Nuance or difference. . .

As I read through a post on the First Things web exclusives this jumped out at me.

As our discussion turned to the Mass, a young woman shared her own experience and stated that the whole point of Mass is to receive Communion. I offered a different perspective: The primary purpose of Mass is to worship God, to give him the glory and adoration that are his due. That holds true whether or not we receive Communion at Mass.

The author, a Roman Catholic, was relating a conversation among other Roman Catholics about worship and the Mass.  What jumped out at me was the whole idea that we give God glory and adoration whether or not we receive Communion at Mass.  It struck me as an appeal quite clearly to the Law.  Giving God what He is due is the command and duty of the Law.  Perhaps I have been a Lutheran too long.  We would begin not with what we give to God but what God gives to us.

"Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise. Music is drawn into this thankfulness and praise, enlarging and elevating the adoration of our gracious giver God.

Saying back to Him what He has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure. Most true and sure is His Name, which He put upon us with the water of our Baptism. We are His. This we acknowledge at the beginning of the Divine Service. Where His Name is, there is He. Before Him we acknowledge that we are sinners, and we plead for forgiveness. His forgiveness is given us, and we, freed and forgiven, acclaim Him as our great and gracious God as we apply to ourselves the words He has used to make Himself known to us.

The rhythm of our worship is from Him to us, and then from us back to Him. He gives His gifts, and together we receive and extol them. We build one another up as we speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Our Lord gives us His body to eat and His blood to drink. Finally His blessing moves us out into our calling, where His gifts have their fruition. How best to do this we may learn from His Word and from the way His Word has prompted His worship through the centuries. We are heirs of an astonishingly rich tradition. Each generation receives from those who went before and, in making that tradition of the Divine Service its own, adds what best may serve in its own day the living heritage and something new."

The rhythm of our worship is from Him to us and only then from us back to Him.  If there is a Lutheran way of speaking about worship, it is surely this.  It is the perspective of the Gospel.  Who can worship Him without knowing Him, recognizing His gifts, and receiving what He has so graciously chosen to give?  But more than this, it is the very receiving of His gifts that is the highest worship.  This is our confession.  According to Luther, the highest form of worship is to trust God. In his book, The Freedom of the Christian, published in 1520, Luther wrote, 

"The very highest worship of God is this that we ascribe to Him truthfulness, righteousness and whatever else should be ascribed to one who is trusted. On the other hand, what greater rebellion against God, what greater wickedness, what greater contempt of God is there than not believing His promise? For what is this but to make God a liar or to doubt that He is truthful—that is, to ascribe truthfulness to one's self but lying and vanity to God."

This faith is itself the work of the Spirit working in the Word and the result of the Spirit's work in Holy Baptism.  Where such faith is born, it leads the faithful to that place where the absolution restores, the voice of God speaks, and the hand of God bestows His sacramental grace.  It is a complete misunderstanding of God and His Word to presume that the worship of faith is not the worship that takes place around His Word and Table and it is the same misunderstanding that the worship of God's House is not about faith.  He speaks and faith is born.  He washes and the dead are raised from the womb of the baptismal water.  He feeds and nourishes with the bread of the Eucharist and the hungry are fed eternal life.

The Roman Catholic author is absolutely correct.  The Mass is not something they have to sit through in order to receive Communion.  Neither is it for Lutherans.  The gift is the efficacious Word that does what it speaks and the sacramental sign that actually delivers what it symbolizes.  Yes, there are times when the Lutheran communicant may choose not to receive the Sacrament of the Altar but this is not surely the norm.  Yes, in Rome there was and maybe still is a time when the communicant receives outside the Mass but this is not surely envisioned to be normative.   The gifts of God for the people of God is not some affirmation of a theoretical gift but a real one, one that is both heard in the ear and believed in the heart and tasted in the mouth to nourish body and soul.  For Luther to say faith is the highest worship is also to understand that the faith that receives with repentance and joy the very Word of the Lord preached and read into heart and mind and the body and blood of the Lord Jesus upon the lips is faith fulfilling the Lord's command and promise and gift.  How this became two different things in Rome or in Lutheranism is a mystery to me.  Faith is the highest worship and the highest worship of that faith is to receive the gifts of God with the God-given gift of faith and from that to respond with service, thanks, praise, and obedience.  Why is this so hard?

Death Cleaning. . .

Dö means death in Swedish and städning means cleaning. The thrust of the idea is to slowly begin decluttering your home so your death isn't such a burden for your children or those who will have to clean up things after you are gone.  It sounds terrible but long before the rest of the world learned the Swedish name for it, they were already doing it.  On the one hand, paring down was associated with death but on the other hand it was connected to retirement or downsizing.  Once you reach the end of middle age (whatever that is currently, you start looking around your home and the various closets, basement, or atticstorage areas and you begin to wonder if you really need or want all the stuff that is hidden away or cluttering up the public areas of your dwelling.   A while ago I read about this according to Margareta Magnusson, whose book, "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Make Your Loved Ones’ Lives Easier and Your On Life More Pleasant," was published in 2018. 

All you have to do is watch some decorating and DIY shows on TV that feature Scandinavian design and you already know that the current model is more spare than others.  I grew up in a Swedish community and cannot substantiate that it was like this long ago but there was always a sense of less is more at a certain age.  When my grandparents moved off the farm and into town, they left much behind -- they did not want it or have room for it anymore.  They did not quite retire (it was the early 1960s) but they did change their work and they changed the house to reflect this.  Swedish Death Cleaning is in one sense a general decluttering process.  It may be in tune with the need to envision your family and heirs have to deal with the stuff you leave behind but there was also a sense of relief as the external work of decluttering bore some fruit in the peace and contentment of life as well.

While I would not press the analogy too much, it is the nature of repentance as well.  It is death cleaning in the penultimate sense.  Repentance begins with the affirmation that sin is not simply excess baggage but the mark of death's claim upon us.  We repent because sin has cluttered up our lives and hearts and it has become unmanageable.  We cannot bear the weight of it anymore.  Repentance is made possible by the Lord Jesus who has come to rid our lives not simply of the clutter but the clutter that marks us with death.  Like the hoarder on TV whose home is filled with mold and all sorts of other toxic things that have slowly stolen not simply their quality of life but the very life itself.  Sin has not simply made our lives bad, it has stole our lives from us and repentance admits what sin has done.  The lament of our hearts is not simply for the actual sins that cross our minds and our lips and are acted out in our bodies but for the condition that has cast its shadow over us and over all things.  This comes with our own deep regret and contrition over the part of all this that we participated in.  And this happens every Sunday when we confess the sins we have thought, said, and done and the uncleanness that we cannot wash away.

Death cleaning for us is the admission of that which causes death and of the cleaning that God has supplied to give hope to those who live in the shadow.  More than simply removing the sin and its consequence, God has undertaken the larger task of teaching our hearts to love the things of God more than we love ourselves and the familiar paths of sin that have marked our lives since their conception.  So a little death cleaning on a Sunday morning is a pretty good thing. . .

But I don't like to wait. . .

  

I waited for the Lord, he inclined unto me, he heard my complaint.
O bless’d are they that hope and trust in the Lord. [Psalm 40:1-5]

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s (1809-1847) Symphony No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 52 is also known as Hymn of Praise (Lobegesang in German.)  Mendelssohn composed the symphony in 1840 and described it as “A Symphony-Cantata on Words of the Holy Bible, for Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra.”  It is a large work, with a complete performance of the symphony lasting well over an hour.  I Waited for the Lord is one of the movements of this symphony.  It is scored for two soloists and chorus, with the text derived from Psalm 40.

We wait all the time. Our lives are filled with the burden of waiting.  We wait to fall asleep at night, for emails and text messages, for Amazon deliveries, for money to hit the bank account, for doctors, for torturous things to end and for blessed things to begin. The Christian life is likewise filled with waiting but not for things on earth.  This waiting is for the Lord, for an answer to our prayers, for the resolve of conflicted hearts, for peace to replace upset, for joy to overcome despair, and for hope to triumph over loss.  The old may have learned to wait while the young are anxious but in every case waiting is still a burden and a test of faith.  “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:30-31).

We wait not for the unknown so much as we wait for the promise of God to be kept, fulfilled, and delivered.  It is the waiting that only faith can undertake or it will become our undoing.  Waiting is a test of faith and of our confidence in the Word of God.  The answer to our unease at waiting and our fears is faith.  We believe that God hears us, answers us, and delivers to us all He has said.  This is our peace in waiting.  God is faithful and He will do it.

But that is blasphemy!

Blasphemy from the dictionary is the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things; profane talk.  Then and now, blasphemy has something in common but it is not God.  What the past and present share is a concern to protect that which is sacred. But that is where the similarity begins and ends.   It is that which is sacred about which the past and the present disagree.  Old-style blasphemy involved desecrating God because it was God who was sacred. Today’s blasphemy is not about God at all but about the god role played by man himself.  The blasphemy of 2023 is a challenge to the idea that man is not all-powerful, that man does not have the power or the right to create or define himself as he choose, or that man is subject to limits outside his control and beyond the realm of his choice.  

This is the blasphemy that is so sacred and essential to modern identity that it cannot be challenged and, when it is challenged, must be silenced even more than refuted.  Indeed, that which offends today is not a challenge to fact but feeling, not the denial of God but the denial of self, and not the freedom to choose but the refusal to affirm the sacred choices.  The media and social media are the guardians of this sacred truth and the means by which this sacred truth is affirmed.  Reality is the domain of perception and expression and has little connection to or reflection of fact, history, or truth.  We are no longer defined by things outside ourselves but we have have taken on as our new religion the primacy of self and its sacrament is our ability to define ourselves according to the mores we have invented.  

It is no longer much of a concern that we might be offending God.  To blaspheme God has become normal and ordinary.  It is routine.  Every day in our culture people and corporations and institutions choose to offend God and those who believe in Him in order to pursue the higher virtue of self-expression and choice.  It is not simply the LA Dodgers but the biggest of corporations, retail giants, and academic institutions.  Those who had religious roots and may still have Christian associations are so quick to jettison those relationships and reject their roots in order to pursue the new sacred of self and self-expression.  Even Notre Dame University observes and celebrates pride month.  Never mind what the catechism says, if it offends against the new sacred of sexual expression and gender identity, it must be condemned and labeled profane.

Some complain that saying this is offensive to those who do not want to challenge anyone or anything -- they just want to be free to express themselves and to live their own lives with the same rights and privileges as others.  Would that this was true.  An  example is marriage.  Same sex marriage is not simply about the right to coexist but is about the desire to transform what marriage is for everyone.  Gay men do not marry at the same rate as heterosexuals or lesbians but lesbians divorce at a rate far greater than even heterosexuals.  In the midst of this is the state of the children in these families.  Without a biological connection with those whom they once called a parent, we are charting new ground in the legal pursuit of guardianship -- something that has not been the case in heterosexual marriages even when they end in divorce.

In other cases, it is not merely about tolerating a legal status accorded to the alphabet soup of gender and sexual preference.  It is about the flaunting of such preferences.  This is not about toleration or acceptance but about an "in your face" attitude toward those around you.  So it is not enough to have a private preference or identity but these must be the sole or at least the primary definition of who you are, how you act, and what you do.  The Sisters Perpetual Indulgence are not looking for acceptance but to demean what others hold sacred and to be as outrageous as possible in their promotion of who they are.  The drag queens who read to children in the library are not interested in reading to the children but gaining acceptance from those children of their own identities and expression -- especially for those children whose parents reject the drag queen.

The blasphemy of today is to suggest that marriage is the basic shape of society as ordered by God and reflected over time and in history.  It is the offense of suggesting that children are essential to family and are the faithful response of the call to be fruitful and multiply.  It is the offense of suggesting that the mark of humanity is not being defined by desire but by the practice of self-control and the refusal to be governed by passions.  It is the offense of suggesting that in order to know who we are, we must know whose we are.  The blasphemy of today is not interested in preserving belief in God but is solely concerned with the preservation of the myth of human freedom to do and be whoever you choose.  All in all, it was easier and made a great deal more sense when blasphemy was about God.

Inclusive might mean rejecting Jesus. . .

In 2016, Concordia University of Edmonton did the unthinkable.  The school, led by a Lutheran president, cut its ties to the Lutheran Church-Canada.  They caught the leaders and people of the LCC off guard and shock waves went throughout that church body and even across those concerned about the universities of the LCMS.  The decision of the board was seen as a sign of the times for university education.  In reality, however, the school had been operating largely as a secular institution for some time.  The financial support from the LCC and the numbers of Lutheran students had declined until it was less than marginal.  In one fell swoop, the board that controlled the institution erased every mention of its Christian heritage and every commitment to that heritage in its mission statement.  Then the president resigned from the clergy roster of his own church body.  And it was all done in the interests of preserving and growing the school.  President Gerald Krispin insisted his school would be better off without its Lutheran Church affiliation.  “It’s all about inclusion." he said.  "That’s the big issue. And we want to be an inclusive university.”  Their Lutheran connection was a scandal to their prospective students and a drawback to those already enrolled and ended up, in the view of the board, impeding their mission.

This was a story about how the interests of the church body that had owned and sponsored the university conflicted with the felt interests of the university -- at least as this was the observation of those who had been charged with the best interests of both.  Now the same thing may be happening in the LCMS.  Concordia University Texas has made no secret of its thinking that its identity as an agency of the Synod and their perception of the well-being of the school not only compete but must be mutually exclusive.  Its current president has made no secret of his intention and the direction of his leadership in this regard and he appears to have the support of at least a majority of the board members.  But is this necessarily the case?  It is as if one within the marriage insists that in order to be faithful they must be unfaithful.  Is that a legitimate statement of the situation within a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod university?  Is it a fair description of the dilemma of the members of the board of regents and the official leaders of that school?  Is it impossible to be both faithful in the exercise of their fiduciary responsibility to the Synod and to the college?  Must they distance themselves from the LCMS in order to better fulfill their mission as a university?

These are some of the issues at play when the LCMS meets in convention in a couple of weeks.  Many of the issues are remarkably similar to what already took place in Canada.  We have schools who sincerely believe that their association with the Synod conflicts with or competes with their goals and pursuits as a university.  It will be up to the delegates at the Convention to decide if that claim is justified and to hold the schools, their leaders, and their boards of regents accountable to the Synod that established those schools -- with the idea, at least in the beginning, that they existed to further the very objectives of the Synod stated clearly in the first part of our constitution.  For my part, I am not convinced.  In fact, I am persuaded that the fiduciary responsibility to the Synod and to the institution is not only not in conflict but very much the same cause and duty.  But I will not be voting.  Others will.  I pray that even if we make the right decision as a church body, we will not be too late in challenging what has become an all too familiar mantra about what is good for the Church is not good for the university.  Our schools should not have to reject Jesus in order to be faithful, authentic, and excellent academic institutions.  If that is the case, we have far more at stake here than one Concordia.

Bless the beasts and the children. . .

Bless the Beasts and Children was a 1971 film adaptation of the novel of the same name written by Glendon Swarthout and became a signature song for The Carpenters.  

Bless the beasts and the children,
For in this world they have no voice,
They have no choice.
Bless the beasts and the children,
For the world can never be,
The world they see.

Light their way
When the darkness surrounds them;
Give them love, let it shine all around them.
Bless the beasts and the children;
Give them shelter from a storm;
Keep them safe;
Keep them warm.

Light their way
When the darkness surrounds them;
Give them love, let it shine all around them.
Bless the beasts and the children;
Give them shelter from a storm;
Keep them safe;
Keep them warm.

Bless the beasts and the children;
Give them shelter from a storm;
Keep them safe;
Keep them warm.

 

Fifty years or so later it is clear that we have not blessed the beasts and the children.  First of all we confused them and gave the beasts (our pets) a higher status than the children who are rapidly disappearing from our marriages and families and homes.  Our fur babies have taken the place of the real ones in our affection and there is more outrage over cruelty to a dog than to the killing of the unborn.  Worse, we have not kept them safe.  Just the opposite, we have forced upon them adult ideas and ideals to the point where we have robbed them of their childhood and replaced the comfort of God's love and the love of their parents with choices about gender and presumptions about their own sexual desires.  We have not sheltered them from the storm of change that sweeps away our culture but thrust them right into the midst of it where suddenly the child who had curiosity, imagination, and play as the prime agenda now has to digest what it means to be binary or live in fear that the planet will die before they reach majority.  The other curse we have laid upon them is the idea that life is an accident, no life is precious, and there is no wisdom or order to life but the purest expression of desire.  In their most vulnerable moments, we have told them what we tell each other -- look inside for comfort, meaning, and purpose.  We are worse than fools, we are child abusers.

Jesus did not esteem children highly because they were innocent of sin but because they must be protected, must be directed, and must be taught.  They were and are vulnerable to the ripest of abuses we would thrust upon them and so whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Him to sin is worth nothing less than a stone to weigh them down to a drowning death.  In one fell swoop Jesus recalls our duty to the child in our midst while affirming that this child has the trust that is faith's core.  For this reason, we not only defend and guard our children but we learn from them what it means to trust when our hearts are too filled with anger, bitterness, doubt, and fear to trust anyone and anything.  Children are seen by our corrupting world as tools to engineer their social construct of diversity, equity, justice, gender, and desire.  If we surrender our children to those who would contrive in them a worldview that is built upon fear and an understanding of self that is little more than base desire, we deserve the threat that Jesus made.  But it just may be that our children can lead us back to some sense of sanity.  They long not for utopian ideals built upon a skewed moral compass but for shelter in the storm, for a life that death cannot undo, and for hope to meet the future in the blessing of forgiveness.  They know we need God even when we have forgotten it.  They know that they are Jesus' little lambs even when we are ashamed of such simplicity of faith and expression.  We have screwed things up with our flawed adultness, perhaps we can hope that a little child shall lead them....

 

The reason for counting sheep. . .

Our Lord commanded Peter (and those who, like Peter, serve as pastors/shepherds of the flock) to feed the sheep not to count them.  That is true.  But counting is part of caring for the sheep -- not primarily in the sense of charting the success but rather keeping tabs on the flock so that none are lost.  The primary numbers that ought to demand our attention have to do not with the number of new members received but the number of our members in worship and how often they are in worship.  Sure, we do keep tabs on the new people but what does it matter if we are receiving new people while the old ones are not in worship or walking out the back door? 

I grew up in a small congregation.  It is much smaller now but when I grew up we had about 120 communicant members and 100 of them were in church every Sunday.  That is a pretty decent percentage. In the parish I serve, half our people are in church every Sunday.  Unfortunately, that is now considered a pretty decent percentage.  Typically, our congregations see between 20-30% of our people in worship every Sunday.  Work this out Synod wide and it means that a membership of roughly 1.8 Million translates into half or less on Sunday morning.  Meeting new people with the Gospel and catechizing them into the life of the congregation is important.  Only an idiot would deny that.  But what happened to the names on the list and their relationship to the congregation on a Sunday morning?  If we are counting the new sheep in the door we ought to also be counting the old sheep who never make it through that same door.  That is at least as big a problem as the lack of new faces around our Synod.

Counting the sheep on Sunday morning tells us not only how many were there but also how many were not.  If we did a better job of increasing the frequency of our people attending worship, our congregations, districts, and Synod would become profoundly stronger and more effective -- even at sending forth the Gospel and welcoming new folks as a consequence of the people who ought to be there actually showing up.  This is the number that troubles me and the number that keeps me awake at night.  In order to feed the lambs, the lambs need to be there.  

Wouldn't it transform our parishes and our Synod as a whole if we increased the percentage of our members in worship to 60 or 75%?  Of course it would.  The place where we need to begin is to convince our people that the number that counts is not the number of names on a roster kept in a computer but the number of sheep gathered around the voice of their Good Shepherd, cleansed in the still quiet waters of their baptism, and fed on the rich green pasture every Sunday.  Maybe I am foolish but I think it has been too long since we made a public push to tell our people that the bare minimum is every member in worship every Sunday (or other day when worship services are held) and every member in Bible study every week.  

Every business worth its salt knows that you cannot survive long haul on new customers.  Repeat customers are your bread and butter.  While the Church is not a business and the Gospel not a product it speaks volumes about what is wrong when we see how many of our people are not "repeat customers" and how much attention we give to new ones while forgetting those who were once with us but are no longer.  The future of any congregation is at least tied to the retention of her current members and their regular weekly participation as the baptized gathered around the Word and Table of the Lord every Lord's Day as it is to finding new faces.  No, do not choose between the two goals but rather make sure that the first goal of our people in God's House every week supports and strengthens them in their witness before the world the rest of the week.

Come to ME. . .

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 9A, preached on Sunday, July 9, 2023.

Every pastor has favorite Bible verses. By now, you should know mine – I have been preaching and teaching to you for over 30 years. Luther’s favorite passage must have been Matthew 11:28: “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” If you read Luther’s sermons, he seems to figure out a way to include this passage in nearly every one of them. Maybe this is one of your favorite passages as well. I understand why it might be. Jesus is offering us rest in a busy and restless world, for hearts that are stressed and upset, for minds that are worried and confused, and for bodies that are tired and weary. We hardly need to be told to come to Jesus if this is what He offers.

We live in a world that is a constant test to our endurance, a constant challenge to what we believe, and a constant threat to all that we hold dear. Who among us has not longed for the refuge and peace that Jesus offers here? Ours is a cruel world in which children are shot, babies are killed in the womb, and the aged treated as a burden to be gotten rid of as soon as possible. It is not simply the fringes of our lives that are under attack but life itself. We will mask up and vaccinate and keep our distance to save our own lives but we seem unwilling to raise a finger to protect the lives of others.

Ours is a world of danger because we no longer can clearly define good from evil, right from wrong, truth from error. We have so confused things that some treat the body as if it were an enemy of their identity rather than a reflection of it. We have made sex and amusement the highest goals of life and tolerate work for the paycheck it provides to pay for our entertainment. We are not sure what a man or a woman is, pretty sure it does not matter with regard to marriage, and confident that marriage is for our amusement as well. Who does not long for a rest from this weary state of confusion and denial?

Ours is a selfish world in which the individual matters most of all and the refusal of the group to support the individual in his or her preference or predilection is the ultimate offense. None of us is willing to do what we don’t want to do and few of us are willing to talk ourselves into what is right. We live and die by our feelings, by our quest for happiness, by the unsocial media that now tells us the news, allows us to comment on it, and provides a forum for our self-expression. Who would not long for rest in the midst of such a world curved in upon itself?

Progress is not our answer. Improvement is not our answer. Christ is telling us what our answer is. He is our answer. The words of Jesus are not simply about what makes us weary and what burdens press upon us but about the only One who can deliver us from all of these things. Jesus refuses to surrender us to the despair and upset of all that is wrong around us and in us. He points us to the one thing needful – He points us to Himself. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. That does not mean life is a breeze but that He is the answer to all that is wrong – to the sin that corrupts our thoughts, words, and deeds; to the world so filled with cruelty and conflict; to the threats of the devil and unseen evil; and to the death that waits patiently for us all. This is not about finding a fix for the wrongs in us or in the world but about recognizing and rejoicing in Christ whom the Father has sent to us to be our Savior and Redeemer.

Christ does not show us the rest but He is the rest for the weary and the relief for those burdens. Our weariness is not just being overwhelmed with injustices or inequities around us but sin. The sins of the world that rebels against God’s rule and ways and the sins of our own consciences that may be secret to others but knows to God and known to us. The thoughts that we cannot stop and the words we do not control and the actions we will not control. Sin is no small thing but the rust and decay that works death in our bodies while we live and that turns us to dust when we die. This is the rest Christ is for you and for me and for all who believe in Him.

Rest in Scripture is interesting. Rest is the root of the word and concept of Sabbath. On that day God rested and called us to rest from all our labors to right what is wrong in us and our world and to reflect upon His steadfast love. But in Christ we have this rest in flesh and blood. He accomplishes salvation for us so that we might rest in Him without sin to condemn us and death to make us afraid.

The Sabbath rest that God called us to in the wake of creation and the Sabbath rest that is His promise in revelation is not about a place or a state of mind but about the Lord Jesus. He is our rest. In Him out hearts so out of control with desire and our minds so filled with fear find the answer. He is that answer. In Him our world meets the strong man who binds the enemy and gives to us peace and liberty for eternal life. He is our Sabbath. We do not set aside one day from seven for the Lord but God owns all our days, all our hours, and all our minutes – having purchased and won them by Christ’s death and resurrection for you and me.

He is our Sabbath rest, the promise and preview that we have already now but not yet in fullness and the future that cannot even be imagined. We meet this rest here where water is the womb of our new birth into Christ Jesus. We meet this rest here where holy absolution forgives and restores us when we fall. We meet this rest here when the voice of the Good Shepherd speaks and we hear it, know it, and follow it to everlasting life. We meet this rest here when He sets His table in the presence of our enemies to feed us the bread of His flesh and the cup of His blood, real food and drink now but only a foretaste of the fullness to come on high.

Christ is here. He bids us come. He promises rest. He takes the burden of our sin and its death upon His innocent body. He lays in the cold darkness of our gave that death might be for us the door and gateway to everlasting life. He give us freedom from the shame and guilt of secret sins that come with such high maintenance costs and in Him we have the liberty to focus on how then we shall live, walking in lives worthy of Him who loved and saved us. Christ is here and because Christ is here, this place is filled with rest, relief, and hope. But it also is filled with courage to go forth in His name, with peace that will not abandon us in trouble, with comfort bigger than our pain, and with a future that death cannot steal. Christ is here and so we are here. We might never leave the safety of His presence here but He promises that He will never forsake us and His comfort will accompany us though life to life everlasting.

In the Holy Name of Jesus. Amen.

The god of outrage. . .

Honestly, you cannot invent what craziness is in the news. Consider the recent events in LA and a group of not so nuns. In days gone by sports worked very hard to avoid politics or just about anything in the news. It was the grand egalitarian sport that brought the diverse together despite divisions of religion, politics, economic and social class. This was America -- warts and all but gathered in one place around the national pass time. When it seemed that the viewership was in decline, the paeans of sports decided that that to save the sport, they might have to kill it. Enter the politics. Players taking a knee during the national anthem or protesting (Black Lives Matter or a host of other edgy causes). Who would have thought something like this might happen? Perhaps the halls of fame should jump in with days that cater to all the different opinions about this or that and thus mirror what has become the norm in stadiums around the nation.

When the Los Angeles Dodgers entered the fray, they were looking to promote Pride Night and to find their way onto the radar of those not normally in the stands -- even if that meant jumping square into the national debate. So they first invited, then uninvited, and now invited again, wringing their hands with regret, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a famous San Francisco group of queer and trans people dressed as nuns. I can only imagine what was going on in the backrooms of the Dodgers. Some worried about offending Roman Catholics, perhaps the largest single religious group in the stands. Others sought to put the Dodgers on the map, and others wished the whole thing would just go away. So, who shall we offend today in pursuit of some media attention and to show we are on the cutting edge of cultural change?

That is the point. The god whom the corporations and media serve is the god of outrage. How outrageous can they be? How many can they offend? They have decided that Trump was right -- there is no such thing as bad publicity. Outrage and being outrageous have become the primary commodities of advertising and business today. Consider the idiots at Budweiser who ignored their market and decided to offend the folks who buy their products. Social conscience is not really social conscience as much as it is the idea that outrage and being outrageous is where it is at today. By the way, this does not simply apply to business and advertising. It has long been the rage among the fashion designers who design not for normal wear but to be noticed.

In politics and religion the path is set to the same trajectory. It does not seem that anyone on any side in politics pays any cost for being outrageous and for trying to tap into outrage for political benefit. What is said and how it is said seems to imply no one will ever be held accountable for their outrageous words. Well, that is almost true. You cannot afford to offend the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence or the Muslims -- but everyone else is certainly fair game. Even in my own staid little church body, you cannot have a reasoned discussion over the merits or faults of something, say, like a book on Luther's Large Catechism. No, it has to arise to the level of outrage and indignation and almost invites the outrageous to say outrageous things. If you do not like the book, you are a racist and if you do you have joined the woke. Is it really that simple? Of course not but the only way you will get attention is to be outrageous. The god of the day is outrage -- be outrageous and say outrageous things in order to get noticed. Like the conservative blogs who say boomers are responsible for every evil today and the progressive ones who insist that you support rainbow politics or you are not Christian.

We are all part of it. We use extreme adjectives to describe the things we do not like or the inconveniences we have endured as if this were somehow the equivalent of those who made their way through depression or world war. Listen to how often we describe things and people as horrible or the worst. There is little room for nuance anywhere anymore. And the cost of it all is civility.

Have we ruined Luther's Catechism?

I wonder if Luther would be appalled at what we have done to his Little Catechism.  Judging by the current incarnation in the Synod, we have made Luther almost a footnote to the volume that bears his name.  Even worse, we think we are standing right in the line of Luther in doing so.  The reality is that we are using the Catechism in ways that Luther never dreams and I am not should would approve.  The current Small Catechism of 2017 is not small at all.  It is huge.  We seem to think that bigger is always better and we keep taking this lean and concise volume and making it wordy and wordier.  Whatever the intent in redoing the Catechism, the result has been, in my mind, to render this volume harder to use in both youth and adult instruction in the faith.  

 

Even worse, we seem intent upon placing barrier after barrier between the catechist and the reception of Holy Communion.  If knowing the Catechism means knowing all 400 pages, we have significantly raised the bar over Luther for those who would begin to receive the Sacrament. With 374 questions and 1,142 Scripture references, this new Catechism is more an unabridged volume of teaching than it is the compact and abridged version Luther wrote.  I guess we are more dense than the folks in Luther's day.  Why else would we need to add 3-4 times the number of pages Luther actually wrote?  Or maybe we are just trying to be careful.  Yeah, that must be it.  In any case, it pretty much guarantees that the age of first communion will not drop much more than it has.  But is this what must be known before admittance to the altar rail?

It occurs to me that we might be on course to ruin Luther's Small Catechism by making it bigger than the Large Catechism and by trying to turn it into a one volume compendium when all it needs to be is 30 pages or less.  Furthermore, I am sad to say that some Lutheran pastors are talking as it the sheer volume of information on the work of God is what defines one's communion as worthy when clearly it not that at all.  So perhaps we ought to take our cue from Luther and admit to the rail those who can in good conscience confess with Luther his little set of questions and answers and let the words of Luther's Small Catechism live without so much of our commentary.

Christian Questions with Their Answers

After confession and instruction in the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the pastor may ask, or Christians may ask themselves these questions:

 

1. Do you believe that you are a sinner?

Yes, I believe it. I am a sinner.

 

2. How do you know this?

From the Ten Commandments, which I have not kept.

 

3. Are you sorry for your sins?

Yes, I am sorry that I have sinned against God.

 

4. What have you deserved from God because of your sins?

His wrath and displeasure, temporal death, and eternal damnation. See Romans 6:21, 23.

 

5. Do you hope to be saved?

Yes, that is my hope.

 

6. In whom then do you trust?

In my dear Lord Jesus Christ.

 

7. Who is Christ?

The Son of God, true God and man.

 

8. How many Gods are there?

Only one, but there are three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

9. What has Christ done for you that you trust in Him?

He died for me and shed His blood for me on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.

 

10. Did the Father also die for you?

He did not. The Father is God only, as is the Holy Spirit; but the Son is both true God and true man. He died for me and shed His blood for me.

 

11. How do you know this?

From the Holy Gospel, from the words instituting the Sacrament, and by His body and blood given me as a pledge in the Sacrament.

 

12. What are the Words of Institution?

Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to the disciples and said: “Take, eat; this is My body, which is given for you. This do in remembrance of Me.” In the same way also He took the cup after supper, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying: “Drink of it, all of you; this cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

 

13. Do you believe, then, that the true body and blood of Christ are in the Sacrament?

Yes, I believe it.

 

14. What convinces you to believe this?

The word of Christ: Take, eat, this is My body; drink of it, all of you, this is My blood.

 

15. What should we do when we eat His body and drink His blood, and in this way receive His pledge?

We should remember and proclaim His death and the shedding of His blood, as He taught us: This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.

 

16. Why should we remember and proclaim His death?

First, so we may learn to believe that no creature could make satisfaction for our sins. Only Christ, true God and man, could do that. Second, so we may learn to be horrified by our sins, and to regard them as very serious. Third, so we may find joy and comfort in Christ alone, and through faith in Him be saved.

 

17. What motivated Christ to die and make full payment for your sins?

His great love for His Father and for me and other sinners, as it is written in John 14; Romans 5; Galatians 2; and Ephesians 5.

 

18. Finally, why do you wish to go to the Sacrament?

That I may learn to believe that Christ, out of great love, died for my sin, and also learn from Him to love God and my neighbor.

 

19. What should admonish and encourage a Christian to receive the Sacrament frequently?

First, both the command and the promise of Christ the Lord. Second, his own pressing need, because of which the command, encouragement, and promise are given.

 

20. But what should you do if you are not aware of this need and have no hunger and thirst for the Sacrament?

To such a person no better advice can be given than this: first, he should touch his body to see if he still has flesh and blood. Then he should believe what the Scriptures say of it in Galatians 5 and Romans 7. Second, he should look around to see whether he is still in the world, and remember that there will be no lack of sin and trouble, as the Scriptures say in John 15–16 and in 1 John 2 and 5. Third, he will certainly have the devil also around him, who with his lying and murdering day and night will let him have no peace, within or without, as the Scriptures picture him in John 8 and 16; 1 Peter 5; Ephesians 6; and 2 Timothy 2.

 

NOTE

These questions and answers are no child’s play, but are drawn up with great earnestness of purpose by the venerable and devout Dr. Luther for both young and old. Let each one pay attention and consider it a serious matter; for St. Paul writes to the Galatians in chapter six: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.”

The challenge before us. . .

The rise of the secular truth was based, in part, upon the rejection of the religious truth that had under girded both the structures and identity of the West.  When religious truth became suspect and when even the churches succumbed to the idea that there was a difference between the historical Jesus and the Christ of the Scriptures, the damage was done.  Truth was no longer premised upon fact or history but upon the imagination of mankind.  At that point, the Gospel itself was attacked at the core.  This radical rejection of the very core of the Church’s narrative of who Jesus of Nazareth was and is and,of the very nature then of the God whom He reveals is under suspicion from modernity.  With that comes the inevitable challenge to the identity and purpose of the Church.  Everything that was once a fact has become a question and there is no single individual's answer more worthy or truthful than another about who Jesus was and is, who God is, and who the Church is.  That is the fruit modernity has wrought.

The worship wars. pronoun wars, sex wars, and marriage/family wars that are raging in the Church today are the consequence of not knowing with confidence who Jesus was and is, who God is, and who the Church is and for what purpose the Church exists.  The openings for dispute over what the liturgy is and what happens within the liturgy was created by the cracks on the foundation of who Jesus was and is, who God is, and who the Church is.  The same is true of the pronoun wars, sex wars, and wars over marriage/family.  This the legacy of our loss of confidence in the Biblical narrative, in the catholic tradition, and in the structures and institutions of the Church.  Modernity has done an effective job of undermining the keryma and creed without ever directly attacking either.  All that has happened is a question mark has been placed where once there was a period.

The Church was once not a listening agency but a mission one.  We did not listen but told of the mighty acts of God for our salvation.  Modernity has shifted the conversation.  Now it is no longer of importance what there is to tell but it is of critical importance to listen.  Listening here is not hearing the need so that you might speak the healing truth of the Gospel but listening without judgment and listening so that every truth is equal and equally true -- at least in so far as any truth is true in modernity.  So all of a sudden, well, not really, the Church is on the defensive.  The challenges are no longer from without but from those who claim to be Christian.  Who Jesus was and is has become a battleground of conflicting opinions without any truth to say one is wrong or one is right.  Who God is has become the domain of feelings, imagination, or experience without God's own self-disclosure to say what is true and what is false.  Who the Church is has become the dispute of the ages and modernity insists that the only valid answer is to welcome every competing truth, vision, desire, and preference and somehow mix it all up into a sea of uncertainty.

So when you end up with a guy like Pope Francis who may indeed hold to tradition but who is loathe to insist upon it, he feeds into the modernist narrative whether he wills to or not.  He is not a scapegoat but a poster child of the question that has replaced an answer and of the supposition that has replaced truth.  In the end, he has only an appeal to authority to solidify the diverging paths and people that were once the Roman Catholic Church.  But he is not alone.  The Lutherans have their own problems here.  Seminaries were once the institutions of great confidence in which pastors were formed in the truth of the ages, in the bold confession of one time for the future of our very movement, and in truth of the Scriptures as the infallible voice of God.  Long ago that confidence was replaced with the same questions that have plagued Rome.  We now live in a time when most Lutherans have pretty much conceded that the seminaries are not aids to the Church but enemies of the evangelical cause or mere propaganda machines for a long gone era.  Who are our Lutheran leaders who stand on a national stage to say this we believe, teach, and confess?  The rest of the Christian world is equally in the grip of the modernist cause.  Rick Warren may well bring the Southern Baptist Convention to its knees over something a few generations ago no one would have foreseen.  The not so United Methodists can believe anything and everything about Jesus but will divide over matters of sex and gender.  The Anglicans are a shell of a union in which the whole broken communion is covered over by a very nice looking cope.  Evangelicals are all over the page but most of them are adrift on the same sea which borrows the worship songs from the heart, the preaching from self-help gurus, and the fellowship of the body of Christ from social media.

We can fight worship wars, pronoun/gender wars, sex wars, marriage/family wars, and such but there are too many battles on too many fronts.  The real fight is over truth, whether the Scriptures are reliable and trustworthy, whether the Gospel is about Christ's death and resurrection or freedom to pursue our own wants, and whether there is anything that is true beyond the moment (and the rejection of the legacy of our forefathers who passed down the sacred tradition).  This is the battle we need to address and if we fight this, the other wars will fall into place.  We learned that in Missouri after the Battle for the Bible in the 1970s.  You can win the battle but lose the war.  We must fight the real enemies with the truth that endures forever instead of running here and there to put out the little skirmishes that are merely diversions that would mask the real enemy.

Why did it take you so long?

The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) meeting this past April in Rwanda was really quite an amazing gathering.  Unlike the silence that emanated from the halls of Anglicanism over the gross and obvious heresies of bishops great and small, this meeting actually called out someone.  It is too little too late for most of us.  The errors are nothing new and the winks and shrugs that have allowed what was officially opposed in doctrine to become ordinary practice have now been legitimized, to be sure.  But who ever thought that the Archbishop of Canterbury was agitating for the preservation of orthodox biblical teaching?  

The gathering of bishops whose claim is to represent some 85 percent of Anglicans worldwide or some 75 million Christians, has finally decided to give public voice to what has been private opinion for ages.  They announced that they no longer have confidence in the archbishop of Canterbury to preserve orthodox biblical teaching.  Duh.  Anglicanism has long been captive to the cache of compromise.  A little here and a little there.  To government and culture.  It has left this once noble communion with a compass that no longer points north or, really, in any direction.  So the good ship of Anglicanism has been blown on the sea of change by the wind of whim, preference, and culture.  It has surely proven very adept at saying little or nothing and has mastered the art of wiggle words which allow everyone to hear them through the lens of their own biases.  But as a vehicle to preserve orthodox Christian, creedal, and biblical teaching, well, it has not done so well.

Unfortunately, the other weakness in Anglicanism is symbolism.  The Archbishop of Canterbury remains at least symbolically the leader of global Anglicans and for now that is enough for Rev. Welby and the Church of England and the Episcopalians in the US and Canada.  But it not enough to save Anglicanism.  At some point in time, it will have to be more about who can preserve an authentic biblical Christianity and who confesses it.  Anglicanism is long on tolerating -- even willing to tolerate conservatives so long as they don't rock the boat.  But tolerating orthodox Christianity is not the same as advocating it.  Here is one more example of Richard John Neuhaus old adage at work.  "Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.”

Booted out by the bots. . .

Nearly half of all internet traffic came from bots last year, according to new research. Figures from cyber security firm Imperva revealed a significant increase in automated and malicious web activity in 2022, with the proportion of human traffic falling to its lowest level in eight years.  The bots have increased their domination by 5% a year.  In 2022, the volume of bad bot traffic rose by 2.5% and now makes up 30.2% of all traffic, Imperva says. The report also states that this is the fourth consecutive year of constant bad bot traffic growth. In fact, the 2022 figures were never seen before, and Imperva has been   this metric since 2013. bad bots are growing more sophisticated, and thus harder to spot. More than half (51.2%) of all bad bot traffic came from so-called “advanced” bots, up from 25.9% just a year ago. Most of the bad bot activity takes place in Germany, Ireland, Singapore, and the United States.

Most website visitors aren’t humans.  More importantly, the website visitors are not benign.  For the past five years, every third website visitor has been an attack bot. The good bots will crawl your website to glean information and will leave everything just as they found it.  The bad bots will try to hack the website no matter how unpopular or popular the people traffic find it.  Some of those bots are from the very platforms you use.  The refresh the feeds and this bumps up the numbers.  Facebook’s feed fetcher, all by itself, accounted for 4.4 percent of all website traffic.   Spambots show up in comment sections and Twitter bots clog people’s timelines.  Though unpleasant, many of these are not dangerous.  Though this may seem concerning now, the future is going to be worse.  Indeed, there are those who predict that within a few years 75% of the web traffic will be bots and more than half of those bots the threatening kind.  But who would know?  They are designed to look like human users and their activity masks the very activity of the people who once dominated the internet.

The point is this.  AI will soon push people away from the internet or make their experience so unpleasant that they will look for new or different platforms.  That is why new is the byword of those involved in the net.  As old platforms become dominated by the bots, the search is on for ever newer venues not yet dominated by the automated users.  Oddly enough, it is a game we are playing against the very thing some believe will be our salvation.  So take this as a sign of the times.  The machines we invent to make our lives easier may end up competing with us for the very things that we turn to for amusement.  The internet may well become our version of the Tower of Babel -- an ambition that became a threat to our very humanity.  At this point it is still something we could manage -- if we wanted to.  I am guessing that we are too in love with the idea of perpetual leisure to slow down our pursuit of a world in which work is a bad word.

 

Speaking the Language of Christ. . .

I believe it was none other than Karl Barth (the theologian) who said that in the church we use the queer language of the faith but in the world we speak the language of every man.  While this was before the word queer came to be a statement of gender or sexual desire, it did reflect the common understanding that how we talk inside the church will not work in the world when spreading the Gospel.  No one can deny that in the church we speak a different language, not quite ours but the language of Christ and His Word.  The Scriptures we read, the Liturgy we pray, and the Hymns we sing are all written in the language of Christ, His Word, and the faith.  We do this without the least bit of hesitation.  You know the vocabulary that is perfectly normal within the church but words seldom used in ordinary conversation.  When it comes to speaking the Gospel outside the confines of the Divine Service, we are often more worried about how that word will be received, what people will think of us, and if they will even understand us -- more worried about this than being faithful to Christ!

The language of the Liturgy is the Word of God.  We literally sing and speak Scripture from beginning to end -- if not in direct quote then in paraphrase.  The center of this Word is God -- not simply God but the God who has disclosed Himself to us through His Word spoken in many ways and many times by the prophets until that Word became flesh in Christ.  We are relatively accustomed to speaking in this way but the sad reality is that outside the Church even the word "God" is more vulgarity, curse, or swear than anything else.  While in the church we are always asking God to be come to us and remain with us, in the world God is often seen as a rude voyeur who is where He has not been invited and who judges a people who resent His judgement.  God is not simply on the fringes of our conversation within the church but the very content and goal of that conversation.  It is God talk in the most literal sense of that term.

We could go on with the multiplicity of words used primarily in church and perhaps even exclusively there -- from sin to repentance to absolution to baptism to Eucharist and even preaching.  We are not simply talking about the odd words (propitiation and expiation, to name two) but the very language of worship.  At some point we began to think of these words as barriers to the communication of the content and began literally dumbing down the conversation, excising the unique words of Scripture and the faith from our witness.  Strange this is for a church that began its life by literally changing the language and vocabulary of the people to accommodate the voice of Scripture.  We transformed the world first by teaching the world a new language.  For most of Christian history, the church was in charge of the vocabulary.  Read through Shakespeare, for example, and you see how thoroughly embedded into language and culture was the voice of Scripture.  Even in literature and plays the language persisted and the world surrendered to the vocabulary of the church.

Part of our problem today is surely that we have surrendered the vocabulary to others and the world has not simply forgotten the Christian language that once permeated its own conversation, it has rejected it and disowned it.  Perhaps this Christian language achieved its zenith in the predominance of Latin but it was not exclusively so.  All during the era following the Protestant Reformation, language was still pretty much to domain of the faith and the faithful.  Not so anymore. We are behind the curve with such things as gender and marriage and family largely because the very vocabulary has been wrested from the church and endowed with alien understandings and concepts that make words mean today what they did not mean before.  It is more than the evolution of language but the rejection of every aspect of our Christian past.  Surely for us to begin the process of reclaiming the culture we must also reclaim the very language and vocabulary!  It has to begin with the church.  No more can we afford to use worldly terminology to define what is essentially taught in Scripture and Christian.  For the real outcome has not simply been the surrender of the language to the culture but the adoption of what culture defines as the word that is spoken in the church as well.  The surrender of the language is the surrender of its content as well.

Cheap liberty. . .

Our liberty is cheap when we take what other generations have fought to provide and then use it for the silly pursuit of what is also cheap.  Our freedom is hardly a lofty matter if we see it as mere license to do what we please when we please to do it.  What must the leaders think who were willing to fight and die for an ideal only to see a nation and a people squander the blessing on amusement, entertainment, and indulgence?  You are certainly free to look inside yourself for the answers to trivial questions and then much down on a hot dog and call it patriotism but that does not mean you either understand what liberty is or appreciate those who provided it.  If our freedom is no more precious than our whims or is willingly exchanged for government control or support, we really do not understand what heritage we have been given or value liberty enough to defend it.  If all our freedom means is the right to indulge ourselves and have somebody else pay for it and defend it, perhaps we are not worth the gift that has been passed down to us.  The kingdoms that have arisen and fallen down were not attacked by those on the outside but were decaying and deteriorating from the inside -- usually when the only thing worth fighting for is me and whatever I feel at the moment.  The best way to cherish our liberty is to use that freedom responsibly, not as license for the worst in us but as the opportunity to shine with the brightness of America's light -- sacrifice for the sake of others and duty over self-indulgence every day of the week.

Not peace but a sword. . .

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, preached on July 2, 2023.

In a few days Americans will gather to celebrate our Independence Day, the day when patriots took up arms against their government to declare their liberty from the King and country.  But today we encounter words of Jesus that confound and confuse us, words that have been twisted to use as a pretext for many things “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  Is Jesus giving permission for war and violence?  Is Jesus not in favor of peace between the nations, within our country, and within our communities?  What does Jesus mean?  What is the sword and what is the violence that Jesus has come to bring on earth?

When they came to arrest Jesus and St. Peter took out his knife in a show of strength but Jesus insisted that he put the sword away and then healed the man whom St. Peter had wounded.  Jesus says those who live by the sword, die by the sword. So was Jesus a pacifist and should we be also?  Some Christians would say so and some churches have taken up this cause – even using Jesus’ words as reason for gun control.  Is that what Jesus is talking about?  What peace and what sword?

According to St. Paul, the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit.  A sword is not a defensive weapon but an offensive one.  It is made to be an weapon of war, a tool for killing, and an instrument of violence.  According to the armor described in Ephesians, everything there is defensive except for the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.  St. Paul is addressing the Church Militant – the Church contending for the Word of God in the battleground of mind, heart, and society and against the enemies of that Word.  

Hebrews describes the sword of the Word as a double bladed weapon that cuts both ways.  “The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any  two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  This is the sword Jesus came to bring, the sword He is as the Word made flesh, and the sword wielded by the Church in His name.  It is this sword that would divide Israel, that would be set for the rise and fall of many as Simeon put it to the infant Jesus and Mary and Joseph in the Temple.  This sword would divide the home as well, father from son, brother from sister, daughter-in-law from mother-in-law.  This sword prunes and pares that the vine might produce good fruit.  

Jesus is not taking sides in earthly conflicts as if His cause was to create a world state under one grand government.  Jesus is taking sides for the kingdom of heaven, the eternal kingdom that is come on earth in the person and work of Jesus Himself.  The momentary pause created by the death and resurrection of Jesus would be replaced by constant conflict, discord, and division as this Word is preached among the nations.  Satan is always trying to stir up violence against the Word of God and those who believe it.  If that is not enough, there is still resistence within our own hearts and minds to the Word of God and the Gospel of peace that is come by the violence of our Lord’s death and resurrection.  This is what Jesus is talking about.

All around us the world and Christians are trying to diminish the shocking nature of the Gospel.  All around us voices are saying what you believe is not as important as the sincerity of your belief so stop fighting about doctrine.  All around us people are trying to water down the Word of God so that it fits the times and the opinions of those living in these times.  The truth is there is nothing as important as Christ, as His Word of truth, and as the preaching of this Gospel of life.  In the end it is the only thing that matters.  We live in a world where our values are skewed by the temporary things that we make eternal and the eternal things we dismiss as insignificant.  In the end all that matters is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God that brings us to repentance, implants faith within our hearts, and marks us for the eternal kingdom of God.  That is what matters. That is worth fighting for, what we ought to be contending for in our hearts, homes, and among humanity at large.

We have been warned about talking about religion – at least the religious things that divide us.  We are warned about how offensive an exclusive Gospel and Savior are.  The world has declared peace for every form of sexual perversion, every incarnation of sexual identity, every immorality that can be imagined, and every evil that proceeds from the heart of man.  We celebrate a diversity in which no truth is real, there is equity to make up for every victim of disadvantage, and inclusion for everyone who feels left out.  But if you dare speak God’s Word in the public square, you raise the wrath of a nation against you.  The last discrimination allowed is against the Christian who believes and speaks God’s Word faithfully.  It is to this that Jesus insists we must not be silent but must take up the sword of His Word without fear, without hesitance, and without apology.  There is only one name under heaven and on earth by which any and all will be saved and that is the name of the crucified and risen One, Jesus Christ.

The Lord is not looking to win friends or be popular; He is out to saved the lost, bring sinners to repentance, forgive the guilty by the blood of Christ, and deliver the dead to everlasting life.  The sword of God became flesh and sinew and bone so that He could cut through you and me to our hearts and bring us to the saving knowledge of His Son.  

Heaven and earth will pass away, our bodies will pass through death as well, but the sword of God’s Word will endure forever and will bring into eternity all those who believe it.   God’s Word is still our sword. The Church on earth is the Church militant, still fighting. The Word of God is still the sword that cuts and divides truth from error, life from death.  Where that Word is preached, there will always be resistence.  God did not make us alive by wishing sin and death away but faced its brutal reality with the greater reality of His mercy working in Jesus Christ.  We are saved by this mercy and we live each day because of that mercy.  But every day this Word of Life battles within our hearts, homes, and neighborhoods for the enemies are many and powerful.

The devil will not stand and we must not kneel before him — Christ is our victory, our hope, and our peace.  The day will come when at last the warfare is over, when the sword is beaten into the plowshare, and the enemies of Christ’s peace have surrendered and been banished from us.  That is not yet but it will be.  Until then, we press on toward the goal, heeding the upward call of God, believing the Word, being pruned by its blade that Christ may reign in our hearts without challenge, secure in the knowledge that God’s work is not to sanction the fragile peace of compromise but to raise up the sturdy peace of Christ, crucified and risen.  In the Holy Name of Jesus.  Amen.

The AI future. . .

We ought to be paying attention to the things that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, (corporate Amazon and Tesla) are reading and it appears they are interested in and betting on the role of Artificial Intelligence in our futures. In the world envisioned by the techno authors advocating for AI, the machine run business and industry will help scarcity and inequality to be things of the past.  AI will free up people not simply for their leisure pursuits but also the exploration of art, music, expression, and culture.  The path forward in which AI takes over not only production but management is predicated on the idea that AI can do better than humanity — a bit of an odd conclusion since AI depends upon man to program it.  Perhaps even that role will give way to a non-human source.  But the idea that AI will lead to a better humanity and society was parodied in “Wall-E”, a film released now fifteen years ago and at a time when AI was in its infancy.

It is hard to argue with the results.  Technology has already automated vast portions of agribusiness and manufacturing, reducing the cost to the consumer by reducing labor as a component of that cost.  The areas of our economy which have not yet been automated have had a greater increase in cost, including the areas of education, health care, and recreation.  This is certainly good for consumers but is it good for mankind overall?   In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes wrote in “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” of the day when they would work 15 hours a week or less and be free to turn their attention to pleasure as opposed to the necessities of life.  Is it a good thing for mankind to have so much free time and the financial resources to pursue amusement or entertainment or pleasure?  The average work week fell from about 60 hours per week in the late 20th century to under 40 hours at the start of the 21st century and is now moving to about 30 hours per week in the next 5-10 years (at least in the West). Has this change been accompanied by such improvements in life or the ennoblement of mankind?  Keynes did not even figure in the number of hours worked in our economy devoted to the very things of pleasure (from gaming to media).

Already we have options to bypass the machine for human interaction, for the “human premium”.  You see this premium in the banks that change for interactions with a human teller or in the restaurants that are using kiosks to order and pay for food and reducing the people taking your order and money or in the retail stores in which the self-checkout registers increase and the cost for the "human premium" is often a very long wait in line.  Those with the resources can always opt for the human interaction but those without such resources have only the interface with AI to deal with.  Has this improved our access to and our satisfaction with such businesses?  Are we happier to deal with the machines directly without the human interface?  The reality is that we have not had much choice.  As the numbers of people working declines, we have of necessity been forced to deal with the machine as the only alternative the retail employers and restaurants can supply.

All of this is interesting but my real concern is whether any of this actually improves us as people and not simply a standard of life in which pleasure is the highest good.  Are we at our best in leisure or recreation or in the pursuit of pleasure or does this expose our worst?  Is amusement our real and essential purpose or is there more?  Does entertainment help to make us better people or is it neutral or could it be a negative influence upon us?  The role of religion here is to talk about the value of such advances and the cost -- not to the pocketbook but to the humanity of our society and culture.  Worst in all of this would be the attempt to use AI to replace what now passes for worship, catechesis, and Christian service.  When that happens, God has been replaced by the machine.  Sadly, as Dorothy found out, the wizard is then just a man, his magic a fake, and his gift the worst disappointment.  What will we find when we pull back the curtain on AI?  We must not simply evaluate the success of AI on its ability to release us from daily drudgery and we must expect that such technology not simply be the cause for exposing and perpetuating the weakness within.  God help us!

When despair has become fad. . .

While sitting in my car listening to a local talk radio station, I heard over and over and over again about how bad things are.  This was a conservative talking head.  Later while flipping channels, I heard the same litany of how bad things are from a liberal talking head.  Probably they are both correct.  My issue is not the veracity of their judgment but the seeming delight with which they make it.  It has become trend, fad, even chic to despair of the way things are.  We have fine tuned and polished the art of complaint and the feeling of despair to great success.  The world feels the weight of it all.  People are despairing.  The distress of the mind, heart, and soul among our populace is urgent and universal.  Polls and surveys tell us what people are feeling about the tenor of the times and the state of their own lives and it is not good.

The answer to despair, hope, was never to be found in the world around us or in the news.  Even good news does not last and good feelings are equally as transitory.  The joys of this world do not heap themselves one upon the other until despair is squeezed out.  Instead, the satisfactions of this day are always tinged with labor, duty, responsibility, and obligation.  Even amid the things that give blessed context to our lives -- the family -- we cannot admit that the joys of this are without a burden.  Worst of it all, our best laid plans to manufacture joy or to sustain it are assumed into the mess that is life and has always been life in the aftermath of Eden.

The increase in despair and its articulation with almost agitated delight in all forms of the media was always there and will be.  Sure, it is amplified by the press of instant communication complete with photos but it was always there.  The news was never good and there was a crisis behind every human interest story.  Now it is not a story but a meme or a video that ends the newscast as if to tell us that there really is some good somewhere in the world despite what the voices have been saying for the last half and hour.  No, the answer to the ordinary of despair was never found in self or in the world but was always the domain of faith.

The gift of hope is not found in a balanced perspective on life -- equal time for good news as well as the bad.  No, the gift of hope has to be revealed, made known from outside ourselves and our world of sorrow, pain, despair, and death.  That is what the public voice of Christianity offered when despair was all the world had to say.  Temporal hope does not lie in passing the torch to better people who will usher in a better age but in the voice of God in our midst -- the God who has never abandoned His people to their despair and death.  The young are only able to carry the torch of truth and hope into the unfolding tomorrows if they actually know that truth and been acquainted with hope.  When Scripture says to raise up a child in the way he should go, that is not primarily a moral vision but a vision of the future planted in the hope of God's mercy and the promise of new and everlasting life.  Yes, a moral compass is part of it but not the whole of it and even the moral compass cannot promise hope if it points only to the causes of our despair.  Eternal hope was and is the promise and gift faith gives to a people who would be left only to despair without God's intervention in our story.

This is most profoundly found in the promise of going home, returning to the bosom of our fathers, and being swept up from all that decays by the eternal that nothing can diminish or destroy.  When faith began to be banished from the public square, from movies and media, and from the youth raised in it from the beginning, despair was left to flourish and fill the vacuum left when hope's voice became quiet.  If, for this reason only, we are called to be verbal and vocal in speaking hope to the world wherever we are.  This hope has the face of a Savior who loved us enough to suffer and die for a people who did not know to love Him and this hope has the face of a Redeemer who rose in triumph not for revenge against His enemies but for the rescue of any and all who will hear His voice and be saved.  If you want to hear hope in the world, get yourself into an orthodox Christian church and listen to the readings from Scripture, immerse yourself in the words of the liturgy, give your rapt attention to the preaching of this eternal Word, sing with all your energy the faithful words of hymns penned by those who wrestled with hope like we do, and feast upon the foretaste of the eternal right now and right here.

It does not matter whether it is Fox or CNN, Facebook or Twitter, the breaking news always breaks bad.  But it does not where you read in Scripture, you encounter Christ whose mercy is without limit and who grace is more than sufficient for today's trouble and to deliver you to days without trouble.  Despair has become normal and it reigns only because the voice of faith does not answer.

Now I am hungry. . .

When I am bored, I sometimes like to look on eBay.  You can buy anything on eBay and I have bought everything from an electric lift that goes 40 feet in the air to Stations of the Cross.  Vestments are available there and some of them are worth a look and a laugh and some, well, they are not even worth that.  Crocheted stoles, stoles made out of whimsical quilt fabric for a baby, and things not even as good as those.  I have always had trouble envisioning a pastor wearing such things.  No more.

Here is a priest with a sort of pallium made out of purple ribbon and Snickers candy bars.  Unlike some of the stuff that made queasy, this made me hungry.  In fact I could really do with a Snickers right now.

As far as vestments go, this is a new low even for Rome -- not always known for good taste among the vestments of the clergy.  Oops, I guess this is good taste or something like it, anyway.

Okay, clergy, just because you might, does not mean you ought.  I am fairly sure that he is a Roman priest without a wife or I am just as sure he would have heard about it at home later in the day.  Instead, it came off as cutesy.  Not exactly the stuff we should be doing in the context of God serving us with His gifts.  But I am still hungry.  Or, maybe this is just a commercial and he will morph into his real self after a bite.