The Truth That Dare Not Be Spoken...

Happiness has certainly become the god of this age and few dispute it -- although there is dispute over whether this is a good or bad thing.  One of the most commonly accepted theses is that when the parent(s) are happy, the children will be happy (or at least happier).  The idea behind this is, of course, if mom and dad or parent and spouse are in an "unhappy" marriage, the children will benefit from that divorce just like the parent(s).  A child's happiness is directly related to the happiness of the parent(s).  Well, it turns out that this is a politically correct truth but not a factual truth.  It is a truth we want to believe and a truth we promote because of the dramatic numbers of divorce, separation, and living together but it is a truth without factual basis.  What is remarkable is not that children are happier when both mom and dad are together under the same roof -- any idiot can figure that out -- rather, the remarkable part of this story is the deafening silence of researchers and studies willing to admit that this is true.  They have gone out of their way to prop up the great lie that it is better for kids to have the parent(s) ditch a bad marriage or live together with someone they "love" than for mom and dad to stick it out.

The National Catholic Register has reported that Social scientists are concealing the harm that divorce, single parenting and stepfamilies do to children. Not only that, they are also hiding the benefits which even unhappy marriages bestow, not just on children, but on the couples involved.  a report from Child Trends, a research organization based in Washington, D.C., that showed the happier the parents’ relationship is, the happier, better socialized and more successful the children are.  The report, “Parental Relationship Quality and Child Outcomes Across Subgroups”, found couples’ satisfaction correlated positively with child behaviors regardless of the family structure, class and ethnicity.  But why didn’t Child Trends even mention that its data also showed that the positive outcomes across all “subgroups” trended significantly upwards the more traditional the parents’ relationship?Children living with biological or adoptive parents did better than those with their unmarried biological or adoptive parents; the outcomes were significantly worse for children in a married stepfamily and worst with one biological parent and an unmarried partner.

Blankenhorn says researchers on family and child outcomes have told him they suppress their findings when they reflect badly on one family structure or another.  Research really shows: that your children will be much better off — much better off, according to every measure researchers can think of — if you can hang in there with the father of these children and make it work.”  “Longevity studies show the mother will live longer, the father will live longer, and the children will live longer. They also show that the majority of couples who reported being deeply unhappy in their marriage and for whatever reason stayed in the marriage, in five years reported being happy, and many couldn’t even remember being unhappy.”

In other words, we have built so much of our public policy upon a lie.  We have told ourselves for so long that it does not matter what kind of home the kids grow up in as long as the parent(s) or adults living in that home are happy that we have begun to believe our own deception.  Studies have and continue to show that kids do best where mom and dad work it out and live together under the same roof.  Shacking up is a killer on our kids and the explosive growth of untraditional families is not indifferent to the problems the children living in those homes face.  Just recently we heard of the High Court in England suggesting that religious views against homosexuality unfairly shape and victimize the children and therefore are cause to prevent those who believe such from becoming foster or adoptive parents.  In other words, Christianity went from being a positive value in the home to a neutral value and now is a negative value.  All because we have believed the deception we have told ourselves for too long -- that what makes the parent(s) happy makes the kid happy.

We are worried about the narrow mindedness of Christians who do not go with the flow when it comes to the latest prevailing social trends but we ought to be worried about the lies we tell in order to justify the uniform and positive acceptance of those social trends and ignore the cost borne by the children.  I am not against anyone and certainly applaud those who against their will or because of physical violence live on single parent homes and raise their children.  God bless you.  But lets be clear.  The cost of broken homes is not just borne by the spouse who leaves but also by the children themselves.  Lets be honest here.  If there is absolutely no choice but divorce, don't compound the pain for the children by shacking up.  Parenthood, like marriage itself, is a sacrificial love and the choice to have children automatically brings with it the choice to sacrifice self for the sake of your children.  Perhaps the sooner we admit this, the better off our homes and families will be...

Learning the Language of Faith. . .

Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet.  It is a language invented by the marriage of culture and religion, heritage and location.  Eventually it became a language in its own right but, at some point, it was a language born of people whose mother tongue was married with the language of the marketplace.  As successful as Yiddish became, it is still a symbol of a mixture of things that the Old Testament sought to make distinct -- the language and culture of the people of God from the language and culture of the world around them.

Modern Christians have come to believe that we have no common language.  We adopt the language of our location both in worship and witness.  It is as if Christianity were merely a message that had no culture or identity of its own.  Some have suggested that the success of Christianity is its ability to transcend all cultures, languages, and elasticities.  Others see success as when the language of Christianity is married to the local tongue in a fusion of faith and culture that mimics the formation of a language such as Yiddish. While there is much truth in this, there is also a fallacy or myth -- that Christianity has no language of its own.

Christianity does have a language distinct and, sometimes, in opposition to local culture.  The language of Christianity is first of all the language of Scripture.  Our vocabulary and our manner of speaking the faith is shaped by the Scriptures in the same way that the kerygma or content of that message is molded by the Scriptures.  It is not "our" story but the story of Christ that has become both the language and the message we witness to and before the world.  Our story is THE story -- the core and center of our identity and our proclamation are rooted in and shaped by the Scriptures in such way that they cannot be distinguished.  Style and substance are one for the church's proclamation of the Gospel.

Secondly, the language of the Church is the language of the liturgy.  What we do together is not an option to us or even a choice by us but that which the Lord has given to us in the Word and Table.  The liturgy is its own culture, language, and identity.  It is not, as some would suggest, borne of any particular age or "Imperial" culture but represents a development that has spanned several eras but is largely rooted in Scripture itself.  The Christian is initiated into this language and culture first through baptism, then catechesis, and finally experiences this in the regular rhythm of the Eucharist on the Lord's Day.

Finally, the language of the Church is the language of time but not the chronos of the world with its attention to the moment.  Rather, the Church is in synch with the kairos of God's acts and God's fullness of time.  The Church Year is by intention disconnected from the earthly measure of time and its passage and directs the person instead to the saving acts of God in Christ and the teaching of Christ that accompanies the events themselves.  In this way we are both prepared for and reflect the once and eternal nature of our lives, rooted in Christ's death and resurrection.

Learning the language of faith is then learning the language of Scripture, the language and culture of the liturgy, and the shape of time reflected by the Church Year.  This is no fusion of sacred and secular or even the triumph of sacred over secular but the transcendent Word and actions of God that makes the Christian in but not of the world.  I frankly do not see how it is possible to be Christian and not to learn and be formed by this language and culture.  While it may have been the sin of the past to identify the language and culture of the Church with one particular earthly culture and language, it is no less the sin of the present to suggest that the Church and the faith have no language and no distinct culture or identity (other than the one in which it is located at any given time and place)...  The particular error of Lutherans began with the idea that German was a language so crude it could not be used to speak the Gospel and then it became the idea that German was uniquely suited to speak the Gospel and English was somehow inferior.  As we laugh about this tribalism now, I fear we miss the larger point.  We do not atone for this error by stripping the language and culture away from the faith so that it is generic.  It is an exclusive truth which is the most inclusive truth of all and yet it speaks with its own voice, its own language of grace, and its own culture of mercy and service that springs from grace and faith.

It seems that today we have people who want to know God without knowing the Gospel of Christ's death and resurrection, who want a spirituality devoid of doctrine and dogma, who want worship that is little more than a reflection of the moment and the individual, and who believe that there is little importance to what has been received by those who have gone before and not much to pass on to those yet to come.  It is clear from the polls that we have not done a great job at communicating or catechizing people into the language of the faith and the language of the Church.  Yet this is certainly part of what it means to share the faith or speak in witness.  Those who refuse to or are not introduced to the language of the faith will find Christianity as strange to them as the Spanish you took in high school but never really learned.  You are left with little bits and pieces that enable you to say hello and goodbye without being able to converse between the entrance and the departure.

Thank you for...

The good brother Hans Fiene has a good piece on thanking Lutheran mothers for...   I was struck by one woman who thanked her Lutheran mother for teaching her to sit still in church, even though it was difficult and she was not sure her daughter was getting anything out of the service.  In the highest form of praise, she was now teaching her own children to sit still in church, even though it is difficult and she is not sure her children are getting anything out of it... Considering the many trips my own mom took to take me out into the cry room (to make me cry) -- all to teach me to sit still in church, my heart was warmed by her words.

Frankly, I wish that there were more who taught their children (and not a few adults) to sit still in church.  I watch every Sunday as a couple of families struggle with this.  One is a grandmother bringing her grandson to church and in the beginning it was clearly a struggle but, guess what, he has gotten better.  Another is a family with three children very close in age with the ability (as all children have) to incite turmoil among the others.  Yet they sit up front on most Sundays and "teach their daughters to sit still in church."  But while I am warmed by and greatly appreciate their efforts (and many others I have not mentioned here), I am saddened by the parents who have allowed their kids to get up and leave for any reason what so ever.  They run to the drinking fountain at the first hint of thirst and then run to the toilet just to see if maybe they might have to go.  They wander the halls to and from the above mentioned destinations and then wander a bit more on their way back.  I especially like it when they clippity clop their shoes hard on the floor and then allow the doors to slam behind them.  But, who can blame them?  It is what they see in the adults around them.

Unless we as a population have grown entirely decrepit over the years and the people who went before us were supermen and superwomen, we have succumbed to the idea that every feeling, desire, or thought has to be acted upon.  So God forbid that we should thirst for a drink.  Sneak a bottle of water into the sanctuary or a cup of Starbucks (why are there no cup holders in those pews?????).  Run to the drinking fountain not once but a dozen times when the whim of thirst passes by.  Lord knows, that bladder size has surely shrunk over the years because some of us have to go a dozen times in the hour and fifteen minutes that the liturgy lasts -- and go we must whether the Word of the Lord is being read or prayer being prayed or sermon being preached (not discreetly during a hymn or the offering but when it is all quiet and getting up out of the pew is the most obvious thing you can do).

Sitting still in church is not the issue -- denying yourself for 75-80 minutes so that the focus may be upon the Word and Table of the Lord and the gracious gifts He has made accessible to us there.  It is not the sitting still but the discipline that says a moment of my discomfort or inconvenience is not important because Christ is here in our midst offering to me and all the faithful the Kingdom and all its blessings through the means of grace.  I am no Nazi looking for kick step uniformity.  What I am looking for is the devotion that looks beyond self and the whims and feelings and wants of the moment in order to focus your heart, mind, and body upon Christ.  This is what my mom taught me about sitting still in church.  [And, by the way, the same goes for concerts and other venues when you are less important than what is going on before you.]

Judging from the comments at the recent Seminary placement services in St. Louis, from the incessant need for some Pastors to ad lib through the entire service (traditional or contemporary), and the preoccupation with dramatic movement in which those same Pastors roam about like a fake lion seeking to devour their hearers with their wit, intelligence, and coolness, well, the same sitting still problem that affects the pews also affects the sedelia.

I was moved the woman who thanked her mom for teaching her to sit still (despite concerns about how hard it is to teach children and the lingering fear that they aren't getting anything out of the service anyway).  It is one of the deepest and most profound lessons I learned from my mom.  What is going on around you is often more important than you are (or your wants, desires, feelings, and discomfort).  I recall my old friend Joel Kuznik telling me about a summer spent in Europe.  He was sitting in Notre Dame or Chartes at an organ recital and a woman down the pew was doing her best to stifle a cough.  Finally, when she could no longer keep it in, she muffled it into the sleeve of her coat.  Between organ pieces, she leaned over to Joel and apologized for the interruption.  Granted, we won't be going back to that kind of consideration, but it is not a bad thing to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus.... even while in the pew with kids and spouse in tow...

For My Mom... For My Wife... and For Moms All

Those lives were mine to love and cherish.
To guard and guide along life's way.
Oh God forbid that one should perish.
That one alas should go astray.

Back in the years with all together,
Around the place we'd romp and play.
So lonely now and oft' times wonder,
Oh will they come back home some day.

I'm lonesome for my precious children,
They live so far away.
Oh may they hear my calling...calling..
and come back home some day.

I gave my all for my dear children,
Their problems still with love I share,
I'd brave life's storm, defy the tempest
To bring them home from anywhere.

I lived my life my love I gave them,
to guide them through this world of strife,
I hope and pray we'll live together,
In that great glad here after life.

I'm lonesome for my precious children,
They live so far away.
Oh may they hear my calling...calling.. and come back home some day.

The end is coming

 As Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli might sing it, "time to say good bye..." or so the buzz has been.  It seems that the media has jumped on the impending end of all things and judgment day -- at least the timetable for it, anyway.

I normally do not pay much attention to all of this crazy stuff but this is especially appropriate since the date in question comes right after my 33 wedding anniversary.  Could there be something to this?  Will we not make it to 34?  Or does it matter?

It is amazing how interested the world is in those who purport to know its end date.  It is even more amazing how little the world is interested in the One who came to prepare us not merely for its end but for the beginning of the heavenly life for which our Lord traversed space and time to become incarnate in the womb of the Virgin, suffer and die for the sins of the whole world, and rise again to give us the life that death cannot overcome.  It is even more and more amazing how many Christians are abuzz about this but who don't get the least bit excited that Christ stands in our midst on Sunday morning, the Lord of life and death, bringing to us the gifts of His kingdom, and feeding us the foretaste of this blessed feast to come.

Luther famously suggested that if he knew the end were coming tomorrow, he would plant an apple tree today.  In this way I wish we were all Johnny Appleseeds who were so focused on the gift of the present and the promise of the future that we were not swayed by the changes and chances of this mortal life -- or the prospect of its end.  It is this that I strive for, often failing but always striving to live so in the moment of God's grace that it frames who I am and what I do -- even more so that it frames the end of all days.  For this reason, we are Eucharistic Christians whose life and future are the stuff of bread which is His body and wine which is His blood.  For this reason we eat today the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation -- right along with the bread of our affliction -- and we are comforted, consoled, and encouraged.  For this reason we eat today that which not only satisfies our need and want for now but builds within us the hunger and thirst for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb which is to come, in His Kingdom without end...

Hitting A Nerve...

I am always amazed at how wounded we (LCMS) are when it comes to issues of Pastors, seminaries, and the Pastoral Office.  It seems that my posts in these areas generate some of the highest and most earnest responses.  It is, I believe, a symptom of how some of the problems of our church body have finally made themselves a thorn in the side of congregations and Pastors.  I will admit I am rambling here but just a few thoughts....

On one hand, calls are drying up and Pastors are not moving.  This is not such a bad thing, I believe, if we are committed to longer term pastorates and both Pastor and parish are on board with this.  The problem, however, is that this is being forced upon us by a myriad of circumstances and there are both congregations and Pastors looking for calls to ease some difficult situations and they are not coming.  In one District, the Pastoral changes once made up a full side of a half sheet of paper in their newsletter and now it barely merits a couple of lines of print.  This is not good.  There needs to be some fluidity and this is a healthy thing for the Church.

On the other hand, congregations have very high expectations and believe that they can know a candidate well enough through interviews, SETs, etc., to predict how that Pastor will do in their parish.  The attempt to nail down all unknowns is not healthy.  The work of the Holy Spirit and the essential trust that once was a given, now seems almost on the fringes of the call process.  In many places where I watched congregations interview and quiz and question and do background work on a potential Pastor, that Pastor inevitably ended up with difficulties simply because they worked like a corporation shopping for an executive instead of a church calling a Pastor.  Interviews and questionnaires are not a replacement for our trust and confidence in the Lord of the Church and our charity and willingness to work on this relationship when calling a Pastor.

On the other hand, some Pastors have tended to see congregations as finished products and look for an end result instead of a long term place in which both can work and build together what God has called them to do and to be.  I have spoken with Pastors who said that if things did not go "their way" in a few years, they were out of there.  Whether on one side of the theological spectrum or the other, such is a very unhealthy way to begin a pastoral relationship with people.  Even when great doctrinal issues are uncovered, the wise and faithful Pastor will teach people back to faithfulness with a patient and loving attitude.  Sure it does not always work but it will leave both in a better place when conflicts do arise.

On the other hand, District Presidents don't seem to know their Pastors as well as they once did.  I recall when the suggestion of a DP was well considered because the people knew that this man knew them as a congregation and the Pastors on that list.  I have heard many DPs say they were surprised by the way this Pastor or that carried out their ministry -- there should be little surprise here.  Pastors and congregations are the primary domain of the DPs and tons of problems can be avoided by knowing both well and speaking to both with honesty and love.

On the other hand, we have had rosy scenarios about the numbers of Pastors needed and brutal judgments about the health of so many of our smaller or weaker parishes and the two seemed to live in isolation from each other until we got a few years where not all candidates got calls.  We once had a great number of first call parishes whose size and resources meant that they were doomed or blessed to be first call situations for candidates who would then accept calls to larger or more well fixed parishes a few years later.  Many of these are no longer viable for the cost of salary and benefits for a full-time Pastor.  In this respect, we have neglected them and their need and now find ourselves desperate to know how to revitalize these congregations (rural, urban, and suburban).  Several in my own circuit have gone from being very strong congregations to congregations who have weathered serious decline.  We also need to be honest with those entering the Seminary and we need to explore some more worker priest callings (but that will also mean we can no longer ignore or pass on to the Pastor the high cost of college and seminary education).

Finally, it seems that we are trying to do a lot of things at the same time and we are about as effective as a shot gun aiming at a bulls eye.  We need to reign in the panic and work more carefully and more consistently in some of these areas.  We went through delayed vicar, DELTO, SMP, and a host of other programs and ideas; we continue to reinvent the solution without perfecting a program when it comes to seminary education.  We have TCN and a host of TCN style programs trying to revitalize smaller and declining congregations and yet the solution will not be simply a praise band and more parking.  We need to look at the turnaround in longer perspective and make sure that these congregations are still Lutheran when we are done.  I wish I had the answers but it does not take much to see that for a while now the LCMS has been in sort of panic mode and it is not serving us well.  Many of our Pastors are demoralized, our seminaries spend too much time fund raising, our congregations are beaten up and weary, and we do not have an idea of which one or two solutions we will stick with long enough to make a difference. 

Let me be up front here -- I am not pessimistic.  In fact, I am rather hopeful. We have a great number of things going for us right now and acting like we are soon to be dead or panicking when trying to find solutions will not help.  We need to be careful or we will end up being successful without being faithful and that will not serve the cause of the Gospel.  It is not a sleeping giant we need to awaken but thousands of congregations and their Pastors in particular situations but with the same sufficient grace provided by the Word and Sacraments of our Lord so that we can and will be fruitful in the work that He has called us to do.

SETs and Calls and Stuff

The Pastor's SET (Self-Evaluation Tool) is supposed to be a way that Pastors describe their theology and practice and uses both short and longer answers to questions as well as other typical tools to define themselves.  There are those who would figure that I am about the most rigid Pastor in Synod when it comes to worship "style" and yet the two congregations I have served were no where near Lutheran practice and identity when I came there.  In one the Synod assigned me as candidate and I stayed nearly 13 years.  In the other, I arrived nearly 19 years ago and am still here.  Both congregations moved from a more non-specific worship "style" (one with a non-Lutheran Gospel song book in the pews instead of a Lutheran hymnal) to a rich and vibrant liturgical service and both were restored to the hymnal of our Synod (first TLH, then LW, then LSB).  Both moved from a twice a month or so Sacrament to a weekly Eucharist.  I chant, wear full eucharistic vestments, introduced the chalice, purchased an organ, etc. -- in both places.  In both places the congregations grew in numbers (more than doubling, or, in the later case tripling in size).  We expanded both buildings, started preschools, began food pantries, and made a name in the community where before we were rather invisible.  In both congregations support for missions (particularly Synod and District) went from zero to close to 10% of our income.  Both congregations were slowly introduced to Lutheran identity in worship but both have become fully identified with it.  The first congregation has resisted many attempts to move them from this liturgical expression of their confessional Lutheran identity.

Do I get many calls?  No.  Most of the calls I have gotten can be traced to someone who knows me or knew me.  Did the answers to the SET help or hurt in this?  I do not have a clue.  I do know that I have a reputation as an outspoken advocate of liturgical worship and confessional Lutheran identity and practice.  In fact, one brother suggested that my blogging might have pretty well killed any prospects for another call (as if there were any for a man less than a decade to the customary retirement age).  So I know that there are tradeoffs.  I am not rigid but am perceived to be.  I did not force a congregation to go anywhere or do anything.  I told them up front who I was, what I believed, and that if I accepted the call, this is the direction I would be leading.  I asked them what they thought of it.  Most did not have a clue what to think.  But I have been there for their crises, stood at their bedsides, knelt with them in prayer, baptized and confirmed their children, married family members, buried their loved ones, listened to them pour out their hearts, heard their confessions, and tried for work for their good (and not my own personal preference) along the way and they have learned to trust me -- even though my vision of Lutheranism was foreign to theirs and to their past experience.  Both congregations and, even I, flourished during our time together.

What is most damaging is when any Pastor has a clear personal agenda, imposes personal preference, and demands things before earning the trust of his people.  I have seen damage done by confessional guys who come in with a me or the highway sort of attitude and I have seen the same damage done by those who come from the very opposite perspective but expressing the same attitude.  In general, people want to trust and love their shepherds and, unless their past experience or their Pastor gives them reason why they should not, they will generally follow them anywhere (as long as they believe that their Pastor is working for their good).  Unfortunately, some DPs and some people reading SETs and some people listening to rumor do not ever give some Pastors a chance.

Thoughts on Calls...

In following the blogosphere discussion of the call situation in the LCMS (so far only Ft. Wayne suffered any candidates without calls and all 93 St. Louis guys received calls -- a subject for another day), I wonder how all of this compares with calls for DCEs, DCOs, teachers, etc.  What are the numbers of people graduating and looking for calls and how many of them are without call at the time of their graduation?  Does anyone know?

Second it seems that worship remains a BIG issue in the call situation.  Several who seem to be in the know indicate that the reason Ft. Wayne graduates have borne a larger proportion of the burden of no calls at graduation is that the Ft. Wayne graduates tend to be more "rigid" in their traditional worship "style" and less "flexible" or "open to" or even familiar with contemporary worship and music.  Ooooohhhh boy is there something there I would just love to jump on -- but being so quiet, passive, and charitable, I cannot go there (for now, anyway)...

So worship has a great deal to do with the whole thing..... Hhhhhmmmmm.  I thought that worship wars had subsided somewhat (or at least some had told me this).  Could it be that the seminaries and their graduates have become either pawns or players in a war increasingly waged behind the scenes?  Could it be that this is a big deal when it comes to the great difference perceived between the two seminaries and their graduates?  This might explain why larger numbers of Ft. Wayne candidates tend to go out as solo Pastors in smaller congregations more typically using "traditional" worship formats and larger numbers of St. Louis graduates tend to go out as associate or assistant Pastors in medium and larger congregations more typically open to "contemporary" worship formats?

In the end the perceived gulf between our seminaries and the divide between those in "traditional" and "contemporary" worship camps is growing.  St. Louis guys are open and flexible and will do what the people want and Ft. Wayne guys are narrow, rigid, and will insist upon something whether the folks in the pew want it or not.  I hope that this perception in wildly inaccurate and that both seminaries produce narrow minded Lutheran clergy who insist upon being Lutheran in theology and practice, who are unbending in their commitment to the Confessions and the liturgical identity that flows from those Confessions, but who are pastoral and patient in their catechesis of the people in the pew as they lead and teach them of this confessional Lutheran identity and the faithful liturgical practice that flows from this doctrinal and confessional identity. But then again it is probably only because I am narrow minded, rigid, and insist upon being Lutheran... so I guess I am not the right person to comment upon this...

Resonating Chords...

Rod Dreher writes of his family's journey from Roman Catholicism to Orthodoxy (the Eastern kind) in a moving account in a piece in the Washington Post which you can read here.   While there might be a few things I could quibble with, his estimation of the "wars" going on with Roman Catholicism resonate with my own perception, albeit mine from a distance.  I have often said that those who swim the Tiber (or as one wag has suggested, "they have bridges you can cross"), it is often an exchange of different battles within much the same war as you might face within, say, Lutheranism.

I did resonate with some of what he said in the dramatic difference between Orthodoxy and the other Christian religions in America that seem far too at home with American culture and all too willing to defer to the popular conceptions of what religion is or should be.  He wrote:

Because of that, for all its dramatic beauty and rich feasting, Orthodoxy is far more austere and demanding than most American Christianity. The long liturgies, the frequent prayers, the intense fasts – all make serious demands on the believer, especially comfortable middle-class Americans like me. They call us out of ourselves, and to repentance. Orthodoxy is not interested in making you feel comfortable in your sins. It wants nothing less than for you to be a saint.

I might have put it a different way but I get his point.  Orthodoxy is not austere in terms of the building or the liturgy -- both of which are canvases painted richly in words, chant, and images (icons).  In fact, I can think of no other sacred space as well ornamented as the sacred space in a typical Orthodox church.  But the austerity is one in which the images of the world around us must fade and be replaced with the other worldly images of the Church, the heavenly Bride here on earth, and the anticipated Marriage Supper of the Lamb in His kingdom without end.  Unlike so many modern buildings in which nature is the artwork and broad expanses of clear glass offer an unrestricted view of that natural picture (or, in most cases, natural highways, neighborhoods, and even businesses and shopping areas), the Orthodox close off the view of the world in which we live that we might glimpse the world in which we are made citizens through baptism.

He is absolutely right in that Orthodoxy seems little concerned about the fact that their worship settings and services are absent the big screens, PowerPoint presentations, praise bands, contemporary sounding music, cup holders in the pews (or pews, for that matter), and "mall atmosphere" which seem to dominate the Christianity of so many different denominations.  They do make serious demands upon those who would enter such sacred space in which time seems much at a stand still and the clock an intrusion.  I especially like the phrase "they call us out of ourselves..."  In this, Lutherans should have much to identify with for the Divine Service attempts to do the very same -- top call us out of ourselves that we might become what God has declared us to be in our baptism.  If Lutherans are true to their identity and heritage, they, too, are uninterested in making you feel comfortable in your sins and, instead, seek to make you comfortable as the baptismal saint God has called you to be through water and the Word.

It’s common among American converts to hear that men were first attracted to Orthodoxy, and their wives followed. It’s not hard to see why. Many men are tired of a soft, bourgeois Christianity that doesn’t call them to much because it doesn’t ask much of them.

This is, perhaps, a brief paragraph form of what I was trying to say in my piece on the feminization (or emasculation) of the faith, worship, and the Church.  Christianity has become a soft religion in which the hard subjects of sin and sinful desire are left untouched and people are left with little but their feelings.  Solid, objective, eternal truth has been far too absent from the preaching, teaching, and worship of our Churches and it has begun to show.  Too many Christian churches are like an hour with Oprah on her couch instead time suspended to stand on the holy ground where God comes with power and mercy, might and love, a call to repentance and grace to make it possible.  This is exactly the problem when the Church seeks to affirm instead of call out -- and what a good job we have been doing "affirming" our people to death in their consumerism, captivity to desire, glorification of things temporal, and distance from things eternal.

My heart does actually have great fondness for Orthodoxy and yet I fear I am way too Lutheran and way too Western to actually go there.  I have enjoyed some brief but rich visits.  I have many CDs of Orthodox chant.  I read the fathers of the Church (especially those prior to the schism).  I am surrounded by icons in my office.  But just as someone no less attracted to the East departed this life listening to Bach (Jaroslav Pelikan), my own Christian heart is fixed and focused from the perspective of Lutheran confession and liturgical (and musical) practice.  Nevertheless, I feel that Mr. Dreher and I speak much the same language.  I wonder what choice he might have made if the Lutheranism of today looked more like the Lutheranism of Bach's day and the church and city where he served?  And, just maybe, that is the Lutheran side of this whole problem.

Real Men...

Let me begin by admitting that I have never been one who likes hand gestures that accompany songs.  I was not good at the YMCA letters, I was never comfortable holding up this little light of mine, and I feel just plain silly and goofy when the song leader invites us to act out the words of the song.  This did not come from adulthood but has been with me since childhood.  That said, I do not think it gives me unfair bias against such things.  (Of course, you may challenge that.)

Real men don't eat quiche.  Too bad.  I like quiche -- my wife used to make a bacon and Swiss quiche that I still crave (even though it is probably health only in small quantities).  Real men don't do gestures during songs in church.  I am not making a rule but simply supplying an observation based upon experience.  The folks who like to clap and wave their hands and do gestures during songs in church are inevitably small children and women of all ages (though not all of them).  [Boy am I going to get flak for saying this!!!!!]  I think contemporary worship -- in particular the idea that we need to DO something during singing -- is a fruit of the feminization of the faith and of the church.  I think that all those syrupy, sappy, love songs to Jesus my BFF are signs of the feminzation of the faith and of the church.  I think that an aversion to a hierarchical perspective on God, in which we begin with admitting that He is God and we are not, He is Creator and we are mere creatures, that God has teeth and not just tears -- this aversion to a wholly other God is a mark of the feminization of the faith and of the church.

Real men kneel.  Real men bow.  Real men genuflect.  Real men cross themselves.  Real men serve as altar boys.  Real men confess their sins. Real men understand that God is not come to us to be best buds but to deliver salvation to us.  Real men look to the crucifix and see the strength and power of such sacrificial love.  Real men sing sturdy, rhythmic tunes that sing not of our feelings but of what God has done by His mighty acts in Christ to deliver His captive people from their sins, kill them in baptism to make them alive with eternal life, and feed them upon the food of His own flesh and blood.

All the efforts of the last several generations to soften the image of God, to make worship more about us and our wants and likes, and to shape the Office of the Pastor more a therapeutic ministry than a sacramental one -- all of this has resulted in a church in which men are more and more absent or silent.  We wonder all the time "where are all the men?"  If statistics are true, the church has taken on the appearance of an organization largely populated by and directed toward women.  There are many who suggest that the men who are present have been given the subtle message to keep their masculinity under wraps... that those who lead the church and worship tend to emphasize feelings over objective truth in sermons and teaching, to emphasize the horizontal element of our relationships (to one another) over the vertical relationship (to God), and a more collegial style than one that possesses authority.  The typical male in a feminized church has a warm smile, carefully quaffed hair, is dressed to the nines, speaks positively about everyone and everything (except when he admits his own struggles to be a man in touch with himself), and seems to equate faith with getting in touch with your real self -- oh, am I talking about Joel Osteen? It is not just me.  I am reporting statements that come from across the board -- from non-denominational churches to Roman Catholics.  Suffice it to say that I believe there is much truth in all of this.

Where are the men?  It seems that one of the marks of men is that when women enter an area, they recede.  Whether this is good or bad, there is much evidence to all of this.  In the average Protestant congregation, the clergy is female, the ushers are female, the choir is mostly female, and the worship service spends an inordinate amount of words and time on feelings instead of objective truth.  Now, I am not sure which came first -- the absence of men or the women who took over these jobs.  Look at the governing boards of most Protestant congregations and many Roman Catholic parish councils -- what do you see?  Mostly female faces. It is not the fault of women and, in fact, we might rather describe it as the emasculation of the church and the faith more so than the feminization.

I do not mean to disdain the contributions or participation of women.  The very prototype of our faith is the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Many of those (perhaps a majority) who followed Jesus were women.  The last folks at the foot of the cross were women.  Those who rushed to the grave on Easter morning were women.  In every age and generation women have arisen as saints, martyrs, and examples of faith and piety for all of us to follow.  So far be it from me to say anything against their visible place and role in the church.  I only ask, when did we get the idea that in order for men to be in the church needed to show more of their feminine side?


Real men are men of faith and real women are women of faith and they stand together in the pew before the Mighty God and Lord whose love is strong as nails pounded into a cross and whose life is stronger than the grave that tried to imprison Him.  Somewhere along the way, many churches have chosen sides and the feminine side seems to have won.  Whose fault this is, I cannot say (except to admit that the power of sin and evil would use whatever resource available to weaken the Church of Jesus Christ).  The point is this.  We need real men every bit as much as we need real women -- in the home and in the pews.

I am convinced that strong Law/Gospel preaching, the liturgy, and the great hymnody of the Church are assets in recalling men to their rightful place along side the women in the pews. I am equally convinced that a casual understanding of God and of worship, songs of faith that sing like ballads or love songs to Jesus, and Pastors who act more like therapists and priests are hurting and not helping the cause of Christ.

I am no misogynist.  I do not want to drive women away.  But the way Christianity is going in America, the church seems to have chosen sides and real men are no longer welcome in God's house unless they mask their masculinity.  That is how I see it.... so have at me if you disagree....

BTW, I am not hawking the book shown in the image -- just showing that it is not only men who suggest that this feminization of the church and faith is happening in America.... and other places, too!

Honest Thomas and the Lord of Peace....

Sermon for Easter 2A, preached on Sunday, May 1, 2011.

    Some would say that the Scriptures of Christians speaks of fairy tales and dream worlds that cannot be real.  In reality, our Bible tells us the truth -- including the dark details and scandals that any human writer would have kept out of the story. We see in the Scriptures real people with real flaws and real failings, real doubts and real fears. 
     Today we encounter one of them, the infamous doubter called Thomas.  He was one of the twelve disciples who was with Jesus from the beginning and he was there when Jesus raised up Lazarus from the dead, so he seems an unlikely character to succumb to his doubts now after Easter.  But that is the way of real life and real people – even real Christians.
    Thomas is not some rock solid believer – the kind we all wish we were but are not. Like us, Thomas is more like a pile of stones, crushed by his doubts and fears, crying out in the midst of his unbelief “Lord, help me.”  I think we are more like Thomas than we know or care to admit.  Every day is a struggle of faith.  Do we believe?  Why do we believe?  Are we sure we believe?  What do we believe? If we believe, why do we fall, why do we sin, why do our lives seem in such disrepair, and why are we so broken?
    Thomas is the patron saint for people who have real doubts and real fears, who wrestle each day to believe, to hold on to their hope in Christ.  We do not want to admit it but doubt and fear are the constant companions of Christian life. Some of them well up from within our own old Adam or sinful nature; some spring from the world and its challenges to the faith; some are seeds the devil himself has planted – seeking our destruction.  There is no place to hide from them so the real question is what do we do with them?  To whom do we bring our doubts and fears?
    It is foolishness to ignore them.  If we cannot live this mortal life avoiding them, then the real task before us is not where to run to hide from them but how to face them. There is a war going on inside of us between the drowning but not yet fully dead old sinful nature and the new person created in Christ Jesus.  This battle will not end until we depart this mortal life for the blessed peace of eternity with Jesus.
    Perhaps Thomas tried to run from his doubts and fears as we often do.  After all, Thomas was missing when Jesus first appeared to His disciples on Easter. Where was he?  What could have been more important that to stay together with the believers, waiting for Jesus to fulfill His promise?  Running from them or avoiding them does not release you from the destructive power of doubt and fear; it only confirmed Thomas in his refusal to believe Jesus was raised.
    Perhaps Thomas felt that his doubts and fears made him unworthy to be a disciple.  That is what often happens to us.  Our doubts and fears isolate us with the sense of unworthiness and so we stay away from Christ and His family, the Church.  But our doubts and fears are not what make us unworthy – our sins have done a pretty good job of that.  So when Jesus died and rose to forgive those sins, our unworthiness disappeared before God's declaration of forgiveness.  Jesus sacrificial death and life giving resurrection have dealt with sin’s guilt and its stain upon us.
    So if you cannot run or hide from your doubts and fears and if Christ has cleansed us by His blood so that we are declared justified and restored, then the only question left is what do you do with them? Here is where we learn something from Thomas.  Running away from Jesus does not work.  Running to Jesus is the key.  When Thomas finally swallowed his pride and showed his face among the faithful, Jesus was there.  Jesus confronts what Thomas had tried to run from.  Doubts and fears are only disarmed by honesty.  When Thomas was finally honest about them, Jesus could deal with them.  But as long as Thomas hid them away, they ruled his soul and robbed him of every peace he sought to know.
    Once those doubts and fears were brought out into the open, Jesus was able to calm them.  Put your finger here... put your hand here, said Jesus. Yet there is no record of Thomas actually extending his finger to touch the wounds on Jesus' hand or putting his hand in Jesus side.  Jesus did not give Thomas some sort of indelible proof but disarmed those doubts and fears by bringing them out in to the open and responding to them with grace.
             We come here on Sunday morning to confront the dark secrets of our hearts, to lay aside our sins through Christ’s forgiveness, and to lay our doubts and fears at the feet of Jesus.  We come to hear His voice point to the wounds in which we find healing, to His suffering that has paid sin's awful debt, and to His resurrection that holds forth our eternal future.  We come like Thomas of old to confess them and then to lay them all at the feet of Jesus.  There is the only place where they find answer and our hearts are reborn to hope.
    No one ever finds their way back to faith or the Church by running away.  Absence does not make the heart grow fonder.  No one ever finds their confidence restored by hiding among their doubts.  No one ever finds strength from running away from their fears.  No one is ever made stronger by being alone to face their doubts and fears.  Today is honest Thomas Sunday – the day we come to where Jesus is, where His Spirit works in the means of grace – to be honest with God.  In that honesty we confess our sins, our doubts, and our fears that we might find the peace that passes understanding and be reborn to joy by His grace.
    Don’t lie to God or try to hide behind some false front of piety.  Do you have doubts?  Do you have fears?  I do!  Nearly every day is a struggle to hold on to Christ’s promise amid the pressing weight of fear, failure, and frustrations.  But nothing is resolved by hiding them or running from them.  We find confidence, faith, and courage only by laying our doubts and fears at the feet of Jesus.  We are made strong by being where Christ is, here, together in His House, around His Word and Table.  Here we cry out in faith, “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.” Here we come to lay claim to the grace of His promise.  Here is where He gives peace to our fearful and troubled hearts.  Here is where our doubts meet the certain truth of His Word.  Here the Spirit works to bestow Christ’s peace on our fearful and troubled hearts – not as the world gives but as only the Lord of life and death can give.  Here we grasp hold of grace by faith and grace grasps hold of us, that when we walk out those doors and into the callings and circumstances of our daily lives, His gracious peace may continue to hold off guilt through forgiveness, doubt through conviction, and fear through His presence and protection.
    Thomas lived a lifetime in that week, tossing and turning on the sea of His doubts and fears, until he knew with the rest of the disciples the blessed peace that only our crucified and risen Savior can bestow.  How many weeks of our lives are lost because we allow our doubts and fears to rule our hearts, drive us far from His means of grace, and hold us captive to their destructive power?  No, friends, come here and bring your doubts and fears to Him for His grace is sufficient and His mercy surrounds us with blessed peace for our souls.  Amen.

God With Us -- When We Are Most Alone

Being a Pastor means being with people in their worst moments.  Some of those moments have been with families whose loved ones wrestle with mental illness.  There are those within my own extended family who battle the same encroaching darkness of deep depression, high anxiety, compulsive behaviors, bi-polar and the whole realm of psychotic disorders.  Later this week I will be with a family as they lay to rest a loved one whose own battle with mental illness finally extracted its ultimate cost -- a death chosen instead of life endured.

There was a time when I was young and convinced that DuPont had it right -- better living through chemistry.  A pill or a treatment and then it will be all better.  Now I am wiser though this wisdom was born of the painful lesson that it will not all be better and sometimes to endure is its own major victory.  I realize now that pills can help but often help little and that therapy can help but often helps little and that prayer can often seem empty for those accustomed to hope that is crushed by disappointment.  I am wiser but the cost of this wisdom is the realization that so often those with mental illness are treated differently than those with physical ills.  This wisdom has taught me that those with mental illness are kept at arms length when the physical ills would invite embrace, understanding, and sympathy.  So often people hide mental illness not because of shame (though certainly that can enter in) but because they are treated so badly by the very folks they count on for love and support.

The Church struggles with knowing what to do with those who face such ills that pills cannot mend and therapy cannot repair -- the ills that flow from a broken and wounded spirit.  Whether chemical imbalance or the conflagration of stress, anxiety, and fear, the reality is that we pray for and rush to help those with physical illness while often having little clue what to say or what to do for those among us who wrestle with mental illness and for their families.  It is better, yes, but it is still different.

I have read the stories of families who cried out in pain and loneliness just wishing their children or spouses had cancer because then the world would understand, their friends would rush to their aid, insurance would cover without question, and they would benefit from the united prayers of their brothers and sisters in Christ.  Instead, the mental illness borne by them or their family members has left them isolated, wounded, bleeding, hopeless, and fearful of the future.

Not knowing what to say is understandable.  We often do not know what to say to a myriad of situations faced by Christians -- from job loss and poverty to terminal illness to family break ups... But one of the most heart wrenching stories I have ever read comes from one suffering from a bi-polar condition whose life and faith have found comfort from the fact that God is there even in his weakness.  At the end of this wonderfully honest and heart wrenching story he wrote:

Though my illness persists, I have finally met the God I had heard about but never truly experienced. A God who heals. A God who loves. A God I cannot logically explain to my psychiatrist. A God who manifests his genius by salvaging good from the evil in our lives. Someone unlike me. Someone unlike the well-meaning inquisitors who judged me and sought to spiritually cure me. Someone I never would have discovered without my affliction.  A God who calls himself Emmanuel—God with us.

Christianity Today is to be commended for publishing it and I would urge you to read his story called God of the Schizophrenic.  Read it and think about those within the circle of your family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and church family who suffer from one form of mental illness or another.  Read it and pray for them and their family members.  Read it and consider you can reach out to them in love and support and speak the comforting word of God's presence to them in their wounds and need.  Read it and make sure that the Church is a healing place not only for those with physical ills but for those with wounded spirits.  Read it and make sure that the love and loving support we provide for those with physical illness is also provided to those with mental illness.  Read it and rejoice in the God who visits our wounds with His presence and whose grace is sufficient even when healing and wholeness awaits our heavenly reward. 

A truly ROYAL wedding sermon...

From the Bishop of London:

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” So said St Catherine of Siena whose festival day it is today. Marriage is intended to be a way in which man and woman help each other to become what God meant each one to be, their deepest and truest selves.

Many are full of fear for the future of the prospects of our world but the message of the celebrations in this country and far beyond its shores is the right one – this is a joyful day! It is good that people in every continent are able to share in these celebrations because this is, as every wedding day should be, a day of hope. 

In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and the groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them into the future.

William and Catherine, you have chosen to be married in the sight of a generous God who so loved the world that he gave himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

And in the Spirit of this generous God, husband and wife are to give themselves to each another.
A spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves. Faithful and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this; the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life.

It is of course very hard to wean ourselves away from self-centredness. And people can dream of doing such a thing but the hope should be fulfilled it is necessary a solemn decision that, whatever the difficulties, we are committed to the way of generous love.

You have both made your decision today – “I will” – and by making this new relationship, you have aligned yourselves with what we believe is the way in which life is spiritually evolving, and which will lead to a creative future for the human race.

We stand looking forward to a century which is full of promise and full of peril. Human beings are confronting the question of how to use wisely a power that has been given to us through the discoveries of the last century. We shall not be converted to the promise of the future by more knowledge, but rather by an increase of loving wisdom and reverence, for life, for the earth and for one another.

Marriage should transform, as husband and wife make one another their work of art. It is possible to transform as long as we do not harbour ambitions to reform our partner. There must be no coercion if the Spirit is to flow; each must give the other space and freedom. Chaucer, the London poet, sums it up in a pithy phrase:
“Whan maistrie [mastery] comth, the God of Love anon,
Beteth his wynges, and farewell, he is gon.”

As the reality of God has faded from so many lives in the West, there has been a corresponding inflation of expectations that personal relations alone will supply meaning and happiness in life. This is to load our partner with too great a burden. We are all incomplete: we all need the love which is secure, rather than oppressive, we need mutual forgiveness, to thrive.

As we move towards our partner in love, following the example of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is quickened within us and can increasingly fill our lives with light. This leads to a family life which offers the best conditions in which the next generation can practise and exchange those gifts which can overcome fear and division and incubate the coming world of the Spirit, whose fruits are love and joy and peace.

I pray that all of us present and the many millions watching this ceremony and sharing in your joy today, will do everything in our power to support and uphold you in your new life. And I pray that God will bless you in the way of life that you have chosen, that way which is expressed in the prayer that you have composed together in preparation for this day:

God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage. In the busyness of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and energy.Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Beatification...

Unless you were hidden under a rock, you must know of the beatification of John Paul II which took place this weekend past.  For those who do not know, beatification (from Latin beatus, blessed) is a recognition accorded by the Roman Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name (intercession of saints). Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process. A person who is beatified is given the title "Blessed".

Now, to be sure, this process is both mystifying to us Lutherans (and to all non-Roman Catholics) and presents us with somewhat of a conundrum.  On the one hand, John Paul II had nearly universal respect and carried out his papacy with remarkable wisdom and care for his church, in honor of the Lord.  Many of his writings speak eloquently of the catholic truth that we confess with Rome.  On the other hand, the whole premise of the canonization process is somewhat foreign to us and we are also confused by some of his statements which seem to affirm the very things that brought into focus the Great Reformation that is our heritage.

One Vatican observer has noted:  “Pope Ratzinger did not decide on the spot. He knew his predecessor and had no doubts about his personal holiness. He wanted to consult first, though, and finally decided to waive the usual waiting period of five years (before opening the cause of canonization) but not to skip the step of beatification.”  Since the Roman Catholic Church reform of 1983, one miracle must be proven to have taken place through the intercession of the person to be beatified, though this requirement is not necessary for those who died a martyr, as their sanctity is already evident because of the manner of their death.

Personal holiness is, for us Lutherans, not the issue. For us sainthood involves the good and gracious will of God revealed in Christ and the imputation of Christ's righteousness upon us in baptism.  That is not to say that we Lutherans do not acknowledge those whose faithfulness endures throughout the memory of the Church (such as the Biblical saints, the great fathers of the Church, etc.).  For us sainthood is not proclaimed as much as it is recognized -- with a view to God at work and less in terms of any recognition of personal holiness.  We do speak of the sainthood that belongs to all the baptized by God's declaration in Christ and we also recognize the particular designation of those in whom and through whom God has worked in particular ways (martyrs, renewers of the faith, etc.).

Further, while we do not speak of miracles as having been worked through the intercession of the dead, we certainly do believe the saints in heaven are praying for the saints on earth.  We as Lutherans ascribe all miracles to the good and gracious will of the Father and not to the particular cause or to the individual in whose name the cause is committed.  In the end, the whole process used by Rome is foreign to us because it introduces to the equation what we will only know in retrospect (when Lord did we see you hungry and feed you, etc.).  On the day of judgment all that is hidden from us will be revealed but the glory will always and will only belong to God and it will enough for us to hear the voice of welcome saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant..." In the end, what bothers us about this kind of process is that the emphasis is placed where it should not belong -- on the saint and on the life of the saint instead of upon Christ and what He has accomplished by His obedient suffering and life-giving death.  For us, the glory of the saints lies most supremely in the glory that points to Christ (through them).

Article 21 of the Augsburg Confession states:
The memory of saints may be set before us, that we may follow their faith and good works, according to our calling, as the Emperor may follow the example of David in making war to drive away the Turk from his country. 2] For both are kings. But the Scripture teaches not the invocation of saints or to ask help of saints, since it sets before us the one Christ as the Mediator, Propitiation, High Priest, and Intercessor. 3] He is to be prayed to, and has promised that He will hear our prayer; and this worship He approves above all, to wit, that in all afflictions He be called upon, 1 John 2:1: 4] If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, etc.

Justice but still pain... in pursuit of peace

Having lived in New York state and on Long Island, I can only imagine the celebration of the justice in finding and ending the life of Osama bin Laden.  Certainly the lives of the thousands who died, were wounded, the emergency personnel, and their heirs have cried out for justice against this cowardly act of terrorism.  There is a certain sense of joy in the death of the planner whose violence entered into our own land and has forever marked our lives.

That said, even the dead of bin Laden will not end the fear and uncertainty that has plagued our nation since.  While we can be proud and patriotic at this moment, we know the security systems will still confront us every time we want to fly across this country or the world.  We will fear every time a car sits strangely idle too long or a briefcase or piece of luggage is found or a piece of mail is opened and dust spills out.  Our country was relatively immune to these kinds of fears -- even though the rest of the world knew them only too well.  September 11, 2001, changed all that.  We could no longer deny or be distracted from the hate born violence that knows no boundaries and seems impossible both to predict or to prevent.  In essence, our country and our people grew up very quickly to the reality of fear, to the evil that seeks destruction at any cost, and to the minds whose only focus is on violence.  We will never return to the way we were -- not even celebrating the death of bin Laden will restore our sense of innocence.

For the Christian, fear has a salutary outcome when it drives us into the God of peace who alone can set our hearts at rest.  That peace was spoken once to Thomas whose fears had nearly chocked off his faith and we came to God's House yesterday to hear it spoken again to our fearful hearts.  If there be any peace that will carry us through the dark night of our fears or end the restless sleep our worries interrupt, it will flow from the peace, the perfect peace, of Christ.  For now we will rejoice that justice has come at long last but we will not forget that the arms of our Savior provide our only refuge and peace, both now and forevermore.

1 When aimless violence takes those we love,
When random death strikes childhood's promise down,
When wrenching loss becomes our daily bread,
We know, O God, You leave us not alone.


2 When passing years rob sight and strength and mind
Yet fail to still a strongly beating heart,
And grief becomes the fabric of our days,
Dear Lord, You do not stand from us apart.


3 Our faith may flicker low, and hope grow dim,
Yet You, O God, are with us in our pain;
You grieve with us and for us day by day,
And with us, sharing sorrow, will remain.


4 Because Your Son knew agony and loss,
Felt desolation, grief and scorn and shame,
We know You will be with us, come what may,
Your loving presence near, always the same.


5 Through long, grief-darkened days help us, dear Lord,
To trust Your grace for courage to endure,
To rest our souls in Your supporting love,
And find our hope within Your mercy sure.

Atheists and Foxholes

Who does not know that old adage that there are no atheists in foxholes?  Well, old adages may be generally true but not always.  One soldier is suing the Army to prove the exception to this old rule.  You can watch his story here or you can read it here.  The Army is not a branch of any Christian church or any religion, for that matter, at least last I checked.  However, what is unique here is the idea that atheists want or deserve chaplains.  Now that is worth a few moments of pondering.

Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

The term atheism originated from the Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning "without god", which was applied with a negative connotation to those thought to reject the gods worshipped by the larger society. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves as "atheist" appeared in the 18th century.

Atheists tend to be skeptical of supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence. Atheists have offered various rationales for not believing in any deity. These include the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument from nonbelief. Other arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to the social to the historical. Although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere.

In other words, atheism is not a religion of non-religious but a solitary stance, without doctrine or identifying kernels of belief or unbelief.  It is a religion of one, if it is a religion at all.  While it may seem lonely at times, those who are atheists can seek out other atheists for company.  Or they could join a church which does not require the belief in a god or in the God (Buddhism comes to mind).  The point is that religion is by nature communal.  Though there are some exceptions in which the solitary religious path or meditation forms a broad part of the exercise of that "faith," the very nature of religion is that it is a community to which one belongs, with rites of initiation and marks of belief which form the boundaries of that faith.  Some also have behavioral requirements.

If you want community, go to church.  If you do not want to believe (in anything), then, I am sorry, the best you are left with is yourself.  Unbelief does not require counsel.  In fact, it seems to be flourishing rather well left to its own individual devices.  Or, if you want to be together in your unbelief, go to Starbucks on Sunday morning.  Make fun of us believers (especially Christians, since it is rather in style).  Do whatever it is that atheists do.  But why do you need a chaplain to assist you?  Director of Entertainment, sure.  Master of Ceremonies, why not.  Food Director, of course.  Music director, well, atheists don't have any songs (see previous post on this blog).  But a chaplain.  Gimme a break.   Pullllleeeeezzzzzeeee.

For Every Little Miracle.... A Mother's Day Preview

Low Sunday Thoughts...

The first Sunday after Easter. The origin of the name is uncertain, but it is apparently intended to indicate the contrast between it and the great feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord, immediately preceding, and also, perhaps, to signify that, being the Octave Day of Easter, it was considered part of that feast, though in a lower degree.

The name "Low Sunday" is sometimes said to derive from its relative unimportance compared to the solemnities of Easter Day, but it is possible that "low" is a corruption of the Latin word Laudes, the first word of the Sequence of the day: "Laudes Salvatori voce modulemur supplici" (Let us sing praises to the Savior with humble voice).

OR

Low Sunday refers to the let down relative to the special festivities of Easter and the return to the more ordinary ritual of Sundays in general.  This is, of course, highlighted by the fact that attendance is also much lower.  Easter having been one of the traditional obligatory times for confession and communion, the crowd that once packed the churches for the holy day are now absent and attendance generally returns to its ordinary and routine level of participation of the faithful.

Some would suggest it is low because of the persistent doubting of Thomas who refused the testimony of the rest of the apostles, who was absent when they were present for Jesus' appearance, and who insisted that he must have proof if Jesus.  Surely old doubting Thomas, the regular Gospel lesson for the day, has rightly earned his nickname and his refusal to believe marks a low point among the normally high points in the Gospels for the rest of the season.

In any case, we are almost there! Perhaps all of them contribute to the sense of "low" Sunday.  I have come to see Thomas less in terms of his doubting and more in terms of the problem with his doubts -- he ran from them instead letting them push him into the presence of our Lord (and of His Word and Sacraments and the company of the faithful) where doubts may be answered.  It seems that the same uniformly happens today.  People with doubts and fears about their faith run away from -- rather than to -- Jesus and His Church.  Maybe we could restore the luster and bump up the attendance if we made this the day for all people with doubts and fears to come -- perhaps it might even surpass the Holy Day itself in sheer numbers?!

Dying for a Metaphor...

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: for peradventure for the good man some one would even dare to die.... so says Romans 5:7.  It might be sarcasm on St. Paul's part -- I am not sure how you take it seriously.  Few people are willing to die for good causes, that is to be sure, but who dies for a metaphor?  There are those who stumble before the great festivals of the Christian faith by distancing the event from its historicity or by turning even the historical event into a metaphor for something else.  Who is willing to die for a metaphor or for an idea that does not intersect with reality or touch reality?

Jesus is not a metaphor for anything.  He is real God in real human flesh and blood.  He is real righteousness who chooses the sacrificial path for the sake of the unrighteous.  He suffers not as an example but in the place of the suffering -- bearing in His body all the pain and guilt of their sin.  He dies not a symbolic death but a real death -- where the breath passed from his body and his lifeless body was placed in the grave where the rest of the dead are also placed.  He rises not in symbolic way or as a metaphor for anything -- He rises to live the life that death can no longer touch and to bestow upon us this life.

As preachers our task is not to deal in metaphors that might apply to our reality but to confront the reality of sin and its death with the reality of Christ and His suffering, death, and resurrection.  No where is this more confused than when the pulpit is used to speak of symbols instead what is real and true.  We do not need a symbolic Savior whose life and death are metaphors for all that is wrong and how to make it right.  We need a Savior who is real -- one whose shoulders are capable of bearing the burden of our sin, whose body will bear the burden of our weakness and death, and whose life steals the thunder from the grave so that we too might live in Him and rise to live with Him for all eternity.

Jesus does not die for an idea but for people with a face, a personality, an identity... for YOU and for me.  Jesus death is not a symbol of love but love at work for us and our salvation.  Our lives in Christ are rooted in His death and resurrection, we share in His suffering as the privilege of belonging to Him, and we rise in Him not for some vague idea of life but for glorious life, wearing glorious flesh and blood....

Well.... rant over... it is just that sometimes you read a bulletin that somebody drops off and what you see about makes you crazy... Not to mention those "scholarly" Bible teachers who attempt to sort out for us fact from fiction in the Scriptures -- and then act as if it does not matter to the message that we know little of Jesus or that the Scriptures have either distorted or obliterated the truth to present us a Gospel foreign to Jesus and alien to Jesus' self-understanding.  If I hear Bart Ehrman's name one more time or read a quote from him (in a bulletin of a so-called Christian congregation), I think I just might explode -- oops, oh, sorry, that was merely a metaphor to speak to the strong distaste I have for him.... Sadly, the ordinary Sunday School child has a more informed understanding of Scripture and Jesus Christ than this fellow...

His Last Lecture but He Will Always Be a Teacher

The Rev. Dr. Paul Maier, son of the iconic Lutheran radio preacher and Seminary professor, Walter A. Maier, has, in many ways, eclipsed his own father's success.  Not that it was his intention!  His tenure at Western Michigan University will probably never be matched.  His esteem in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod extends to nearly all quarters of the Pastors and people of this church body that has elected him to the presidium for many years.  His skill as a teacher is legendary and has been known well here at Grace where has has taught and preached 5 times over the last ten years.  Most of all, he is such an engaging and warm personality whose genuine love for the Church, whose vast knowledge of history and archeology, and whose skill at communicating what he knows have and continue to be one of our church's crown jewels.  He has retired from WMU where he has taught since the 1960-1961 school year.

To read more, click the Detroit Free Press.  Blessings to you Paul, our friend and teacher always!!