Until you get the answer you want. . . studying the ordination of women in the Lutheran Church in Australia

I love the scene in the movie Moonstruck in which the character played by Olympia Dukakis keeps asking her question until she gets the answer she thinks is correct.  In her case the question is why men chase women (personal since her husband is having an affair).  Her almost son-in-law finally blurts out "Because they are afraid of death!"  "That's it!" she insists.  Her almost son-in-law is not so sure but she is.  It is the one answer she thought correct and she had waited for someone finally to confirm it.

We do exactly the same thing in so many different ways.  Children ask the same question to both parents in search for different answers, one of which will be the one they want to hear.  It happens in politics and it happens in church.  We study things until end up with the conclusions that confirm what we entered the study to find.  In other words, we are less interested in the fruits of our study and where it might lead that confirming the presupposition with which we began this study. We study ourselves into the answers we want.

Conservative Christians are usually accused of doing this.  Because we give weight to tradition, we study things with a view toward maintaining the position of Scripture and tradition and it takes a great deal to convince us that we got Scripture wrong or that tradition erred.  The masters of the idea of studying something until you get the answer you want, however, are on the other side.  Those in favor of the ordination of women study and study and study until they find something that supports their initial position in favor of the ordination of women.  Those in favor of same sex marriage keep reviewing the old passages and perspectives of the Judeo-Christian tradition until they come up with a different way of reading those passages that will justify their own acceptance of the GLBTQ agenda.  In my own Missourian circles, we have studied close(d) communion in this way, "lay" ministry, deacons doing Word and Sacrament ministry, and a host of other hot button issues -- usually looking for a way to calm things down if not settle them but few minds seem to be changed.

In the Lutheran Church in Australia, the issue of women's ordination (once settled before the merger that created that church body) has now become a hot button issue again and, sure enough, it is being studied and restudied in the pursuit of a different answer than the one settled on when that church body began.  In other words, the goal of the study is not to come to consensus but to find enough doubts and questions about the current position and enough support for changing to give cover to those who are intent upon foisting this upon the Lutheran Church in Australia.


In 1989 the LCA CTICR (Commission on Theology and Inter-Church Relations) established a subcommittee to study the issue of women's ordination. The deck was stacked already then.  Among the five members, only one upheld the teaching of Scripture and the church for the ordination of men only.  The study ended as so many designed for changing doctrine -- it was neither pro or anti the ordination of women but began the slide by suggesting that it was not such a big deal, perhaps not even church dividing but the arguments for the ordination of women were now fully introduced into that church body.  

It was followed later a more popular study booklet for the church as a whole and it was, of course, written by a proponent of women's ordination. In the year 2000, the first official vote took place and it did not prevail (not because there was not support for the ordination of women but because the threshold to make the change was high -- a 2/3 majority. 

While that might have signaled defeat, instead it only heralded a call for more -- you guessed it -- study.  Members of the CTICR went on the road throughout Australia holding seminars in every District -- under the guise of information, to be sure, but by failing to offer an opinion, the door was opened to considering the move to ordain women as a legitimate one.

So another vote came and went without the 2/3 majority but with the advance of the cause for the ordination of women simply by the fact that the voting tally narrowed considerably and encouraged those who believed that with more study (really an agenda pro the ordination of women), the next vote might well give the necessary majority approval to the introduction to a practice already settled when the church began  life.

A third vote taken last year -- encouraged by prayers that the LCA be led into the truth of the matter by the Holy Spirit -- still ended up shy.  So, again, you guessed it.  Another study was begun with even more overt direction to support the change and ordain women as pastors.  Another vote will be taken next year and another study booklet will try to prevent the Holy Spirit from coming up a few votes shy again.  In other words, the LCA must study this issue until they get it right (that is, until they change enough minds to support rejecting the position of Scripture and tradition.

It is happening in Australia among Lutherans but it happens everywhere.  The position of the enlightened is that enlightenment (generally heresy or at least diversion from Scripture and tradition) will come after study (study that masquerades as neutral but is, in reality, the most potent arguments in favor of the change that they changers can make!).

So the change moves from being wrong to not so clearly wrong to perhaps not even forbidden to it could be acceptable, to perhaps good to it must be right, god-pleasing, and we have no choice but to approve it. . . and the Spirit must be throwing his wings up in disgust!

Just who are those on the religious left?

The religious right has been well documented.  It is a perspective defined not simply by moral values (say, anti-abortion) but also by a certain doctrinal standard (such as Virgin Birth, physical resurrection, Scriptural infallibility, etc.).  The religious right is not so much a political designation but a religious perspective that has profound political consequences and is marked by those who vote a conscience shaped by the values of this faith and who enter the public square to advance the tenets of that faith.  These are conservative Christians, people who take their Bible and their faith very seriously.  They believe what they confess in the creeds and, though they are as diverse as Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists, they are conservative Christians.  Evangelical is not a synonym for the religious right though it has often been equated with the religious right.  Religious right means people of faith who vote their values.

Now there are those who are talking about the religious left.  You can hear Terry Mattingly talk about this here or read something of him and his response to the awakening to a religious left here.

Terry Mattingly's point is that there may indeed be a religious left but that the term religious left is a vague term and is less religious than political.  Indeed, the question could be whether or not it is more accurate to say that the religious left is a political movement of people who might also have a faith.  In other words, what drives the right is not the same as what drives the left.  The right is driven first by faith and the left is driven first by a common political stance.

That there has been a religious left is not in question.  Go back to the days of the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, and a "progressive" view of dealing with social issues (poverty, hunger, sexuality, etc.).  The difference today is that, although the Roman Catholic Church was one of the biggest movers in this older religious left movement, the Roman Catholic Church is now associated with the pro-life cause and religious liberty perspective that is more consistent with the religious right.  The religious left is not a movement of people united in faith but a people united in politics.

There is an institutional left wing of Christianity (mainline Protestants, for example) and there are Roman Catholics whose views fit in with that group but Roman Catholics do not overall fit the perspective of the religious left.  Those who might fit in this segment of Christianity are accompanied by the nones -- the people who have no strong religious identity and who are unaffiliated with any church even though they may think themselves spiritual (if not religious).  So the positions of the religious left which includes people not of any faith is a political position and not a religious viewpoint.  Strangely, President Donald Trump belongs to the liberal, mainline Protestant wing of Christianity in which the institutional left wing once flourished even though he is more universally identified with the religious right.

The religious right has Christian views that form a basis for their unity and form the shape of their political views.  The religious left has political views that may have invigorated some of the old members of the religious left but that group represents a culturally left perspective and not much of a religious one.  Think about this:  the hot button issues among those liberal Christian denominations are the very same issues that encourage members of the cultural left who have no real religious viewpoints -- namely abortion, same sex marriage, other gender issues, global warming, and immigration, among others.

Good advice . . .

According to Fr. Z:

Dear readers, if your priest does this sort of thing, or anything like it, subdue him with a net, medicate him, place him in restraints, and have him assessed by a trustworthy professional.

The celebrity leader. . .

Whether we care to admit it or not, the absence of doctrinal and liturgical consensus will inevitably require another locus for unity and that, most likely, is the elevation of the celebrity leader.  This is most certainly true of non-denominational churches who struggle to find a way to survive when their leader retires, moves on, is scandalized, or otherwise absent.  In Garden Grove, California, a monument to the celebrity leader status of one Robert Schuller has become a Roman Catholic cathedral and its iconic past is being presumed by a church that, normally, eschews such celebrity leaders.  Over the over again the ecclesiastical empires of the celebrity leader are being dismantled because there is no uniformly anointed successor who can wear the mantle of their absent leader.  Coral Ridge, Oklahoma City, and many others have little in common but the fact that they were the creations of a celebrity leader as much as doctrinal consensus and when the leader left the picture, the institutions they created were left to founder or re-invent themselves.

In New York City the Redeemer Presbyterian system of satellites led by Tim Keller is being readied for his retirement.  The hope is that the various locations will become independent congregations and continue without their very visible and profound leader.  In fact, Keller is himself working toward this because he believes that he has become an impediment to their growth and their continued life.  His celebrity status has begun to work against the effort of the whole.  Something radical has to be done and, it appears, Keller is willing to undertake that radical transformation willingly.  Not all celebrity leaders leave so willingly.  In this case, at least, the hope is the doctrinal unity has been encouraged to under gird the departure of their prominent founder.  We shall see.

In Rome we have seen the papacy transformed to foster the idea of the pope as a celebrity leader.  Of course, John Paul II was the first of the modern popes to capitalize on the resources of the media.  His many travels, his own personality, his story (attempted assassination and eventual debilitation), and his many writings began the shift from the office to the man.  Benedict XVI was less photogenic and less comfortable in that role but Francis has intentionally capitalized upon the media to become the prince of the photo-op.  This has come as the deep divisions within the Roman Catholic Church have become impossible to ignore.  Some would say they have been heightened by the way the Francis has dealt with them -- seeming to foster openness toward divergent views without formally adopting them.  In any case, there is not a small amount of angst among Roman Catholics over the idea that today the pope's greater power may be as celebrity instead of guarantor and custodian of the faith.  Maybe it was true that Pope John XXIII was a celebrity but it was hard for him to have the same kind of impact with the media or the general population from the seat of a sedan chair carried high by the solid arms of the bearers.  Indeed, perhaps the power of ceremony is just that -- to distance the current officeholder from the cult of personality that would make him bigger than the office he holds.  (Something Lutherans might consider!)

Could it be that, lacking our own well considered and deep catechetical, dogmatic, and liturgical unity, we staid and dull Missourians might also be tempted to trade in the competence of preacher, teacher, and theologian for the one who can tell a good joke, keep our rapt attention, and provide a good photo op?  Are we, like Rome, swayed as much by the man as the office?  Given our lack of well received and respected national leaders and the way we have localized leadership into district and region, it could be that the one who will rise to the national office will be the one who can rally the crowd -- if by nothing more than personality.  I am not at all sure that is the case now.  For example, our current Synodical President has solid theological credentials and a host of theological works to his credit.  He has a large personality, to be sure, but his theological acumen and ability far outweighs his celebrity status.

Writing as one who has often been told my ego is larger than it should be and as one who will retire someday after more than 25 years in one congregation, it is not a small things to consider.  Is the cult of personality and the celebrity status of a long tenured pastor also a problem?  It could be.  If faithful preaching and teaching have not accompanied that tenure, it might be.  If the pastor cannot give solid Biblical and confessional grounds for what he says and does, it is probably already problematic.  If the pastor is an innovator who is know to think outside the box, not to be driven by convention or tradition, and willing to risk faithfulness for something that achieves his ends, it certainly is a problem.

Do vestments draw attention to the man or to the office?  Does ceremonial draw attention to the man or to the seriousness of the Divine Service he is leading?  Does a uniform (clerical collar) make the man stick out or draw attention to the office that collar identifies?  For most of church history, ceremony, vestments, clerical attire, and the liturgy have minimized the personality of the leader and kept it in check.  What does it say when we give these up in pursuit of "freedom?"  Could it be that both pastor and people want to exchange the solemnity of the Word and Sacrament for the touch of glory that cult of personality and celebrity status bring?  Just askin. . . 

Ah, well, some more humble meandering pastoral thoughts from someone who might be tempted to think he is a mini-celebrity except for the fact that he has a wife, children, family, associate pastor, congregation, and others to remind him that he has feet of clay.  And I am thankful for that!

Christ the Door to the Sheep and their Good Shepherd. . .

Sermon preached for Easter 4A, Good Shepherd Sunday, on Sunday, May 7, 2017.

    In the old movies, if you wanted to gain entrance into a speak easy or gin joint or poker game, you had a secret knock at the door.  A slide would open and you might repeat a secret code word or drop a name.  Then the door would open.  Too many of us treat the Kingdom of God as if it were some clandestine or hidden secret that required some special knock or secret code to gain entrance.  But not according to Jesus!  He is the door, the gate, the entrance.  His sheep know Him and He knows them.  And that is the radical promise of salvation.
    The world is filled with lying strangers trying to steal.  They come to steal your hearts from the Gospel.  They whisper lies into your ears to entice you from the Good Shepherd.  They come to kill your hopes of eternity by distracting you with visions of today that just might seem enough to satisfy you and make death acceptable.  But they come only to destroy.
    They come to tempt away the sheep, to steal the lambs born of baptismal water, to scatter and destroy the flock.  And the truth is we have all given into the lying voices of these strangers.  We have been tempted by other flocks and false shepherds.  Our sinful hearts by nature hearken to the false shepherds but fear the voice of God calling – it is sins lasting gift to each of us.
    Jesus warns us.  Do not listen to them.  Their abundant life is a lie of health, wealth, and happiness gospels without truth or hope.  They would lead us to exchange the cross for a moment of good feelings and a lifetime of guilt, to surrender eternity for our best life now.  They have no door, only a dead end.
    There is only one Good Shepherd.  We know Him by the power of the Holy Spirit.  This is the Shepherd who calls you by name.  This is the Shepherd who leads you from sin to forgiveness, from evil to righteousness, and from death to life.  He has not come to destroy you but to save you.  He saves not by hidden wisdom or secret knowledge but by the clean and plain witness of His blood shed and His life sacrificed for you.  He does not want to steal you but to guard you.
    There is only one Good Shepherd who has won life from the jaws of death and who gives you this life not as a temporary treasure but an eternal gift.  He gives you not a life of abundance but a life abundant with the power that death cannot touch.  This life is not measured in dollars or pleasures stolen for a moment and that then must be guarded, no, He gives you freely His own life into your death and His life that death cannot touch.  He is the path, He is the door, and He is the destination.
    Scripture tells us over and over again that people did not understand Jesus.  It isn’t because Jesus is hard to understand. It is because our sinful natures do not want to hear and do not want to understand.  The health and wealth preachers, the fake shepherds, appeal to us and their goal of happiness is exactly what we think we want and need.  Until we stand in the cemetery with tears that refuse to be consoled or in the shock of a diagnosis we hoped never to hear.  Until we stand in the shame of our sins found out and our evil hearts revealed.  Then a long life well lived is not enough and we yearn for that which the world cannot give and hireling shepherds cannot deliver.
    And that is exactly what Jesus has come to deliver.  The Gospel is not secret wisdom but the sark and blunt truth of the cross.  It is not a nice shepherd who gives us what we want but a Good Shepherd strong enough to carry the weight of our sin and save us.  The door to salvation is not the door you must open but the door Christ has opened for you by His obedient life and life giving death and mighty resurrection.
    Repent.  Give up the guilty pleasures of personality cults and TV preachers and internet gurus and pop gospels that are fake, that will destroy you.  Repent.  Return to the one Good Shepherd who fulfills Ezekiel’s promise and who walks before you the way of suffering that you may follow in the way of hope. He is not good because He is nice.  He is good because He alone died for your sins and rose for your justification.
    Dear people of God, listen to His voice because He calls Your name.  He has washed you in the still quiet waters and led you to the rich green pasture of His Word.  He has set His table before you in the presence of Your enemies.  He hides nothing and makes all things plain.  He is the Good Shepherd, the door to the sheepfold.  Enter by Him and you having nothing to fear. Believe Him and follow Him.  He will create in you a clean and new heart.  He will teach you how to be holy.  He will teach you heaven’s wisdom.  He will school you in the commandments.  And He will create in you the will to follow Him, the ears to hear only His voice, and the joy that sorrow cannot diminish.
Christ is Risen!

How far from the tree. . .

As radical as Vatican II was, and it was radical both in concept and in the things the proceeded from it, the Council was not as radical as those who have come in its wake.  In its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, the Council fathers of Vatican II wrote that Scripture, and the continuous Tradition which lives from it, “are like a mirror, in which the Church, during its pilgrim journey here on earth, contemplates God, from whom she receives everything.” That is a very traditional and conventional statement and one we Lutherans warm up to.  If you read on a few paragraphs later, you find again where the Council fathers affirm that the authors of Scripture were “consigned to writing whatever [God] wanted written, and no more.”  Again, very good and very consistent with the Lutheran affirmation of the Word of God.  But these words have become forgotten among those who seem intent to move past Scripture and make a place for reason and culture to shape what is believed, taught, and confessed.  This is true not only in Rome, it has become the byword of mainline Protestantism and the sacred soil of modernism.

Modernism began with an attack on the integrity of the Word of God -- both the Word made flesh and the written Word.  It began with the presumption that we can no little of the Jesus who lived in history and certainly not much from the written record that claims to reveal Him and make Him known.  It continued with an attack on the historicity and factual character of the Divine Word to suggest that myth and legend have equal weight with truth.  So it would not matter if the bones of Jesus were found or Adam and Eve were not real people or the great stories of Scripture were symbolic and not historical, truth is deposited not in event but in meaning and the reality of faith is spiritual and not physical.

Christianity was crippled by this attack -- even among those who did not embrace its casual attitude toward the Bible and its factual history or Jesus and what we could ever known of Him.  Even the most faithful soon learned that the new conventional wisdom of Christianity was whatever it means to you and whatever helps you.  The idea of Jesus became more important than Jesus.  The principle of love replaced the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the Gospel.  The new things of the Spirit were allowed to contradict and replace the old things of Scripture's clear Word.  People, even good and faithful Christian people who resisted this neo-paganism, learned that faith was private and the footing of our faith was fragile enough so that it could not withstand the onslaught of academia and the press of culture ready to move on.  We began quiet and private and faith became something internalized and individualized.  We became ripe for the stealing of Biblical Christianity with the false gospel of an evangelicalism intent on fixing today more than supplying eternity.

In my own Synod it became fashionable to suggest that we were intent upon NOT being your grandfather's church.  Worship was freed from the adiaphoristic restraints of liturgy and order and we borrowed freely from those who seemed to know what they were doing to pack them in.  We abandoned real catechesis, replacing doctrine and Bible story with the idea that Jesus is lovable and church is fun.  We turned Bible study into the realm of opinion and feeling which allowed anyone and everyone to say what they thought the Bible said or meant.  We turned the Ministry into ministry and made everyone a minister (and Sunday morning became the place where everyone got their moment in the sun to show off their talents).  We did not counter the culture and its growing disdain for marriage and family in favor of love unbounded and self-interest and so our people had as few children as culture suggested and married later and less often as did everyone else.  And when we the statistics showed we were bleeding off members, we presumed the answer was we were still too traditional, still too old fashioned, and still too much your grandpa's church.

Rome saw the same decline.  They blamed some of the same things we did (or, perhaps, we followed them in blaming the lack of local culture, lay involvement, modern values, and freedom).  In any case, the fruits of failing to mirror Scripture, all the churches have become shells of their former vibrant selves.  America became a mission field instead of a mission dynamo sending forth the Word where it had never been -- the most we exported was our money and our modern values (through generous educational grants to indigenous mission clergy).  Even now, Africa, once the focus of our mission efforts, has become the thorn in the flesh of their liberal counterparts in Methodism and Anglicanism.  They still take seriously what the West has forgotten or deliberately ignored.

And it began with an attack on the Word made flesh (do we really know who Jesus was or what He said or what He intended to leave behind) and the written Word (is the Bible accurate, reliable, historical, trustworthy, or true).  It is still about Jesus but even more so about where or what you can know of Him. 

Properly catechized. . .

I believe it was Harry Wendt who once said something to the effect that in church we teach the children to entertain the parents.  It is a sad indictment of much that goes on in Sunday school, VBS, and catechism classes -- not to mention youth programs in general.  We treat children as if they are somehow hindered from learning when, in reality, they are sponges soaking up what we teach them.

A comment on a post a while ago said, "If kids can learn calculus and chemistry, they can be properly catechized."  It was a simple statement and yet so profound.  Read through much of what passes for Sunday school, children's church, Vacation Bible school, and catechism curricula and you see that we prepare with the idea that much of Scripture and doctrine is beyond the children so that they must be entertained instead of taught.  Yet at the same time you can hand a little child a cell phone and they can find their way to the video on it or the games they want to play.  We send them to school and they are taught how to read and write in classes that stretch across the better part of a day.  They can memorize lines from their favorite movies and recall intricate details of how to get past this or that obstacle in a video game.  But in Church we assume the best they can handle is an object lesson from a children's sermon or a coloring book to play with while we adults do the real stuff of worship.

We are not losing our children into young adulthood because they have been too well catechized.  We are not losing them because we have failed to teach them religion is fun and doctrine is fluff.  We are losing them because we never really had them.  We did not give them a chance.  We offered them books with more pictures than substance.  We gave them busywork to occupy them instead of nurture them into the faith.  We had them sing in church to make us proud or bring a tear to our eyes (with a digital sound track designed to sound like what they listen to in their ear buds).  Then when they wander from the faith we wonder what happened?

Someone a long time ago told me that if you gave a youth to a Roman Catholic Church until age 10, that child would remain Roman Catholic (at least in outlook) for the rest of their lives.  One thing I do admire about Rome is how they expect the child to have a common perspective in catechesis and the mass.  Watch a typical acolyte in a Lutheran church and you see someone generally bored or uninvolved unless are actually doing something.  Watch a typical altar server in a Roman mass and you see reverence offered no matter what the altar boy is doing.  Reverence expected is reverence given.  I am not saying we should pander to things Roman but to learn the lesson.  We do our children no favors by dumbing down worship and catechesis or by deceiving them as if church itself were as fun and entertaining as a movie or video game.  In effect, we have taught them to take nothing of the faith all that seriously.  And they learned that lesson well!

All our attempts to dumb down the things of church and school have not helped one bit to keep them in the faith or give them a solid education.  They rise to the expectation we set for them.  If we expect little, they will gain little.  If we expect much AND give them real tools to learn through good catechesis, we will not lose so many of them as they move into young adulthood.  Are we really losing kids who were properly catechized or is it more true to say we never had them, never gave them a chance, and squandered the opportunity their youthful interest and attention offered?

Doctrinal integrity in the pulpit. . .

. . .the preacher needs theological and exegetical competence. The curriculum in our seminaries and theological institutions must reflect this commitment to train preaching theologians, and not just men who are entertaining. . . So says Albert Mohler.  As St. Paul said so clearly:  “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim 4:2).

Mohler is certainly correct.  The retreat of doctrinal and exegetical sermons and the lack of competence to preach thus are crippling to the faith and work of the Church.  Nowhere is this more clearly revealed than in the shallowness of modern day Christianity and its preoccupation with the moment over eternity.  The problem with the Joel Osteens of this world is not simply their unfaithfulness but how their preaching weakens the witness of Christianity and how it weakens and harms the hearers.  Even Lutheran folks are affected by the prevailing ideas that good sermons are practical and direct you to means of improving your lot in life.  Whether in the pulpit or in the pew, the pressure to exchange doctrine and Biblical content for pop psychology is powerful and tempting.  We know the stresses on our people, on their marriages, and on their children.  We pastors are not unfeeling or uncaring.  But as true as this is, nothing does more harm to the state of the faith and the faithful than choosing to preach positive thinking, inspirational example, and motivational purpose over Christ and Him crucified.

Speaking personally, I well recall one person in my parish complaining to me that at least when this person watched Joel Osteen that person felt better . . . and this was more than could be said after listening to one of my sermons.  Ouch!  But the triumph of feeling over truth has not improved our lot or added to the number of Christians one bit.  In fact, it has done just the opposite.  Conflating Christianity with feel good ideas and their salesmen has not encouraged growth in the kingdom.  Even the numbers that are touted by the mega churches are hollow -- how many of those folks go from church to church in pursuit of the newest, latest, and freshest version of self-help spirituality?

We need to remember that we are captive to the Word of God.  The proclamation of that Word faithfully is what will grow the Church and grow those in the Church.  Nothing else.  Christ and Him crucified, says St. Paul.  So if you are in a church and do not hear about sin, are not moved to repentance by the clear preaching of the Law, are not comforted and consoled with the Gospel gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation earned by Christ alone, and are not urged to good works that display this faith and serve your neighbor, leave that church and find one that preaches this Gospel faithfully.

It is one thing to have an off sermon every now and then but it is another to hear the same banality of tired and empty tips on a better life now without ever hearing the Law and the Gospel.  Furthermore, those churches that retain the liturgy offer both a context for this preaching and a place where this doctrinal and exegetical truth is present even when the sermon is off.

Lutherans beware.  You don't need more eloquent preachers.  You need faithful preachers.  You don't need to hear more relevant and practical sermons.  You need to hear more Biblical sermons.  You don't need to be inspired.  You need to be catechized and faithfully addressed with Law and Gospel. 

False Compassion. . .

We live in an age in which it often seems there is more compassion for the perpetrator of crime than his or her victim.  Watch on TV how quickly big name attorneys stand in line to defend those charged with heinous crimes -- all in the name of making sure the defendant gets a fair trial (at least that is often what they say).

Defense often lies in assigning more blame or responsibility on others.  The defendant grew up in a dysfunctional family or was labelled a trouble maker at school or had a learning disability or did not have an education or could not find a decent job.  The list goes on.  Society failed him or her (along with family, friends, and neighbors). Every terrorist has the previous life investigated to see why and how the individual was "radicalized" and then to lay blame not upon the terrorist but upon those who failed him or her while growing up.

But there is such a thing as false compassion.  Mother Angelica, the iconic founder of the Eternal Word Network, once said that “the reigning sin of our time” was “misguided compassion.”  Before Mother Angelica, C. S. Lewis called it “smother love.”  In The Great Divorce, he told the story of a mother who preferred to spend eternity in hell (with her heaven-bound son), rather than to give him up and her control over him.  This is exactly the story of a mother who loved her children so much she murdered them to prevent them from disappointment or suffering or being taken from her.  Yet the compassion of society goes to the mother and her children have their victimhood stripped from them as again society and family is blamed for creating the cause of this mother's psychosis.  Or read the circumstances of a school gang rape in Sweden and the perspective given to the rapists who, according to the authorities, are also victims.

G. K. Chesterton also wrote of this kind of false compassion which “tends to regard, or rather to disregard, the formal and legal rights of the citizen.”  Again, the compassion is reserved for the one who violates the law over the one who keeps it and over the victims who suffer because the law was broken.  Chesterton also warned of a future society in which “there shall be no more laws or liberties … than there are in a nursery.”  In such a society, the government would “not really regard men as citizens but as children.”  So the role of government is to act as the fawning mother claiming to “love all mankind; but she does not respect it.”  Have we not seen this take place?  Think here of the lawsuits entered by those who failed to follow rules or exercise prudence in everything from handling hot coffee to ascending a ladder.  According to Chesterton, “[I]t is certain that under this softening influence government of the people, by the people, for the people, will most assuredly perish from the earth.”

False compassion says abortion is more moral than a life unwanted, death more compassionate than a life not well-lived, and violence not too strong a response to injustice.  We have spent more and more time and money and energy trying to deal with the consequences of fallen human behavior by assigning the blame and responsibility on those who went before but, in the meantime, the behavior has just gotten worse and worse.  We are so shocked by the news that we refuse to acknowledge such things can really happen and yet we cannot steal our eyes away from the violence, brutality, and vulgarity of it all.  There must be a government solution, we think, but how can there be a state solution to the problems inherent in the sinful self?

Along the way, we have fostered a sense of superiority over those who went before us.  We are so much more enlightened than our prudish, primitive, simplistic, superstitious, ignorant, and uncompassionate  parents.  We know better.  Rules are less important than freedom, the guilty first a victim, and the blame less important than caring.  But all the while such false compassion is not helping but harming.  Maybe we ought to consider returning to the old morality we assigned as the original cause. Perhaps it’s time to remember the wisdom of Scripture enfleshed in us in our conscience -- the tired old but true wisdom that says that life just isn’t easy or fair.  Perhaps it is time to remember that the path to Heaven is a narrow path but the road to perdition is a wide boulevard.

The Law was given to protect us as well as show us our sin.  It cannot protect us if we deny its ability to call out sin and choose to band-aid over it a false compassion that deny blame or responsibility.  Jesus statement is no less shocking today than it was when the Pharisees first heard it -- the evil you need to worry about is not the one that comes from outside but the evil that wells up from within!

Here is something I watched growing up. . . old fashioned and out of step with modern ideas but no less true today than when it was said:

Somewhere out there. . .

_________________________________________________________

My Comments:

As you might suspect, I am not impressed.  Yes, it may make you feel good to believe in an afterlife, that there is something up there and people looking down, at least occasionally.  The problem with that is that a feeling does nothing.  It does not give any assurance that, indeed, there is an afterlife or that somewhere up there someone is listening, looking down, and cares.  No assurance whatsoever.

I feel like I am the smartest person in the world, the most handsome fellow ever seen, and the best at what I do.  Unfortunately my feelings have not bolstered my intellect not one point, nor have my feelings improved my appearance (painfully evident every time I look into the mirror).  Finally, I am the best at nothing (except being the best Larry Peters there is -- of course, also the worst!). 

Feelings are not bad -- they are good.  But when you press feelings into the service of what the Word of God promises and faith born of the Holy Spirit acknowledges, feelings come up short every time.  Faith is what gives birth to our feelings -- not the other way around.  You cannot feel yourself into believing but faith can and does inject holy joy into the worst of circumstances and carry you through the worst of times.

The goofiest thing Mr. Morgan said was that confession might take too long -- what time would it steal?  Time you could have been spending sinning?  Really, a clear conscience is not worth a few moments.  Confession is not telling your life story.  Confession is owning your sinfulness and particularly the sins that trouble your conscience, asking forgiveness from Christ, and pledging by the aid of the Spirit to amend your life.  What Morgan is really saying is that there are other things in life more urgent, more important, and more interesting that dealing with sin and its death.  And that is the most telling part of what he said.

Now, of course, it really does not matter what Piers Morgan thinks or says.  Just because he earns more than most of us and has a place in the public eye does not make him smarter, better looking, or more accomplished than anyone else.  Okay, he is better looking than I am.  But so what?  And that is my point in this rant.  Morgan is not your spiritual guide -- the Word of God is and so is the guy God has called to be your pastor.  Listen to him and know the Word well enough to make sure that it is the Word of the Lord that endures forever and not a momentary whim and you will be on much more solid ground than your feelings or Mr. Morgan's.

Lord, have mercy!

What do you think about the death penalty?

I am only posting the link here but it is an important one.  James Rogers, professor at Texas A&M and a member of an LCMS congregation has written a piece in response to an informed plea to end the death penalty by Christian's championing this position.  The first section of Rogers' well-considered and Biblical response is here.

Death Penalties and the Divine Executing Grace, Part 1 by James R. Rogers 3.28.17. . .

A seven mile conversation. . .

Sermon for Easter 3A, preached on Sunday, April 30, 2017.

    When tragedy strikes, all you want to do is get through it, to get through the next hour, the next day, the next week.  You long to be able to breathe again, to sleep again, to smile again, and to hope again. Amid the sorrow of disappointment live the people who long to forget their pain, who ache with the wounds of their disappointment, who wonder if the scars will heal, and if they will ever find normal life again.  This was what was going on in the life of those disciples walking 7 miles to Emmaus.
    We had hoped Jesus was the One.  Somehow they had seen the cross as tragedy, disappointment, and even the end to their hope. Did they miss the words of Jesus?  Did they forget what the woman had found in the empty tomb?  Or was the pain of His death too much for them to get past?  Who knows?  They were headed back home, to get on with the lives, and to resume their routine of skepticism, disappointment, and fear.
    They had a dream and now they were left with a nightmare - a Savior whom they had seen die and with Him all their hopes and dreams.  What is worse?  Never to hope or to hope and have that hope ripped away from you in disappointment?  You have been there, too.  So have I.  This was a long conversation.  How long does it take to walk seven miles?  They poured out their sorrow to the stranger walking with them who was Jesus.
    But Jesus did not shrug His shoulders or join them in their disappointment.  Jesus did not console them with empty words.  Jesus turned them back to the one Word that cannot disappoint. Jesus pointed them back to that Cross and to the Law and the prophets of Scripture that frame that cross and Calvary.
    Jesus showed them that the cross was not tragedy but triumph, not accident but plan.  God was saving His people and the Crucified One was not a victim but the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Jesus showed them how the holy of holies in the Temple was moved to Calvary and the mercy seat was covered finally with the blood that cleanses us from sin.  Jesus showed them this was God’s plan of salvation.
    Jesus showed them that they old life was gone.  It died with the death of the Savior.  Jesus showed them that the new life had come with the resurrection that makes all things new – even you and me.  Jesus showed them that the cross was not a bad dream to forget but the Gospel to remember and proclaim to the ends of the earth.  And Jesus showed them one thing more.  In the breaking of the bread He revealed that He was that Savior who died and now lived and who has salvation for all.
    Are we so different?  How does the Lord deal with the pain, sadness, and disappointment of our lives?  He points us to the Scriptures showing us the Law and prophets testify to Christ.
He shows us that the cross is not some tragedy but the triumph of the saving will of the One whose blood cleanses us from all our sin.  He reveals the resurrection as the path through which we too shall rise to new and everlasting life where sin and death cannot tread.  He shows us the plan of salvation laid before the foundation of the world.
    And He shows us one more thing.  In the breaking of the bread He reveals Himself .  In the bread of His flesh you taste the true hope that cannot disappoint.  He has tasted of all your disappointment, sin, and death and now you feast upon Him who is Lord of life and hope.  This Jesus fills you with the Holy Spirit, with the fire of His love, with recognition of His voice, and burns into your hearts the joy that knows no end.
    To a people content with recovering a broken past, our Lord bestows a bold new future.  We come here just like those disciples of old.  We have the same conversation of despair and disappointment ringing in our ears.  We have hoped... We dreamed that if... And here we are with Jesus who opens His Word so that He may reveal Himself to us.  It was always the plan and the cross was always the means of our salvation.  Our life would be born of the ashes of Jesus’ suffering and death.  He breaks, He blesses, He bestows the bread of His flesh and the cup of His blood and the Spirit burns within us.
    We burn with the yes of God to our need, with the mercy of God against our sin, with the life of God over the power of death, with the power of God in our weakness, and with the joy of God to end all sorrow.  Every conversation meets us here.  In the bread broken and the cup poured.  Where Christ knows us with the riches of His grace and we know Christ for today, tomorrow, and forever.  Christ is Risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

It's that time of year again. . .

Vacation Bible School is on the minds of many (unless you old school and call it Vacation Church School, which I love but have never found it catch on).  If you are not planning yet, it might be time to start.  If you have planned, then you are counting down the day for this week or two in which the Church does, well, that is sort of the problem.  VBS began as a summer time week of teaching which included a little fun but it has now tended to become a week of fun that includes a little bit of teaching.  VBS has taken on a life of its own.  Perhaps the reason is that we have fewer children to compete for (speaking here primarily of unchurched which were once the primary focus of VBS).  Or it could be that if we can, why shouldn't we transform this into a combination dream world/amusement park week to prove to kids that church IS fun.

Many have complained that denominational publishing houses have pursued generic Christian themes over actually teaching doctrine and truth.  Of course there is some truth to this.  VBS curricula are expensive and we have to figure out some way to spread the cost out to make it all affordable.

Others have complained that the focus of VBS has shifted from the faithful of Bible stories to having fun and providing child care for folks whose kids have become bored during their summer break.  Of course there is some truth in this.  We have people call us to find out how to schedule their children in one VBS after another in an effort to find some cheap child care with a (hopefully) salutary purpose.  And living next door to a giant Baptist church, we know the temptation to make it glitter and shine with as much splash as possible.  When we had Noah's Ark, we had pictures.  When they did Noah's Ark they had elephants and camels.  Get my drift?

Our VBS was during morning hours until we found too many of our moms/teachers were no longer able to take off work and do VBS.  So we have switched to an evening format that begins with a meal and offers adult classes so the whole family can come and eat and learn.  Sometimes it even works.  Sometimes we have great classes.  And. . . most of the time we have more fun than anything else.

VBS is one of those things we do because we have always done it.  After all, CPH provides the curriculum so it must be kosher and at least half as fun as Gospel Light or Standard, right?  Well, the truth comes out.  I am not so sure what we do VBS for and what it accomplishes but I am not yet ready to kill it. . . maybe next year.

Until then, pick your poison. . .

Roman Catholic orders. . . so now you know

If you are like me, it is easy to be confused by the orders that divide monasteries and convents.  We who live on the outside of Roman Catholicism might assume that they are all pretty much the same.  Maybe not.  Anyway, here is some information to inform us as to the founders and orders they founded.

Still funny. . . but sadly, true. . .