remember this.  Sometimes we need to be reminded of this.  God does not inform us but addresses us.  His voice is a call not to know but to believe.  This is not a tame religion with a meek God but a wild faith with a God whose power certain only in His Son and for the mercy His Son came to fulfill for us and the whole world.  The instruction of God makes us wise unto salvation -- a wisdom surely underappreciated in this world if not out right offensive.

We may seek the argument to seal the deal, so to speak, or the perfect image to view but instead we are brought into the presence of the living God who is present in His power through the means of grace and who brings us into community with Him and with one another through an act that can only be apprehended by faith and is nonsense apart from the Spirit who teaches us to believe.  Preaching is not debating.  The sermon is not the arena of the mind.  God has come to us, the Mighty One, and He wears the flesh we recognize as our own to accomplish what none of us can on our own.  It is the great and solemn mystery of salvation and we apprehend this not with minds that understand or works that merit but only hearts that believe.

If it be your will. . .

The death of Leonard Cohen seems to have missed my attention.  Though I was not much of a fan of his singing and have grown long ago tired of the more popular Cohen song "Hallelujah," I do have appreciation for some of his poetry.  In particular I was reminded of the words of another of his compositions, though hardly even remembered.  Perhaps you will appreciate his poetic gift here as well.  And it may well remind you of Isaiah 25 -- as it should.

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

Disappointed in mercy?

Sermon for Advent 3 (one year series), preached by the Rev. Larry A. Peters.

Everyone knows the story of John.  He was the messenger whom the Lord called to prepare the way of His one and only Son. His was the voice crying out in the wilderness.  He was the preacher who dared to call to repentance an Israel comfortable in its own righteousness.  He was sent to warn an adulterous and sinful generation that their time was up and either they would be convicted by their sin or by confessing it would be forgiven.

The sound of John is the sound of a mother talking tough with insolent and disobedient children.  “Wait until your father gets home!”  Even Pharisees who were secure in their righteousness felt the need to show up at the river and present themselves before the prophet who just might be Elijah signaling the coming of the end.  They did not believe they had any need to repent but they were not stupid.  They understood the appearance of humility just in case.

John did not wear soft clothing.  Matthew tells us that John came wearing the uniform of a prophet, a camel’s hair coat and big leather belt.  This same John came eating the diet of a non-conformist:  locusts and wild honey.  According to Matthew, Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan came to meet John in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

John did not bend like a reed in the wind.  He pushed the Pharisees and Sadducees to the limit, calling them snakes in the dust.  “Who warned you?” He taunted them.  “Bear the good fruit of repentance.” He insisted.  “Don’t build your hope on the false assurance that you have Abraham’s genes; stones are just as good of children of Abraham as you are.” So John cried out in the wilderness of sin and its death. 

John was good at his job and showed himself at least a prophet and surely more.  The axe is laid against the root.  God is going to cut you down and toss you into the consuming fire unless you bear the good fruit. 

But John would not take credit that was did not belong to him.  I am not the Messiah.  I baptized with water for repentance but the one who is coming is mightier than I.  I am not even worthy to carry his shoes.  He will baptize you with the fire of the Holy Spirit.  He is come to gather the harvest that is His.  He will clear the threshing floor of all the old grain and gather His wheat into the barn.  And then He will burn the chaff with an unquenchable fire.

So the days came and went.  Jesus arrived and John pointed to Him for a world to see.  But John was now in prison.  His preaching days were done.  He was decreasing and the Lord was increasing.  Even in prison He heard the deeds of Christ.  What were they?  Not the fire John had been warning but something new.  Mercy!

Jesus preached good news.  He healed the sick.  He gave the blind sight.  He gave the lame to walk.  He cleansed the leper.  He opened the ears of the deaf.  He called the dead to life again.  He ate and drank with sinners. 

What about “Wait until you father gets home?”  When dad hugs the offending child and calms his troubled heart and restores him to the place of favor – is mom disappointed?  Maybe mom was hoping the child would get the belt or the corner or be grounded.  That would teach him!  Right? 

Could it be that John was disappointed?  Had he not prepared the way for a mighty Lord who would cast fire upon the earth and pound the grain in search of righteous fruit?  What of this business of mercy?  What of the good news of grace and salvation?  What about justice?

Are you disappointed?  Do you grow weary of injustices, of the wicked flourishing, of the righteous suffering?  Do you long for someone who deserves it to get what is coming to them?  Isn't that how it works in the movies? 

Perhaps prison had tested John.  The prophets of old were tested and they too had doubts and fears. They were not super heroes.  They were men, ordinary men, but with an extraordinary Word placed upon their lips.  I don’t know if John was disappointed or not but I know sometimes I am.  I want the good people to prosper and the wicked to suffer.  I want the evil to burn.  I want a little fire to be poured out on the earth.  I want the proud to be put into their place.  I want good Christian people to triumph – at least once in an while.  Don’t you?

But the Lord has not come for judgement.  At least not yet.  Today is the day of mercy.  Today is the day of salvation.  Today is the day when the Word calls for repentance and the blood forgives the sinner.  Today is the day when the broken find healing in the wounds of Christ and the dead are raised to life by the power of the Spirit.  Today is the day when the showers of mercy rain down on the earth the kindness none deserve but which is God’s desire to give.  Judgement will come but today is about mercy.

Are you disappointed by mercy?  Don’t be.  None of us are the righteous who can afford to sit on the sidelines and cheer as sinners get the justice.  We are all the sinful who gone our own way, squandered God’s resources, and indulged in every kind of evil.  Our hearts are dark and we are shamed by our pride every day.  The mercy of God is not for others.  It is for you.  It is for me.

John was the greatest of those born of women and mercy was hard for him to get.  Only the Spirit can awaken faith in us.  Today we pray that the Spirit may do just that – before it is too late and the cool spring rains of mercy are gone and only fire is left.  John is Elijah and Jesus is Messiah and the Kingdom of God is built upon mercy for those who least deserve it.  Ponder this with Mary and keep it in your heart.  The Savior comes in mercy to the unworthy and undeserving.  And when the day for fire comes, because you are clothed with mercy, you will not burn.  You will enter into Your master’s joy forevermore. Who can be disappointed in that?  Amen

The problem between ideal and reality. . .

Msgr Charles Pope on the problems of Roman Catholicism in the pew  (my comments are in red in the brackets):

. . . any cursory look into the typical Catholic parish would reveal little to indicate an awareness of this.

A. Bored and disengaged – The assembled people, including the clergy, often look bored, distracted, and mildly irritated at having to endure the event. Where is the alert joy that one sees at sporting events or at the appearances of celebrities? If people believe that Jesus is alive and ministering in this moment, why do so many of them look as if they’re waiting for a root canal? It’s as though they wish the whole thing would be over as quickly and painlessly as possible. [Wish this were true only of Roman Catholics; the same can be said of Lutheran congregations as well.]

Some argue that many people are just reserved by nature, but most of these same people are animated enough at football games or in political discussions. The answer seems to be more due to a lack of vivid faith and a failure to understand that the Liturgy and Sacraments are encounters with the Risen Lord Jesus. [We look for immediacy in all the wrong places and are blind to the real presence of Christ in Word and Sacrament.]

B. Perfunctory – Further, in terms of the spiritual life of many of the faithful, it seems that even where there is observance of norms (e.g., attendance at Sunday Mass, or confession on at least an annual basis), it is done more out of a sense of duty than with eager love. The bare minimum is all that is done, only enough to “check off the God box.” It is almost as though they are placating the deity rather than worshipping and praising the God to whom they are grateful and whom they love. The upshot is that the sacraments are considered tedious rituals rather than transformative realities or true encounters with Jesus. [Luther was disappointed that having cast off the constraints of Rome, the people were little different in their perception of God and of His presence in the Divine Service. It would seem that "eager love" is missing more than in Rome.]

C. Low Expectations – Many people place more trust in Tylenol than they do in the Eucharist. When they take Tylenol they expect something to happen; they expect there to be healing, for the pain to go away or the swelling to go down. But do these same people have any real expectations about the Eucharist or the other sacraments? Almost never.  [Missouri has won the battle for the Bible.  We have an inerrant Scripture.  But we have forgotten that the Scriptures, like the Sacraments, are efficacious -- they deliver what they say, do what they promise, and convey what they sign.]

Much of the blame for these low expectations lies with priests and catechists who have never really taught the faithful to expect much. At best there are vague bromides about “being fed.” Little is taught about radical transformation and healing.[Do I hear third use of the Law anyone?  We Lutherans are really good at preaching justification but struggle to encourage people to holiness (sanctification); it is almost as if we believe that it is God's job to forgive sins and our job to give Him something to forgive.  We do not strive for that which is good, holy, true, lovely, righteous, and eterntal -- at least not as we should.]

D. Unevangelized – The general result is that many in the pews have received the sacraments, but have not been evangelized. Many have gone through Catholic rites of passage but have never really met Jesus. They have gone through the motions for years but are not really getting anywhere when it comes to being in a life-changing, transformative relationship with Jesus Christ. To a large degree, the Lord is a stranger to them. They are far from the normal Christian life of being in personal, living, and conscious contact with the Lord.  [I hesitate with this one; if we believe the Lord is working through the means of grace and the Spirit is present in the preaching and sacraments, then perhaps we ought to leave this judgment up to God.  However, it is true that for many who say they are Christian, the Lord camps on the outside of their lives more than informs the heart, mind, and soul.  We need to live from the source of the Divine Service and it will lead us back to the summit of God's grace found there in the Word and Sacraments and this means a vocation or calling in life as the baptized, a shape of our life lived in response to God's grace.  This is something we need to preach as well.]

According to Fr. Pope,  the answer lies in clarity about the real goal of the Church to make disciples through the means of grace.  Who can deny this?  Yet we treat the Church as if she existed for our comfort when we feel so moved.  We have little urgency about those beyond our pale.  Conviction in preaching is also one of the answers.  Truly this is a problem.  I hear all the time from folks who visit other churches that it often seems as if the pastor is speaking about things of which he has little real experience.  No one is suggesting that the pastor is THE model of holiness and conviction but people ought to be able to look to the pastor as AN example of faith and conviction.  Of course another answer is catechetical renewal.  We talk about this all the time.  Not knowledge for knowledge sake but knowing to believe more deeply and live more faithfully!  Not fuller knowledge as much as deeper -- we already have Christians who are like the Platte River in my home state of Nebraska -- a mile wide and an inch deep.  This is surely true for the Church as well -- numbers count for nothing unless the people are well catechized into the faith.  Everyone from Pope Benedict XVI to Lutherans have been saying that in order for us to be more faithful in a world growing ever more hostile to the faith, we may have to grow smaller.

The answer Msgr Pope ticked off that really resonates with me is cultivate expectations.  We do not have people who come to Church expecting too much and leaving disappointed (except those who think that Sunday morning is a band-aid for everything wrong and every disappointment in their lives).  We have people expecting too little -- satisfied with a pithy saying to take home instead of meeting Christ in His Word, happy to hear a good choir anthem or sing a favorite hymn instead of praising the eternal God who has come into their midst with grace, and content to have found a little inspiration and enjoyed some time with friends instead of meeting Christ in the means of grace and feasting upon His flesh and blood for the forgiveness of their sins.

Finally, in addition to "come and see" we are also to "go and tell."  The sad truth is that we cannot go and tell unless we come and see and know who we are seeing and what our Lord imparts.  We have little to tell others in some measure because we are not sure what we are there for and what will happen.  God does not keep us guessing.  His promises are sure, His steadfast love endures forever, and the Word of the Lord endures forever.

Selling off the American dream. . .

When you control the media, you control the mind.  The media are already largely politically left of center but the cash component has kept this liberal bias slightly in check in Hollywood.  While we would associate this more with the hard media of news and opinions, within the movie experience you can also very subtly and quite effectively influence public opinion.

Surprise, suprise, the Chinese government — through a so-called private firm called Wanda -- has not been shy about the goal of buying into the Hollywood media. In China, the Communist Party banned or currently bans thousands of books it has deemed controversial or offensive and it heavily censors the Internet.  Don't forget that Facebook and Twitter remain prohibited in China.  Freedom House ranked the Chinese a more restrictive society than even Iran and Saudi Arabia because of this tight control of the internet, social media, and censorship.

Now, after buying up Dick Clark Productions (think the ball descending in Times Square on New Years' Eve), the Chinese have gone on a shopping spree with Hollywood being the products of choice.  While some wonder what this will mean for China, I wonder what it might mean for religion, for truth, for any semblance of objectivity in media that people increasingly confuse with the news media as a reliable source of information.  Read below:

China has never been shy about its desire to acquire “soft power” – the kind of cultural and economic influence that can’t be wielded by military might. And Hollywood has often been a partner in its project.

China’s bid for soft power was on show this week, as Sony Pictures Entertainment formed an alliance with Dalian Wanda, a Chinese company that has become one of the world’s largest media empires, in a deal announced Friday. While the partnership was smaller than some of Dalian Wanda’s previous acquisitions, it attracted attention as the Chinese company’s third major deal in Hollywood this year.

These deals have sparked concern over whether China’s expanding influence in Hollywood could lead to more pro-Chinese propaganda in U.S. films. The Chinese government tightly controls media content, and Hollywood studios have been known to alter films to feature China or the Chinese government in a more flattering light to gain access to the country’s lucrative film market.

For Hollywood, China provides the blockbuster combination of a huge movie market and cash-rich equity funds that are eager to invest in films and companies. The Chinese box office is on pace to soon surpass the U.S. as the world’s biggest market, perhaps next year.

The partnership -- in which the Chinese company will help promote Sony films in China and co-finance some of Sony's biggest China movie releases -- comes on the heels of two major acquisitions. In January, Dalian Wanda announced the acquisition of Legendary Entertainment, the Hollywood production company behind such blockbusters as “Jurassic World” and “The Dark Knight.” In March, AMC Entertainment, a U.S. cinema chain previously acquired by Dalian Wanda, made a bid for Carmike Cinemas that would make Dalian Wanda Group the owner of the biggest cinema chain in the United States.

Globalism is certainly the long term view of many politicos -- everyone from Obama to Bush 43 have been seen as promoting global trade, global economy, global policy toward current issues.  Nationalism, on the other hand, has been seen more and more in a less positive light.  While I have no profound opinions on the trade aspect of global policy, I am increasingly concerned that the direction of much of this globalism seems less in the direction of freedom of religion and more toward those who neither advocate nor tolerate freedom of religion.  It is a strange thing that the media that objects most to censorship is allied with societies that practice the most rigid censorship on the planet -- China being even more restrictive than even Iran! 

In the midst of all of this, it seems that Christianity will be left hanging.  Islam receives a pass on its sins against feminism and GLBTQ folks but Christianity is regularly ridiculed for not embracing the same agendas.  It almost makes you wonder if this is not part of a global agenda to restrict Christians if they cannot be eradicated.  Look at the Middle East and see what an effective job the conflicts there have done to dilute the Christian presence.  What a shame that Christians fared better under despots and dictators than folks there now who claim legitimacy from a ballot box.  Christians are heavily restricted and controlled in China and are almost non-existent in Iran and Saudi Arabia.  Yet we seem to be willing to accept cash from the highest bidders and condemn an Islamophobia that is less about Islam than about terror and violence against Christians and Judeo-Christian values.

Participation as goal of liturgy. . .

The roots of the liturgical movement certainly had as part of their concern and cause the participation of the faithful in the liturgy.  Theodor Klauser described the Tridentine Mass from the vantage point of the laity:

...while the celebrant "read" the mass at the altar with his back to the people, the faithful were busy with other devotional exercises, mostly of a subjective nature. They sang hymns in the vernacular, whose content had little or even nothing at all to do with the liturgy; they read, wrapped up in themselves, a "mass devotion" or prayed the Rosary silently to themselves.  Only at the three main parts of the eucharist: the offertory, the consecration, and the communion did the faithful, raised by the server's bell, turn their attention briefly to the sacred action that was being performed at the altar, in order that they might make certain recommended "affectations."  Seldom indeed was it the custom for them to make any active part in the sacrifice of the mass by making an inward offering of themselves or by actually making their communion . . instead of actual communion they were often earnestly exhorted to make an act of spiritual communion.

In 1903, Pope Pius X issued Motou Proprio: Tra le Sollecitudini restoring church music (Gregorian Chant) so that the faithful may again take a more active part ... as they were wont to do in ancient times.  But clearly the sentence that stood out was:

Filled as We are with a most ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit flourish in every respect and be pre-served by all the faithful, We deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple,in which the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost and indispensable font,which is the active participation (participatio actuosus) in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church.

Though this was in the context of sacred music, from the late medieval period down to the end of the 19th century, the subject of lay participation in liturgy became a cause to increase the participation of the faithful within the sacred mysteries. It was not until 1903, however, that the first real official mention of this active participation was made.  While no one in 1903 could have presumed or predicted that the shame of this would be Novus Ordo, this was clearly the outcome and, for many in the liturgical movement, the most urgent cause.

While that was the context of Rome and the eventual shape of this active participation, it did not leave other traditions untouched.  In effect, this became an ecumenical cause.  This participation ended up looking a great deal like everyone having their chance to be in the spotlight of Sunday morning with a place in the liturgy, a chance to speak or sing, and a part to play.  What had been largely the domain of the clergy in every tradition ended up being for many a Sunday morning variety show in which each had a right to perform or show off his or her talents.

Lutherans were certainly not immune to this influence.  In fact, we still suffer from the desire to promote active participation but without a common definition of what that active participation is to be.  For us, however, the role of faithful in the Divine Service is not one of muted insulation from what is happening in the liturgy but rather as those who sing the chief parts of that liturgy and whose participation has always included response to the Word of the Lord and communion in the Body and Blood of Christ.  The question for us, then, is whether or not this is enough.

Sadly one of the consequences of clericalism has been to devalue the role of the faithful as if somehow or other they were being unfairly restricted from being center stage and the distortion of the role of pastor as if he were performing for the benefit of the people and not leading the people's praise and delivering the Lord's gifts.  In other words, singing the Lord's praise, hearing His Word, receiving His Supper, praying in His name, and offering the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving with tithes and offerings, well, this was not much at all.

While the description of the Tridentine Mass from Hauser is descriptive for the time of Luther, it is not descriptive for Lutherans since Martin Luther.  What has been the result of Lutheran liturgical reform is the restoration of the role of the faithful in hearing the Word of God, responding with songs of praise, confessing their faith in the creed, interceding in prayer in the Lord's name, bringing forth the tithes and offerings of a grateful faith, receiving the very body and blood of Jesus, and returning to their homes and workplaces to live out their baptismal vocation.  Regrettably, now we are not sure this is enough.  This is where the modern liturgical movement has failed us -- presuming leading is the primary activity of the Divine Service and responding is secondary in importance and even a diminutive role.  This is where Lutherans should part company with the modern liturgical movement but, sadly, many have not.  They have continued to define active participation as assigning leadership roles to the faithful instead of rejoicing in what God is doing -- serving the faithful with His gifts in the means of grace through the servant leadership of the pastor.

The stealing of youth. . .

In the great and profound movie Uncle Buck a little girl, niece to Uncle Buck, has been found not to be serious.  Her family, Uncle Buck has to suffice, is summoned to the principal's office to be counseled about the dangers of silliness.  After listening a while to the "experts", Uncle Buck (John Candy) retorts:  I don't think I want to know a six-year-old who isn't a dreamer, or a sillyheart. And I sure don't want to know one who takes their student career seriously.

One of the things the modern generation of parenting has done is to steal the childhood of our children and endow them with all the fears, worries, anxieties, and problems of adults in an adult world.  Our children have been given the weighty concerns of world peace, terrorism, ecology, social justice, etc... and then we wonder why they have such phobias and cannot sleep.

We flood the airwaves with adult themes (not thinking here primarily of sex) but of the brutal terrors of war in the Middle East and then wonder why our kids do not feel safe.  On top of it all we take great pains to prevent our children from associating terrorism and its brutality played out on the news with any religion or region.  God forbid they become Islamophobes!  We plead (rightly so) the case of the refugees from economic and war-torn areas and then plaster the sins of some of these refugees over the media so that our children do not know if they should welcome the stranger or hunker down with armament and bullet proof vest.  We have parlayed the domain of children's television with all sorts of adult problems like global warming so that a kid cannot even watch a cartoon without getting a lecture on green living and then wonder why they worry about their futures.  We insist that by age 7 they have chosen their gender and come to terms with all that this gender choice may hold in consequences.  We turn our children into political pawns and insist to them that one candidate or the other is the devil incarnate and then wonder why these children fear the present and the future.  We make cops into storm troopers and then wonder why they do not feel safe around police or would fear calling them when threatened.

I wonder if overly protective parents have not taught our children unintended lessons.  Are we so afraid that they might eat some dirt or get a booboo from play or not have the right career or gender choice in mind that we have taught them and they have learned to be fearful of everything -- even life?  Did our own parents do such a terrible job allowing us the freedom to be children (at least for a while) that we have to correct their mistakes by making them suffer for these wrongs?

They are children, after all, and they should have the chance to live at least a portion of their lives without the burden of so many adult problems and fears. Can we not allow them a little silliness?  Is it too much to let the dream or laugh or skip carelessly along the path?  I am NOT saying we should not instill good values, teach them of their Good Shepherd who cares for them, or direct them into the arms of the Savior who risked all to redeem them.  What I am saying is that we can wait to place upon them the problems we inherited or created within the world order, global warming, green living, racial justice, and gender identity.  Children generally are friendly and have to be taught racism.  Children generally are hopeful and have to be taught to be captive to their fears.  Children generally sleep well after their prayers and a kiss from mom and dad.  Children do not need to be overly burdened with what frets us as adults.  Their time will come. 

If we raise them in the Christian faith, instill in them the values of the Kingdom, teach them to know and trust God and His Word, and treat people fairly, they will get their chance to fix the wrongs we pass on to them.  Just don't rob them of their childhood, require them to be always serious, demonize silliness, and insist that their child size hearts carry around adult size fears for the problems for which we are mostly responsible. 

The attraction of the sterile. . .

In Bible study a few weeks ago we were speaking about Psalms and worship and, specifically, the atmosphere of worship.  I inadvertently suggested that Lutherans had become accustomed to a rather one dimensional and rather sterile atmosphere in worship.  How, in the Divine Liturgy of the East, many things were happening at the same time, and how rich in ceremony, architecture, art, and music was the setting.  After the study someone approached me and asked how it was possible for the person to worship with all these things going on, distracting the person, if you will.  It was a good question.

We have become rather sterile in way we see and do worship.  We come together in plain buildings devoid of grand architectural interest but efficient in providing a comfortable setting for us (seats, warmth or coolness, and one that makes us feel at home).  We use art but only as a tool for the whim of the preacher (sending forth images or video on a screen to send home what it is the preacher is saying).  We use music but again as a tool to set a mood, appealing more to the taste of the hearer than concerned about the actual text and nobility of the music in service to the Word).  We isolate sound with all sort of sound absorbing material so that the room is a blank canvas and the people hear what we want them to hear (without distraction of noise or child).  We remove all smells except the smell of clean (we say because we are concerned about people's allergies, etc., but in reality it is because we cannot agree on what the smell of God is).  We segregate the people by age so that those in the pews (or rather, theater seating) are of a similar age and disposition.  We segregate people by culture, presuming that the best worship is that which proceeds from a common identity (forgetting that sinners in need of redemption is the given common identity). We proceed through the liturgy (okay service order) as if we were checking off things, moving from one thing to another in some sort of logical development of an overall plan or purpose).

♪ Sequentia Sancti Evangelii Secundum Lucam ♫ #sumpont2016 @OrgaCisp @PaixLiturgique @fatherz @NLMblog pic.twitter.com/O6VGlldB8T

— Loïc Lawin (@loiclawin) November 4, 2016

Worship has become mostly mental, shaped by personal preference, segregated by age, defined by felt need, within a warehouse space empty of symbol or art (except that which is controlled by those in control), and without the smell of God (incense).  We complain it is impossible to worship if it is too warm or too cold, if we cannot hear or see, if we are expected to sing what we do not know or do not like, if the music does not appeal to our preference, if children distract us, if the seat is not comfortable, if our comfortable cocoon of self is disturbed, if the subject is not deemed relevant. . .  It bears little resemblance to the worship of Israel, to the worship of the early Church, to the West in its liturgical development or to the East and its Divine Liturgy, but, that does not matter.  What matters is me.

Whatever is the attraction of such a sterile atmosphere and such a bland service?  The idolatry of self and the glory of me.  We don't like buildings that make us feel small or art that overwhelms the senses or music that transcends preference or a congregation filled with ages and and cultures, or liturgy that focuses somewhere else but me.  But these are exactly the things we need, the shape of the church, and the purpose of the Divine Service!  We have in our minds an idea of a pristine era in which God was simple, the Word of the Lord easy, the building plain, the music appealing, the message practical, and the appeal mostly mental.  Where is that?  Nowhere.

Heaven on earth is what we experience in the Divine Service and heaven is no plain Jane Motel 6 version church.  It is rich and elaborate, in which the best of this world becomes the common building materials of the world to come.  It is filled with saints and angels, with images profound and small, centered not  upon me but the Lamb who sits on His throne.  It is not that worship cannot take place where these are absent.  Who says that?  It is that worship is designed to be a feast for the eye, the ear, the nose, the mind, the mouth, and the heart -- so richly does God feed us that overwhelmed is the ordinary response to God's lavish generosity of gift, grace, and goodness.

How hard it is for God to please us!  How easy it is for us to complain!

Be Prepared!

Sermon for Advent IIA, preached by the Rev. Daniel Ulrich on Sunday, December 4, 2016.

[John the Baptist said,] “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Mt 3:11). 

Being prepared is very important.  Teachers stress being prepared by doing the assigned homework.  Coaches prepare their athletes by running them through drills.  For those in the military, you know how important it is to be prepared; you train and train and train some more for any and all situations you might encounter. 

When we think about being prepared, we think about all  the things that we have to do to get ready.  We think about the supplies that need gathered and the plans that need made.  We can make ourselves ready for many things, but we can’t prepare ourselves for Christ Jesus.  There’s nothing we can do on our own that makes us ready for Him.  God is the One who prepares us for our Savior.  Through the work of the Holy Spirit, He makes us ready by bringing us to repentance and faith. 

I.A.    This is why He sent His prophet John the Baptist.  John was the last of the Old Testament prophets, the last one to herald the coming of the Christ.  Isaiah foretold this work of John saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight’” (Mt 3:3; Is 40:3).  John was born for this purpose.  When the angel Gabriel came to Zechariah in the temple and told him that Elizabeth his wife would give birth to a son, the angel said that John would “turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,” that he’d “make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (Lk 1:16, 17). 

John accomplished this God given mission by going into the wilderness of Judea and preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 3:2).  John went out and proclaimed God’s Word of Law and Gospel.  He spoke against the people’s sin, he warned them of the wrath that awaited them for their sin; and hearing this message, the people confessed their sins.  They turned from their sinful lives and were converted to faith, trusting in the grace of God’s kingdom that was coming in the Christ.   

The Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious leaders, they also came to John, but they didn’t come as the people came.  They came wanting to be baptized, but they didn’t come with repentance.  They didn’t see their need for it.  They came wanting to do something to prepare themselves, they sought works of preparation they could do.  They vainly thought that having Abraham as their father guaranteed them life in God’s kingdom.  They thought since they hadn’t committed any gross sin they were free from God’s wrath.  But they weren’t.  “Even now” said John “the axe is laid to the root of the trees.  Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Mt 3:10).  These religious leaders didn’t bear the good fruit of repentance, they didn’t bear the fruit of faith that trusted in the coming Messiah.  And neither do we.

B.    We’re very much like the Pharisees and Sadducees.  We look for ways to prepare ourselves.  All of us right now are doing things to get ready for Christmas.  We’re sending out cards, we’re making menus and buying the ingredients for family feasts; we’re decorating our homes and and wrapping presents.  In all of this we think we’re getting ready for Christmas, but are we?  Is Christmas about the gifts we give and receive, or is it about receiving the gift of salvation that God has given us in Christ? 

We do the same thing as we prepare for Christ’s second coming.  We look for the things that we can do.  We get ourselves ready by doing the good works that are expected of us.  Like the Pharisees, we keep God’s commands outwardly.  We haven’t murdered, our stolen.  We honor our parents most of the time by doing what they say.  We even go beyond these commands and do the extra good works by helping out the man on the street corner or sending a check to schools in Africa.  In all of this we think we’re getting ready for Jesus’ return.  But are we? 

Take a moment and answer this question, “Are you prepared for Jesus to come back tonight...and if so, why?” ....  I’ve heard this question and similar ones asked many times and often the response is “Yes, I think so… I’ve lived a pretty good life.”  But this response shows that person isn’t ready, because they’re looking at what they’ve done, just like the Pharisees and Sadducees.  This response isn’t the fruit of repentance and faith.  Instead of a trust in Christ’s saving death on the cross and resurrection from the dead, this is a trust in our own works of preparation.  But all these works fail, because nothing we do is good enough for salvation.  We can’t make ourselves ready because all that we do is tainted with our sin.  God is the only one who prepares us for Jesus’ coming, and He does this through His Word, through the work of the Holy Spirit.

II.A.    This is how the people were prepared when John the Baptist announced Jesus’ coming.  These men, women, and children heard John proclaim God’s Law and Gospel, and through it God worked repentance in them.  Repentance isn’t something we do, it wasn’t something these people did.  Repentance is worked by the Holy Spirit.  He turned the people away from their sin.  He converted them from unbelief to belief.  He gave them faith in the coming Savior that John announced. 

God’s Word isn’t just informative, giving us information, speaking the commands and promises of God.  It’s also performative...it does what God says it’ll do.  It brings about faith through the work of the Spirit.  When John the Baptist proclaimed, “Repent,” that’s what the Spirit was doing.  He was turning the people away from their sin and turning them toward their Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29).  And this is exactly how the Lord prepares you for Christ. 

B.    He turns you away from your sin.  He converts you from unbelief to belief.  John the Baptist promised that our Lord would baptize us with the Holy Spirit (Mt 3:11).  God pours His Spirit upon you with His Word and Sacraments.  This is a continual pouring, it never stops.  Every time you read God’s Word, every time you hear it proclaimed, the Holy Spirit is there working faith in you, bringing you to repentance.  In the waters of baptism, He brings you into God’s family, into His kingdom of grace and mercy.  When you eat and drink Jesus’ body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit strengthens you in your faith.  In all of this, God prepares you, He makes you ready for Christ, to receive the forgiveness and everlasting life that He won for you on the cross.  And He keeps you in the certain hope of these gifts.  

God’s Word was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope (Rm 15:4).  God continually speaks to you through His written Word and in this speaking, He keeps you prepared for Christ’s coming.  The Spirit gives you hope in this.  This hope isn’t wishful thinking, like how we hope to get everything on our Christmas list.  No, this hope is a certain and sure hope.  This hope holds on to the promises of God, knowing that He’ll fulfill them.  This hope looks forward to Jesus’ coming, knowing that you’re prepared for it because God has prepared you for it through the continual pouring out of the Spirit in His Word and Sacraments. 

During Advent we run around preparing ourselves for Christmas Day.  We get ready for the celebration of Christ’s birth.  But as we do, we must remember, there’s nothing we can do to prepare ourselves for Jesus’ coming.  We must be prepared by the Spirit.  We must be made ready by God’s Word and receiving His Sacraments.  The Holy Spirit brings us to repentance and faith.  He works in us, turning us toward our Savior, and in this we live the life of faith, we bear fruits of repentance, and we trust in Christ alone for salvation with the certain hope of His return.  In Jesus’ name...Amen. 

Ouch. . .

Apparently boys are toxic and the worst form of this toxic masculinity is being a man.  At least that is the perspective of some universities.  In this case it is a nominally Lutheran one -- Gettysburg.  They have taken the time during freshman orientation to warn boys of their toxic masculinity.

You tell me what this means:  "At a mandatory freshmen orientation training at Gettysburg College in August, male students had to watch a documentary which stated in part that the “three most destructive words” a boy can hear growing up is “be a man.” The freshmen also went through breakout sessions in which they were told mass shooting sprees are rooted in toxic masculinity."



A class at Dartmouth College entitled “The Orlando Syllabus,” identifies the cause of the Orlando shooting this summer as toxic masculinity -- in spite of the fact that the shooter identified ISIS and may have been gay.  At both the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Duke University programs are in place to help male students prevent their “violent masculinity” from showing its horrible face, embracing a “healthier masculinity,” and discussing issues like gender fluidity as alternatives to this offensive masculinity.   Claremont College warns that “masculinity can be extremely toxic to our mental health, both to the people who are pressured to preform it and the people who are inevitably influenced by it.”  Closer to my home, Vanderbilt University hosted “Healthy Masculinities Week,” led in part by Jackson Katz, the first man to minor in women studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

So apparently the job of the university is to demasculinize the boys on campus, keep them boys and prevent them from becoming the dreaded men, and focus on their feminine size.  In other words, the only good men are the ones who are not men. Hmmmm.  Women complain about men who act like boys but at college they are taught not to be men but to remain boys or to embrace the soft side of their masculinity or they are toxic!

Of course we all know that this goes on at college and that is why we send our boys there -- to eschew their toxic masculinity and to be more effeminate.   Right?

Isn't it ironic. . .

The Russian jeep carrying the ashes of the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro broke down and had to be pushed for a part of its journey to Castro's resting place on Saturday.  (AP)

Though Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's ashes were interred in a private ceremony Sunday morning, after nine days of official mourning, the somber procession was interrupted by a mishap.  The Russian-made jeep hauling the trailer carrying Castro's ashes broke down.  Soldiers had to be push it for part of the journey to the place where the ashes were interred.

The breakdown of the jeep came in the midst of adoring crowds who chanted "Long live Fidel!"   It provided a somewhat ironic glimpse of what was wrong and what was right with Castro's Cuba. While his legacy inspires some, especially rural populations in Cuba, the rest had to parse their grief with his legacy of autocratic (oppressive)  government, inefficient (corrupt) bureaucracy, and stagnant (highly black market) economy.

I am dying. . .

It was a strange conversation -- at least that is what I thought at first.  A long time friend had called to ask what I thought he should do with his theological library.  He was retired and had kept and cultivated this library in retirement -- expanding and not diminishing its size and scope.  Now the time had come for him to move into an assisted living complex and the books, the many books he loved, would not be moving with him.

The conversation began with the usual polite amenities.  "How are you?'  The answer to that was not typical or polite but blunt and truthful.  "I am dying."  At first I thought something had happened -- something which I had not yet heard.  A diagnosis.  A disease.  A timetable.  There were none of these.  In fact, my friend was relatively healthy.  He was old -- which is not a diagnosis or a disease.  But his increasing age and the limitations that had come with that age had left him with an unmistakable and undeniable view of his future.  He was dying.  That was his future.  Until that death, no tomorrow could be taken for granted.  He was not depressed.  He was not in despair.  But he was not in denial either.  Heaven and earth may pass away but the Word of the Lord endures forever (and in Him I too am given the life that death cannot overcome).

The truth is that most of us are in denial.  We act as if death were not a reality or had become normal or perhaps even a friend (at least to the suffering or those whose mental fragility had stolen their memories).  We have made our peace with the reality of death.  It is shocking to us when we admit death's reality not as friend or benign stage of life but our enemy and God's.

We live in an age in which sin is no longer a problem.  We have learned from Genesis what to do with sin.  Like Eve of old, we spread it around so that if all are guilty, none is.  Like Adam of old, we cover it up and presume that the guilt and shame will disappear.  When that does not work, we run and hide.  When that does not work, we blame others.  And when none of this will suffice, we simply define the behavior as something other than sin.  This is an improvement upon Adam and Eve but even then it does not eradicate sin; it simply re-categorizes the sin.  It works as long as words mean what we want them to mean and nothing more or less.

Having dealt with sin, we have only death to deal with.  Technology offers us the hope (not all that realistic) that a magic pill (potion) or magic machine will postpone death.  We have redefined life so that it is only life when we call it life.  The unborn are not alive.  Soon, neither the aged or infirm.  And already we are toying with allowing the individual to define when life is worth living and when it is not (physician assisted  suicide).  We have chosen to make life what we want it to be.  As long as we are healthy, can do what we want, and come to some measure of contentment (happiness), we will postpone death and when any of these things interfere with our life, we will see death as the circle of life now complete.  We have adopted the flesh/spirit categories of life in which the body is useful to me but not me and the spirit (whatever that may be or however we may choose to define it) rules over the body in life and is set free in death to join with all the dead and nature itself (illustrated by movie theology from The Lion King to Avatar.  So death can only take from us that which we are willing to grant it and bestows upon us the future we desire.

I am dying.  That is the voice of the Spirit speaking through us the truth that everything around us would deny.  Sin does not require my consent to exist and death is foe whether or not I see it as my enemy.  When we see sin for what it is and when we acknowledge death for what it is, that is the work of the Spirit alone.  My friend was speaking from the vantage point not of a doctor's prognosis but as a man of faith.  I am dying, too.  Every night when I lay my head on my pillow I practice for death; sleep is what many have called "the little death."  I am not depressed when I say this nor am I reflecting a medical opinion.  I am speaking from the vantage point of faith.  Were it not for the Spirit who teaches me not only sin and death but of forgiveness and life in Christ, I would be depressed and so would he.  When we confess our sin and we admit death as our enemy, we do so as people of faith, guided by the Spirit, and delivered to Him who has power over sin and death.

The Gospel we proclaim does not mask the reality of sin or death but confronts is with the power of God in His incarnate Son.  We have no mere helps to a happier or easier or better today to offer -- such aids are temporal and temporary.  We proclaim the truth that answers the guilty conscience so that we may be free to live the new life baptism bestows and we proclaim the life that death cannot overcome -- no mere illusion of life and no mere spiritual conception of life but real life with new flesh -- like Jesus.

Skinny jeans or not. . .

As a child growing up on the fields of Nebraska, my brother and I wanted to look like my Dad, to dress like him, and to act like him.  He was, after all, one of the grown ups we knew best.  We wanted to grow up and we assumed, like most children, that growing up meant being like him.

My Mom took us to the store and we had suit, tie, overcoat, and even a fedora like Dad wore.  Every Sunday we were allowed to dress up like an adult and we were expected to act like the adult while wearing those clothes.  For example, we were not allowed to crawl around on our knees.  We were not allowed to play in those clothes.  We were expected to act like a grown up -- to sit, to listen, and to behave.

The clothes we wore were often hand me downs from older cousins.  We were not the only ones who dressed up like an adult or who were expected to behave like one (especially in Church).  It was the culture of the day (though we did not know it was something that could change or would change; we assumed it had always been that way and would always be that way).

After looking at pictures of my father growing up and some of his family before him, there seemed to be a similar distinction between children and adults -- in dress and behavior -- and children then seemed to want to be more like an adult the way my brother and I did.

When I was headed to Milwaukee this summer, my daughter-in-law told me that I should probably wear skinny jeans to fit into the culture the city is noted for.  My response is that nobody ever wants to see me in skinny jeans.  I wore clericals and suits every day.

At some point in time things changed.  Today we live in a culture in which adults try to look, act, and sound like children, well, youth at least.  Look at how we adults dress today.   On Sunday morning you are more likely to see cargo shorts, jeans, polos, tees with logos, and such as you are to see dress pants, a freshly pressed shirt, a necktie, or a suit jacket.  This is not the odd domain of the Church but typical of the way adults dress, act, and talk elsewhere.

The problem is that this does not focus on dress or even vocabulary.  It also focuses on behavior.  Adults act like children and children act like children and there is no one left to act like an adult.  Parents don't want to be parents but friends to their children.  Adults want to be cool and presume that only kids are cool.  They smoke pot, ditch work, look at porn, litter their words with vulgarities, and lust for anonymous and uncommitted sex.  All the things that youth were thought to want to do (or do) but grow out of when they became adults.

Video games, the current toys of our modern technology, the cars we drive, the things we do, the music we listen to. . . instead of growing up and becoming an adult, we look to the youth to signal what is in and what is out, what we should wear and what we shouldn't, what we should do and what we shouldn't, etc...  We complain that men act like boys and boys have no incentive to act like men but then we have women who act as if adulthood means career and self over marriage and family -- in essence as childish as they men who never get out of their parent's basements!

Worship in the Church has catered toward this youth orientation -- we sing songs that sound like the radio and say hardly anything of substance and we do things that are fun and we assume if we are happy, God is happy.  We orient the whole mission of the church toward happiness, fun, pleasure, and fulfillment of felt needs (even when the definitions of happiness, fun, pleasure, and felt needs is rather adolescent).

Perhaps we need to simply bite the bullet!  We need to grow up and look and act and sound like adults.  Maybe the kids in school would respect the teachers and administrators more if they dressed and acted like adults instead of trying to meet the youth on the ground of their own adolescence.  Maybe the Church would be more successful if we did not try to meet people at the place of their prolonged adolescence and instead called them to be the grown ups God expects them to be.  Perhaps children would want to be adults if adulthood did not look like a skewed version of their own awkward adolescence and young adulthood.  We could try it!

Even St. Paul talks about the need to grow up.  No longer be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ... Eph. 4.  Even St. Paul calls us to maturity.  Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature.  I Cor. 14  and I Cor. 13  When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 

Funny how we cling to the childish things we ought to abandon and refuse to trust like children as adults!  It is not a new problem.  But in the past the culture was encouraging us to grow up as well.  Now it seems culture is telling us to act like a child.

Less about Moore is better. . .

Salem Lutheran Church, Tomball, TX, (LCMS) is hosting Baptist Evangelist Beth Moore of Living Proof Ministries.  According to their web site,  

Salem Lutheran Church is proud to host an exciting women’s ministry event on December 3, 2016. You are welcome to join us in this annual Christmas celebration, the Salem Women’s Advent Brunch. While the “Brunch” portion of Advent Brunch with Beth Moore is now completely sold out… tickets for Beth Moore Live (11:30-1:00) are still available.  Beth Moore will be speaking about “Hope… Courage… Christmas” in Salem’s worship center immediately following the meal.
   
If you have tickets to Salem’s Advent Brunch, it will be served in Salem’s Community Center from 10:30-11:30 – but come as early as 9:30 to view the beautifully decorated tables!  Beth Moore’s team will be at the Brunch just to say hello, but she will NOT be speaking at the Brunch; instead, everyone will meet in the worship center at 11:30 for her presentation.  

Beth Moore Live tickets are $10 each (plus a processing fee) and are available online beginning November 1 at 8am for as long as they are available.  Light refreshments will be served outside the worship center as you enter the lobby.  

As an incredibly generous gift, Beth Moore’s Living Proof Ministries is DONATING her time to Salem’s Advent Brunch that day.  That allows Salem to designate 100% of the profits to be donated for the purpose of providing malaria bed nets for families living in western Kenya.  If you would like to learn more about what we do with these nets, check that out here! 

Come and hear Beth Moore speak… and save a life at the same time!

Beth Moore is certainly a cash cow for LifeWay and a personality sensation.  However, she is not Lutheran and her positions contradict Lutheran doctrine. 

Beth Moore believes in direct revelation from God in addition to or even in place of Scripture:

In my own attempts to distinguish my desires from an authentic word from God, I find that what God reveals to me in my ‘spirit’ is deeper than what I feel or sense in my emotions or, for the sake of distinguishing the difference, my ‘soul.’ In other words, when I can put aside my feelings for a moment, what I still consistently sense as the leading of the Holy Spirit I assume to be a clearer word from God. Feelings come and go, but do I have a greater certainty at a deeper level that I have heard from God on a matter?

Moore describes her views on the end times and Christ’s return as dispensational premillennialism.

She believes that before or during a seven year period of earthly tribulation, Christians will be “raptured” in a secret return of Christ. At that point, the judgments and promises of God will “fall on unrepentant humanity and national Israel.” Following a seven year tribulation, she believes that Christ will return with his saints to reign on earth for a thousand years. At the end of this millennial period, Satan and his forces will rebel and suffer defeat. The resurrection of unbelievers, the last judgment, and eternal life will then follow.

Moore is a Baptist who does not believe that Baptism does anything but demonstrate the obedience of the believer to the salvation God has given and the Holy Spirit.  She believes in free will with regard to salvation and sanctification.  She believes that a successful life is the mark of a living faith.  While she affirms that Jesus' death alone accomplishes salvation, she spends much of her time on the role of obedience as the key to a successful and satisfying life.

I know exactly why Beth Moore is a draw but I do not know why a Lutheran congregation would feature her or, by her speaking, give tacit approval and sanction to her teaching.  I know that there are many times when we Lutherans listen to those whose faith does not align with our own in an effort to engage them but I do not know why we as Lutherans would showcase a Bible teacher whose position is so fraught with question and confusion when confronted with faithful Lutheran teaching.

If you want to know more about Moore, check this out.

Where to look for the next Luther. . .

Churches, even those who claim the legacy of Luther, are wont to face problems with task forces and blue ribbon commissions and such.  We have come to believe the consensus is the ideal and that the path to truth, justice, and unity come from sitting all interested parties at the table and giving them a question to answer or a problem to solve.  There is nothing really wrong with this but it will seldom produce the kind of ground breaking reform and renewal we so desperately need.  It will give us carefully crafted statements with enough wiggle room to satisfy most and it will tend to give us a result that allows most of the things we abhor enough latitude to continue, if somewhat circumspectly.  But this is hardly the path to unity even if it leads to slightly more uniformity.

Radical reform and renewal come out of nowhere.  Like the prophets of old who showed up without being invited, we cannot legislate nor can we control reform.  It is messy.  There is often blood (sometimes literal and sometimes symbolic in the breach or schism that follows such prophetic intervention).  God pitted the prophet against the priest enough to shake things up when complacency had led to apostasy and heresy.  God chose unlikely candidates without the requisite standing and stature we seek of our leaders today.  Most often they were also unwilling prophets who prophesied only because the Word of the Lord burned within their hearts and upon their tongues.  Their voices were neither heralded nor welcomed but in the wake of their presence, repentance was the fruit and a time, if only brief, of renewal in faith, doctrine, and life.

Whether we as Lutherans like to admit it or not, Luther was such an unlikely reformer.  He was not schooled for this nor trained but arose out of nowhere (called Wittenberg).  He was neither perfect nor was he pragmatic.  He messed up.  He messed things up.  Now, almost 500 years later, even Rome admired his exuberance for grace alone, his commitment to the living voice of Scripture, and his passion for Christ and Him crucified.  It is a good thing when enemies acknowledge that things were not necessarily exactly as the official transcript of history wrote them but a carefully scripted meeting between old adversaries is probably not the venue through which the next voice for reform and renewal will be raised or heard.

Reformers (prophets) seldom reflected the usual expectations of what leadership in the church should look like or act like. These were rule breakers -- not the rules of God but the rules of men by which the churches structured themselves and governed themselves over the years.  They did not do business as usual and their reform was not about laws or rules by which we govern ourselves but about the very essence of what is believed, confessed, and taught.  Men did not raise up these individuals but God sent them at critical junctures of history when the institution was failing the faith and the faithful.

Ecclesia semper reformanda (the Church is always in need of reform or being reformed).  I think nearly everyone believes this.  Benedict XVI does and so does Francis.  Luther did and so do the Lutherans of every age who have claimed kinship with him.  But therein lies the rub.  Benedict and Francis seem to disagree over the shape of this reform.  Benedict follows the older tradition of reform that restores what was lost and reforms what has become correct -- nothing new but a hermeneutic of continuity.  Francis is not so sure.  There may be new things but the new things he tries to characterize as changes not in doctrine but in practice.  This is the very thing that is in controversy about Francis and his attempts to reform practice.  It is the same for Lutherans.  Some (ELCA and some of the LWF variety) believe that tradition is a suggestion and that the Spirit is free to lead the Church past what has been believed, confessed, and taught (even when it is in Scripture).  Others insist that the true character of reform is not departure from but restoration to catholic doctrine and practice (Augustana).  Repentance is, after all, not a turning to something new but returning to what does not change -- the mercy of God.

One more thing.  Prophets and reformers do not raise up themselves.  They raise up Jesus.  They raise up Scripture.  They raise up the faithful witness of the fathers.  Self-proclaimed prophets are not what we need but those whom God raises up with "thus saith the Lord" as their authority and whose faithfulness accords with the full Divine Word.  This is the reformer we need in our own age -- not a self-proclaimed prophet to lead us into new ways but voices from God to restore what has been lost, reclaim what has been cast aside, renew what has grown stale, and reform what has become corrupt.  The issues today may or may not be the same as when Luther was raised up from obscurity but they cry out for more Luthers.  Task forces and blue ribbon committees and commissions will help us sort things out but they are seldom the prophetic voices who will turn us ad fontes of Scripture.

If you are concerned about Purdue's Lutheran Campus Ministry. . .

Dear Friends, 

I have adapted and revised my original post again to reflect the Indiana District's offer of information and answers as well as some additional information from people involved in Lutheran campus ministry throughout the IN District.  I hope that this revision will help clear some of the air, although I can well understand it may be some time before the hearts of those so invested in the building will be able to put to rest their concerns entirely.  Nevertheless, the District President reached out to me in good faith and I wanted to give his words a chance to balance out the information provided me from various sources from those to whom the University Lutheran Church in West Lafayette is so beloved.  Please read it and address your future concerns directly to Pres. May.

Read it here. . .           Email Pres. May here. . .

In Christ,
Pastor Peters +

What/whose nature?

Reading Romans 1 is always interesting.  There is enough there to offend anyone and everyone.  It seemed rather perspicuous in its reference to the ills of all mankind and each as individual members of that humanity.  Until recently it was not hard to understand what Paul meant when he wrote of "unnatural" relations.  But that was then and this is now.  There is a new Paul to be discovered hidden in the ancient words of condemnation and this Paul, it is claimed, champions the integrity of your nature (even after the Fall).

    [18] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. [19] For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. [20] For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. [21] For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. [22] Claiming to be wise, they became fools, [23] and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
    [24] Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, [25] because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
    [26] For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; [27] and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
    [28] And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. [29] They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, [30] slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, [31] foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. [32] Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.  (Romans 1:18-32 ESV)

Now that we live in an enlightened age in which we are no longer bound by the constraints of tradition or the ordinary meaning of words, it has become fashionable to describe the nature of which Paul speaks as a personal or individual nature and not a state of creation or all humanity.  So when Paul writes of “unnatural” same-sex sexual relations, he cannot possibly be describing the intimacy of those attracted to the same sex.  These folks are naturally oriented in this way (born not made) and therefore what is natural to them may only appear to be unnatural to the rest of us. 

For those who identify as gay, same-sex intimacy is not “unnatural” -- just the opposite -- relations with the opposite sex are unnatural.  So, follow the logic, Paul is here condemning heterosexual people who “unnaturally” depart from their own kind of sex and homosexual people who do the same.  Like Shakespeare, Paul has boiled sexual morality down to "to thine own self be true."  Sex for Paul is not a frontier to be explored but an identity to which you must be true -- as God made you.  Since sexual orientation is unchosen and virtually permanent, same-sex sexual expression is “natural” to gay and "unnatural" to straight.  So Paul cannot possible be requiring gay people to offend their nature any more than he is requiring straight people to offend their nature.

Ahhhh.  Where to begin?  First of all is a logistical problem.  If you are bi, none of this must apply to you since your nature is flexible (love the one you're with).  If there was ever an advantage to being bi, it is surely this; you are exempt from Paul's condemnations and free to indulge, experiment, and experience whatever feels good.  Because that is exactly what Paul would say, right?

Then there is the problem of "nature."  Is Paul referring to some individual nature or to nature in the sense of God's creative will and order?  Such is the progress of morality, sexuality, and Scripture in pursuit of a Biblical ethic that will sanction same-sex relations and relationships.  Nature is not the creature of the individual but the shape of creation as a whole.  Maybe sin did tarnish the shine of God's handiwork and distort this perfect shape but creation as a whole has not abandoned its distinctive shape since Adam named the creatures and so discovered that the shape of all things was male and female but him.  He was alone.  When God created Eve, Adam exclaimed that this was at last bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.  Adam had discovered not only the shape of creation as a whole but his own lack, which God would repair forthwith, Adam having recognized that he was all alone.  This is, according to those who love to tinker with Scripture, a trivial and colloquial expression of ancient history now thoroughly repudiated.  We have grown past all of this, so to speak.  The command to love has transcended the shape of nature (creation) and replaced it with personal desire and the right to have that desire fulfilled.  The problem with this is that it also unleashes all the perversions still constrained by societies disapproval and leaves the individual to do what is right in his or her own eyes.  In other words, what was once a particularly good definition of sin has become the statement that champions the new found morality of love that has no bounds.

Imagine that, St. Paul.