Law and Gospel

I grew up with the admonition that politeness and courtesy were never optional.  Whether you faced people you despised or were looking across the table at your enemies, the uncommon common virtues of politeness were not to be forgotten.  Maybe it is the perennial niceness of the Swedish culture or the stoic face of the German ancestry, but the truth is I find it hard to preach the Law in full accusatory manner.  Never mind that I am a wimp at heart, would rather have my folks love me, and grew up in an age in which the Law was preached always to us and not to you, the truth is I find it hard to speak the Law with the full weight of its power in personal address to the hearer.  I suspect I am not alone.

On one hand, the Law is silent because people think anything said about sin or any call to repentance or any encouragement to holiness of life and conduct is an attempt to elevate yourself above others.  In particular, the preacher finds out how quickly someone replies to the Law rightly proclaimed by saying "Your not perfect, either."  Well, that goes without saying now doesn't it?  If preachers had to pass a sin test before mounting the pulpit, there would be no preaching.  Even saintly St. Paul lamented loud and often his own sin and unworthiness -- all the while preaching loud and often the Law and calling the people of God to walk worthy.

On the other hand, the Law is unwelcome because people misunderstand the Gospel.  Those who presume that Jesus died so that we would no longer talk about sin or there would no longer be anything called sin have a false idea of the Gospel.  The cross only makes sense if sin is deep enough and powerful enough to keep us from cleaning up our own house and setting ourselves right before the Father.  Otherwise, it is a cruel joke to have Jesus suffer and die only to prove He loves us.  Jesus did not die to silence the Law but to fulfill it.  No longer can anyone claim a righteousness before the Law nor should they.  Christ is our righteousness.  That said, this Gospel does not erase the call to be holy as God is holy.  The call to Christian living has been muted by those who insist God wants us to be happy even if what makes us happy is contrary to His Word.  With this, the Gospel has become less about Jesus than a principle of love, acceptance, and toleration in which we judge no one and nothing wrong (except the things that would keep us from doing what we want).

I will say this.  We tend to preach as preachers and hear as hearers through the lens of our own weakness, pain, and shame.  This is the problem for those who mount the pulpit and this is the problem for those who sit in the pews.  We have selective hearing and we speak selectively.  This is a problem for the Law but it is also a Gospel issue.  Pastors find it hard to preach on sensitive topics that some will take wrongly and people are glad for pastors who shy away from those subjects.  In so doing, however, we blunt the Law AND the Gospel.  Jesus' blood has taken on every sin but if we are not ready to address sin with the blood of Christ, people will still live in bondage to sin.  Pastors need to be set free from their fears of what people might think but the people need to be set free from their sin through the Gospel.  All of this requires and expects that both will be preached honestly and fairly -- not as a recipe for a good sermon but as the text itself addresses and expects.  That is the value of the lectionary.  It forces preachers to take on topics they might rather ignore and to address them honestly.  I would be lying if I did not admit that sometimes I winced after proclaiming the text and then saying "The Gospel of the Lord."  Some of them did not quite sound like happy words.  But the Gospel is not about happiness.  It is always about holiness.  The goal of the preacher matches the goal of Scripture -- not to make us happy but to make us holy through the blood of Christ and to transform our hearts to desire such holiness.  The Spirit's work makes this hit home and turns the sermon from lecture into real preaching.

Segregated Sundays . . .

In 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. noted, “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.”   In the wake of the BLM and protests that once figured large in headlines, and, according to polls, that assertion remains pretty much as true today as it was when King spoke it.  Something like 80% of American Christians congregate in weekly worship services where a single racial or ethnic group comprises the overwhelming majority of the congregation.  I have no reason to dispute that.  What I do dispute is whether this is, in and of itself, a sign or symptom of racism, specifically the institutional racism that is charged against so many institutions in America, including the Church.

I should note that I belong to a denomination which, despite its historical outreach toward Black Americans and its very diverse face including its overseas missions, is overwhelmingly white.  You might even say painfully white -- given the efforts to increase the presence of a people of color in our congregations, colleges, and seminaries.  Though we are not the most white Lutheran group in America, we are more white than we wish we were or thought we would be at this point.  My own congregation is probably more diverse than the Missouri Synod but not as racially mixed as we might like.  Therein lies the issue.

Diversity is not a bad thing but it is not always a good thing either.  Before you get ready to attack me, hear me out.  When I first came to Clarksville, Tennessee, more than 30 years ago, a highly respected Black pastor told me this:  Brother Larry, if any Black people come to your church, send them to me and if any white people come to my church, I will send them to you.  He said this without apology, not as a joke, but earnestly as a Black preacher who believed that the culture of the Black church in America was worth preserving even it it meant that the churches were segregated on Sunday mornings.  I understand what he was saying and believe that many prominent voices in the local Black community know what he meant and still believe there is truth in it.  I also felt it keenly since I belonged to a church body in which the German culture and language was preserved until it could no longer be -- especially in the wake of the Nazis and WWII.

No one is saying that diversity cannot exist or should not exist.  In fact, my own parish was on the cutting edge of the issue when, in its first constitution in 1959, it insisted that this congregation would not discriminate on the basis of race.  Given the complexion of race relations at that time and in the coming years, it was a bold statement to make and I believe it was sincere.  Yet despite being open, we have not attracted many from the Black community.  Sadly, we have even lost Black Lutherans to churches of other denominations in Clarksville that were predominantly Black.  Some of them told us they felt the pressure from their peers to leave a predominantly white congregation and join one in the Black community.

Jesus intended that the Gospel would extend to every race and place when they departed Jerusalem for the corners of the earth.  The Church IS an example of this diversity and the various complexions in the Church are testament to this.  But do the pews have to reflect this international diversity in a particular congregation in a particular place?  Segregation may take place for a variety of reasons that are not all as evil and vile as racism -- including the preservation of culture.  I know of Greeks who lament the loss of their culture once so profoundly identified with their Greek Orthodox congregations.  The same is true of many immigrant groups in America.  Preservation of culture and language has been as roundly condemned as the racism whose policy of hatred left its long dark shadow on American history.

I grew up in a different kind of segregated community.  Swedes and Germans lived side by side but worshiped in different congregations and in a different language for much of that history.  They would be seen by others as two sides of the same coin but they did not see themselves that way.  Their ethnic differences and linguistic divisions were preserved not out of exclusion but out of affection for their identity.  Perhaps there were jokes about which group was better but they shopped at the same stores and worked in the same occupations without rancor.  They just wanted to preserve some of their history and identity.  Is that a terrible thing?  

I think the same is true of many Blacks in my own community.  We have no segregated schools or businesses and it is boringly common here to see mixed race families and children and all are accepted pretty much at face value without complaint.  But on Sunday mornings the Christians part their ways and show forth distinct choices that are not necessarily divisive or racist -- even though to an outsider that is exactly how it appears.  Of course, I am not saying that prejudice has been overcome or that there are not divisions born of animosity and racism but it is certainly not the sanctioned prejudice of three or four generations ago.

Still the fire still burns.  “If you were recruiting for a white supremacist cause on a Sunday morning, you’d likely have more success hanging out in the parking lot of an average white Christian church—evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, or Catholic—than approaching whites sitting out services at the local coffee shop.”   At least that is how Robert B. Jones in his book, White Too Long, sees it. According to him, practicing Christians (of any kind) are more racist than non-Christians or non-practicing Christians.  Maybe you agree.  I do not.  I do think that the segregation we see on Sunday morning may not be racist although it can be in places and among some people.  It can also be a benign effort to preserve distinctly culture elements of an identity.  That may be easier said of Black congregations than of white but it should not be.  I long for the day when race no longer divides us but I hope and pray that we can figure out a way to preserve language and culture without becoming as intolerant of this as we ought to be for racism.

Now the harder question is surely this -- what constitutes culture and what is pan-cultural or above culture?  In other words, it is an easier discussion to watch who walks in and out of any congregation and make judgments like racist or inclusive but it is a much more difficult and touchy thing to actually evaluate what happens therein.  In other words, besides language, what elements are legitimately cultural without affecting the truthfulness or orthodoxy of that church and what violates that truth or orthodoxy?  It seems to me that here is the harder struggle.  Especially if that culture provides cover for things that are not catholic and apostolic.  For the Gospel transcends culture.  Indeed, it creates its own culture.  And that is a question I do not have room to expand upon here and now but it is a question at least as important as the one about the segregation of Sunday mornings.

Pope-u-larity. . .

Since I was not alive in the 1900 years past, I cannot say whether or not the pope was as pivotal to Rome then as it certainly is today.  In fact, for a Lutheran the problem of the papacy is magnified by the almost godlike character applied to those who sit upon the throne in the Vatican.  As a Lutheran, I am certainly happy to grant the authority of this man as Bishop of Rome and, as we have repeatedly said, accept him as a spokesman for Christianity and leader of all in that sense, the petrocentrism of Rome is all or nothing.  Yes, there were some grumbles about the legitimacy of Francis when the man they wanted was in retirement.  I could have joined them since at least Benedict was orthodox and knew something of Lutheranism.  Even then the centrality of the papal office was apparent with an occupant most serious minded Christians did not like or respect.  They held their noses and prayed for him and paid attention to him because in the Roman Church he was and this new pope is the only game in town.

The modern papacy changed when, one hundred fifty-five years ago, the newly formed nation of Italy proclaimed victory and Pope Pius IX stayed behind the walls of the Vatican.  People thought then that the papacy was finished.  Little did they know.  From Vatican I on, the papacy became larger than life.  In the wake of Vatican II, then Pope Paul VI was able to flaunt what was written by the Council and effect his  (or those of his advisors)  radical changes in just about everything starting with the Mass.  The previous Leo was the main beneficiary of Vatican I and the current Leo seems to have learned a thing or two from his mentor.  Good popes and bad ones have come along and most folks might think of him as Americans think of those in Washington -- those who do less are better than those who try to do more.  The problem of the papacy is magnified as he and his office are expanded until they have sucked all the air out of nearly every room.

All politics is local.  That is what Rome seems to have forgotten.  Take, for example, the uproar by Bishop Martin of Charlotte.  He is the personification of what is wrong with Rome on a global scale.  He thinks everything is about him -- from his liturgical preferences to nearly everything else.  That is certainly what Francis thought.  As an upswing, both John Paul II and Benedict XVI were too busy with theology to mandate that everyone had to be them but Paul VI and Francis let it go to their heads.  Whatever affection outside of Rome for the likes of JPII or BXVI withered in the face of Francis confusing confession and false humility that hid his domineering side.  If the Pope is all there is to Rome, then Rome is in bigger trouble than ever.  For all the talk of 1.45 Billion people, count the noses of those at Mass on a given Sunday and you have a better gauge of who and what Rome is.  You can have the best Pope in the world but if the local congregations are in rough shape, what does it matter?  Lutherans need to pay attention to this lest we invest savior into the job description of those who lead us as well.

I truly do hope that Leo will undo what damage Francis did but I also hope he will stay off the hot mic on the airplane, give less interviews to reporters, and spend less time trying to be me than Francis did.  The more that Rome becomes synonymous with the Pope and the Pope with Rome, the greater the problems within Rome and for ecumenism in general.  I suspect that most folks outside of Rome are like me.  We long for an orthodox, pious, well-spoken, patient, and faithful leader of the Vatican.  It helps us who contend for the faith in our own neck of the woods.  But none of us needs a pope-u-larity contest winner or a petrocentristic church in Rome.  Not even Lutherans.  

Catechisms in glass, wood, and stone. . .

As most of you know, I have a fascination with church architecture.  I have more books on the subject than I care to admit and did not let go of them when I downsized my library.  It is in part simply an affection for good church architecture that serves well its liturgical purpose and, on the other hand, a morbid curiosity for the egregious examples of those that work against its liturgical purpose and are just plain ugly.  Recently I put together a title for a blog post that would touch upon this interest.  Catechisms in glass, wood, and stone.  That is how we ought to regard architecture in the Church.

I wish that this thought were universal.  Sadly, the banal is less sinister to the need and function of the Church than those things which are plainly novel.  I think of churches trying to look like ships (either internally or externally) or those designed to be like living rooms or family rooms without the necessary height or focus suitable for the liturgy.  Even the warehouses of metal have the potential to be finished for their purpose and rendered more suitable for the liturgical gathering of God's people around His Word and Table.  As Lifeway's endless polling has demonstrated, even those outside the faith expect and want churches to look like churches and not to have deceptive architecture which masks their purpose or identity or trendy looks that trade in their soul for what is avant garde.

Those planning churches (fewer than in other ages) would do well to carefully select an architect or a firm which specializes in liturgical church design.  Yes, there are such even though they might not be local.  Those working to repair what they have inherited should be concerned more with how they serve their purpose than how well they fit the modern vibe.  We do not need buildings that fit the whim of the moment but cannot serve their essential purpose.  Above all, it is good to remember that buildings also teach -- even when that teaching is at odds with what goes on inside.  What you are building or what you are remodeling is literally a catechism in glass, wood, and stone.  Don't forget this and you will not likely go terribly wrong.

What happens on Sunday morning seldom can demand our every attention for the entire time.  Everyone knows our minds wander and we have distractions which we carried in with us as well as those we observe while there.  I once had to instruct nearly 200 people to stop looking at a bird who had infiltrated God's house and was swooping around the sanctuary and to keep their attention focused upon the eternal Gospel which God had placed in their midst in His Word and Sacraments.  Distractions are all around us and deep inside of us and the building either will aid the task of restoring our attention to what God is doing or they will assist the flight of our imagination exiting from God's sacramental presence.  Before the stained glass had been installed, one person lamented to me how sad they would be when they could no longer watch cloud formations or the flight of birds or the branches of trees bending to the wind.  I said that was exactly why we were installing stained glass -- to keep their vision where it needs to be and to recall they eyes from the distractions that our inevitable.

Good arrangement and good furniture all support this task.  When the building cannot be torn down and we begin anew, we can at least look around us and make sure that what is in the building does not inhibit what takes place there or distract us from what is happening by God's work and design.  This is why it is often better to shop for used church furniture from the past which can be refurbished and used again than it is to experiment with new designs which do not help the liturgical assembly by directing us clearly and without distraction what God is doing in our midst.  Furthermore, beauty is not an enemy of the liturgy but, rightly understood, a tool and aid to the liturgy and to the people there assembled.  Not everything must be ornate or elaborate but the principles of good design point us always to the faith and to the liturgical function.  That is surely the purpose of stations of the cross or a well appointed baptismal font that is not hidden away in the corner or paraments whose witness in fabric is both clear and faithful.

If you are sitting in church on Sunday morning, look around and think about this.  The building is a catechism in glass, wood, and stone.  Make it a good one.

What is mirrored. . .

The problem of the mirror is which image is original and which is the reflected one.  Every now and then I will be watching something or see a photo and notice that things are not quite correct.  Somebody is filming themselves or has made a copy of what they are watching and everything is backwards.  It started out when I noticed that it appeared they were driving a right hand drive car or when writing appeared backwards.  I would have never known that I was looking at the mirror image rather than the original.

AI makes it hard to sort things out easily between something that is not real and something that is fake.  Long before AI, we could easily be deceived by the promotion of something as real which was merely an an image of that reality.  It remains a problem.  Too much of what we see, read, and know has it confused. Are we seeing the mirror image or the reality?  What is the difference?

So often we forget that there is a difference.  Think, for example, of the father in the home.  Is the earthly father a mirror of the heavenly or is the heavenly father a mirror of the earthly.  Sometimes we get it wrong.  Some folks say they have a hard time relating to God as Father because they had a terrible or absent earthly father.  The problem with this is that the God whom we call Father is not a magnified version of our earthly father.  No, our earthly fathers, if we are so blessed, bear in some way, the image of the heavenly Father down to us.  It is the problem of the mirror.  Is the image in our mirror the earthly father extrapolated to the size of God or God who in some small yet significant way is mirrored in our earthly dads?  We don't call God Father because He is like our earthly fathers.  We call our earthly dads father because, even imperfectly, they can and, if we are so blessed, do reflect the Heavenly Father to us.  This does not take anything away from our earthly dads.  In fact, it does just the opposite.  This does not diminish his fatherly love and service to us but elevates it.  God shines Himself through a sinful and flawed man whom we call dad without magnifying his failings and pinning them on God.

You need not have enjoyed a virtuous and blessed earthly dad to enjoy calling God Father.  It is great when it happens that we have good and wise and loving earthly dads and this helps us understand and appreciate the Heavenly Father but it is not essential.  God does not do what our earthly dads do only a little better or more so.  Our earthly dads do in a very small yet profound way some of what our Heavenly Father does all the time.  We all know only too well the limitations of the flesh.  We know the faults and failings of our earthly dads.  We learn over time to forgive them and to look past all of the things in which they have missed the mark and to be grateful for the things they did on our behalf -- all be it imperfectly.  It is in the kinds of things an earthly dad does that he is a reflection of our Heavenly Father and not in how well he does them.

My own father is now gone ten years.  He was a good and decent man but not perfect.  As time goes on I am able to see more clearly his goodness than his faults but I am never confused and neither would he want me to be.  He was not a smaller version of God to me but a reflection of all God's goodness within the boundaries of human frailty and his own experience and life.  I hope and pray that my kids understand this with respect to me.  God does all things well.  I do a few, so very few things passably in comparison.  I hope all dads feel the same.  It does not diminish our fatherhood but honors God's.  If in some small way, we are reflections of God's goodness, we must not forget that earthly dads are not mirrors of what God has done wrong.  He has done and continues to do all things well.  If an earthly dad teaches you this one thing, he has done okay.

 

Pride or flaunting. . .

Since now the month of June has ended and its Pride parades and events completed, it might be a good time to reflect on what pride is and what it is not.  Yes, the times have changed and things were more, shall we say, muted than in the past.  That said, those who sponsor and support Pride are less proud than they are defiant and less proud than they are flaunting what they know will provoke and offend.  It is less about pride than it is about self-aggrandizement, the promotion of vice and virtue as one without any reflection, judgment, or shame.  The dictionary gives as the primary definition of pride as a sense of one's own proper dignity or value; self-respect.  That is the point.  Proper dignity, value, and self-respect are what seems to be absent from most of the Pride celebrations.  Instead, these tend to focus on the last of the possible definitions:  arrogant or disdainful conduct or treatment; haughtiness.  It is clear that the arrogance, defiance, disdainful conduct, and sheer haughtiness of most of what passes for Pride is the chief aim of those celebrations.

Of course, it is not quite fair to blame only the rainbow array of desires and genders for this.  Open any social media page and you see self-promotion, the display of vice as well as virtue, and the unashamed taught that to love someone is to support their every thought, word, and deed.  That is also the point.  The rainbow folks are taking to extreme what the rest of the world seems intent upon -- being me, flaunting me, and doing it defiantly so.  I have Facebook "friends" whose posts I tend to ignore because they are so "me" oriented.  You probably have the same.  They are anything but modest in both their display of themselves visually and the way they speak about things.  If anything, such modesty ought to be what Lutherans mean when we speak of moderation.  It is not that one is free to indulge in things as long as you do not indulge too often or too deeply into the forbidden fruit of desire and selfishness but rather than you are modest in such things.  Surely this is also what St. Paul means when he speaks of self-control.  Modesty is nothing if it is not self-control.

Ill-tempered rants and raves are the complaint porn of our age.  As a culture indulge this at least as much as the sexual porn.  These too are perversions.  There is a shameful pride in the failures of others more than there is a real lament in their errors or mistakes.  This is one of the reasons I moderate comments here.  Some folks seem to delight in flaunting their own pride and judgment as much as the June parades and events flaunt the rainbow causes.  In every case, we need to look at the cost of our excesses.  Limitation of what you say or concern for how you say it seems absent -- so absent that the virtue of restraint is completely missing around us and in us.  If we think it, we feel like we need to say it and if we say it we think we need to act on it.  Proper dignity and value as well as self-respect call us to a higher standard.  As we look at the Pride month in the rearview mirror, it would be good for us to look through the windshield of the future and scale some things back.  Scripture is pretty clear in its warning that pride goes before a fall.

Schools are also a problem elsewhere. . .

According to news reports, one out of every three elementary age school children in Bavaria are unable to speak German well enough to attend classes.  It is worst in in the city of Augsburg, where two-thirds of first-graders lack competence in German language skills even to understand the teacher to understand what is being taught and they cannot read German.  Children who lack appropriate competence in German language skills must take remedial classes.  In the case of Germany, the problem is laid at immigration and the lack of integration of immigrants into German language and culture.

The blame cannot be laid upon the children but upon the adults.  On the one hand, there is the false ideal of a nation in which people speak their own language and have their own culture side by side with the language and culture of the nation itself.  On the other hand is the problem of immigration which is necessary for nations with low birth rates and the need for younger workers but if this is at the cost of  parallel cultures and languages which keeps them separate but equal, it is in the end the worst form of discrimination.

 

This also illustrates the universal problem of requiring schools to do other things than the educational agenda which is their primary purpose.  How can a school succeed in its primary purpose if it is saddled with the impossible task of respecting those who have another primary language and the language of the classroom is but secondary?  For years German schools were lauded as examples of success in both teaching and requiring higher educational accomplishment from their student population than American but now it appears that their success has become the price they must pay to preserve the ideal of immigrants who can live on the fringes of the language and culture of their new home country.

 

It is not only America which has required a common commitment to morals, ideals, language, culture, and work and family values of their past for those new to their borders.  No matter how much it is derided by the left, a commonality of culture and life is part of the fabric of every fruitful nation.  Soon, the Germans will awaken to this as Americans have.  The problem is that the homeschooling movement is not an option there nor is there in place a strong option in the religious schools -- as these options exist here. 

 

Pure means sound. . .

The Lutheran use of the word pure with respect to doctrine is often confusing to people and gives the wrong impression.  This is largely due to the fact that Lutherans themselves have given purity a connotation and example beyond what the word means.  We have, and here I am speaking of conservative, confessional Lutherans, made purity into the sole pursuit of doctrine.  We have invented sieves to run doctrine through to weed out what is impure.  This is not quite what purity means.  The goal here is not to render doctrine like oil, pressing it and straining it until it is pure, extra virgin doctrine.  The goal here is to preserve sound doctrine.  Doctrine is surely refined as challenge and heresy demand.  That is certainly what happened at Nicea.  But it was not refined from raw material into something different.  It was held against the Scriptures to make sure what was confessed was sound and if it was sound then it was also healthy.  Unsound doctrine is inherently unhealthy and will corrupt, spoil, and make rancid what God has said and done for our salvation.

Nicea gathered the bishops not to preserve purity but to make sure that every challenge and heresy had been placed against the rule and canon of what God said.  The bishops did not vote on what they thought but for what God had said.  They knew that even small deviations from the Scriptures would provide an entrance point for heresy that could not be allowed or the health of the whole Church would suffer and her ability to address the world with Christ and the power of His life would be compromised.  This was not about purity but about health, not simply about soundness but the soundness upon which truth lives and flourishes to accomplish its purpose and the unsoundness upon which it surely does not life.  

From St. Vincent of Lerins reminds us that what we believe and how we worship are inseparably connected.  I have for a long time loved the way the sainted Martin Franzmann put it -- theology must sing!  Indeed, it must, or it is not right thinking.  The theology must be sound, built upon the firm foundation of God's Word, or it cannot inspire or inform prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.  We guard doctrine not because we have been given job to refine it but unless it is sound, it is not healthy and if it is not healthy it cannot aid us in our purpose of glorifying God above all things.  Those who take pot shots at the preoccupation with doctrinal purity assume that it is about straining away impurities to preserve doctrine as if we were conservators of something to be admired.  The reality is much more ordinary.  We are guardians of truth so that the Church's song may continue, so that praise of God may abound, so that the lost and dead may be found and raised, and so that the health and healing of God may preserve us.

Not long ago my wife and I spent many hours at the St. Louis art museum.  It was a marvelous day and I highly encourage you to visit.  What is remarkable to me is how accessible such wonderful treasures are.  They are not hidden behind glass nor locked up in a vault.  They are there to move your eyes, minds, and hearts with beauty.  Surely we cannot say anything less of doctrine!  Churches are not museums preserving the doctrinal content behind thick glass cases or locked up in vaults.  We are there with the beauty of God's eternal and saving truth for the world to know and believe.  Doctrine must be sound (pure, if you will) because only when it is sound is it healthy and only when it is healthy does it heal the sin sick unto death with the medicine of Christ's saving work, raising them and us to life that death cannot overcome. 

Killing me softly. . .

Who does not love the sultry voice of Roberta Flack singing that iconic song Killing Me Softly with His Song?  I love it.  My personal favorite is the line, He sang as if he knew me.  It was not quite real.  So it is for those who view the Scriptures through an academic lens, as if its point were to mine the words to discover the individuals whose pen put them down, the cultural milieu in which they were written, and the way the first hearers understood it.  Of course, as interesting as that might be, it does not preach.  It does not really help.  It is as if we are looking at two different Scriptures -- the one that has God speaking and the one in which it is merely words on a page.  They speak of God's Word as if they know it but they don't -- they know only the Bible as book, words, curiosity, and detail.  They have focused so much on the text and what is behind it, they no longer hear Christ's voice speaking.

It is not that I am not interested, it is interesting.  The point is not that it does not capture the imagination but that it cannot address the heart.  For so long none of us can remember its beginning, we have been captivated by what some have called the “academic Bible” and have become a stranger to the “scriptural Bible.”  Commentaries seem to love the intricate details of the text but too often ignore what is said.  This modern view of the text with its preoccupation with textual criticism and theories of origin has treated the Scriptures like a corpse and attempted a postmortem to a book which we claim is alive and speaks life to us.  The invention of critical methodology has ended up killing the Scriptures, turning its life into an idea and the primary focus on where that idea came from and who it came from.  In early Christianity there was a reverence to the Scriptures not as a book off limits but because it was alive, still addressing the Church and the world with the words of life.  

There are those who open the pages of the Bible with questions and these questions are not directed to the Scriptures themselves but to what is not there.  It is a modern form of Gnosticism in which the Bible becomes a puzzle to disassembled in order to see how it goes together or how it might go together differently than what we have.  The people of God are not the focus of this kind of academic pursuit.  Everyone knows that when the people of God gather around the Bible, they come together to hear its voice, the voice of the Good Shepherd, still calling, gathering, enlightening, and sanctifying a people to be the Lords.  They respond with a single voice in common confession of this God, what He has said and what He now gives in the means of grace that are the Word and Sacraments.  The job of the Church is not to untangle a knot of words but to address us with the Word of God and in so doing to teach us how to read the Word.  The Church does this through catechesis, to be sure, but primarily through liturgy and preaching.  Here the people of God discover that this book is their book, not to do with as they please, but as the Word written for them. This Word lives in them and through them, ordering them and their lives and mirroring it to the world around them.  One of the benefits of reading the early fathers is to learn again the joy, focus, and application of Scripture as this living voice of God and not some problem to be solved or mystery to be made ordinary.  

Lutherans were, not surprisingly, the ones to coin the term Patrology, because they held up this sacramental Word, efficacious in its voice to accomplish in us what it says.  I wish I could say we still as a whole believed and practiced this.  We must reclaim the Bible for the Church from the academics which are killing us softly, enticing us with the idea of a story that ends up masking the voice of Scripture, and distracting us from what it says.  We need to get away from the idea of a synthetic or plastic Scripture and remember again what it is like to hear the voice of the living God speak in love to His people.  When this begins to happen again, we will find not only our preaching reinvigorated but our life refreshed as God means for it to be whenever we gather around His Word.  Without this, we will become a people who sing as if we knew Him when know only our own intellect, curiosity, and interest.

Too good. . .

At a Bible study so long ago I cannot even remember when, a voice objected to the characterization of the world as evil.  Indeed, it came as we had just completed singing from The Lutheran Hymnal the John Mason Neale text:

The world is very evil,
The times are waxing late:
Be sober and keep vigil,
The Judge is at the gate:
The Judge that comes in mercy,
The Judge that comes with might,
To terminate the evil,
To diadem the right. 

It is a solemn warning and a sober call not to be deceived as the world comes to its end.  That hymn was written into English by Neale in the 1800s from a text by Bernard of Morlas writing in the twelfth century.  For the modern mind, the hymn is hopelessly wrong since that times are not waxing late but the days continue to trudge on toward their appointed end and we have weathered many calls through the ages that Jesus is coming soon.

In his book, Orthodoxy, (written even later in 1908), GK Chesterton wrote about the world.  He suggests that at least to the modern eye and ear and heart, the world is not evil at all.  It is good -- not decent but filled with good things that few of us want to abandon -- not now or even in the face of the end.

“The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”

I will let slip his parenthesis about the shattering of Christianity at the Reformation.  Indeed, he is correct.  The modern world is far too good, filled with good things that are also too good.  It is like a sweet treat that is too sweet and later unleashes its fury upon us in rolls of fat.  The good things are borderline good and can easily become evil.  That is the problem with progress.  It often betrays a problem we did not see as learn to live with it.  The virtues are turned but so are the vices.  Let loose from restraint, the vices corrupt us not simply by our consent to them but by no longer clearly being vices in and of themselves.  Once we are no longer sure what is vice and virtue, it is enough to corrupt us for our judgment is compromised even as our hearts and desires.

What afflicts us is desire unleashed from restraint but even more uncertain about virtue or vice at all.  We presume we are in Eden again discovering all things new.  The sexual oddities of the present are surely part of this discovery but there is nothing new in them.  The first sign of sin's destruction was the corruption of sexual desire.  But the problems are not simply sexual.  We cannot define woman or man in a culture where this is merely the property of desire.  We cannot define marriage when it is ripped from the fabric of the fruitful love that begets.  We cannot define life when death is merely another choice and we cannot define death when life is so easily surrendered to desire.  When children become an unwanted  distraction from our self-fulfillment or a drag on our pursuit of happiness, we have nothing invested in the future and are fully free to wreck destruction upon everything from nature to humanity.  It is a cruel joke that freedom has become the license to pursue stupidity.  Indeed, sin has made us stupid -- so stupid that we mistake virtue for vice and vice for virtue and pursue them with equal vigor.

Chesterton is surely correct in judging the times and humanity solely on the basis of pity.  The charity of the present is not really mercy at all.  To sit by and allow a person to cut off his organs for the imagined gender of his feelings is no charity.  To allow the child to be ripped from the womb with a chemical death sentence is hardly charity.  To live on the screen while insulated from both the joys as well as costs of commitment is no charity at all.  And these are but a few of the false charities that modernity lauds without paying any attention to the price of such imagined largess.  Christ is not come to impose artificial boundaries upon us in the hopes that we will figure out the means to holiness but to raise those dead in trespasses and sins, blind to the difference between goodness and evil, hopelessly lost in the forest of desire with self-control, and cleanse those who do not even know they are dirty with the washing of regeneration and the clothing of righteousness.  Christ is not some sort of brakes to apply when things get out of control but the control that is freedom.  Not in the least of His gifts is the Spirit who restores our sight and teaches us what is evil and what is good and then works in our hearts to choose goodness and abandon sin.  It will surely not be perfect this side of glory but it is headed in the right direction.  With it comes the absolution that rescues us from the fall and restores us to battle again the evil within amid the evil without. 

Cursive to the rescue. . .

As I have posted before, the advent of AI and the difficulty of those teaching in schools to identify the work students did not do has created a crisis of sorts.  It is, however, a crisis that could be averted by the return to the ancient (translate that in my day) blue book of blank sheets of paper with lines awaiting the train of thought from the writer.  It would be an elegant solution to the problem had the schools not at some point decided to forego teaching cursive.  Even if you wanted to return to the blue books and to the handwritten essays and answers of yesteryear, it would be a monumental effort on the part of a school population that knows only how to print and teachers who have rusty skills trying to figure out the scrawl that passes for cursive.  

The truth is that AI answers is the least of our problems.  What is much bigger is the challenge to thinking.  We live in a Google age in which people do not think but simply surf, do not think critically but presume anything and everything on the internet has the same value, and do not think inventively but follow the crowd even more than in previous days.  AI and screens are partly responsible for the fact that if presented with a blank page, modern students would not know how to write on those pages and probably not know what to write.

Cursive represents a time when we valued thought, thoughtfulness, and practiced thought.  Now we value time and ease -- do it fast and do it as easily as possible.  While it may be efficient, it is hardly effective.  The great gulf between students are the few who know what they are thinking and why they think it and those who simply mirror the thinking of the moment and have no clue why they should agree or disagree.  Schools are partly responsible for this and classical schools are partly an answer to the current situation.  While it might be felt on the collegiate level, it begins far earlier.  The roots of the modern day problem were planted in screens as baby sitters, entertainment over finding your own solution to boredom, and schools weighed down with the need to correct the social ills all the while reducing the content and what is needed to master the content for matriculation to the next grade or graduation.

I continue to be amazed by the fact that nearly all our students will end up elementary, high school, and college with a very limited list of actual books they have read.  A synopsis is not the same and neither is the abridged version enough.  They may well know their games and the characters therein but Shakespeare and the great authors down through history are strangers to them.  They do not know original sources but only what others have said about them or the equivalent of a sound bite version of their literary contributions.  

It has got to start somewhere so I vote to begin the revolution with cursive.  Let's teach the old Palmer Method that I learned.  Let's put up the posters that display the upper and lower case forms of cursive.  Let's ask our kids to write again and ask them to read more and read the whole content of the books, stories, essays, and poetry that once defined literacy.  It is not enough to know how to type in a few words into a search engine.  We are in desperate need of creative thinking, thoughtful reflection, and critical judgment. 

Who refuses to kneel. . .

In the Old Testament both standing and kneeling are postures of prayer.  You can find examples of kneeling in prayer in Job (Job 1:20), Daniel praying three times per day on his knees (Dan 6:10). Psalm 95:6 speaks of kneeling, “O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the LORD, our maker.”  In Isaiah, it is God who says to the prophet, “To me every knee shall bow” (Isa 45:23).

On the other hand, standing at prayer is spoken of in the Psalms (Ps 134:1; 135:2), in Chronicles when Jehoshaphat prayed all of Judah stood (2 Chr 20:13), and in other places where standing in prayer is mentioned (1 Sam 1:26; Tob 8:4).

We know that Solomon knelt before the altar of the Lord at the dedication of the Temple and then stood to bless the people (1 Kgs 8:54-55).  Nehemiah speaks of the people rising as the Torah is read and then kneeling to confess their sins (Neh 9:3-5). 

In the New Testament there are also references to both kneeling and standing.  The Gospel of Matthew uses προσκυνέω, to describe kneeling or prostrating oneself.  The Magi knelt in worship before the Christchild.  The Syrophonecian woman knelt before Jesus (15:25).  Christ himself knelt in prayer during his agony in the garden (Luke 22:41). The Acts of the Apostles describes Stephen Protomartyr as kneeling at prayer during his stoning (Acts 7:60), and the apostles kneeling in prayer (Acts 9:40; 30:36).  St. Paul speaks of bended knee to the Ephesians (3:14) and, of course, to the Philippians he asserts that “at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (2:10).

Hypocrites stand in prayer (Matt 6:5) but then Jesus instructs his own disciples how to pray standing (Mark 11:25).  In the consummation, the faithful stand before God (Luke 21:28; Rev 7:9).  Yet it is true that from the earliest of times, kneeling and standing are both accepted postures of prayer -- even apart from the obvious connection between penitence and kneeling (or prostration). 

It did not take long before these postures took on symbolic meaning.  St. Basil saw kneeling a symbol of the sinfulness of this life but standing upright as attesting to Christ’s resurrection.  When Canon 20 of Nicea said to stand during Easter for prayer, some also included the cessation of the fast (also from Easter to Pentecost).  But by the thirteenth century, kneeling was not so strongly associated with penitence as it was piety.  Kneeling had become the customary posture of adoration by that time.  By the time of the Reformation, Canon 20 had been largely forgotten.  Luther’s sacramental theology led him to support genuflection in the liturgy.  Even the East today does not quite see Canon 20 as a doctrine but discipline and understands kneeling to be tolerated.  Today postures are not quite so easily identified with specific meaning.  Men once stood out of respect for women and now most folks seem to think that sitting is no disrespect.  But there is one who does not kneel.  That is the devil.  The posture of kneeling during the Confession is actually quite different from the posture of kneeling during the consecration though few pay any attention to it. The devil does and he refuses to do either -- to confess his sin in penitence or to adore the Christ whose flesh and blood are given to us for the forgiveness of those sins.

So what should we do?  Lutherans are actually loathe to make rules requiring anyone to do either.  For what it is worth, kneeling during the general confession is not quite within the liturgy and there is quite a history of kneeling during the Our Father.  Maybe that is not the problem.  Maybe sitting is -- the ultimate posture of passivity.  Could it be that our sitting is so that God might entertain us?  Perhaps there is a problem after all.  In any case, the devil's example is the worst to follow.  We ought at least to do not what he does.  So there it is.  Refusing to kneel may be our problem -- not because we have bad knees but because we have bad hearts.  The spiritual problem is bigger than the posture problem is.  Always.

Worship wars. . .

There are worship wars going on in most places where orthodox Christians are still fighting.  This certainly includes Rome and the Missouri Synod and, to a lesser extent, those places where there are still battles being fought (among some Anglicans, for example).  The reality is that though the fight is happening on the grounds of worship and what happens there, the fight is not really about worship at all.  It is a battle for the heart and soul of the faith.  

Rome has made it clear that this is not about worship preferences but about what is believed and confessed.  The recriminations against those who attend the Latin Mass, for example, or those who are still putting in altar rails is not about Latin or the Mass.  It is about what the Roman Catholic faith is and what it will be.  On one side you have those who believe you can dance with chickens or do the chicken dance in church and those who hold not simply to the sacredness of the space but of what God is doing among those gathered in His name.  It is not about architecture or music but about what is believed and confessed.  It may be fought in the chancel but it is not simply about that space and what happens there.  Worship and faith are connected.  Faith and worship are connected.  Once these battles stop, there will also be an end to battles over what is believed and taught.

Among Lutherans it is equally about what is believed, taught, and confessed.  Those who want to add guitars are not interested in stringed instruments but in the kind of church where truth and morality are adjustable and where Scripture is not the final word on either.  It is not about vestments or none or liturgy or none or ceremony or none.  It is about the transformation of the faith into something informed and judged by man instead of the gift of God.  It is a good thing that there are still battles going on.  After all, the ELCA no longer battles because the words have been emptied of meaning and the actions in worship no longer reflect the mystical reality of God among us distributing His gifts.  If we are still having worship wars, it means that the battle is being waged against a relativized and vanilla faith that has lost is saltiness.

Some people are tired of these worship wars.  In my experience, when the battles stop, mischief begins and peace means acquiescence to whatever people want or is in fashion at the moment.  I hope we continue to have the stamina to do battle for the sake of the liturgy, yes, but even more for what that liturgy says and means.  When it is finally done, either heaven's gates will be sealed and the faithful no longer troubled by these distractions OR the opposition to the modernist ideal will have surrendered and given up.  So do not wish for peace unless you are sure that Christ is at the door and ushering in the new heavens and the new earth.  Until that happens, we must be vigilant to maintain the integrity of what happens in worship and what is confessed before the world.  This is, after all, why we call it the Church Militant. 

Paint it beige. . .

Back in the day when we were shopping for a new house, the builders preferred beige.  Everything was beige.  In our house, the walls were beige, the carpeting was beige, the vinyl flooring was beige, and the tile was beige.  It was a perfectly neutral color designed to offend no one.  Of course, it did not impress anyone either.  None of it is beige any longer -- except for the tile I have not yet replaced.   The house is awash with color.  People probably don't like it but my wife and I do.  That is all that matters.  Of course, it is dated.  Every house is dated.  Just as soon as you put up a barn door or paint a wall or replace the backsplash, trends have moved on and the one you just worked so hard to install is passe.  But at least it is not beige.  Fast forward to the present and beige seems to be replaced with gray.  Everything inside and outside is gray -- unless it is grey.  Laminate flooring, walls, tile, cabinets, counters, etc... It is all gray or grey (for the life of me I do not know the difference but I am pretty sure HGTV will tell me).   It is another perfect color for people without any personality who wish neither to impress nor offend anyone.

Often, religion seems to fancy such colors.  Beige or gray or tan or grey... the name does not matter.  What matters is it neither offends nor impresses.  So the preaching is practiced but empty and sure neither to offend nor impress.  It lives up to its nondescript standards.  The music is like elevator muzak, intended to fade into the background and not inhibit the folks inside from doing or saying what they want.  The liturgy is there but bland and low enough so that it neither excites nor bores -- it just is.  There ceremonies are sufficiently inconspicuous and therefore the least that can be done becomes the most that should be done.  The building looks like every public building but not like a church lest anyone get the idea that it was one.  The pastor dresses, talks, and looks like he represents the current casual generation and would fit in on business casual days just as easily as he fits the arena of worship and prayer.  Religion has, for the most part, become the vague, bland, beige style of belief and practice sure to not ruffle any feathers.  Oddly enough, the worst offenders are those who claim to be contemporary but are hopelessly stuck in music and style back in the 1980s.  Piety and practice, along with doctrine and dogma, should not be too spicy or it will surely inhibit the growth and success of the religious endeavor, right?

That is the problem.  We have been doing bland religion and beige worship and gray belief for so long that we now consider milk a spice.  Where has it gotten us?  Look around.  The gray of the worship and belief is right in style with the gray hair of those in the pews.  We offend no one so we impress no one.  I long for the days when our church body was a real flavor.  I ache for the days when some folks went to worship in one of our congregations and said "no, that is definitely not for me."  I wait not so patiently for the days when we return to standing for truth and worshiping in spirit and in truth.  Truth is always offensive.  It is not which truth offends but real truth always offends someone and generally nearly everyone.  When St. Peter said "Lord, where else can we go?  Your the only show in town that has life now and eternally," the poor man was not exactly making a bold confession.  He was admitting that Jesus was too spicy for him and for his world and probably always would be but there was no alternative.  Jesus or death.  Jesus or sin.  Jesus or hell.

I wish we would stop worrying about what people think and began to worry about what Jesus thinks.  Would Jesus preach vague self-help sermons because people would not be turned away?  Would Jesus offer bread that was mere bread because people want to eat more than they want to be saved?  Would Jesus stop talking about sin because it might imply people are sinners in need of a Savior?  Would Jesus stop attending the temple because people might be offended by the sacrifice of animals or the synagogue because the same people might not accept the truth of what was being taught?  When people started leaving because faith was too hard and doctrine too difficult, Jesus did not change but turned to His disciples who had been with Him from the beginning and ask if they were going to abandon the way of life too.  Before you jump to conclusions and presume I just like to offend, that is not my point.  I am a fairly easy guy to get along with except when it comes to vanilla Christianity in a world desperately in need of a real flavor.  We do not offend to be offensive but neither are we beige in the hopes of gathering those who really like the absence of color (or truth, for that matter).  The Athanasian Creed got it so painfully correct.  Whoever would be saved must...  The Gospel does not require you to do much of anything except to not be offended by it.  Jesus is a stumbling stone.  If the Church is not, we might not be the Church Jesus established at the cost of His own blood.

45 and counting. . .

45 years ago today. . . on the hottest day in July on a Nebraska prairie in a rural Lutheran church, a pastor was made. . .  Most of the men in that picture are long gone to be with the Lord. . . some of us are still here. . . the good work is completed by God's grace and whatever was built upon the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, remains.

 

How does this help?

The abundance of armchair quarterbacks for nearly anything and everything is hardly new.  Yet, in most cases, the armchair quarterbacks are passionate precisely because they are cheering on and routing for their team -- in good times and in bad.  They comment because it is their goal to see the team win and follow that victory right to the end.  How odd it is, then, that Christianity has an abundance not simply of amateur theologians who think they know better but a whole slew of academics who likewise seem to insist that they are in a better position to discern truth from error than even those who walked and talked with Jesus!  Indeed, the oddity is more than a curiosity but a paradox.  How can you keep the faith while working so hard to dismantle the foundation on which the faith is built?  Here I am speaking particularly of the commemtators and textual critics who cannot keep themselves from inserting doubt about the texts we have, the possible sources of those texts which are not as claimed, and the nefarious goals of those who they are sure have messed with the text to distort what is real and true.

Elaine Pagels (remember her) is out with another book Miracles and Wonders which purports to answer the question of who Jesus was (note the past tense here for someone she is sure is no longer alive).  Imagine my surprise when her answer is we may never know.  Of course, the reason we may never know is that Pagels does not grant much credibility or truth to the Scriptures which claim to have been written by those who knew Jesus best and who insist He is still alive.  Read this snippet from Amazon trying to sell you the book:

The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?

The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.

In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract.

She insists that inconvenient facts papered over the well-meaning by lying disciples are the problem to knowing Jesus.  Surely  the problem is just the opposite.  An 80 something year old woman who has spent a career doubting every word of Scripture and casting aspersions on the integrity of the authors of the New Testament makes Jesus into a novelty but a sham as well.  She well represents others who have likewise spent their lives trying to impugn the Bible, cast doubt upon its facts, and then insist that none of it really matters to who Jesus was or why people are still interested in Him.  Like I said, how can you claim to keep the faith when you dismantle the very foundation on which that faith is built?  Do us all a favor.  Don't buy the book and add to her income.  Don't be a part of her scam. 

Be a patriot and a Christian but know the difference. . .

I consider myself a patriotic American.  I am jealous about the good name and noble virtue of American exceptionalism in the world.  I am humbled by the faithful folk who have stood guard against our enemies and whose blood was shed on battlefields far and near for the sake of this nation.  I am in awe of this thing called freedom which we value so highly.   I still shudder when the guns of a military salute go off and tears well up in my eyes at the funerals of veterans when a soldier gets down on one knee and presents the flag to the bereaved on behalf of a grateful nation.  But there is no American flag inside the church nor should there be.  The confusion of national loyalty and religious fervor is dangerous to both.

It is at terrible error to presume God's loyalty to a people or a land and to interweave faith and patriotism.  The resulting fabric will not be faithful to either cause when we assume that God is one of us (Americans or any other nation and people) and ours the only righteous land and citizenry in the world.  This fabric is not sturdy enough to weave the two together and it will surely tear unless we are wise.  We do not do our nation or our faith any good by beating our chests and proclaiming God in our hip pocket.

If you are a patriotic American, pray for the our President, the members of Congress, your Governor, state legislature, judges, magistrates, mayors, and all levels of civil servants both elected and appointed.  Do not pray for those you like or those with whom you agree but for all manner of men.  Pray for wisdom to overflow for all, for your own faithfulness as citizen as well as theirs as leaders, for those who battle to defend us and those who send them into battle, for those who keep the peace and those who are called to live in peace.  We cannot afford to be without people of truth and integrity, who love justice, who act mercifully, and who carry the solemn mantle of public service humbly.  It helps no cause to constantly belittle and speak ill of our leaders and it will certainly guarantee that we get precisely the kind of leaders we deserve for speaking against them with such vitriol.  How will we ever convince those of good repute and noble character to run and serve the public good with all our bitterness and contempt of politics?

If you are a patriotic American, then render unto Caesar the things that are his as your civil, patriotic, and solemn duty.  Don't cheat on your income taxes and call it the great national sport.  Don't sit at home while others cast their ballots for people, initiatives, and referendums.  Don't be a silent minority or majority but engage the issues, causes, and conversations of the public square, guided by principle and faith as well.  Don't refuse to speak circumspectly or to act virtuously but show forth good citizenship as best you can until and unless to do so would violate God's law.

If you are patriotic American, then teach your children our history -- the good and the bad -- and urge them to give nothing less than their best for the cause of liberty, the rule of good law, and the common good.  Teach your children the sacrifices of those who went before them on lonely beachhead, in jungle heat, on thunderous wave, and cloudy sky to protect, preserve, and defend our freedom.  Teach your children not to squander this legacy of liberty in the pursuit of selfish endeavor or to justify lustful desire but to pursue it with honor, integrity, and virtue.  Teach your children to honor the flag without confusing flag and cross and thereby diminishing both.  Teach your children how the government works and prepare them for their own time when they must pass the torch to their own sons and daughters.

If you are a patriotic American, cheer on the defense of the defenseless, the protection of the vulnerable, the cause of the unborn, the aged, and the infirm, and challenge oppression, hatred, and bigotry in all its forms.  Honor life as precious gift and not as the prerogative of  rich, the powerful, or those who intimidate.  Refuse to allow life to be valued by the almighty dollar, the parade of accomplishments, or how productive one can be.  Protect rights without dismantling morality or diminishing virtue or surrendering right to wrong, goodness to evil.  Be honored that more want to come and enjoy the precious liberty we so easily take for granted.  The rule and respect of law should be demanded of both citizen and those who want to be but unjust laws serve no good for no people.  We are a nation of immigrants, this is true, but of immigrants who have shared a common vision of liberty, a common commitment to shared values (of morality, family, and work), and a willingness to live together in peace (even when we disagree).  The freedom we have allows us not the right to be me at any cost but the right to use our freedom for noble purpose and for the cause of virtue or else people will have died for a country of selfish brats.  Our liberty allows us to speak without fear of a police state but it presumes that we will not waste this freedom on self-indulgent postings sometimes mistaken for social media.  I do not think that our nation's first soldiers fought and died for the cause of a meme.

Why do we think freedom simply means everyone has a right to my opinion?  Why do we speak without the need to listen?  Why is it so easy for us to believe the world revolves around me?  Why do we cover our political opinions with religious sounding words and act like our faith needs might to make a difference?  Why are we more comfortable with an American flag than a crucifix in our worship spaces?  We taint both kingdoms by elevating patriotism over faith just as we do the same by presuming God has called us to build earthly kingdoms instead of announcing the heavenly one.  People of good will and common sense have the power to help on the political front but their cause is aided best when we pray on their behalf and do not muddy the waters by presuming Jesus wears either a national identity or a denominational label.  God is not an American but live your life and profess your faith so that your patriotism will not diminish your faith and your faith will ennoble your vocation and life as citizen.  In this way, both will be honored.  I know that there will be those who might take offense at what I have written but a patriot is more than someone who waves the flag a couple of times a year.  

It is not too late. . .

It is not too late.  Sign up now for one of the premier Lutheran events in the South and a game changer for interested in and devoted to Christian theology and cultural engagement.  While this is a deep and profound review from both theology and sociology, it is not for pastors only and would be especially useful for lay folk and those involved in home schooling.  I would even recommend this for your teens as they prepare to move on into higher education -- preparing them with the tools they need to meet and answer the challenges provided them in nearly every university or college setting.  

It is conveniently located just outside of Nashville, TN, has a broad schedule and array of speakers, and is just the thing to spur your thinking as you meet the issues before us as Christians in an increasingly unChstian culture.

The arrangements are well-planned and the worship is also very engaging.  I recommend this from personal experience. 

For information and registration, click here to Henkel/Ascension, Madison, TN. 

Why start with worship. . .

The story of a new bishop in Charlotte is a predictable story of someone new rushing to make changes to worship.  In this case it is Rome and the direction is away from things sacred and undue reverence.  Particularly, this involves restricting the Latin Mass and its availability to a former Presbyterian building yet to be remodeled and to ritual acts within the Vatican II era Mass.  This guy wants fiddleback chasubles and altar crucifixes gone -- along with kneeling and too much reverence to the cleansing of the sacred vessels.  Needless to say, he has caused a stir even though he has been there only a year.  In Rome they told him to slow down and now that his former superior is Pope, that caution has a little more weight to it.

It is not uncommon for pastors or bishops to make changes.  God knows I did.  But there is certainly a way to make changes and a reason for making changes that sometimes gets lost in this.  In my case, my first parish did not have a Lutheran hymnal in the pews.  That was in the old days of TLH as the sole LCMS hymnal.  I did move them back into the book but did so with constant catechesis in sermons and studies.  In part this was so that they did not get the idea that worship was experimental or that it was a matter of the current pastor's preference.  The focus was decidedly on Lutheran identity and practice, just as the Augustana frames it in catholic doctrine and usage (or practice).  The introduction of LW was necessitated by the poor condition of the TLH books and yet it too was a long and slow process so that they did not open the doors on Sunday morning to find a surprise awaiting them.  Even in my second parish, where there was some liturgical tradition, my parts changed more than the parts of the people and it was a very slow and sometimes tedious process to address everything from weekly Eucharist to chanted liturgy to reverence as the byword of what we do in worship.  Along with these things were the issues of lay leadership within the Divine Service and particularly of the role then of women leading parts of that Divine Service.  The end result was that the changes became solidly incorporated into the congregation's faith, life, and identity and were not simply dismissed as worship whims or pastoral preference.  These guiding principles helped us through LW through HS98 and into LSB without much of a ripple.  Generous presiding along with reverent liturgical leadership is a plus.

That said, it is too often the case where, like this bishop, people are given orders or encounter rather sudden changes that disregard longstanding tradition.  Even when that is not the preference of the new guy it does not have to be changed and it certainly does not have to be changed right away.  Where there is urgency is when doctrinal issues are at stake, when bad practices must be rectified, and when continuing such practices would give people the idea that there is nothing wrong with them (except not my preference).  Even in these cases, teaching is the means to make change.  Before anything changes on Sunday morning, the people need to know what is going to change and why and if they are brought on board early, such changes will not be as conflicted as those which catch people by surprise.  Other changes not necessitated by wrong doctrine or practice should be handled even more discreetly and with a very slow pace, always accompanied by instruction.  

Oftentimes, the new guy (which I have been!) has a heads up to the things that need to be dealt with early.  Those are the priority lists for the attention of the pastor as well as taking the time to get to know the people, earn their trust, and be accepted as a leader.  A few early successes in old problems within the congregation can well serve the pastor as he moves forward.  The bishop should have learned this by the time he became bishop, apparently he did not.  But sometimes pastors forget that the parish is not a blank canvas on which they paint their picture of perfection.  Every pastor makes changes but incremental changes over time last longer than sudden lane changes without announcement, explanation, or justification.  Every new pastor seems to presume the guys who went before them were idiots or incompetents and every old pastor presumes the guys who follow them don't know anything.  The truth is not quite true on either extreme.  Unless the sheep are in extreme danger, the gentle path is the wiser one.  It is hard to reestablish trust after conflict erupts but not impossible.  I made a million mistakes and found people generally forgiving if they knew you were trying to work in their best interest.  The unforgivable ones are generally the ones that hit them in the face without any teaching, direction, or explanation of what is to come.  I will never say not to make any changes but I will always say to be generous, overly catechetical, and patient when making those changes -- it does not matter if you are a pastor or a bishop.

 

What is worse, germs or sins?

I thought it might be time to revisit the chalice issue.  It has been now five years since Covid came upon the scene and exploited the fears in people to drive them from the cup to the cups.  It seems that enough time should have passed so that people would return to the cup and stop turning up their noses at the prospect of germs.  But, of course, that would presume that people were more concerned about sins than germs and I am sad to say that it is probably not the case.

We are squeamish people at least when it comes to germs.  Sins have become normal, usual, comfortable, and so we hardly notice them anymore.  Germs, on the other hand, are still worrisome and even though Covid is not quite on our radars, some do not want to take chances.  It would seem that it is easier to take a chance that God is not as serious about sin as He says He is than to presume that the cup is better than cups.  We are easy to spook.  A germ will set us off (or at least the prospect of one) far more than sin enters the conscience to make us concerned about our salvation.

For this reason, it is easier for us to swallow the things we know are wrong and God's Word says are wrong than it is for us to put the chalice to our lips.  I wish I understood this.  It happens even among good and decent Christian people.  We are so traumatized by germs that we will gladly accept sin without complaint more than we will swallow our fears and taste of the cup.  Perhaps the time will come when our itching ears no longer are tuned into the threats and fears of this mortal life most of all.  Perhaps the time will come when we will trust so in the Lord that we gladly and willingly confess privately our sins so that we may publicly feast upon the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation.  Perhaps the time will arrive when no fear can push us away from His cup but sins are taken so seriously that we must deal with them as soon as possible.

But why would God expect more of us than from every age and people before us?  Sin has always been too easy on the eye and so we get into trouble and germs have always made us nervous and so we invent ways of hiding behind our fears.  The worst thing about individual cups at the altar is what they imply -- that we are more concerned about germs than sins.  Until we fix this one, the cross will always be less about atonement than inspiration -- oh, that we loved with a love stronger than death, too!  Jesus did not die as an example.  He died as a Savior for a people who needed saving or they would die forever.  Germs did not prevent Him nor did the ick factor detour Him.  He set His face like flint for the cross because He knew what we really needed -- not an answer for the germs around us or in us but a Savior and salvation from the sins that will kill us eternally.