The mystery of the seed. . .

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 6B, preached on Sunday, June 16, 2024.

The reality is that this Kingdom is less about seeds than it is about our consternation over how God does His work.  We want to see results in the world or in our own lives.  We are disappointment and disillusioned when you wake up every morning to bad news and when we see little sign of real progress in our own lives.  We want to be an army to conquer in the Lord’s name but instead we are sent forth without luggage or extra money and called to trust in the Lord, speak out His Gospel of the cross and empty tomb, and love our neighbor.  We want more.

Islam is attractive not because it is reasonable but because it appeals to our desire to punish the wicked and force the Kingdom of God to come.  It is the same reason why we want to vote in the Kingdom of God at the ballot box – something both those on the far left and the far right want to do. It is the same reason why we want to turn the church into a purity cult and expel those whose lives do not measure up.  It is the same reason why we count attendance and offerings and deem these to be the markers of a successful church.  We want results.  We want objective criteria by which we not only measure the progress of God but our own progress.  So we make faith into a choice or a decision and make sincerity more important than what you believe.  But it is all a lie and a scam.

The Kingdom of God is a mystery that defies explanation.  The Kingdom of God comes not by might or money or management but as a seed planted in the soil that becomes a mighty plant that bears fruit and shades from the heat.  Jesus tells us the parables of the seed not to explain how the Kingdom of God comes but to confront us with the mystery of God’s mercy.  No one reasons themselves into the Kingdom nor can we reason or argue others into it.  The Spirit brings the fruit of faith to the seed sown.  The seed is always God’s work and never our own – we do not by our own reason or strength believe but only the Spirit works the mystery of faith.

And it IS about faith.  Whether you are Abraham trusting in the promise of a nation begotten from your aged body or Moses who leads the people of God into the land of God’s promise, it is about faith.  Whether you are disciples who drop their nets and follow Jesus or children raised up in the faith in a faithful home or adults who just stumbled upon this thing called Christianity, it is about faith. There is no explanation to the Kingdom.  Only faith to plant the see and watch God grow it in others and in ourselves.

The church does not come by our management of God’s enterprise.  We are not called to supervise God’s hierarchy but to be servants of the Word.  If that is humbling to the pastors who stand before you every week, it is equally humbling to husbands and wives, parents and children, friends and neighbors.  We do not manage God’s resource but expend it.  We do not preserve or protect the seed but plant it.  We do not decide which soil is best or how much to water it but trust the Lord to bring the seed to fruition in His own time and by His own means. The time is the fullness of His own rich moment and the means are the Word and the Sacraments.  We trust in God as seed and sower – it is all the same.

The Lord is patient in His mercy.  He reigns not to establish a better world here or a heaven on earth but to rescue the lost and restore them unto Himself.  He reign has begun not with the herald of a trumpet and the advance of a mighty army but as the sower sowing the seed, nurturing its growth, and harvesting the fruit.  With what shall we compare the Kingdom of God?  I fear we today are much more inclined to compare it to a business operated for profit or an affinity group in search of followers or an influence group to shape what the world thinks, says, and does.  So the idea of a seed seems rather mundane and ordinary and even powerless in comparison.

We wish that God would deliver us and the world from all that we dislike and all that we are weary of waiting for.  We want to be instantly righteous and we want the Kingdom of God to come around us and among us in the blink of an eye.  The ways of the Lord are painfully slow to us and cloaked in mystery that begs us simply to trust when we want to understand and predict and control.  We want to be active when the path of faith seems so very passive to us.  But the Lord is hidden in the seed of His Word and in the flower of that seed in the mighty tree of life that is His Church.  He is merciful and works all things together for good even though this mercy and this work are deliberate and His timetable so plodding, it is for us and for our salvation that the Lord is slow.  This is His saving work.

While we see nothing, the Lord sees the seed become the mighty tree.  While we complain about slowness, the Lord intends to leave no one behind. Where we think it is a matter of our effort, the Lord points us to the cross and His work.  Where we try and make faith into a decision or choice, the Spirit insists He plants faith in us and brings it to fruition.  Where we think it is our job to build a world fitting for God, God fits us for His kingdom and builds us up in Christ day by day.

St. Paul hits it on the head.  This life is the tent.  Heaven is the eternal dwelling.  It is not that the tent is nothing.  It is that the eternal dwelling place is beyond our very imagination – what God has prepared for those who love His appearing.  If we groan, let us not grown with the discontent of our earthly lives or a world not the way we think it should be but as a people yearning for the future God has prepared.  If we groan, let it be as a people who are content with God’s forgiveness and mercy; who long to be in His presence forevermore and to do what the Lord has given us to do with this day and this moment.  Let us be people of good courage, who refuse to judge eternity by whatever happens in this moment and who refuse to let the moment steal our eternal joy from us.  We belong to the Lord.

Fathers ought to be aware of this mystery.  We plant and the most important thing we plant in the lives of our children is heaven, the Kingdom of God, by knowing Jesus Christ.  It is not about control but about faithfulness, not about predicting the outcome but trusting the Word of the Lord and faithful work to produce the fruit of faithful children.  A father’s work is not magic but planting good seed and waiting.

Farming was once more aware of the mystery.  The crop depended upon so many things completely out of the farmers control – from weather to weeds to the work of insects.  As we have improved agriculture, we have also become enamored with the idea that it happens because of us and what we do.  It is no different in the kingdom of God.  Christ is the seed planted in us by the power of the Holy Spirit and He works in us according to God’s timing and for God’s purpose.  This is the great mystery of the kingdom.  We accept this by faith not because we God’s Word is unclean but because it is only by faith that the mercy of God becomes our joy, the shade from the heat of the day and the place where we are nested into the arms of our Savior for everlasting life.  Amen.

Downsizing our way to success. . .

So another Roman Catholic diocese is in bankruptcy and shuttering churches.  The proposal announced in mid-April is called “Seek the City to Come” — it is a multiyear initiative attempting to address dropping attendance, declining revenues and debilitated buildings.  It could cut the number of parishes in the Archdiocese from 61 to 21.  Makes you wonder what it means to be an archdiocese, doesn't it.  Apparently not numbers of parishes or people.  It should be noted that in the same diocese is an FSSP parish there --  in a troubled neighborhood doing the Latin Mass with standing room only. Hmmmmm.

Before Lutherans snicker at the state of affairs in Rome, let us remember with humility that we are suffering from the same thing except that ours is not an organized systems of closers or mergers but a disorganized one resulting from the congregational governance of buildings and property.  It is our problem as well and not simply Baltimore's or Rome's.  

Let me say what it is not.  It is not a money problem.  Sure, buildings cost money and consume a large portion of the annual parish budget nearly everywhere.  It is not a problem, however, that would disappear if in every bank account of every Roman or Lutheran parish you added a couple of zeros to the left of the decimal point.  In fact, you can throw all the money you want at this problem and it will not go away.  It is not a cash flow or an income issue.

What it is about is people.  Those buildings were built because there once were people to fill the pews and all the school space.  The first problem is people -- where are they?  It is not a matter of overall membership declines, although that is also true, but of an absence of people in the pews weekly.  If all the names we counted on the books showed up every Sunday, the LCMS would not be looking at closing down congregations or dealing with empty facilities.  I am sure that the same is true for Rome.  We are reaping a history of disassociation of attendance from belief and belief from doctrine.  Add to that the work of culture, sex abuse, an unfriendly media, and moral transformation and you can see exactly why we are in the position we are in today.  Under it all is a failure of catechesis.  The phenomenon of a self-proclaimed Roman Catholic who does not even know nor agree with what his own church teaches shows that Biden is not alone in the problem of catechesis and confession.  Of course, Lutherans are not immune either.

It is also a problem of people -- specifically pastors and other church workers.  Before we go blaming our youth for their failure to consider and pursue church work vocations, let us admit that it has been a very long time since pastor/priest or other church worker had the esteem, respect, and affection of the church or the culture.  Going My Way has come and gone and the friendly treatment of the ministers has been replaced by ridicule, scandal, and outright hostility.  Strangely enough, the faithful in the pews have not been as vocal as they might to counter this trend -- at least within the confines of parish and family!  The sad but real truth is that few believe anymore that the pastoral office is a noble, virtuous, and essential vocation.  We seem inclined to find short-cuts to pastoral training and a willingness to substitute the laity for clergy anywhere and everywhere we can.  We could try raising up pastors and church workers and paying for their training.  Our parishes and our church schools are dying for people to serve them.  Literally, dying.

It is again a problem with people.  We have long ago lost our confidence in the Mass or Divine Service and had multiple affairs with other forms of spirituality which we deem just as good as what you do together in the Lord's House on the Lord's Day -- including online versions!  We have long ago lost confidence in the means of grace to do what Christ has said He will and replaced the Word and Sacraments with a plethora of programs that keep people busy but have little really to do with teaching or learning the faith.  We keep the rest of the building full while the nave and chancel are empty and think we are doing what our Lord called us to do.  We have long ago forsaken the idea that the Mass or Divine Service is its own culture and mixed up what you hear on the radio with the sacred music unique to the Church and turned formal liturgy into a homey experience replete with jokes, laughter, and irreverence.  And then we wonder why people don't take the Church or God seriously anymore!

We will not downsize our way into success.  The path before us has not changed.  Reverence is its own relevance.  Faithfulness is its own success.  Catechesis is its own reality.  The truth is that 40-50 people in worship every week and tithing are more than enough to support clergy and building.  The truth is that people always were and are the best witnesses to family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors -- we do not need to invent new programs.  It does not matter whether you are Roman or Lutheran, the path ahead is not to become more socially invested or culturally connected but to be more Christian, holding up by word and example the highest reverence and importance for our life of worship around the Word and Table of the Lord and honoring those who deliver Christ's gifts to us.

Who's destroying the Church?

As soon as we get down to business in any argument in the Church, one side is accused of destroying the Church to save her.  I have heard that line from the days of college and seminary when the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod was engaging their opponents in the so-called Battle for the Bible.  I have heard it said in the liturgical wars over liturgy and so-called seeker services more appealing to the entertainment aesthetic.  I have heard it proclaimed in the sex wars over who can marry and who cannot, who can be a pastor and who cannot, and whether there is any sexual behavior which conflicts with the Gospel.  I have heard this from those who insist that gender identity is the new justification conflict and where the war over freedom will be fought.  I have heard it put forth in the new idea of truth which no longer has to be objectively true for all or for all time but can merely be true for those who want or choose to believe it. I have heard it mostly, however, from those who were pushing the envelope and trying the cast off the constraints of the past.  If you do not modernize, the Church will die and those who refuse to budge are destroying the Church.

Oddly enough, those who are pushing the boundaries of freedom and laying aside the constraints of Scripture and tradition are seldom accused of destroying the Church.  They are usually the voices who lay that charge but seem to have avoided being labeled by it themselves.  Odd because the results of the liberalization of the faith, of views of sexuality, of the idea of gender, of worship, and nearly everything else have contributed more to the decline of Christianity than just about anything else.

The de-unification of the Methodist Church has clearly labeled the conservatives as the bad guys who ruined it for the good guys.  Those who opposed the changes or left the ELCA are the spoil sports who brought down the biggest Lutheran denomination.  Those who fight for traditional liturgy in nearly every church body are considered the problem children of their churches (just like the Latin Mass folks of Rome).  Those who lament the Church of England's choice to behave more like an agency of the government than a church (indeed, most Episcopalians of the West) are seen as naysayers against those who think change or die. Those in any liturgical church body who want to restrain the evangelical style worship devoid of order or tradition are routinely labeled as legalists and control freaks.  In Missouri's history, there are still voices within and outside who insist that the Bible thumpers killed this body and are responsible for its decline.

It is curious how the reality has challenged these assumptions.  The liberals and progressives became increasingly intolerant of any opposition in these churches and it was their refusal to allow disagreement that causes splits and declines (especially in the area of sexuality and gender).  The liberals and progressives have insisted with rather smug piety that they are choosing to meet people where they are and save them while their opponents are married to forms and ceremonies -- a convenient high road.  Those who choose to liberalize their view of Scripture are always doing it for the sake of the faith and not against what has always been believed and taught -- at least if you believe their PR.  In truth, intolerance is the virtue of those who push the limits and choose culture and society as authorities over Scripture.  Meeting people with entertainment style services broadcast to homes has not helped but weakened Christianity over all.  Trying to make Scripture more human has always come at the cost of making it less divine.  Who is destroying the Church?  I think it can be safely said that if ideology is the culprit, liberal and progressive ideologies are doing more harm than good.  Churches have more money but less people, more cultural relevance in the eyes of many but less truth that saves, more in common with the direction of the woke but less in common with Scripture and tradition.  My bet is on those who hold to the faith once delivered to the saints.  If the apostles were to walk into your church today and review what you believe and how you practice, would they find it home or would they find it a stranger?  That is the test of who is destroying the Church.

Broken trust. . .

I grew up in a very small town in which our local doctor was not merely our primary care physician but also a counselor, surgeon, and therapist.  He knew the people in his care not as notes on a computer or chart but as the people in the community in which he lived and worked  and worshiped.  He was held in great esteem -- perhaps too much.  There was a time in which physicians were considered demigods with the power to heal, relieve pain, and give answers and direction to the wounded and ailing.  There was a time in which I wanted more than anything to be such a doctor just like him.  As you already know that was not to be.

Sadly, I fear that the physicians I deal with now do not enjoy the same deep respect, affection, and trust that my hometown doc did now some seventy years ago.  It is not because they have personally failed me or given me a wrong diagnosis or caused me suffering.  Rather the problem lies with what medicine has become.  The reality is that no one doctor knows me or my medical condition.  I have a primary care physician whom I have gone to for some 25 years but he does not know me without referencing his screen.  In fact, he rarely looks up from the screen when I see him.  I have various physicians who treat different parts of me and some of them are really quite good but what is missing is one set of eyes that sees everything.

The problem today is that we have lost trust in the whole medical establishment.  The lies that were told during the pandemic, the terrible reality of big pharma, and the medicine that has become less focused on the patient and more on insurance codes and reimbursement have all conspired to make us skeptical of a profession we once regarded as saintly.  No, I am not painting everyone with the broad brush.  I know that there are great physicians, PAs, nurse practioners, nurses, techs, and the like who provide exceptional medical care.  What I am admitting is that the health care industry has become just that -- an industry.

No one presumes that Jeff Bezos created Amazon to make our lives better.  He was in it for the money and he created an amazing company that made him richer than rich.  His wealth boggles the imagination.  You can say the same for most captains of industry.  Maybe I was naive in believing that medicine was somehow immune from the same worship of the almighty dollar.  Maybe it was once not the motivation that it is now.  In any case, if you are smart you will not rely on your physician or insurance company or pharmacy to be your advocate.  You must be your own advocate.  You must take the lead in asking questions and pursing the answers -- whether it is about the diagnosis or the treatment or who pays for it.  Caveat emptor now includes more than used cars.  It includes ourselves as we try to find our way through the maze of medical care and its money trail.  Part of me longs for the old days.  Yeah, I know.  Nobody wants to abandon the advancements that have been made and the diseases now treated that once were a death sentence.  But nobody in their right mind believes that physicians are gods or that the goal of medicine is the needs of the patient.

Why do Lutherans look over the fence. . .

There are probably many reasons why Lutherans are attracted to Rome.  Some of those have been unfairly and shamefully presented by critics as Lutherans who like fancy things.  Well, if that makes you feel better I suppose you have a right to your opinion.  From my perspective, there are many reasons why Lutherans are uncomfortable enough about being Lutheran to look over the fence to other churches (here meaning only those historic alternatives such as Rome or Constantinople).  None of them have to do with the taste for fancy things.

The first problem is the shrinking state of confessional Lutheranism in America.  Yes, I know that this is not quite the case across the world, Africa in particular, but looking around you in the States is a depressing thing to do.  On the one hand you have those who keep the name but have long ago ceased to represent anything close to Lutheran doctrine and teaching.  Even when their worship retains the forms, they have emptied the words of any real meaning.  On the other hand you have those Lutherans who believe that the true Lutheran church in America is probably only one or two congregations and they have their moments.  It is an ungenerous and unkind version of Lutheranism which delights in sarcasm and tearing down others.  In addition, you have those who are more comfortable with the version of Lutheranism they grew up with than the one Luther knew, the Confessions describe, and liturgical parishes practice.  Not to mention those who have seem to tolerate any kind of worship practice as long as a theoretical Lutheran identity is maintained in the imagination.  Missouri may be Lutheranism's last great hope in America and Europe but is anyone happy about this?  This says volumes about the state of things in Lutheranism and why some may be looking over the fence to see how green the grass is there.

The second problem is internal inconsistency.  Even among conservative and confessional Lutheran bodies such as Missouri, there is a real lack of consistency among Lutheran congregations and their practices.  It is especially tiring because we are a somewhat congregational church body with episcope and no formal episcopal officers.  Our ability to rein in the fringes is not only frustrating but nearly impossible.  The internet only makes this diversity, especially with respect to worship, more painful.  While Rome surely has much of the same thing, there are mechanisms in place for Rome to stop it when it wants to.  Nobody in Rome or anywhere else (except liberal Protestantism) seems to like Pope Francis but everyone knows he will not last and Rome is still the largest Christian tradition in the world.  I can see why some look to Rome even though when I look I find the same problems of Missouri only magnified by multiples that seem to dizzy the mind.

The third problem is antiquity.  No, I am not talking about Rome being around since St. Peter.  What I am talking about is how so many Lutherans are content to think that their tradition began in 1517 (or 1847) and the ease with which they write off what went before.  We sound like the Anabaptists who suddenly believe that when they came along God sighed with relief that finally somebody got Him right.  The issue here is that many Lutherans seem perfectly fine being a denomination built in opposition to things and content with its own institutional history (which is not, by the way, the Church of the Augsburg Confession).  I do not want to belong to a church that has an establishment date in the recent past or even 500 years ago.  I am intent upon confessing and being the one, holy catholic and apostolic church and faith.  But sometimes it is frustrating about how hard Lutherans argue the tiniest Lutheran point against another Lutheran without seeming to care about the early church fathers or the catholic tradition.  If that is what Lutheranism has become, it is no wonder why some are looking over the fence.  The problem is that even this is not neatly answered by Rome.  Indeed, the Lutheran position is that Rome is the innovator and the creator of novelty -- passing it all off as catholic when we are real catholics.  It does not help that Lutherans seem to be okay with not being real catholics.  So the historical character of Rome is both an attraction and maybe a bit of a problem.

The last problem is doctrine.  There is little doctrinal homogeneity within Christian traditions anymore.  Are there any real Calvinists left?  Is Rome really an umbrella for competing and conflicting theological traditions -- held together by the papacy alone?  Does it mean anything to be Lutheran?  Gone are the days when we knew and cared about what we believed.  Christianity across the spectrum has lapsed into a collection of feelings, desires, preferences, and likes that dominate over doctrine and truth.  Even Scripture is not an unassailable voice for truth -- not within Lutheranism as a whole nor within Rome (don't even ask about Protestantism).  I do not agree but it is easy to see how some view putting up with Rome's doctrinal problems no different than putting up with the diversity within their own Lutheran tradition.

So let us at least be honest.  There are real problems that are pushing people to look over the fence to see how green the grass is over there.  They are not shallow minded nor do they like pretty things.  They can be serious people who lament what once fine and noble theological traditions have become in our age.  You may not like it or agree with it but you should not castigate them unfairly or inaccurately.  In most cases they are serious people looking for a serious church home in a slightly better state of condition than the one they are in now.  I do not think Rome is an improvement but I get where they are coming from and so should you.  Click here to view the best of liturgical adaptation in Rome!

The problem of happiness. . .

It would seem that many people are not happy.  The world appears not to be enough to provide the happiness that some have sought but failed to find.  I suspect that most of us agree with this.  Happiness has certainly seemed to elude some folks and, it would seem, the number is growing more than diminishing.  In the wake of Covid, the politics of division, the pursuit of a woke world, the struggle to make a green earth, and whatever else you might name, it would seem that less than 4 out of 10 is happy. The numbers betray the reality of our complicated world and the freedom to pursue happiness has become even more of a burden than it was.  So we tend to be more pessimistic than optimistic and that has affected not only our view of the future but our satisfaction with the present.

Some churches have picked up on this and tried to remake Christianity into a religion that fosters such happiness (instead of holiness).  It has take on Protestantism by storm and seems poised to make a big difference in Rome as well.  Perhaps only Orthodoxy is immune from the presumption that God exists to make us happy and to guarantee such happiness -- come what may!  Some would insist that the religious are, on the whole, happier than those not so religious.  We might like to think so but happiness is not always so easy to define or measure.  If we believed that God existed to help us define, find, and sustain happiness, at least we would have someone to blame for our unhappiness.

C. S. Lewis hit the nail on the head when he wrote "God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."  Happiness is not a commodity of which God has a storehouse and can dish out when and where He chooses.  God can only give us Himself.  We will have to decide if He is enough to satisfy us or not.  Therein lies the rub.  Faith is not a means to obtaining the hidden treasures God does not advertise but is the means to God Himself.  He is the treasure.  Only faith surmises this truth and only faith accepts it.  God resists being turned into a means Himself.  He is the end as well as the beginning.  

The pursuit of happiness is what America is supposed to be about.  The Declaration of Independence's oft-quoted "unalienable right" of all people is to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."  The problem is that we are not satisfied with the pursuit and look for someone to provide the secret and then to guarantee it to us.  We have sought out happiness in material possessions, success, personal achievement, and relationships but even then the result has proven too temporary for us and failed to deliver the lasting fulfillment we have desired.  It may very well be that the framers of the Declaration knew this.  Were they guaranteeing the inalienable right to "chase happiness" — as "in hot pursuit" or were they admitting that it is not in doing what you want or seeking what you desire that you find happiness?  

C. S. Lewis warns us that seeking happiness from God just as seeking it apart from God is a futile endeavor.  God is not the agent of such happiness but its end.  Whether in the superficial trappings of the material world or our attempt to spiritualize such happiness, God is not the director of entertainment nor is He the provider of happiness outside Himself or in addition to Himself. God gives us Himself.  He is the treasure.  Either this is enough for us or it is not.  Clearly, for many Christians it is not.  In their disappointment at not obtaining a happy heart, they have traded in their faith for bitterness and sought to find happiness elsewhere.  For the Christian, the lure of God is not in what God can do but what He has done and this is its own contentment, peace, and joy.

A musical genius and his work...

Two hundred years ago, on April 6, 1824,  the Missa Solemnis in D major for four solo voices, chorus, and orchestra, Op. 123 by Ludwig van Beethoven (†1827) was performed.  The place was St. Petersburg, Russia.  Ludwig Beethoven never heard the work performed in his lifetime.  He had a piano and composition pupil who ended up becoming his illustrious patron: Archduke Rudolf of Austria (†1831), last-born child of Leopold II (brother of Emperor Francis I).  In deference to his support, the composer honor him by dedicating fifteen of his works to him, including this Missa Solemnis. 

The work was begun by Beethoven in 1819, supposedly for the episcopal consecration of the archduke (March 20, 1820), already a cardinal, who had been appointed archbishop of Olmütz in Moravia.  It ended up being a bigger task and was not finished until much later -- four years later. Beethoven, who never heard the complete performance, had labored over this composition at different times for some four years.  He had studied the sacred music of Palestrina (†1594), Händel (†1759), Bach (†1750), and Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (†1788) in preparation for this greatest of works.  He notes such in the score where in the dedication he hoped that “from the heart it can again reach the heart.”

Beethoven struggled to find money to finance his composition much less the time and inspiration to finish it.  In writing for financial aid to the Grand Duke of Hesse after the long ordeal he felt it would become the "most successful of all his productions. It is a “solemn mass” for four solo singers, choirs, and a large full orchestra, which can also be performed as an oratorio. The undersigned therefore expresses the desire to send a copy to Your Royal Highness and respectfully prays Your Royal Highness to deign to grant permission."  Interesting as well is his note justifying the fee for performance: “As for the Mass, which will soon be performed, the fee is 125 louis d’or. It’s pretty big work. But I must ask you to give me an answer on this matter within no more than a few weeks, otherwise I will lose out, since for all that time I will not be able to offer it to other publishers.”

Though some find this not quite a typical solemn mass and it is certainly not meant for sacred usage, it represents a milestone of the composer's art, from a man struggling with deafness and his own fight with God and for God.

 

 

Half a church is better than . . .

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore made known its plans to close and consolidate parishes from 61 down to 30 worship sites.  As is typical, the plans of such closings are always tagged with a seemingly hopeful, confident, and missional title:  "Seek the City to Come."  Of course, the Bishop admits that such decisions are necessary but will enable the diocese to better serve the people of God.  Of course, they were guided by the Holy Spirit in this and not by statistics or mere numbers.  Of course, the decisions were fair and impartial.  And, of course, they are going to accompany the closings with plans to revitalize the diocese.  Don't forget its Chapter 11 Bankruptcy (which preceded the new last that eliminated the statute of limitations in child sexual abuse claims).  The problems, according to the diocese are low attendance, high maintenance costs and, well, n priests.  Archbishop Lori said. "We will form new communities that are well equipped to carry out the urgent mission before us: announcing the Gospel and helping our neighbors here in the city to encounter the saving love of the Father revealed in Jesus Christ."

Maybe you are excited?  I am not.  Not that some of those church buildings did not need to go but what I lament is that all across orthodox Christianity we seem to believe that downsizing is progress.  Even in Missouri.  There voices within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod who think we should be able to close churches, move resources around, and dump the extra names on the rolls and this will fix what is wrong with us.  Will it?  We have a pretty good track record of closing parish schools and colleges and it has not translated into any revitalization.  We have and continue to invent new programs for revitalization and still the numbers are going in the wrong direction.  We have no shortage of books and talking heads telling what we ought to be doing (of course, I do not mean me, LOL).  Typical, huh!

There is plenty of blame to go around.  Pastors are at fault and must shoulder some of the blame.  People in the pews are at fault and must should some of the blame.  Then we have the world and the devil out there working pretty effectively against us.  So, it is understandable why we are failing, right?  Therein may lie some of the real problem.  We trust anything and everything except God's Word.  We accommodate taste and preference to provide a generic worship experience that will fit everyone's desire.  We adjust the morality to fit the prevailing values and mood of the people and their leaders.  We omit parts of God's Word we find outdated or objectionable.  We focus on today's happiness over holiness or service.  We seldom even mention sin.  We celebrate every sexual desire and affirm every invented gender.  What could possibly go wrong?  Oh, wait, we don't do that officially in the Missouri Synod or in Rome -- or we are not supposed to, right?  But if we are not faithful in the full proclamation of God's Word, we are just as much at fault as those who pick and choose their own gospel for the moment.

I am not saying we need to be naysayers to the world and against the world but we do need to be positive and confident of what we believe for the sake of the world.  We also need to remember that Christians are supposed to be joyful.  If we have lost our joy, how does that impact our witness?  What kind of joy is there in downsizing for Christ?  No, we do not need to be against more things -- just faithful to the God whose Word is our anchor and guide.  Yes, we ought to remember that fruit of the Spirit working in us through the means of grace includes:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  We will not succeed by downsizing either the Gospel or the places where it is proclaimed but what might happen if we actually did show forth in our lives and conduct:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?  We cannot make people believe the Gospel (that is the Spirit's job) but we can certainly give them reasons to not pay attention to it.  It is not the pastor's job or the evangelism committee's job (I wish there were NO more evangelism committees).  It is all our calling to reflect in our life and speech the joy of being the children of God not by works but by grace -- not as an affirmation of our particular predilections but by the rescue of God for a people unworthy of His mercy.

What does this mean?

At the heart of Roman Catholic moral teaching is the affirmation of the dignity of the human self.  That said, I have always had trouble figuring out what this really meant.  That Rome has historically attributed dignity to the human person is abundantly clear but what this actually means has not been quite so clear and is now even more muddled.  The affirmation of human dignity has become intertwined with the somewhat difficult relationship between the Church and the social and political order of the day -- in particular, with the liberal focus on sexual desire and gender identity as the now primary defining markers of that human identity and personhood.

The dignity of the human person sounds great as a phrase but has become increasingly incoherent as a tenet of Roman Catholic faith and life.  This dignity is defined as status within a social and political hierarchy and the respect due those who have such status.  Perhaps it was clearer in the past when the acknowledgement of the dignity possessed by all people and the affirmation of their place within the whole were not skewed by the rampant individualism or distorted by the lack of a common truth and morality.  What does it mean now?

A distinctly Christian anthropology of human nature and personhood cannot simply be defined in terms of what is not.  Indeed, the claim of rights that follows such dignity falsely posits that dignity within the realm of what is owed to the individual person instead of also what is expected of him or her.  It is precisely in the matter of rights that the Christian finds hollow the secular echo of this Christian teaching.  For the Christian, such dignity is not merely a value given by reason or assigned philosophically but inherent in the incarnation, obedience, suffering, and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This dignity is not merely a matter of duty or rights owed but what God has done to rescue and redeem humanity and restore us as His own children and what it means to be His children and to live under Him in His kingdom now and forever.  Furthermore, if such dignity finds no conflict with abortion, sexual promiscuity, the devaluation of marriage and family, the right to make and define your own truth, and the right to die painlessly at the time you choose, this dignity is nothing but secular and has abandoned all pretense of Christian faith and roots.

This is what confuses me most about how this terminology has been used in Roman Catholic moral and social teaching.  Either it has a deep and abiding connection to what we stand for as Scripture informs us or else it contradicts that Word of God.  I find it inconceivable that a church body could find a way to support or affirm such things as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights while at the same time keeping silent about the greatest threat to that dignity both in our failure to hold sacred life from its natural beginning to its natural end and the abandonment of the social structure and order clearly intended by God in creation.  It is like speaking with a forked tongue.  That, by the way, seems to be a common complaint I have against Rome of late.  They say the right words about what they hold to be true and then empty those statements of meaning and power by saying other words that contradict what they have affirmed.  In this respect, it is hard to take Rome seriously.  Are you having the same problem?

 

Long conversations. . .

Inevitably when we talk to people about God they are by nature long conversations.  We think we have to deal with every reasoned objection, every curious detail, and every possible confusion.  We work so very hard to explain God to them as if God were, well, explainable.  I think this is because we truly do believe that we can reason them into the Kingdom of God -- no matter what Luther said about not being able to believe without the aid of the Holy Spirit.  It is a well intentioned fallacy.  Faith is not a deduction.  In fact, it is the other way around.  Everything else flows out of, from, and back to faith.  That, too, is the work of the Spirit.

In contrast, Jesus barely gave lip service to the objections or questions of those to whom He preached the Kingdom.  Most of the time His responses were designed to challenge the hearer more than convince him or her.  His conversation with the rich lawyer left the man unsettled and he left rather than pursue another round with Jesus.  On the other hand, it is remarkable how Jesus could simply bid people come and they did.  Without explanation or information, He called to the disciples, Follow Me, and they dropped everything to do just that.

The longest of Jesus' conversations were blunt -- too blunt for our world of bruised feelings and egos.  Take the woman at the well.  Jesus asks for a drink and she responds that He should have asked.  He tells her that if she knew God and His Word, she would have known to ask Him for a drink.  When she seems to come around, He asks about her immoral life.  "Go get your husband, oh, wait, you have had many husbands and the man you are sleeping with now is not your husband."  What pastor or Christian would try to woo and win a disciple for the Lord with such forthright but impolite statements?  Then in a shift to theology (always safer than morality), Jesus insists that she has it wrong there as well.  Oh dear, wrong move.  Or was it?

It occurs to me that we are still trying to be nicer than Jesus, more winsome, and more reasonable but it is not quite working.  We want to make sense of faith, of morality, of abortion, of sexual desire, of gender identity, of poverty, of illness, of death -- and everything else in between.  Jesus doesn't.  Why do we try and do what He did not?  I am at the end of my full-time life as a pastor and I am just not beginning to realize that I have wasted too much time trying to argue or debate or reason people into the Kingdom -- especially about things for which we have no answers except "Believe."  Maybe it is time we cut short our endless conversations and made them more like Jesus.  Follow Me....  Repent.... Believe...  Those do not seem to be the words on our lips today.  We end up talking more about us than Jesus, more about how wonderful our congregation is than even Jesus, and more about how God gives us answers rather than invites us into the mystery of His steadfast and redeeming love by faith.  So how is that working for us? 

Follow the science... except

Follow the science, goes the rant, except when the science refuses to go where you want it to go.  That in a nutshell describes the blatant politicization of the transgender movement especially with regard to children.  For years now the science has been ignored as the crass political motivation has pushed upon us everything from puberty blockers to radical surgery to correct what is not a physiological problem but a psychological one.  While Americans are locked in a political battle about how to deal with gender dysphoria, the rest of the world has paid at least some attention to the science and decided that the radical solutions offered here are the wrong ones.

Now a final report of a major study in Britain has pushed back even harder on what routinely passes for American medical responses to children who appear to be transgender.  You can read it all here.  The report calls into question those life altering decisions that parents and government seem to be pushing on the parents of and the children who question their gender.  At some point in time it will come to light that the radical measures of puberty blockers and early transitioning along with surgical remedies will be seen for what they are -- child abuse!  

For some who identified as transgender, it is too late.  Their sexual organs are gone and their chance to deal with this issue as an adult were taken from them by people who treated a medical issue and a psychological disorder as if it were a political event.  Adolescents are not in a position to give definitive direction to their future and the role of the parents is not to decide for those who cannot.  Good grief, we refuse to let adolescents sign legal contracts, drive, purchase cigarettes or alcohol, vape, marry, or work without restriction but somebody has decided that they are perfectly capable of deciding a life-altering choice and the role of science, religion, family, and friends is solely to cheer them on.  

Why is it we in America have rushed in where fools do not dare to go?  There can only be one explanation.  We do not want to follow the science but have used science to support and further political and cultural values and decisions.  It was true during Covid and it is even more true in the realm of gender identity.  We dance around words that have meaning and prefer to create words that have none in order to foster and encourage what is real only in the realm of feelings, temporary feelings which should not and cannot be trusted.  Science always knew there was no such thing as potential child and knew the baby in the womb was the same person as the one born.  We did not listen then but treated the child as if it were a foreign object or a personal choice and it has created a mountain of death and grief for us and our nation.  Now we refuse to listen to the science in gender identity and are poised to close our ears to reason as well as fact and create another mountain of pain and suffering.

False mercy. . .

We have some pretty odd ideas about what constitutes mercy.  Many of them are present in the culture and religions that reflect that culture today.  One such idea is that there is no judgment or accountability.  Where is the mercy in that?  That is the worst of all injustices for it means that neither virtue nor evil matter at all.  Every fool knows this is wrong and simply ends up in chaos.  Or some think that if there is a judgment or accountability, mercy would mean that there is no hell or punishment.  That would be the ultimate mercy.  Where is there mercy in that?  In this mercy, again, evil and virtue are the same.  It matters not if the individual acknowledges his sin or not, requests absolution or not.

Mercy does not mean there is no judgment; we need mercy precisely because there is a day of judgment, a moment of accountability in which all that is hidden is revealed along with all that is known.  Mercy does not shrug its shoulders with evil but answers it with something stronger that covers all our sin.  In the same way, mercy does not mean there is no hell; we need mercy precisely because hell does exist and it is real.  Mercy begins with the acknowledgement that there is judgment and there is hell and asks the Almighty for something even bigger than this judgment and its consequence in hell.

There is no mercy in saying there is no test or even that the score does not matter.  Who wants such a pale imitation of mercy?  No one does well if no one is allowed to fail.  We end up with a mercy which gives everyone as many chances as they need, never keeps score, and everyone gets a trophy at the end of it all.  While that might work for T-ball, it does not work in life.  There is no mercy here.  There is not even any God.  Yet this is what passes for mercy among some of the liberals and progressives who can find sin or evil only in those opposed to them and their fanciful ideas of mercy.  This is exactly a gospel without a cross, without sin, and, therefore, with a need for a Savior.

It is no accident that when Jesus appeared to His disciples after the Resurrection, He bestowed upon them the office and the power of the keys.  Mercy is exactly forgiveness and nothing else.  Mercy is not looking aside from our indiscretions or accepting us and leaving just the way we are.  Mercy is the absolution that cost God everything and then He freely bestows it upon us.  This is what God has done -- the unthinkable!  Not minimizing either our sin or our guilt but taking it away with something much more powerful -- the blood of His Son that cleanses us from all our sin.  With this He has also displayed the power of His great love for us -- that the burden and consequence of our wrong was borne upon the shoulders of the innocent Son whom He has sent to be our Savior.

Tolerated but not commended. . .

Over time it becomes tedious to keep repeating it but apparently it must be said again.  Adiaphora does not imply that every choice is equal or equally valid or commendable.  It merely means that no law can be made about it to bind the conscience of people.  It does not mean that every possible choice or preference is equally licit or valid or worthy.

Lutherans have bound themselves to catholic doctrine and practice.  We do refuse to legislate this in such a way that it becomes new rules or commands to be followed but we make it crystal clear in our Confessions that the side you ought to come down on is not how little but how much we retain in church usage, ceremony, ritual, and piety.  We are inclined to keep and permit those who would not keep what we do only because we refuse to legislate such -- not because we really believe less is more.

After Easter and Holy Week with its rich and full devotional life, there are always those who complain about too much and how they prefer a simpler service.  It is their American right both to complain and to have a different preference.  But to presume that preference is all that drives adiaphora or that the Lutheran liturgical principle is actually less is more should dictate what we do or do not do, well, that is simply false.  While less is permitted and no command laid upon to demand more, the Lutheran liturgical perspective is that we keep not cut.  You may not like that or appreciate it but it is embodied in our first and basic Confession.  We are not simply free to cut what we do not like or value or appreciate lest preference become the new pope that determines everything.  Remember that practice and belief are not far from each other and it does not take much of a stretch to make preference into a pick and choose mentality that governs doctrine as well as practice.  In fact, some practices become significantly more because of the denial of doctrine!

So when someone tries to say that adiaphora means it does not matter, they are wrong.  It does.  Not all choices are equal or equally salutary for the life of the faithful.  Remember that the first Lutheran church order produced by the great Reformer was less an order than a set of rubrics on how to use the existing missal (Roman).  That ought to tell you something.  It was not merely a matter of conserving resources but a conservative liturgical principle that said the more is better than the less but no law must demand it -- especially where the more is difficult to sustain.  Lutherans claim to be the Evangelical Catholics Rome ought to be -- not only in matters of doctrine but also in practice.  Strange how it is then that some become more concerned with what is restored to the Divine Service than with what is omitted (until nothing of the Ordo actually is left!).  

By the way, the Pastor is called to model not his own preference but to model the fullest of the ceremonial of the Divine Service so that the people know what belongs to their tradition even when they themselves do not practice it and so that the Pastor does not get to have the dictatorship of his own preference over the preferences of others.  It is not about preference at all no matter whose it is.  We ought to be striving for fullness and never ought to be satisfied with simply the least (costly, effort, or ceremony).  So when a pastor says he does not do this or that because that is just not me, he is teaching the people it is all about the person and nothing else.  That is also a false idea of adiaphora!

Taking down the family. . .

The recent outrage over the address by Harrison Butker is revealing on many levels.  The critics are revolted by the very idea that the family is the center of our lives and the foundation of our culture and society.  They were offended by the idea that husband and wife would sacrifice for the sake of marriage and children.  This ought to be alarming to Christians and to those concerned for the well-being of our nation.  This family has been the most basic social unit and the very foundation of all human civilization.  It is written into our DNA.  But now it is the family that is under attack and the cultural and political left in America are working very hard to destroy the identity of the family and replace it with a confused ideal of self-authentification which references everything in feelings and mostly sexual feelings at that.  

When we found ourselves filling out marriage certificates without reference to husband or wife and birth certificates without reference to mother and father, we began the formal and governmental sanctioned program of eliminating the family as we know it. There have always been liberals and progressives who believed that government knew better than any mom or dad and who have raised up education and child care as the better substitute for the family of old.  They were on the fringes.  Now the work of sexual liberation and the triumph of sexual desire and the eruption of brand new genders has moved this work into the mainstream.  It is not in the saltwater regions of our nation or in the liberal enclaves of the urban dwellings but has become normative for every educational institution, library board, book list, and law governing our social order and affecting it.  This is not about the release of desire or the triumph of the feeling over the body but about the destruction of the family.  While you might expect such a judgment from the folks at "The View," “Today with Hoda & Jenna” co-hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager also ripped Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker for his faith-based commencement speech at Benedictine College.  Even the NFL had to distance themselves from Butker -- as if this group has any moral authority left for its choice of the dollar over the abusive and indulgent lives of its star players.

Whether you are J. K. Rowling or Harrison Butker, you dare not offend against the prevailing mores of a culture designed almost exclusively to destroy the family.  Target is but one major business and industry which is seeking to capitalize on this modern notion as businesses become also instruments of the new values and new shapes of society.  The only diversity that matters to these groups is the one that is about sexual attraction and gender identity.  If you get in their way, they will work to take you down and this works only because the overwhelming number of Christians are either silent on this matter or complicit in it.  Where is the compassion and love that would chemically abort the child in the womb and then laud this as the noble thing to do?  Where is the respect for life that would insist more than a dollar sign defines the value of life -- from its natural beginning to its natural end?  Children are essential to God's order but optional and probably not even all that welcome in the evolving order of society today.

Christians need to realize that there is no desire to enter what we have known and defined as marriage and the family by those with disordered attractions and confused identities.  They do not want what we have but want to destroy it and they use not only our silence but our shopping dollars to support their cause.  How odd it is that we live in a world in which you can make a football star a hero and all he has to do is to repeat what everyone knew and believed only a couple of generations ago!  But the enemies of marriage and the family have been effective and productive.  They have changed the minds of the youngest generations and it is routine now to find youth who reject marriage and have no desire for children.  You can call them selfish but the reality is that the subliminal message of the past and its now painfully obvious cause have been skewing the hearts and minds of the next generation to reject what they themselves knew growing up.  It is not the loss of an institution but the destruction of the very foundation of our life together. 

Observant. . .

Although I grew up without the term in my vocabulary, observant was very much a part of nearly every church in my small Nebraska town.  On Sunday mornings, the Methodists made their way to the Methodist Church, the Evangelical Covenant folk to theirs (we called them Mission Covenant back then), the Swedish Lutherans to theirs, and headed out of town were the German Lutherans and the Roman Catholics (their congregations not having a facility in town).  It was expected.  In fact, I hardly knew anyone who did not go somewhere to church.  If you believed, you observed this belief with attendance; if you did not believe you just might be seen in church as well since it was a good thing to do.   

Serving on Long Island I encountered the distinction between observant and unobservant religious affiliation primarily in terms of the Jews very well represented there.  In addition to discovering that Jews also had denominations (Reformed, Conservative, etc.), I discovered that Jews routinely distinguished their Judaism in terms of those observant Jews who attended synagogue somewhere and those who did not (or only at the high holy days).  It also revealed the depth of the religious practices of the home (from kosher diets and kitchen appointments to none).  For a long time it was the only thing I thought about.  Now it seems so common I hardly ever think about it at all.

Our culture is in love with those who break the mold and are distinctive -- at least in so far as they are out of step with the generations before and traditional anything -- including religion!  We are a culture of unobservant people with respect to the social mores, morals, values, virtues, institutions, and beliefs of those who came before us.  At one point this was reflected in those who insisted that whatever it was, it was not your grandfathers!  How cool.  In reality, of course, it is not cool to be unobservant or non-practicing.  It is thoroughly pedestrian and group think to refuse not simply to believe but to find any value to the values and piety of the religion of your ancestors.  Biden is a good Roman Catholic precisely because he is not all that Roman Catholic -- in doctrine anyway.  It is the same for most people who have a practice but distance themselves from the kernel of what is believed.  Nobody should blindly follow anything or anyone, right?  Except that this is exactly what is being done.  When out of fear of what others might think or judge we distance ourselves from the body of doctrine and from its practice, we are being very traditional (in a different way).  Being observant is the new and real radical thing to be and to do.

Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson had little time or use for traditional religion and did not waste their time showing up.  On the other hand, George Washington (who could have been King) was known for his faithful presence in worship (Anglican usually).  Unlike the loudmouths of Franklin and Jefferson who routinely shouted out their contempt, no one really knew what Washington did believe but they did see how he worshiped.  Now some might call Washington a hypocrite.  That would be a false and harsh judgment unless someone actually knows what was in his heart.  Let God be the judge.  What Washington refused to be was a loud mouth bore.  We have too many of them today.  Some of them are the religious who find fault with everyone and everything as if God had made them judge and jury.  Most of them, however, are media folk and the educated elite in America who use their power to disrupt the religious beliefs and practices of others (mostly orthodox Christians!).  Curiously enough, even those who claim adherence seem to enjoy some distance -- after all, less then 40% at best and 20% at worst of those who belong even shop up on Sunday morning.  Biden the Roman Catholic who celebrates Trans Day instead of Easter is an example but he is hardly different from those who insist they are, say, Lutheran, but seldom show up.  Observance is the companion to belief and if a few more of us practiced what we say we believed the world might find it harder to use their loud mouths to condemn us.  We have enough peer pressure against faith and practice.  Let us use a little peer pressure for it.

"Private" Masses

One of the objections of the Lutheran Reformation was to the practice of so-called private masses.  By the time of Luther and the reformers, this had come to mean a mass without servers or congregation, the private mass of the priest as part of his individual piety and within the scope of his priestly duty or responsibility.  Now you might presume that this practice was old and well established by this time.  Old is a relative term and the individual priestly celebration of the mass was old but no older than one or two hundred years by the time of Luther.

We must distinguish the private mass of the priest from the small masses that did in fact include servers and a congregation, albeit a very small community.  Apparently, once Christianity was legal and had begun to construct church buildings, these small masses become problematic.  At the beginning of the 6th century, a ban was introduced on such celebrations of the mass in private homes on feast days and therefore outside official places of worship (extra parochias, in villa.  Again, there is scant evidence that this ever included what had become typical in the sixteenth century of a priest saying mass without server or congregation of any size.  While this does prove that these private and small celebrations of the mass were persistent and did not seem to give way to the parochial celebration of the church, the discipline of this ban was not toward “private” private masses.  In fact, this could be explained as the episcopal leadership calling the local church to the public mass of the church building which he saw being neglected by some.

What are truly “private” masses can be found clearly in the 13th century.  In fact, the Franciscan missal Regula which was published around 1230 and which preserved almost word for word the now extinct missal of Honorius III (1216-1227), gives us the most clear notice of a private mass.  “Sed si sunt plures sacerdotes in loco, secrete possunt cantare missam quam volunt”.   In 1243, an ordo missæ was for the first time published solely for the “private” mass, the Ordo “Indutus planeta.”  This seems to indicate the time when the norm for the Eucharistic liturgy became the private mass -- somewhat to the detriment of the solemn public liturgy.  This was a direct ancestor of the Ritus servandus in celebratione Missæ of the 1570 missal.  Only a few years before this, in 1226, Saint Francis of Assisi emphatically recommended to his brothers that, if several priests were in the same place, only one Mass should be celebrated per day, and that all should attend.  It would seem to be a significant discouragement for each priest celebrating the mass alone and individually. 

Such a private mass, according to Jungmann, is "a Mass celebrated for its own sake, with no thought of anyone participating, a Mass where only the prescribed server is in attendance..."  Though it ended up defending the practice, the first draft of the Council of Trent’s decree on the Mass urged that private masses not be celebrated without at least two persons present.  While there is a tradition for it, the private or solitary mass represents a eucharistic practice which has almost no justification in the church’s tradition and in that respect cannot be called traditional. The priestly discipline that became normative has no real stature or standing in the theology or doctrine of the Eucharist of the Church that went before this time.  My point in this is not really to say anything except that what had become normal by the time of Luther was technically an aberration or oddity only a hundred or more years before.  Luther's objections were therefore directed to something that was not an old and cherished tradition of Christianity through the ages but a more medieval invention that over a hundred years or more become normative and, at least in the eyes of the Reformers, an objectionable practice.  It is good to remember that maybe it was because it was an evolution or invention the private mass was rejected by the Reformers and remains suspect among their heirs today.

Keeping Sabbath. . .

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 4B, preached on Sunday, June 2, 2024.

Jesus had much to say about Sabbath keeping because there were so many rules about keeping the Sabbath.  These rules went far beyond the requirements of Exodus 31.  There the Lord insists that keeping the Sabbath is a sign between God and His people throughout the generations and a means by which and the acknowledgment of God’s sanctifying work among us.  It had become a rigid and overbearing duty placed upon the people of God that became also its own focus and not a means to resting in the Lord.

I wish sometimes that we were in that position today.  We are not.  There are few Sabbath keepers today and the rules once rigid have become as flexible as we want them to be.  The reality is that on the Sabbath, we do what we want.  If we want to go to Church, we do.  If we don’t, we don’t.  If we want to get groceries, we do.  If we don’t, we don’t.  If we want to go out to eat, we do.  If we don’t, we don’t.  If we want to work on the yard, we do.  If we don’t, we don’t.  If we want to catch up on our occupational work, we do.  If we don’t, we don’t.  Do you get the pattern?  The Sabbath is not much about the Lord for us but for different reasons than it was not much about the Lord in Jesus’ day.  In both cases, we have missed the point.

The first reminder here is that the Sabbath is not optional anymore than it is optional to us to if we want to murder or lie or fornicate or commit adultery.  The Sabbath is not a suggestion to us anymore than it is mere suggestion that you should not covet or deceive or defame.  These are commands.  The Sabbath is a command.  You shall remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.  The Pharisees got it wrong because they messed up what it means to keep it holy.  We mess up because we have no Sabbath at all.  Both are the problem.

Jesus insists that the Sabbath, like every other commandment, is given to us not to punish us or steal our joy but to bless us and fill our joy.  This is as true for a life in which marriage is honored and children and life and reputation and possessions as it is for a life in which God is honored as the Lord of creation and the God of our salvation.  We are as guilty as the Pharisees in missing this as we are guilty of refusing to let God be the focus of the Sabbath.  The commandments were given for our good whether we can keep them or not.  Even the Sabbath Day!  Yes, the holy obligation of hearing the Word preached and receiving from the Lord’s altar the body and blood of Jesus are command that come with blessing attached.

When our Lord’s disciples were chastened by the Pharisees for harvesting grain for food on the Sabbath, they presumed that the Lord of the Sabbath disregarded the earthly needs of His people and instead commanded them to go without in order to serve the commandments.  It was the same when Jesus healed on the Sabbath.  When our Lord refuses to bend to the Pharisees’ view of the Sabbath, He was not suggesting that the rules do not matter.  Rather, Jesus was defining the rules by God’s gracious and merciful intent – to provide for the bodily and spiritual needs of His people.  God strengthens us body and soul.  We do not get to choose between body and soul because He did not choose between them.

The Pharisees would have insisted that it is a choice and your own needs are secondary to the command of God to observe the Sabbath.  Jesus insists that it is not a choice and that the Sabbath is gift for the soul as much as food and shelter are gifts for the body.  But that is clearly not our problem today.  We do not have religious leaders insisting that we must not cook or travel or conduct business on the Lord’s day.  We have a world in which none of the days are the Lord’s and all of them belong to us to do as we choose and see fit.

The Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ, by His death and resurrection.  This fulfillment was never meant to release us from any duty or delight to the Word and Sacraments of the Lord but rather so that God might fill all our days and not just one.  Luther’s catechism clearly hits this by focusing not on the day or the lack of work but the direction of the worship day and our lives upon the preaching of God’s Word.  Our problem today is not restrictions laid upon us that prevent us from seeing Christ in the Sabbath as it was with the Pharisees but just the opposite. We have abused our freedom to do anything and everything on the Lord’s Day except value and make central the preaching of His Word and the reception of His Holy Sacraments.

While we can blame the world for scheduling school and sports events on Sundays and stores for doing business and the like, they are not the problem.  They are the symptom.  The problem lies in our hearts.  Do we love the Lord’s Word and value His gifts so that these means of grace command the full attention of our hearts, minds, and lives OR do we find worship to be an intrusion upon our day and resist the whole idea that our time and our lives are in God’s hands?  Today no one would complain that the disciples harvested or Jesus healed on the Sabbath but we all find plenty of reasons why we don’t feel like or want to be in Church.

The rules of the Sabbath have not changed.  Jesus did not release us from those rules.  He opened up the Sabbath so that it could be what it was always supposed to be – the reflection of God’s people upon God’s mercy as they hear the Word of the Lord and joyfully respond with faith.  The end of the Sabbath does not come at the end of Sunday any more than it came at the end of Saturday in the Old Testament.  The end of the Sabbath comes when everything is about Jesus and we are gathered around Him on high, around the Lamb upon His throne, joined with the saints who went before, praising His goodness, and being filled with His mercies in the Marriage Feast of the Lamb without end.

If we do not connect what happens here with what will happen at the end of all things, then the Sabbath will always be about rules we do not want to keep and time we reserve for ourselves instead of for God.  But once we connect this Word preached today and this altar where today we receive the foretaste of the eternal, then the Sabbath is revealed for what God had always intended.  Then it has its focus not on rules or on us but on Christ.  That is what it means for Him to be Lord of the Sabbath.  He is where He has promised to be, in Word and Sacrament, bestowing what He has promised to give, in forgiveness, life, and salvation – and we are where we need to be, joyfully hearing, eating, and drinking that Christ may live in us and we in Him – now and to everlasting life.  Amen.

The problem of pain. . .

In his 1940 book The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis argues that presence of pain is an insufficient reason to reject belief in a good and powerful God.  Lewis writes that he is "not primarily arguing the truth of Christianity but describing its origin - a task ... necessary if we are to put the problem of pain in its right setting."  Of course, he addresses the common complaint:  "If God were good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy, and if He were almighty He would be able to do what he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both."  What God cannot or will not do for us, we will do for ourselves.  We will answer the problem of pain with pain relievers, shifting the problem from death to pain and the solution away from the resurrection to relief of the pain.  The gods of big pharma are certainly attuned to the want of our culture and society to find a life free of pain and a death without pain when you are over it all.  I wonder what C. S. Lewis would think of the world we have created with all of its expectations.

We find it hard to understand a God or anyone who would not or cannot relieve suffering and pain if it is possible to do so.  The morality of it all has shifted from the reason for suffering to the immorality of those who will not do everything in their power to prevent or relieve it.  On top of it all, we have equated all suffering to be equal -- whether imagined, real, mental, emotional, or physical.  There is no distinction.  Even if it is self-imposed.  Suffering and pain are bad.  The gods of our age relieve suffering and pain and do not worry about the morality of how they do it.  The worst suffering and pain of all is the word "no."  Self-denial is not exactly in our vocabulary today and so orthodox Christianity grows less attractive by the day and a new version of Christianity which accords with our presuppositions about pain daily increases in attractiveness to us.  Added to that, at least in the eyes of the unchurched, the Christian faith is in competition with big pharma and our health care conglomerates intent upon answering every new pain with a new medication or treatment regimen.  

Oddly enough, the whole idea that faith is to insulate us from pain and suffering goes smack dab against the words of Jesus.  He promises rejection, persecution, imprisonment, and even death to those who would take up the cross to follow Him.  Even worse, He calls upon us to deny ourselves.  Let us not forget that He invites us to make sacrifice the hallmarks of our marriages, families, and witness.  On top of that, St. Paul insists that to join Christ in suffering is not a punishment to be avoided but the most precious privilege of identity and belonging.  The problem of pain is not what Christ came for.  Pain is a byproduct of faithfulness -- it was in the beginning of Christianity and it remains so.  Somehow or other we have forgotten this and harbored the secret hope that if we are faithful enough we will be kept from the sufferings and struggles of this mortal life and delivered pain free into the perfect life of our imagination in heaven.  How deeply have we misunderstood our Lord and raised a false expectation of what it is like to walk with Jesus!  The more we can do to distance ourselves from this imagined Christianity, the better it will be for us and for those who hear the Word through us.  But it may prove hard for us to let go of such an enticing expectation even if it is not authentic or true.

Happy Anniversary!

This is a big anniversary year for Lutherans -- in 1524 in Germany the first Lutheran hymnal was published.  Down through the centuries, more and more have followed with each generation and each gift added to the preservation of what came before.  The book today is not merely a hymnal but a prayer book and devotional tool for home and for the individual.  But first a brief survey of the years...

The hymns of Martin Luther became the songs of the moment, first published on broadsheets like a newsletter and circulated among the populace.  Their virtue was the ability to be memorized and not depend upon the printed form.  In 1524, some enterprising printers put together the first Lutheran collection of hymns.  They were followed by counterparts in Nürnberg, Augsburg, and Erfurt and, yes,  Wittenberg.  There the Geystliche gesangk Buchleyn appeared with Luther’s own preface the same year.  Luther himself promoted and continued to work with evangelical musicians and composers such as Johann Gottfried Walter until five years later the first Wittenberg hymnal had been expanded, revised, and augmented.  New editions appeared in 1533, 1535, and 1543, the Begräbnisgesänge (burial hymns) of 1542, and the 1545 Geystliche Lieder (published in Leipzig by Valentin Babst with 129 hymns including forty-five by Luther himself).

After Luther died, Lutheran hymnals continued to be written and published with Luther's own name on the title page to remind the readers of Luther's approval of the hymn and chorale.  By 1569, the Nürnberg hymnal published by Valentin Fuhrman had swelled to 213 hymns and in thirty years it increased by another 125 hymns.  These were largely entrepreneurial ventures instead of authorized productions just as with other kinds of Lutheran literature.  During the sixteenth century alone, these printers published some 192 editions of the complete German Bible printed, 252 of the New Testament alone, 330 printings of the Small Catechism, and  Lutheran prayer books together appeared in 373 editions and some 1,500 Lutheran hymn editions. 

The first Wittenberg hymnal of 1524 had four-part settings of Luther’s hymns and was intended for school use, in order to “give the young . . . something to wean them away from love ballads and carnal songs and to teach them something of value in their place.”  In addition to the role of the choirs in leading the liturgy in general, the weekday offices of Matins and Vespers were the particular province of the schoolboys, who were supplied with the ancient Latin hymns as well as new Lutheran ones by Philip Melanchthon and his students.  The classes were in Latin but the boys sang in both Latin and in German.  From 1529 onward, Lutheran hymnals contained a section of  “catechism hymns.” Beginning with his hymns on the Ten Commandments and the Creed, Luther composed hymns corresponding to each part of the Small Catechism.  These were expanded in the next generations with Nicolaus Herman’s hymn on absolution (“ ‘As Surely as I Live,’ God Said,” LSB 614) and Ludwig Helmbold’s summary of the entire catechism (“Lord, Help Us Ever to Retain,” LSB 865).  These hymns were the means by which students memorized and understood the Catechism and they were sung in the Sunday afternoon catechism preaching services.

Today we tend to use the Lutheran hymnals as less devotional tool and resource for the home than as instrument for corporate worship.  This is to our poverty, to be sure.  Furthermore, the practice of printing out hymns (and omitting stanzas) as well as putting the music on screens only distances the people from the ordinary uses of the Lutheran hymnals in the home and within the devotional life of the individual.  But the Lutheran hymnal is not a relic of the past; it is still very much a profound and effective tool for learning, expressing, and finding comfort in the faith.  Our own Lutheran Service Book is not old but is will soon turn 20 years of age and, as it takes nearly a decade to produce a new or revised book, it will continue to service us for another decade or more.  That said, the hymnals of today need to find a medium between change for change's sake and failing to change until it makes change nearly impossible.  Lutherans should not be afraid of a new hymnal just as Lutherans should make sure that, as Norman Nagel once wrote, we preserve the best of the past while adding our own best, thus renewing what is old and discerning the value of what is new.

The starting point. . .

Having heard a month or so ago the words of Jesus gently chiding St. Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed," it might be good to flesh that out a bit.  Thomas, like the rest of the apostles, thought seeing was believing.  It did not work so well for Thomas, as we all know, but we also forget that it did not work out so well for the other apostles, either.  They had seen the Lord, seen His hands and side, and heard His voice on Easter evening but the following week they were still behind locked doors.  In other words, they saw but the believing part of it all did not come quickly or easily.

How easy it is to fall into the trap of believing that if you see, you will believe.  The reality is always the other way around.  Surely this is what Luther was keen on conveying in his explanation to the Third Article of the Apostles' Creed.  I cannot by my own reason or strength [eyes, ears, and all my senses] believe...  Seeing is not believing but just the opposite.  Believing is seeing.  Faith opens the eyes and not the eyes open the mind and heart to faith.  

That also translates about believing and understanding.  We have come to think that the path to faith is explanation, comprehension, and understanding.  So the goal of the preaching and teaching is to take what is complicated and explain it -- dare I say make it simple?   At some point we turned the worship and awe and reverence of the mystery of God into a didactic and reasoned explanation.  So, as Walther once complained, the lecture hall has replaced the temple and the sermon has made the preacher into the debater or orator.  We turn faith into an acceptance of and comprehension of a series of theological statements instead of the trust in God's mystery engendered by the power of the Spirit.  To make this into a pithy phrase, we don't understand to believe, we believe to understand.  

It is not that reason is bad or that faith is blind but where you begin.  Faith is borne of the hearing of God's Word and the Spirit's work in that speaking and hearing.  Faith is not the aha moment or reasoned conclusion of a consideration of the evidence.  Faith is the Holy Spirit inhabiting the mind and heart through the spoken Word and imparting trust where there was none.  Faith is the not the fruit of truths rendered reasonable but the unreasoned truths of God's Word [truth] that produce the fruit of trust and confession.  

As important as this is, the reality of our current age is that we no longer see to believe or believe to see -- all of this lies upon the holy altar of our feeling and preference.  Understanding is not believing nor is believing the means to understanding but rather both surrender to the higher value of feeling and, to some extent, experience.  This faith relies upon and arises from the revelation made to the prophets and apostles who wrote the canonical books but not to learning in general or to the revelation that has arisen from learned men.  Oddly enough, in our current age learning itself and learned men are suspect and must defer to the experience or feeling of the individual who becomes not only the arbiter of truth but also its definer.  It is no surprise, therefore, that the Reformation period and Luther are as uncomfortable in our modern era as is Aquinas.