The sacrament of orgasm. . .

Not everything is about sex.  At least that is what some are trying to say.  But it appears that the Vatican today is more about sex then less.  A newly minted cardinal who has jurisdiction over the content of what is believed and confessed by Rome apparently is also the author of a controversial book on “spirituality and sensuality” which was, surprise! surprise!, omitted from his biography and resume.  Cardinal Víctor Fernández seems to have forgotten than nothing is really hidden or forgotten.  The 1998 book published in Mexico has reappeared.  Look for his work under the title The Mystical Passion. Spirituality and sensuality.    This is a second book, a somewhat pornographic sequel to "The Art of Kissing” and   Chapters 7-9 are too explicit even to quote here.  As some pundits have said, is this Tucho's version of Fifty Shades of Gray?  It is said that Victor Manuel Cardinal Fernández compares how the “particularities of men and women in orgasm also occur in some way in the mystical relationship with God.”  Of course, the book also has little to say about the immorality of homosexual behavior.  “God loves man’s happiness; therefore, it is also an act of worship to God to experience a moment of happiness,” wrote Fernández.

The point is this.  How can anyone, even his supporters, take seriously his role as head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith?  Is this a joke?  That is how the world sees it and the reality is that is how it is intended to be.  Pope Francis has repeatedly indulged in the same kind of deafness to the way his words are taken and his supposed role in propagating and safeguarding the faith.  While some enemies of Rome are gleeful about this, we should all be sad -- sad that this is what it has all come down to.  Blessings of same sex couples that are not really blessings and talk of our spiritual union with God as a kind of orgasm.  The world out there does not notice the nuance that Pope Francis is not the leader of all Christians nor does the world pay attention to the finer distinctions even within his or his minion's words.  This is, in the end, more dangerous than out and out heresy.  Apostasy can be addressed but when those who are supposed to represent the faithful before the world speak without carefully choosing their words and paying attention to how they will be heard, the faith is damaged for all of Christianity.  Confusion is as much a tool of the devil as out and out error.  And this pope and those who serve him have proven themselves to be adept at living on the edge of truth and morality when they should be representing its vital center in Christ.

When will you wake up and decide enough is enough?  That is what I was told by Roman Catholics in the past every time some Protestant voice ended up embarrassing the faith and not simply himself.  When will Methodists awaken to the formal takeover of their church by the LGBTQ+ faction?  Or those in the ELCA awaken to the fact that there is no more Lutheran in that church body?  Or Presbyterians awaken to the fact that theirs is a church which is no longer true to its roots?  How can you possibly have a serious ecumenical conversation when people no longer believe what they stood for and confessed?  This ought to be a similar wake up to those church bodies attempting to hold the line but also unwilling to break communion over such egregious error?  If there was ever a time when Christianity deserved a solid realignment, now is that time.  Before it is too late.

No words to avoid death except Christ. . .

Sermon for Ash Wednesday (B), preached on Wednesday, February 14, 2024.

There are many words used to describe death.  Most of them are words we invent in order not to say the word.  Dead.  Scripture has words used in place of death also.  But these are not euphemisms.  These words speak the truth clearly and bluntly.

Tonight we come to Church only to see black where color once reigned.  The crosses are covered drawing even more attention to what lies behind the veils. And we came to the altar rail to hear the words no one wants to hear:  “Remember, O man, that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.”  Dust is not a euphemism for death.  It is the truth.  We came from dust.  Into dust God breathed the breath of life and man became a living being.  And then sin stole that life and put an expiration date upon us.  Dust is not only our beginning.  It is our end.  And in between we are still dust.  The human body, as miraculous as it is, can be summarized as water and dust.  The Lord says this not to put us down but so that we may not live in lies but in the truth as He is truth.

The miracle here is not that death is not death.  The miracle is that here, in the midst of death, God still reigns in His mercy and love.  The ashes upon our foreheads are in the shape of a cross.  Dust we are but now but not merely dust.  In Christ we are the dwelling place of God.  Because of Christ, we shall not return to dust.  God will raise up our bodies from the dust of the earth and breath into those bodies the breath of everlasting life.  So what we do here tonight is not merely an act of repentance but a statement of faith.

Apart from Christ we have nothing to hope for and everything to lose.  All the nice euphemisms for death will fail us when the breath leaves our bodies and Christ is not there to raise us up from the grave or the Spirit to breath in us the breath of life.  We can soften the blow all we want by talking about passing away or gone or, my favorite, expired... like a cheap coupon no longer worth anything.  This is what sin has done and only a Savior who is the Son of God in our flesh can rescue us from the dust that was our beginning and the dust that will be our end.

Even worse than admitting the fact that we are dust, is the presumption that we can fix what is wrong with us if given only the time or opportunity.  This is what our Lord attacks in the Gospel reading appointed for Ash Wednesday.  You can give until you are poor and the whole world notices but it will count for nothing unless Christ lives in you by faith.  You can pray until the cows come home but unless you pray in Christ’s name, pleading His merits and begging for the mercy He has promised to give, they are hollow words that echo through eternity without any ears to hear them.  You can keep the Law as best it can be kept in your own eyes but without the righteousness of Christ to cover you, the Law can only accuse and only condemn.

So what Ash Wednesday is about is sin and death.  The wages of sin is death.  Yet even in this day about sin and death there is an answer.  The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in our Lord Jesus Christ.  We do not wear these ashes to earn anything from God but as an outward mark that we get it.  We know that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God not by an inch but by a mile.  We know that death is what our sins have earned us and the debt they have incurred is beyond our capacity to repay.  We wear these ashes for the sake of the world.  We may be here in God’s house, the redeemed of the Lord, but we live in a world in which most people live in the darkness of sin and its death.  So these ashes are a witness to the world of what repentance must admit.  But these ashes are also a sign of hope.  Christ is here to bear for us the curse of sin and its death and to answer its power with the greater power of forgiveness and life.

There is one more thing.  The world may not be impressed by our feeble piety and acts of charity but God sees.  Just as God sees us for the sinners we are and still He loves us, so does He see the paltry works we do and still He rewards us.  Salvation is already ours but the favor of God remains His to give us, if not now then at the last when we shall enter into the joy of our master.  So though our good works can do nothing to add to Christ’s saving work nor can they commend us to God beyond the baptismal mark of Christ upon us, God who sees in secret will reward our secret acts of mercy, charity, and love.  

So be encouraged.  Christ has done all things to rescue you from sin and its death and to breath eternal life into your dust.  But the Father has done us the great kindness of also noticing and rewarding the simple acts of piety and charity we do apart from the stage lights of the world and a desire to be recognized.  This gives meaning and encouragement to the alms we give to our neighbor and to the tithes and offerings we bring to the Lord and to the time the world says we waste when we spend it in daily devotion and prayer.   You are dust but not only dust.   

Our worthless God. . .

Growing up on a farm there was a certain expression about mammary glands on a male pig.  Maybe you have heard it.  It was the universal statement against those things that had no use or purpose that we could ascertain.  It was one of the worst possible judgments you could make against stuff but even worse when applied to a person.  I wonder how much we apply this judgment to things without which our lives would be rather dull.  I wonder if we don't also apply it to God.  You tell me if I am correct.

Much of what makes our lives rich is rather useless and worthless.  It has an artificial value.  We love grandma's china because of the sentiment and memories attached to the meals we ate off it at her house but go to sell it and you find out its real value.  The same could be said about most of our stuff.  It has the value we assign to it but in reality it has no value at all unless and until someone puts a value on it by purchasing it.  Think of the new car and how its value declines precipitously once you drive it off the showroom floor.

The same could be said for all our experiences and the untaken photos that fill our minds and the memories themselves.  What are they really worth?  The truth is that they have little if any real value except to us.  We love them and cherish them but they have no transferable value nor would people be willing to pay what we think they are worth.  They are worthless and without use except to us.

Art and music are much the same.  They belong to an industry in which their value is assigned in the moment, may not endure, and may not be equally valued by others.  Art that appears to be scribbles in color on a page has fetched millions.  It must have value, right?  Unless future generations no longer highly esteem that artist or the work of that artist.  There are plenty of collectibles that are no longer being collected.  Even the music of the world's greatest musical genius was not valued during his life and his compositions provided wrappers for the fish monger.  Bach had to be rediscovered by Felix Mendelssohn because the world had forgotten him and moved on.  It happens all the time.  Beauty is a largely worthless and useless commodity but who wants to live without it?

Is God useless?  He must seem to be to those who have figured out a way to live their days outside of His love and mercy.  Perhaps His value to us is not seen until we uncover the fragility and weakness of the things we think are valuable and useful.  Maybe eternal life is not highly valued and deemed useless to those whose present is filled with all the good things they can imagine.  But life is like a train wreck -- you do not see it come and after it comes nothing is the same.  Eternity becomes a very high value to those who hear the dreaded diagnosis from the doctor or who wake up to see that most of their lives have already been lived and yet they are not satisfied.

In the same way, forgiveness is not all that urgent, important, or valuable to a world that does not acknowledge sin.  If we figure a way around sin that does not require a Savior, God becomes largely irrelevant to us.  Except for this.  When those around us refuse to grant us a pass on our pet sins, we are still left to deal with them ourselves.  When guilt carried around inside of us refuses to be consoled by those who think it not such a big deal, we are left to our own devices to figure out a way to feel good about our failures and failings.  Then the worthless gift of forgiveness just might turn out to be of greater value to us than we thought.

Sometimes the law is not simply necessary but valuable to us as we weigh the Lord and His gifts.  That same law points us to a need we did not know and then the Spirit awakens us to the real value of a gift we did not esteem.  Until then.  God uses the law to point out to us what is of greater value by laying bare all our attempts to ignore our need of that mercy.  Then what was once useless to us turns out to be the most precious worthless gift of all.

I like the idea of ashes, but. . . .

Lutherans are a curious lot.  Some of us like the idea of things traditional except when they lead us beyond the comfort zone of our own historic practice.  I do not quite mean Lutheran historic practice here but our own personal experience.  We like that Scripture says, for example, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.  We do not like the idea that this might mean we should go down on our knees.  So it is with Ash Wednesday.  We like the idea of repentance and confession but we are not quite ready as Lutherans in the 21st century to say that we all should be marking people with the cross in palm ash.  

You can do your own study of Scripture to see how often outward acts accompany inward attitudes of repentance.  Only a fool would say that ashes as an external mark of repentance is absent in Scripture.  Furthermore, Jesus is not saying anything about ashes when He warns against those who wear their piety on the exterior without faith in the heart.  In fact, Jesus is not suggesting that fasting or almsgiving or even ashes are wrong but only warning against an external piety in every form and fashion that has no internal parallel in the heart.  Fasting is not a bad thing unless it is an outward act without the piety of the heart forming and giving the act a context.  Jesus would surely say the same about the opposite.  There is nothing good about a piety which is only internal and never moves the person to actually fast or give to the poor or outwardly repent and live according to the voice of the Word.  Christ does not want to be buried so deep down in our hearts that He does not live in us through our words and works, or does He countenance such an invisible faith?

The historic Christian usage of ashes is spoken of by Tertullian(c. 160 – c. 225). In his On Repentance Ch. 11 Tertullian complains about those who claim repentance but do not want to demean themselves with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.  Is he talking about us Lutherans?  Eusebius (c. 260- c. 340) also records the liturgical use of ashes as a sign of public repentancel (Church History Bk5, Ch 28, par. 12).  While not quite a uniform practice in the entire Church, already by the late 7th and early 8th century there is pretty strong evidence the practice was uniform in Western Europe.  The Venerable Bede (672-735) preached  sermons on Ash Wednesday; for example: Homily 37 “in die Cinerum” (Minge PL 94:349); Homily 38 “in fiera quinta post Cinerum” (Minge PL 94:350), etc.  The 8th century Gelasian Sacramentary speaks of Lent's beginning and ashes.  Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 955 – c. 1010), an English abbot, preached upon Ash Wednesday -- Aelfric’s Lives of the Saints, ed. p. 23):

“On the Wednesday, throughout the whole world, the priests bless, even as it is appointed, clean ashes in church, and afterward lay them upon men’s heads, that they may have in mind that they came from earth, and shall again return to dust, even as the Almighty God spake to Adam, after he had sinned against God’s command….
…
“Now let us do this little in the beginning of our Lent, that we strew ashes upon our heads,"

The Council of Benevento in AD 1090 records Pope Urban II making standard the use ashes on Ash Wednesday rendering the practice the uniform beginning of the Lenten Fast. (Nilles, 1897 Kalendarium Manuale vol II, p. 94.)  What went wrong with Lutherans?   It is the few rather than the many who would find some way to object to the use of ashes on Ash Wednesday.  Furthermore, all the cautions that are offered by those who reject the practice are directed at straw men who never promote the abuse at all.  At some point in time we Lutherans have to get it together.

The world keeps getting stranger. . . .

In what is clearly about semantics and not about truth, it appears that some marketers of tampons are widening their reach to include not just women.  Ah, but you say, what men would be interested in tampons?  Those who identify as men but who have female reproductive organs or those who are not quite sure what they identify as but have female reproductive organs.  The advertising battle is about money and if accepting the confusion over gender is a ploy for sales, then it appears some manufacturers are not above marketing to the quirks and curiosities of the current gender confusion.

“Periods aren’t just an issue for women, as trans men and non-binary people may also have a womb and periods," says a Finnish maker of tampons.  They have come up with “Tampons for Men,” sold in a navy blue box that says “For Men” and “Struation” wrapped around another side, reading “For Menstruation.”  The company wants to “raise the issue of genderedness of hygiene products and anxiety related to menstruation in trans men” because “for trans men menstrual pain is not just physical pain,” stating that “93 percent of trans men have experienced menstrual-related gender dysphoria.”  I would suggest that 100% of trans men have experienced gender dysphoria.

Tampax, an American company, campaigned on this several years ago “Fact: Not all women have periods. Also a fact: Not all people with periods are women. Let’s celebrate the diversity of all people who bleed!” Project Untaboo shared on Instagram that “Period equity means standing for all people who bleed.”  Callaly, a British company, has a campaign called “Tell the Whole Bloody Truth” to highlight the narratives of “people with periods” who represent a range of disabilities and gender identities.  The companies have no real interest in the dysphoria but if they can find a profit in it, they will accept whatever lies work in the marketplace. 

We live in an age in which the truth hurts.  The truth is that all of those who are interested in these products have female reproductive organs.  Until very recently, that alone was enough to classify them as women.  Only now in our so-called age of enlightenment have we passed over the obvious to accept as truth the odd, the strange, and the invented.  A sideline of all of this is that it further confuses those who are already confused.  No man uses a tampon.  Only women.  But the blunt truth of this will soon be lost as advertisers accept the imagined over the reality and jump on the bandwagon of profit with a willingness to call people whatever they want to be called so long as they purchase their products.  Such pandering is not uncommon or unusual to the marketplace but things are definitely getting stranger and stranger.  If you don't think this is happening, goggle tampons for men.  You will soon be able to get them at Amazon.  They deliver free if you have prime.

The Greatest Revelation. . .

Sermon for the Transfiguration of Our Lord (B), preached on Sunday, February 11, 2024.

No one would expect the disciples to fully get who Jesus is right away.  Jesus does not.  He nurtures them in the faith, revealing Himself to them, revealing Himself in the Scriptures, and revealing His purpose in coming.  Jesus identity is obvious to us but it was hidden behind miracle and message that often left the disciples dazed and confused.  But when it comes to this day and what happens upon the Mount of Transfiguration, the glory of our Lord is revealed, the scales fall away from the eyes of the disciples, and the truth cannot be mistaken.  Jesus is the Son of God.

How could they not get this?  Peter, James, and John were there for the great revelation that also included Moses and Elijah.  There was Jesus without any veil over His glorious identity.  There was Jesus to whom Moses pointed as the very Lawgiver who fulfilled that Law.  There was Jesus to whom Elijah pointed as the prophet of prophets who fulfills every promise of His coming.  The cloud, the voice, the patriarch, and the prophet made it unmistakable.  This Jesus is the Son of God in flesh and blood who has come to save His people.

The first instinct of the disciples who watched Jesus transfigured before them was to be afraid.  Mark tells us they were terrified.  Now you might think that fear and terror would silence them in the midst of such a miracle.  You would be wrong.  While Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus, Peter opens his mouth to say something.  Imagine that.  The great patriarch Moses is conversing with the great prophet Elijah and they are both talking to Jesus about His exodus – His departure.  Luke wanted us to know that they were talking about Jesus suffering, death, and resurrection and not some casual conversation about the weather.  But Peter interrupts the solemn occasion with some childish banter about setting up camp because it was so cool to be there.  Really????

In this brief turn of events you see what the problem was and is.  Jesus is always talking to us about the cross and we are not listening.  Jesus is always talking about His death and resurrection and we interrupt Him with foolish words about how cool it all is.  Now Moses and Elijah are there to say the Law and the Prophets were all about the cross.  On the Mount of Transfiguration it took the voice of the Father in heaven to tell them to shut up and listen.  And on the way down the mountain, it took Jesus to tell them not to speak of what they had seen and heard until He had risen from the dead.  
Only six days before Peter had cut off Jesus as soon as Jesus spoke of the cross and here and he shut down this conversation also.  None of us wants to talk about the cross, about suffering, about sacrifice, about death.  The cross is not the shape of glory in our play books and so we are ready to shut down the game as soon as Jesus mentions it.  It is as if Peter was saying again what he had said and been rebuked for only six days before.  Not the cross, Jesus; not the cross if I have anything to say about it.

But that is the point.  Even at this moment of glory, the cross is neither absent nor forgotten.  It is front and center.  Peter interrupts the conversation about the cross because Peter does not want to hear about it.  We are there right with Him.  We are not interested in hearing about the cross either.  We are tired of such sermons and weary of Bible studies where the cross is front and center.  It is the thing we don’t want to talk about but it is the only thing Jesus must talk about.  

Few people are worried about the divine glory of God’s Son.  We are not afraid of it at all.  We want it.  We are tired of church services with the same script every Sunday and we are tired of praying if we cannot be assured of getting the answer we want.  We tell people about the Church and the Gospel with nary a mention of the cross – we talk about nice people, about youth programs, good music and the like.  We cannot tell them about the cross – that might turn them away.  We are all in search of some glory, some excitement, something new and different, and something new and spontaneous.  We are tired of the same old talk about the cross.  In this, we are just like Peter and, I suspect, the rest of those who followed Jesus.

At this moment of Jesus great revelation and when His glory will not be hidden, we think the conversation is going to be exciting.  In reality, it is the same thing that Jesus has been harping on since they followed Him – the cross, the cross, and the cross.  What we think we have heard enough about, Jesus insists on talking about over and over and over again – and with Jesus every faithful hymn, every faithful pastor, and every faithful Bible study.  

When they were chastened by the voice from heaven and shocked when Moses and Elijah suddenly were gone, Jesus was still there.  Jesus is always still there.  Jesus is always teaching us that we never outgrow the cross, there is no glory except the cross.  So when the rooster crows to announce our failure and when the doors to the church are locked out of fear of those outside, Jesus is there to manifest the power of the cross.  To sinners needing to be forgiven and the fearful who worry more about the enemies out there than they trust in the Jesus who is with us here.  Jesus is there to manifest the power of the cross.

Jesus told them it was time to go back down the mountain but the world and the rest of the disciples were not ready to hear what they had seen and heard upon the mountain.  The message they would bring to the world was not going to a moment in the clouds with Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.  The message they would bring to the world was Christ crucified and risen for the forgiveness of our sins.  

My friends, we live in a world in which Church is about everything except the cross.  We tell the world about our scout troops and youth groups and senior lunches and men’s clubs and yard sales and musical concerts and all kinds of things.  Some churches have pronouncements on every world event or cause.  It is not that these are bad.  They are not.  But they are not the cross and the cross is what makes us unique.  We are constantly being taught this just as the disciples were taught on the Mount of Transfiguration.  It is all about the cross – the glory and the hope, the peace and the promise, the power and the presence.  We cannot be offended by the cross or scandalized by the suffering our Lord endures.  For this is the only Gospel that can offer salvation to us.  That is what Jesus was teaching to Moses.  The Law cannot save anyone.  Only the cross.  That is what Jesus was teaching Elijah.  The core and center of the kerygma is Christ crucified and risen.  That is what Jesus was teaching Peter.  And that is what we are being taught week after week.  Listen to Him.

Christianity's gift -- the value of life. . .

Though Christianity is often tagged as the boogeyman behind the ills of the modern world, many have undertaken to show that this is a false view of Christianity and of the world.  You can read others for such a defense.  For my money, the singular gift of Christianity to the world (apart from Christ Himself and His death and resurrection) has been the moral equivalency of all life.  Certainly, this was not the prevailing view of other religions or cultures and it is not today. 

None of the Romans believed in the moral equality of all human life.  They believed just the opposite.  It was taken for granted by the Romans that some lives were more valuable than others, that some lives were to be preserved at the cost of other lives.  The same view prevailed among the ancient Greeks also.  You would look in vain to find a Roman or Greek of any stature who would dare to suggest that the life of the unborn or the child or a woman was equal to a man and then only to certain men.  All across pagan Europe from the Vandals to the Goths to the Vikings you find a normal and normative belief that lives are not equal nor are they worthy of equal protection.  Where do you find this in Islam?  People simply believed nothing of the sort until Christianity came along.  For Pete's sake, survey the history of China or Japan.  Look at the great empires of the Inca or Aztec people -- don't forget that both societies were still practicing human sacrifice when the Spanish arrived about 500 years ago.  There is no civilization that would grant all or even most lives protection, value, and worth apart from Christian influence and intervention.

Indeed, the very mark of the undoing of our Christian influences in the West can be seen in the way we no longer as a culture and civilization give any credence to the moral equivalency of life.  From abortion to assisted suicide to euthanasia, we live in a time in which life is relative and its status more fragile than it has been since the dawn of Christianity itself.  Though the secular world loves to blame Christianity for war, violence, a class system, prejudice, racism, and slavery, these things existed long before Christ was born and were challenged precisely by a Christian worldview.  Though secular liberals and progressives daydream of a world without Christianity, the reality of what that world would look like is scary to everyone who is not in the majority or in control.  The creed of liberals insists that the protection of rights and the value of life extends to all, try disagreeing with the propagandists of this liberalism and you will see how quickly rights are selectively granted.  We see the evidence of this all around us.

The end result of a world in which Christianity is exterminated or silenced is a threat to the value and protection of all life.  We may not see it now but it would not take long under the scenario imagined by progressives and liberals before we would see the truth of it all.  Christianity is not a danger to the value and protection of life but its savior.

Luther on the Transfiguration

Borrowed from the Rev. Stephen Preus and the LCMS website.

To consider Christ’s glorious Transfiguration on its own is eye-opening; to hear how Luther describes this glory as yours nearly bursts the eyes from their sockets, bringing hope to the Christian heart. Luther’s use of the Transfiguration to teach the hope we have in the resurrection of the body is truly wonderful, for when you hear the vivid picture of how Jesus’ “face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light” (Matthew 17:2), Luther would have you see what this means for your eternal good:

The resurrection of the dead and the future glory and brightness of our bodies are shown. For this was something very remarkable, that Christ was transfigured while yet in the mortal body, which was subject to suffering. What then shall it be, when mortality shall have been swallowed up, and nothing shall remain but immortality and glory?[1]

What a thought! As glorious as the Transfiguration was, yet since Christ was still subject to suffering, it is not even the full picture! Jesus gives but a sneak-peek of what will be. Now that He is crucified and risen, death no longer having dominion over Him, you have hope of the same immortal glory as your Lord.

The hope of another life beyond the present life is quite comforting, especially as we suffer. Luther elaborates on this when discussing what Moses and Elijah appearing with Jesus teaches: “There is added the appearance of Moses and Elias, who prove by their appearing that they had never really died, and that there is yet another life, besides the earthly life, from which they were transferred.” [2]

While Luther also sees Moses and Elijah appearing “in order to testify that Jesus Christ is truly the promised Messiah, according to the law (i.e. Moses), and the prophets, (i.e. Elias),” his concentration here is on the comfort of the life to come, the hope that the faithful have after this present life of labor is over. Just as the Transfiguration testifies to this truth for Moses and Elijah, so too is this your hope, to be transferred from this life of sorrow to life immortal with Jesus and all the saints.

With the hope Jesus’ Transfiguration brings, Luther says, we are able to look at death in a different light:

This appearance teaches us also that we should despise death, and look upon it merely as an emigration or a sleep. In short, this appearance proves that this life is nothing at all in comparison with the future life.[3]

What do you have to fear in death when Jesus shines like the sun for you and is white as light to enlighten you to what He has done on your behalf? No, there is nothing to fear in life or death when you compare it to the future life our Father has in store for you through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

From where does such certainty come? Luther writes, “This appearance proves that sin is overcome. For it necessarily follows as an incontrovertible conclusion, that, where death is overcome, there sin is also overcome.” [4]

The Gospel shines forth in the Transfiguration since it previews Jesus’ resurrection, which guarantees that His death truly did atone for the sin of the world. Never one to bypass the salvation of Christ’s cross, Luther proclaims what Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were discussing together on the Mount of Transfiguration: His exodus from this earth via His crucifixion (cf. Luke 9:31). The fact that Christ foreshadows His future resurrection is a testimony that the cross cannot keep Christ down. Rather, He overcame death and sin and He did it for you and for all.

Jesus was transfigured before three disciples. Why? To strengthen them in the faith. Luther says:

But he permitted those three mentioned apostles especially to see this appearance, in order to guard them against the coming offense of his cross and crucifixion. Yet he accomplished little thereby, for they all were offended with him. Yet this appearance had its advantage after the resurrection, and served to strengthen their faith in Christ, that he was the Son of the living God, and that his kingdom must be regarded in a spiritual sense.[5]

This indeed strengthened the disciples after the resurrection, most evidently St. Peter, who wrote that they heard the voice of God the Father say about Jesus, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (2 Peter 1:17). This encouraged them to continue to confess Christ even to death. St. Peter goes on to encourage you when he writes that in Scripture you have a “more sure word,” one which “you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19).

Luther’s treatment of the Transfiguration finally focuses on the Holy Trinity. “The whole, holy Trinity appears here to strengthen the believers; namely, Christ in his transfigured form, the Father in the voice, and the Holy Ghost in the bright cloud.”[6] In your baptized life you are learning more and more who your Triune God is, how He works for your good, three Persons in one divine unity.

The Transfiguration of our Lord is an apt portion of Scripture to consider before Lent begins since we get a sneak-peek at the resurrection before we head into the season of repentance that leads to Easter. Let Luther’s treatment give you hope in the midst of Lent, reminding you of Christ’s resurrection and your own.

 The Rev. Stephen K. Preus was pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Vinton, Iowa, at the time this was written, 2017.

 

[1] Luther’s Explanatory Notes on the Gospels, 101. Emphasis added.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

 

Causing offense. . .

The Methodist Church of Great Britain has called on its ministers, deacons, and elders to stop using offensive terminology such as “husband” and “wife” to avoid making assumptions that are not “the reality for many people.”  The church added the changes to its “Inclusive Language Guide,” an initiative aimed at preventing the use of “hurtful language” directed at groups the Methodist Church believes have been “marginalised and/or demonised by common culture.”  The church plans to update the Inclusive Language Guide every six months to avoid using language that could offend groups it perceives as marginalized.  Then you wonder why Methodists are imploding?  Really?  This is the big problem the British Methodists needs to deal with?  Not sin?  Not death?  People who offended by ordinary terms like husband and wife.  Yup, Jesus is certainly good with this idea, isn't He?

The progressive idea is to make every exception into the rule.  If there are families without a husband or a wife, then all families will be stripped of the terminology.  What works for marriage will work for as many other faithful and Biblical and traditional terms -- just about everything!  Instead of striving to preach Christ crucified and risen, the Methodist Church is working to eradicate such terms as “partner,” “child,” and “parent” in order to be sensitive to and show solidarity with those “relationships [that] come in many varied expressions.”  The Methodists are certainly not alone.  Language is undergoing a radical transformation at the hands of those who find sterile terms preferable to traditional ones.  In this case, the Methodists have specifically addressed the issue of gender identity, insisting that “using a person’s chosen pronouns is helpful as it honours their identity.”  Expect that other vocabulary words will be on the banished list as well -- such as ‘brothers and sisters which is neither inclusive nor friendly to the non-binary among us.  Oops, Jesus.  You should have known better!

And to think.  We were worried about our enemies in the world and the devil roaring about seeking to devour someone!  I guess we had it wrong.  We were our own worst enemies all along.  Honestly, Jesus, You should have known better!

How odd!

It was reported that the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, commenting on the reluctance expressed by individual bishops and bishops’ conferences (some 1,000 in number)  regarding the implementation of Fiducia Supplicans: “it’s proper for each local bishop to make that discernment.”  So, let me get this straight.  It is proper for each local bishop to decide whether or not to bless individuals in a same sex relationship but the very same bishops are not equipped to decide whether or how to allow the Latin Mass in their dioceses.  

When he was asked if this declaration is a first step toward the acceptance of homosexual behavior or equating marriage with unions between persons of the same sex, Fernández replied: “That perception is totally incorrect and whoever says that has either not read the text or is ‘in a bad mood,’ allow me the expression. The statement states clearly and endlessly that these are non-ritualized blessings, so that they are not interpreted as a marriage.”  Begging the prefect's pardon, but it would seem that Francis and the head of the dicastery are the ones in a foul mood.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts needs to be recast as beware of popes bearing gifts.  In the case of Francis, the gifts he brings are confusion and central control -- both of which are exploited well by those seeking to undermine traditional moraality and dogma.  Rome is in a very bad way and, as they say, when Rome sneezes, we catch a cold.  Again, my point is that there is less reason than ever before to be jealous of anything Roman Catholic except a few good buildings and artwork.  The rest of Rome seems to be rotting from the center as the pope alienates those who are most serious about what is believed and how it is practiced in favor of those who are not so serious about either.

Lutherans should not be smug.  We have our own problems with the same thing.  So many Lutherans are muddying up the waters of what we believe, teach, and confess that, as in Rome, the conservatives are deemed dangerous and the progressives and liberals are considered safe.  It is long past time for Christianity to realign itself along the lines of those who are pay attention to Scripture and apostolic tradition and those who don't.  Maybe we all need a grand divorce in the Methodist style.  Offer some cash and some weak institutions to those who want to erode the faith from within and let all Christians depart for groups that are consistently and authentically Christian.  Roman Catholics will soon have to decide how long they can abide a pope determined to kill the faith with confusion and centralized control so that what was will be lost and what will be is nothing remotely recognizable as orthodox.  Lutherans will have to decide the same thing.  How long before we can abide groups using the name Lutheran but refusing to pay any attention to the Confessions that say what we believe, teach, and confess.  I hope it comes sooner rather than later but things move slowly in the machinery of Christendom and we will have to swallow hard for many more years before we see any movement on this.  The progressives have already decided that they have more in common with the liberal fringe of Christianity that is almost unitarian than they do with the people who pay attention to Scripture, tradition, and confession.  This is just as true for Lutherans as it is for Roman Catholics.

 

A parody of ecumenism. . .

Now that the photographers and press people have moved on to other things, it might be worth a quick look at what was accomplished when 50 or more Anglican and Roman bishops gathered for a week of study and prayer together a month or so ago.  At the end of it all was, of course, the obligatory press release.  This one was entitled "Our Common Witness, Calling, and Commitment."  This was a celebrated end to an ecumenical summit of "Growing Together".  There was the predictable call for unity and a shared mission.

Organized by the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM), January 2024 meeting had the full support from the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity in Rome as well as the Anglican Communion Office, Secretariat to the Anglican Communion.  "After four centuries of conflict and separation, the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion have now been on a walk towards reconciliation for almost six decades. At times, the path has been bumpy, but the Holy Spirit has been at work and our churches have persevered in a dialogue which has been extraordinarily fruitful," the joint statement reads.  It was undoubtedly crafted at the highest levels of both communions so it invoked the sacred cows of synodality, relationships, and people over the discredited notions of doctrine, creed, and confession.  It seems both Francis and Welby found common ground here  --  not to mention the dutiful reference about climate change, diversity, and injustice.  Welby and his group were able to celebrate an Anglican Eucharist in the Catholic Church of St. Bartholomew on Tiber Island in Rome -- something technically not supposed to happen.  The Anglicans included a pair of women bishops -- something else not quite kosher for Rome.  But it was all good and a good time was had by all.  Undoubtedly, they all went back to their day jobs patting each other on the back for all that was accomplished.

If this is what passes for ecumenism, then we are in big trouble.  On the one hand, you have a fractured Anglican communion bleeding off people faster than anyone can count and a Pope who talks out of both sides of his mouth and leaves a wake of confusion wherever he goes.  This might be good for a fake ecumenism but it is not salutary or beneficial for any real conversation between disputing Christians.  The real duty of ecumenism is to bring the diverse together under the banner of God's Word, affirming every word of the creeds, and confessing without apology the sacred deposit (no matter who might be offended).  That is not what happened here.  Rich with empty symbolism and muddy words which mean whatever the Humpty Dumpty says they mean, both churches are broken and in trouble.  The Anglicans have plenty of clergy but no people.  The Romans have plenty of people but no clergy.  Each puts on a good show and has colorful vestments but neither of these made up for the lack of substance behind those words and the spectacle of solemnity.  The statement insisted that they had equal dignity but failed to acknowledge they also have equal challenges to their very existence.  Will there even be an Anglican Communion in a decade?  Will there be anybody in Church in Europe or England in a decade?  What will this pope and this archbishop leave as the pieces their successors will have to put together (or ignore)?

Canterbury is quick to say "we are not like those other Protestants" and Rome is not sure what that means since both groups have an uncomfortable relationship with Scripture and with the voices of their forefathers.  In this meeting you might have heard both Anglicans and Romans echoing each other in distancing themselves from the faith believed, taught, and confessed by those who went before them.  "You have heard it said... but I say to you..."  Honestly, I prefer the rancor and dispute of people who take their differences seriously to the papered over divide of what was a parody of what ecumenism should be.  But who can turn down a good photo op and junket when there is a pile of problems waiting for you on your desk when you get home.... 

The limits of understanding. . .

The majority of men in every generation, even those who, as it is described, devote themselves to thinking, live and die under the impression that life is simply a matter of understanding more and more, and that if it were granted to them to live longer, that life would continue to be one long continuous growth in understanding. How many of them ever experience the maturity of discovering that there comes a critical moment when everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood.  —Kierkegaard, Journals

A conversation with someone left me recently perplexed.  The individual has little use for much of anything but conversation and catechesis.  The person is looking for understanding.  All of this is well and good but understanding and comprehension are not the promise of the Gospel.  We are not reasoned into the faith by logical argument or convincing evidence.  Faith is the fruit of the Spirit's work in us -- not against reason always but not because of it either.  Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.  Trust is not the end result of well argued debate but the Spirit's work which begins with the end of reason and understanding and comprehension.

If you have read this blog before, you know that I have some apprehension about the way we often study the Bible.  We tend to be driven by the quest for knowledge, fueled by the desire to understand God, and preoccupied by things not central to the faith.  Everyone in the world would rather go to a Bible study on Revelation than slog it through Hebrews.  It is not because portions of the Word are of more or less value but that we want to know what we want to know.  In many and various ways God spoke to His people of old through the prophets but now He has spoken with finality through His Son.  When the disciples were being led out to the place where our Lord would ascend, He had to do a remedial catechetical lesson opening the Scriptures to them so that they would see Him in them.  I wonder if we are less interested in seeing Jesus than in understanding and comprehending and therefore predicting God's works and ways.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and that fear begins with the realization of where our knowledge and understanding end.  The wisest man of all knows that he does not know everything and knows where the limits of his understanding begin.  It is the fool who presumes that with enough effort you will comprehend everything.  Christianity is not a scholastic faith but a child-like one.  That is surely no justification for remaining an infant in the faith but neither is it the presumption that knowing the Scriptures or getting God is a substitute or an equivalent for faith.

Mystery is just as important as understanding.  The mystery of God coming to us through the means of grace and accomplishing in us what He says and signs in this Word and Sacraments is not to be trifled with.  Yes, we proclaim Lord, I believe but we also add help Thou my unbelief.  We are not evidenced to the conclusion of faith but the assured that the facts are not in conflict with the mystery but lead us there to the manger, the cross, and the empty tomb.  Reason led to the tower of Babel but the voice of God speaking through His Word kept for Him a people to be His own possession. 

I must admit that Lutheranism is not much of an organized religion -- especially in the sense of providing a neatly packaged and thoroughly understandable systematics.  I would venture to say that all Christianity that is orthodox and catholic is the same.  That is not to say that there is no place for the tomes of some of the great thinkers but this is not what we are all called to be.  We are called to faith.  To believe in spite of what our eyes see, our minds think, and the science we postulate.  In the end there is nothing reasonable about a God who gives up His only-begotten for a people still His enemies and who wish to have nothing to do with Him.  There is nothing understandable about a suffering which pays for sin and a righteousness to be gifted to those who have none of their own.  Faith is trust precisely when we hit the limitations of our reason, understanding, and comprehension.  That is not something we admit with regret but with relief.  God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Kids missing school. . .

Absenteeism from school is hardly new nor is it only a problem today.  That said, absenteeism in public schools is becoming chronic, affecting nearly 70 percent of the highest poverty school locations.  This is triple what it was prior to the pandemic.  In schools located in poverty areas, some reported as much as a third of the student body as chronically absent (that means missing at least 10% of the days in the school calendar-- about twice monthly or more).  It is clear that prior to the pandemic school attendance was the accepted norm by all but this is not the case now.  Even in school in affluent areas, absenteeism has increased 3-4%.  Using Ohio as an example, chronic absenteeism hit 30 percent in the 2021-22 school year -- up from about 17 percent of the students the full year prior to the pandemic.  In some states, notably California and New Mexico, the rate of chronic absenteeism has hovered at double what it was before the Covid.

It is clear that screens is no substitute for in person classes and that the screens have been a negative effect not only upon the academic standards of our schools but also the way in which some students and families view education.  We all know that the schools are already overburdened with noneducational responsibilities -- from socialization to making up for things missing at home to the indoctrination of the current social mores concerning sexual desire, gender, racism, etc.  We also already know that we struggle to find qualified and effective teachers and that the teachers there are leaving their jobs at higher rates than before.  Now it is clear that a significant portion of students in public schools are finding excuses simply to opt out and this will only increase the distance between the haves and have nots in our society.  Further, those who drop out are more likely to be involved in the criminal justice system along the way.

The problem is not money.  We are spending far more than we have ever spent per pupil.  The problem is not simply the family -- although this is certainly a contributing factor.  Could it be that part of the problem is that schools are trying to do too much and too much of what we have asked them to do has little or nothing to do with their educational task?  We feed students who come to school hungry.  We try to mirror what is missing in their family life through social programs in the school.  We use the time in school to promote a largely progressive and liberal view of everything from pot to sex.  We are sensitive to their feelings and have done everything in our power to make for a pleasant environment.  Maybe we are trying too hard to do other things and not hard enough to accomplish the educational task that was and should remain the primary focus.  

Home schooling, parochial, and private schools are competitive in part because they are stronger on the academic part of things than public schools.  Indeed, some religious schools are broadening their appeal beyond their faithful precisely because they have higher academic standards.  It does not hurt that they have an investment in the educational enterprise as well.  This could become a lesser factor as vouchers and other programs make more choices available to those with fewer financial resources.

There is another factor.  The chronic absentees are not only missing out on an education, they are also missing out on the shared experience and the community that schools provide.  This undoubtedly contributes to such youth being more involved in the justice system but it also deprives them of one of the most commonly shared experiences of life -- school and graduation.  While everyone should be first of all concerned with the education they are missing, it is a good thing when students interact within the educational community to share a common experience and to appreciate the differences that need not divide.

Kids missing school is hardly a new thing.  The increase in absenteeism and its chronic condition especially manifest among the poor can only be bad news on a variety of fronts.  But this could be a real opportunity.  Private schools, especially parochial schools (whether classical or not), have always excelled in working closer with the parents and families to address problems and encourage the students to opt in rather than opt out of the program.  Yet the great temptation to religious schools will be to focus on this even more than the one distinctive of Christian witness, faith, and life.  This catechesis is and should always be the heart and core of our identity and not simply window dressing.  That said, this is one more reminder that over all the public educational system in America has been struggling and the pandemic has only drawn even more attention to its failings. 

Hidden details in a familiar story. . .

Sermon preached on the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (B), on Sunday, February 4, 2024.

Though we tend to look for the big point in Jesus’ miracles and teaching, sometimes the details themselves are quite important.  For example, in the Gospel we heard read today our Lord heals Peter’s mother-in-law.  The joke is be that Peter would have been okay without this miracle but the hidden detail here is that Peter was married.  Though we never hear much about the families of the apostles, we can presume that most of them were married.  You cannot have a mother-in-law without having been married.  The hidden detail is that although the Western Church developed the discipline of celibacy, it was not well known at the time of Jesus and the idea that you need to be unmarried to serve the Lord is equally foreign to the Scriptures.  The disciples had families and they did not have to choose between family and service to the Lord.  St. Paul admits this when he mentions the wives and families of Peter and other disciples.

Our world is not so sure family is a good thing.  More and more folks are choosing never to marry and those who marry choosing never to have children.  God created us for family.  Sure, sin has added its trouble to family life but the answer to that trouble was not to ditch the idea of family.  No, our Lord answered the problems sin created for husbands and wives and parents and children with forgiveness.  Where forgiveness reigns, love flourishes and where love flourishes forgiveness reigns.  I suspect this was as true for Peter in his home as it is for your home and mine.  Though this is obvious, it is easily and often forgotten.

The illness of Peter’s mother-in-law was likely an infection of some sort.  She suffered from a fever, a high fever.  St. Luke was a physician and he adds a detail not present in Mark’s account.  He tells us that Jesus rebuked the fever.  This means that Jesus did not ply the woman with homemade cures or apply the normal treatments of the day.  What Jesus did made it clear that her healing was by His action and His action alone.  This was an interruption of the laws of nature.  Our Lord intervened in the natural course of an illness to bring healing to the woman.

Jesus rebuked the fever as He had the demons in the account just prior to this story.  This shows us that just as demons were contrary to God’s will and purpose, so was illness a reflection of the corruption of our flesh caused by the introduction of sin into God’s creation.  We were not meant to suffer.  Suffering comes to us because of sin.  Illness and affliction are the enemies of God just as they are our enemies.

Another hidden detail is that as soon as Peter’s mother-in-law was healed, she got right up out of her sickbed and she served the family.  We live in a culture which loves me time, enjoys leisure, but merely tolerates work.  That is an alien concept to the New Testament.  Work is not an enemy of life or even of the good life or especially of the redeemed life.  We were created for work.
 
The fact that we live in such an individualized life in which our wills, desires, wants, and needs dominate obscures the fact that love serves.  Indeed, service is the shape of love.  Later in Mark’s Gospel our Lord will put this in blunt clarity.  “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.”  Peter’s mother-in-law used the gift of healing to enable her to fulfill her calling.  Indeed, all healing is given by God to us not so that we can get on with our lives and do what we please but for the sake of the Kingdom.  So that we might serve one another as Christ has served us.

Here is another detail often missed.  Healing is not God’s reward or special favor for those He likes better than others.  Nor is it something bestowed because we ask in the right way, with the magical words.  There is no reference to anyone asking Jesus to intervene.  Our Lord heals the woman not because she was special or He received a special request or even because of Peter.  Healing is a sign and mark of the Kingdom.  Jesus heals the woman to display the kingdom of God.  He heals to show that He is who He has claimed to be.  Jesus heals to show that He is the true Savior and Redeemer who has brought true life into the world.  It is as if each and every healing were a way of announcing who Jesus is and why He has come.  In contrast to the way we make miracles about the person – their worthiness to be healed or what they did to get God to heal them – God makes healing to be about the kingdom.  This healing is the precursor to the ultimate healing – whether you are the mother-in-law of the one who is supposedly the first pope or not, healing of an illness is a temporal and temporary gift.  The eternal healing comes when we wear the new and glorious flesh in the resurrection – bodies that can no more be corrupted by illness or affliction than they can by held prisoner in the grave.

The healing of our mortal bodies whether by the miracle of medicine or the direct intervention of God will not last.  We have made everything about the moment – what we want, how we feel, and what we think we deserve.  But Scripture points us always to what lies behind the present, to the eternal prepared for us in Christ that we might be where He is forevermore. 

If we pray earnestly and our loved ones are not healed, that does not mean that God is against us or we don’t have enough faith.  We want a rational explanation, a sort of cause and effect reasoning why some are healed and given longer lives and others are not.  But this is not about reason or even about magical words that enable you to get what you want.  It was and is about faith.  Within that faith we are reminded that healing begins with forgiveness for all our sins, that healing is an eternal gift and blessing which we can know now only in part, and that both have their source in the cross.  The wounds of Christ are our healing.  

As hard as it is to know that not everyone will receive the momentary healing of the body for today, it is hard to comprehend that all who believe in the Lord Jesus will receive the perfect healing of everlasting life.  This too is a truth hidden not just here but in every account of Jesus healing the bodies or diseases of people.  Our Lord does not pick and choose but gives to all Christians the perfect healing of redemption even while only some have the cancer go into remission or live to recover from their surgery or have hearts that will beat a normal lifespan or birth defects that will be corrected.  Whether we live or die and no matter how long we live or when we die, we belong to the Lord.  He has owned our sins upon the cross and our weakness in His own flesh.  He bestows upon us the eternal healing of forgiveness for our sins and the eternal promise that those who live in Christ by baptism and faith today shall dwell with Him eternally.

Hidden details and the profound truth – By His stripes we have been healed.  Until the day our Lord has appointed, we focus the strength of our redeemed lives upon the Lord in thanksgiving for His salvation and upon our neighbor as Christ has loved and served us.  When the Lord comes in His glory, we focus upon the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting – fully known, comprehended, and realized by God’s grace and favor.  Amen.

Not to raise an old conflict but...

We were told over and over again.  Follow the science.  If it is about the science, then the science is concerning.  According to one of the most comprehensive studies so far, Italian researchers have shown that those who received at least one Covid jab were about 30 percent more likely to be infected with Sars-Cov-2 than the unvaccinated, see the Italian research here.  It clearly shows that Covid shots raise the risk of getting a Covid infection.  The post-Omicron variant revealed that the shots performed even worse than before, with those vaccinated at about 50 percent higher risk of being infected by Covid.  The peer-reviewed study also noted the differences between the vaccines.  Among those people who have taken three or more Moderna mRNA jabs, the Moderna-only recipients were 71 percent more likely to die from all causes than people who took only Pfizer jabs -- a statistic even after the researchers adjusted for age and medical problems.  Moderna’s vaccine contains much more mRNA than Pfizer’s, so the finding begs the question of whether the mRNA is driving those deaths and if the more times vaccinated increase that risk.

While some will gloat and others dispute this, my point is not about the results of the study as it is about the nature of science.  Science does not rest on suppositions but on data.  The more data we find out, the clearer the conclusions that can be drawn.  That is science.  Science, real science, is not ideological.  It does not proof text for the sake of its point but adjusts as the data guides.  Real science is not a conclusion that never is reviewed but the constant review of the conclusions.  Science cannot substitute for religion and certainly not for Christianity.  Science is not something you believe in -- unless you believe in a process without presuppositions or conclusions unless the data hold to them.  My point is this.  You cannot have science as your God.  It is a fool's errand.  Neither can science exist outside of or apart from the moral values that define the boundaries of what is good in comparison to what may be possible.  As Scripture plainly tells us -- all things may be possible but not all things beneficial (salutary).  Science depends upon its partnership with morality and the higher truth of religion or it will always end up ahead of itself.  Follow the science means following a wandering path that must occasionally reverse itself or turn in an entirely different direction.

If there is a lesson from the pandemic about the science, it is this.  Science will give you its best guess now but it reserves the right to change that guess as the data come in.  Especially in areas like mRNA, science is not settled but constantly moving.  It is for this reason also we cannot make science our God.  We need not a log flowing along with a current but an anchor to hold us fast.  Those who pit science against faith are setting against each other the very things that belong together.  As we have repeatedly seen, the science eventually catches up to the faith if we let it.  It helps no one -- even advocates of science -- to presume that what science says now is the last and final word on anything.  True science is always looking and always learning -- therefore, always adjusting.

There are a host of other areas in which we have failed to listen to the science and allowed the fake science to become ideological and a sort of religion.  This includes, for example, the way Americans have distanced themselves from others in the West in taking the aggressive course of treatment (puberty blockers) with trans youth.  In fact, the true science dismisses the legitimacy of felt choices that violate the objective data and thus raises questions about the primacy of feelings to define everything from sexual desire to gender.  There is no science to support this.  The fake science of ideology has led us where true science would refuse to go.  I could list other examples.  The reality is that when we build a wall between science and faith, science and morality, technology and values, we always end up with huge problems.  We will have to face this on a host of fronts soon -- from reproductive technology to artificial intelligence.  Now is not the time to trust the science.  Now is the time to sort out fake science from true science and to bring to bear upon our observation and conclusions the divine revelation of Scripture. 

By the way, actuaries have released a table showing their data on the mortality rate for the years of Covid and thereafter:

 

We are not Rome. . .

I got a lengthy email from a reader who insisted that I paid far too much attention to Rome and the Pope and that if I was really a Lutheran the stuff happening or not happening there should be of little consequence to me.  I have also had some folks say the same thing about the ELCA and suggested to me that none of that matters to the LCMS.  If you agree with my critics, you may not wish to read further.

Unless you live on an island or in some community in which everyone is churched -- neither of which is true of you -- it does matter what the Pope says or the ELCA says.  The careful nuances of those who make much of such things is lost to nearly everyone outside your very small circle.  People judge Christianity on the basis of what the Pope says and does and that includes Missouri and those with whom she is in fellowship.  People judge Lutheranism on the basis of what the ELCA says and does that includes Missouri and those with whom she is in fellowship.  You do not live in some sane world in which people listen to you to decide who you are.  People are want to make snap judgments and those in the news are the ones who feed such snap judgments.  Unless you do not care about those outside the faith or the faithful with whom you gather, you are a fool to ignore what Rome or the ELCA or evangelicals or Protestantism in general says and does on the world stage.  

I do not care because I want to be Roman Catholic or ELCA or anything else for that matter.  I care because I know that those who come from no or nominal Christian background and walk into my parish have a pre-existing idea of who we Lutherans here are.  Christianity is not some new faith that they have never heard about.  They are predisposed to the (false) belief that they already know what a Christian is and believes and how that Christian lives.  It might be easier for me to start with a clean slate introducing the faith to those outside of it but I cannot afford that luxury and neither can you.  We live in a world in which those who are our harshest critics and our biggest skeptics think they know what we believe and teach simply because they pay attention to the news (itself largely unreliable) and because those on the edges always claim the biggest slice of the news pie.  Part of what we must do is to disavow people of the false perceptions, images, and understandings of Christianity (and Lutheranism) that they have gleaned from those who claim the headlines.

In the past I have had folks from the ELCA who fearfully walked across our door because they were warned about what Missouri was like and had to discredit the rumor with the facts.  I have also had Roman Catholics walk through the door thinking they were entering a Protestant world only to find that the LCMS is not quite Protestant -- some were shocked that the Mass was held with more reverence and devotion among us than the church from whence they had come!  Every honest Lutheran pastor who desires to be faithful to the Lutheran confessional identity and serve as an instrument of the Word in the Lord growing His Church has to know what is going on in other communions.  We have to be ready to respond to the false ideas and ideals paraded as Christianity by those who are barely Christian, if that.  We also need to be ready to teach our own people what other churches believe, teach, and confess (and practice).  Unless you live in a hole in the ground or your people do, you owe it to them to know what is going on around you.  But throwing mud back is not the way of the faithful.  Our calling is to put the best construction on everything (with Luther) but to speak the truth in love.  Sadly, some of us seem to delight more in the screw ups of other churches than we do anything else.  I take no delight in the damage done by the current Pope or the direction of the ELCA or anything in between.  We ought all to be saddened and chastened by the quickness of a church to lose its way.  We ought all to be sorrowful for the blurring of the Christian witness with the decisions of an erring Pope and Lutheran leadership.  We are painted by their broad brush by those outside the faith and we are left with the job of repairing the damage they have done to all of us who strive to be catholic and orthodox.

My moral fiber is sufficient. . .

If you have the stomach for it, you can tun into a recent BBC interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci, including his “complicated” relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.  As is typical of Roman Catholic public figures (like President Biden), the relationship these people have with their own church body is less complicated than it is distorted.  Certainly Fauci has all the ambiance for being a Roman Catholic public persona.  He and his wife studied, were married, and their children were born at the Roman Catholic Georgetown University.  He thinks the chapel there is "really nice”  but he is referring to the aesthetic and not to the faith and dogmas behind it all.  Fauci makes it clear he does not practice the faith but is a cultural Catholic:

A number of complicated reasons. . . . First of all, I think my own personal ethics in life are I think enough to keep me going on the right path. And I think that there are enough negative aspects about the organizational Church, that you are very well aware of. I’m not against it. I identify myself as a Catholic. I was raised, I was baptized, I was confirmed, I was married in the Church. My children were baptized in the Church. But as far as practicing it, it seems almost like a pro forma thing that I don’t really need to do.

Only a fool or amnesiac could forget the division that marked Fauci's time as a public figure—and the legacy of his leadership during Covid has not been without its critics.  However, Fauci seems to be on the side of the majority of Roman Catholics in America when it comes to his relationship with the church he claims as his own.  It has become rather ordinary and typical for Roman Catholics to complain more about their church than to adhere to its doctrine or faithfully practice the faith according to the church's own rules.  Critics remind us all the time that nearly half of those raised Roman Catholic leave never to return.

Fauci could do worse than to filter his own self-important morality through the lens of Scripture and the faithful Christian tradition.  But he won't.  Sadly, public figures of nearly every religious tradition seem to feel the need to reject the faith of their upbringing as the birthright of their political future.  They love to hold onto images but cannot reconcile themselves to the substance of what is believed.  We have long known about this and witnessed those who belong to faithful pro-life churches turn away from the teaching of their churches because they either believe it wrong or a drag on their election.  In Fauci's case, it is a conflict with what he declares to be settled science -- though I am not at all sure Fauci really cares about the settled science as much as promoting and defending his own particular opinions.  In any case, it is the job of the Church to note the distance between political figures and their churches, between their public stands and the stands of their church bodies, and when they have given up any moral authority but their own.  It is always the start of something that will not end well.

Christmas is not quite over. . . yet

The Presentation of Our Lord and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary fall on the fortieth day of Christmas.  So now you have my permission to take down your Christmas decorations!  Though we sing of twelve days of Christmas, this is, in my mind, the real conclusion of the whole Christmas cycle.  Though in just a few weeks we will be past the Transfiguration of Our Lord and into Lent where our attention turns on the glory of His holy Cross and Passion, for now a bit of Christmas business remains.  And here we are, beckoned by the Lord back to the holy mother carrying in her arms her first-born and the Temple requirements fulfilled.  There with the infant Lord Jesus in the courts of His House, His Holy Sanctuary, a couple of more surprises.  We find an old man who sings of his waiting fulfilled and the peace that allows him to depart and an old woman who worshiped and prayed night and day for this day to come.

The Scriptures are filled with curious details.  Some delight us.  Some make sense to us.  Some confound us.  But most of them were not meant for us to comprehend or give consent to -- rather, they exist as part of God's great plan and work.  This goes all the way back to Eden when God cursed the woman with pain in childbirth while at the same time promising a Savior Who would be the Seed of the Woman.  From Eve on down the line to the Blessed Mother, every aspect of a woman’s fertility and childbearing among the chosen people was both a proclamation of law -- of the curse of sin -- and a proclamation of the promise of the Gospel.

The child Jesus is brought in remembrance of details.  When the Lord brought against Pharaoh and the whole land of Egypt the tenth great plague, He sent the Angel of Death by night to slay all the firstborn sons of both man and beast.  Down from the firstborn of mighty Pharaoh on his throne to the lowliest of the slaves, the plague fell.  Except, of course, on the chosen.  Every firstborn son of Israel was spared the death of this plague, covered and protected as they were by the blood of the Passover Lamb.  Where the Lord’s avenging Angel saw the blood of the lamb, he passed over the home and spared the son.

Thus by the Lord's command and promise, every firstborn son of Israel (man and beast) belonged to Him by right.  These firstborn sons belong to Him, because the Lord spared them from death and sanctified them for Himself in the Exodus.  From this, then, came the requirement that the firstborn animals among the people were to be sacrificed to the Lord as His, and all the firstborn sons of the people were to be given to the Lord for His service.  Now it came to Jesus, God's own Son, to be presented in fulfillment of the law.

On this Candlemas, we make our way back to Christmas for a time before heading onward up to Transfiguration's mount and down the valley to the cross.  Not just details but God at work guiding the plan to its promise and our salvation.  No wonder we can depart in peace.  God has done all things well. 

Register NOW!

Registration is now open for the 2024 Institute on Liturgy, Preaching and Church Music on July 9-12, 2024, at Concordia University, Nebraska (CUNE) in Seward, Neb.

The Institute, which is being presented by LCMS Worship, returns under the theme, “Songs of Deliverance: Psalms in the Great Congregation.”

With the Psalter as its focal point, this conference will feature fresh and perennial topics on music, leadership, preaching, pastoral care, art and spiritual growth in Lutheran worship.

Participants will be able to choose from a variety of instructive and interactive sessions addressing practical topics of interest to musicians, pastors, teachers, interested laypersons and many others. We’ll also take up a challenge together: pray all 150 psalms.

Registration is open through April 19 at the early-bird rate of $350 per adult. Regular registration is open from April 20 through May 17 at the adult attendee rate of $400. Two-day, one-day and full-time student registrant options are also available.

 

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