Father Hollywood

Welcome to the New (and Not Improved) America

2012-01-28T18:27:00.000-06:00

Is this the kind of America we have to look forward to?

The right to a trial is not just a good idea - it's the natural God-given law! Americans are foolish to allow it to be taken away from anyone for any reason. And politicians who support it must be aware of where this leads. And don't say that such things can never happen here. They already do - and with the full support of the majority of Republicans and Democrats in the federal government.

I fear that our window of opportunity to reclaim our liberties is closing, but maybe, just maybe, American totalitarianism isn't inevitable.

Thank you to the Rev. John Dreyer

2012-01-26T22:34:00.001-06:00

We had an outstanding visit from our dear friend the Rev. John Dreyer, who serves as a recruiter (real title: Admissions Counselor) for Concordia Theological Seminary - Fort Wayne. We had a blast! I mean, he was working like a dog and not having any fun at all (this was a working trip, after all). I don't want John to get in trouble with Rast. I mean, President Rast.

Anyway, thanks to Pastor Dreyer for preaching at our Wednesday evening Mass, faithfully proclaiming God's Word and sharing in the most holy body and blood of our Lord - as well as making connections with men in the area interested in serving in the holy ministry.

Grace and I go back about a decade with John, and below is a picture of us together at my graduation from CTSFW in 2004. It was obviously a more flattering camera angle seven and a half years ago as the gray hairs were sparse, if not rare!

Rev. John Dreyer and Vicar Larry Beane, 2004

Must be the light in the church...

Rev. John Dreyer and Rev. Larry Beane, 2012

Here is a link to our pictures after yesterday's service and during today's visit to the French Quarter - including the Napoleon House, Jackson Square, the St. Louis Cathedral, Arcadian Books, the Cafe du Monde, and a walk along the river.

What a great joy to catch up with a brother pastor and friend!

The Remarkable Dr. Iris Mack

2012-01-23T23:45:00.002-06:00

Dr. Iris Mack grew up in a housing project in New Orleans and has a truly remarkable story.

Even without the obstacles she overcame, just looking at her list of accomplishments is extraordinary and inspiring:

High school valedictorian
Double Bachlor's degrees from Vassar in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics
MS in Mathematics from UCLA (Research Fellow at Bell Laboratories and holder of a patent in fiber optics)
Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard (only the 2nd black woman to earn this doctorate from Harvard). Dissertation: "Block Implicit One-Step Methods for Solving Smooth and Discontinuous Systems of Differential/Algebraic Equations: Applications to Transient Stability of Electrical Power Systems"
Executive MBA from the London Business School
Investment banker
Professor at MIT, University of San Francisco, and Clark Atlanta University
NASA astronaut semifinalist
Lecturer in London, Paris, and Zurich
Whistleblower at Enron
Tangled with two former treasury secretaries of the United States (Rubin and Summers)
Correctly informed Harvard of the impending disaster facing its endowment because of risky derivatives (they not only didn't listen to her, at the cost of billions of dollars, but also fired her)
Founder and CEO of Phat Math - a comprehensive approach to mathematical education
Author of Mama Says "Money Doesn't Grow on Trees!" (available on Kindle for $2.99 here!) and currently writing Energy Trading and Risk Management as part of a multi-book deal with Wiley Publishing House
She is also into serious weight training, running, and amateur aeronautics
She currently works as an investment banker in London and speaks Spanish and French

More details here. Her insights into economics and involvement in political matters can be read here.

And by the way, you may wonder who someone of Dr. Mack's economic insight and real-world experience is endorsing during this presidential election cycle (certainly no tinfoil-hat wearing racist kook, to be sure). You can read about it here in Dr. Iris Mack's own words. She believes that he is "the only presidential candidate who understands the current dire straits the economy is in and the only one with a coherent plan to fix things.... the only non-elitist candidate and the only candidate that would put the country back on the road to liberty." Pretty high praise coming from someone of her caliber!

Swedish Lutheran?

2012-01-23T19:30:00.000-06:00

This guy is häftigt! Does the Church of Sweden - Mission Province have a Specific Ministry Program?

Hooray for Gretnawood!

2012-01-23T00:22:00.000-06:00

"Father Hollywood" as a name for this blog began as a joke (I was working at Hollywood Video during my first call). But it seems like life imitates humor.

New Orleans is sometimes known as "Hollywood South" since Louisiana offers tax breaks for movie-making, and so a lot of films get made here. And here is a pretty current list of projects. For some reason, Gretna - and more specifically, my neighborhood - always seems to be involved in filming, whether for commercials or movies.

The Paperboy was filmed at a local house just off 5th Street. It has not yet been released. Deja Vu was filmed in 2006 and features a good bit of New Orleans, as the story takes place on our side of the river at the Algiers Ferry Station. Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) was filmed at a local Gretna house just off the levee bike trail. We're also still waiting for Killer Joe to be released, some of which was filmed at our local restaurant, Common Grounds - including some of our waitress friends playing waitresses in the movie. This still from the movie was taken inside the restaurant, and this one looks across the neutral ground to the po-boy shop ("The Iron Grate Grill" on Huey P. Long Ave. formerly "Johnny's") across the way.

Right now, filming is happening for a Will Ferrell movie called Dog Fight (aka Southern Rivals) - a comedy based on Southern politicians during an election cycle. The movie is apparently set in South Carolina, though downtown Gretna has been made over into the fictional town of Hammond, North Carolina.

A vacant lot has been mocked up with building facades, while fake building fronts were placed on real buildings across the street. Gretna City Hall had a new facade put on it, and even the glass door had gold lettering with the new "town" embossed on it. We took a couple strolls around the set and took some pictures. There was a good attention to detail. Some of the extras who were driving around explained that they received North Carolina license plates and even stickers to cover up their Louisiana inspections on the windshields!

In the casting call for extras, it seems that the movie will be rather politically incorrect. It looks like fun! Filming should be going on for another week or so. I have no doubt that more will be on the way.

Chaplain Hollywood

2012-01-22T22:45:00.000-06:00

I was installed as chaplain of the David Crockett Steam Fire Company No. 1 on January 7, 2012.

Here are my pictures from the installation.

David Crockett is the oldest continuously operating volunteer fire company in the United States. As Mayor Harris pointed out, Crockett has not merely met monthly since its founding in 1841, the company has provided uninterrupted 24-7 fire protection on a volunteer basis to the City of Gretna since that time - absolutely without interruption!

This is extraordinary, especially considering the rough ride Gretna has been through in the last 171 years: the War Between the States, federal occupation, two world wars (keep in mind Gretna's German heritage), the Great Depression, and numerous hurricanes. Through all of these catastrophes and upheavals, David Crockett has not even shut down for one second.

Crockett also has not just a sterling record but a well-earned reputation for excellence and diligence.

The annual installation was a joyful celebration that had many high points, such as the swearing in of officers, the mayor's speech, the address by the state fire marshal, and the acknowledgment of fifty years of perfect attendance by Anthony Labruzza. The meal was excellent, and fitting to such an auspicious occasion. I also got to meet the Rev. Frank Carabello, the retired pastor of our good neighbor St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, having served there for thirty years.

I am very grateful to fire service veterans treasurer Lynn Coyne (who invited me) and president Gordon Carbo (who appointed me). I'm also grateful to LCMS chaplain the Rev. Dean Kavouras of Cleveland, Ohio, who serves as police, fire, and FBI chaplain, for his advice to me and also for his wonderful book (published by the Lutheran Heritage Foundation) chronicling his chaplaincy work in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001: Nine One One The Aftermath: The Word Works.

I'm looking forward to supporting the men who protect Gretna from fire and other disasters.

Siberian Lutheran Documentary

2012-01-21T11:45:00.000-06:00

... now in one YouTube video

Русские идут! The Russians Are Coming!

2012-01-18T10:58:00.000-06:00

And I think it will be even more fun than the movie!

On Friday, January 27, Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, Louisiana will host three guests from our sister church body in Siberia: the Rev. Vsevolod Lytkin (bishop of the Siberian Evangelical Lutheran Church), the Rev. Dmitri Dotsenko (pastor of St. James Lutheran Church, Novokuznetsk), Miss Natasha Sheludiakova (church musician of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Novosibirsk), accompanied by the Rev. Daniel S. Johnson (pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church, Marshalltown, Iowa and president of the Siberian Lutheran Mission Society).

They will arrive around 5:00 pm for a potluck and will make a presentation at 7:00 pm.

For more information, please contact me by e-mail: pastorbeane at gmail dot com.

Sermon: Epiphany 2 – 2012

2012-01-15T10:00:00.005-06:00

15 January 2012 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: John 2:1-11 (Amos 9:11-15, Rom 12:6-16)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

“The wine ran out.”

It may not seem so at first, dear brothers and sisters, but this is a result of the Fall, of the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and of the curse and punishment doled out to man as a result of his rebellion from God.

The fact that anything – even wine – runs out is a manifestation of “scarcity.” In other words, there is not enough stuff for everybody. And so, there must be competition and some kind of mechanism to figure out who gets what. Some end up on top, and some on the bottom. God told Adam: “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground.”

Man must work to eat. And because of this curse upon the very ground, the ground is stubborn. Some climates produce very little. Some people cannot work enough to pay for the food for their families to eat. And our sinful nature causes us to be lazy, to scheme to find ways for other people to provide us with a living, to steal, to foolishly squander our resources on luxuries instead of necessities, and to resent those wealthier than we. Our sinful nature also causes us to hoard and not share with those who are in genuine need.

And because of this scarcity, governments were instituted and economic systems developed to figure out who gets what in society. And whether it is a free market or a centrally planned economy, there is never enough. That is why our Lord told us point-blank that we would always have the poor with us.

“The wine ran out.”

There are few things more divisive – and potentially violent – than politics. When we have kings, we have scarcity. And so revolutionaries cut off the king’s head and start a democracy. And there is still scarcity. So democracies become republics. And there is still scarcity. And republics become oligarchies and welfare states and warfare states and empires and dictatorships and tyrannies. And there is still scarcity. Under capitalism, communism, fascism, and anarchy – there is still scarcity. The powerful and well-connected always have abundance while others have nothing. For there is still scarcity.

“The wine ran out.”

Dear friends, we do live in a bi-polar world of the Kingdom of the Left and the Kingdom of the Right, a church and a secular government. We do need to order ourselves politically in some way. But no matter what, we must understand that there is no Utopia, no perfect system: except one: the government of the City of God, Heavenly Jerusalem, the Kingdom of the King of Kings, the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

His mother has been telling us for two millennia: “Do whatever He tells you.”

Jesus has come to restore Eden, to replace scarcity with abundance, to roll back the ravages of sin, to crush the chaos and tyranny of Satan under His heel, and even to reverse the ultimate result of death itself!

“Do whatever He tells you.”

For His Word is truth! His Word is power! His Word forgives. His Word restores, revivifies, and resurrects. His Word gives life.

For we are all victims of scarcity, perhaps the rich even more than the poor! For no amount of money can buy what Jesus gives away for free – His life, His body, His blood, His Word, His forgiveness, and His communion with the Father! No amount of money can turn water into wine – but Jesus can, and Jesus does. “Do whatever He tells you” – for His Word is a promise, and what’s more, His Word is a promise that fulfills itself!

“When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from,” He proclaimed: “You have kept the good wine until now.”

For not only did the Fall result in scarcity, but also corruption. Not only does wine run out – along with bread, with water, with money, shelter, clothing, and with life itself – but it also runs down. Inferior wine is a result of the Fall just as much as scarcity. And the same is true with inferior bread, water, money, shelter, clothing, and life.

“Do whatever He tells you,” dear brothers and sisters!

Our Lord Jesus offers not merely an abundance of perfect wine for the wedding feast at Cana, for this was a “sign,” a glimpse into a deeper reality. He offers (truly offers, as in the sense of a sacrifice), He offers the wine of His blood without price, without scarcity, without counting the cost, without being filtered through politicians – He offers His saving Body and Blood freely, as well as the flowing waters of baptism and His Word of forgiveness! These are offered in abundance, in direct opposition to the scarceness we have brought on ourselves by our sin. The wine of His blood, the bread of His body, the water of His baptism, the Word of His forgiveness are abundant and perfect, and they cannot be hoarded, bought, sold, or bargained for – not at any price, not by any bureaucracy. For there is no price, dear friends! Love can never be purchased, for it is offered gratis and received gratefully.

Indeed, our God (who is Love) has kept the good wine until the time came for the Son to offer it to us in the wineskin of His own flesh, given to us in the chalice of His own passion, presented to us on the table of His own cross.

For hear the words of Blessed Amos, who prophesied of the wine of Christ and His people: “The mountains shall drip sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it… they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine. And they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.”

In Christ, scarcity is undone. In Christ, inferiority is nowhere to be found. In Christ, there are no strongmen or tyrants or hoarders or brokers. There is only abundance, grace, mercy, joy, and forgiveness that lasts forever!

Look at how this Good News of forgiveness and eternal life frees us from being selfish and self-centered! Look at how we Christians are able to love, freely love, even as Christ loves us! As St. Paul preaches: “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.”

That is what life in Paradise is like, dear friends, the true and eternal Utopia in which there is no scarcity, where there are no strife and struggle and warfare and greed, where wine flows freely, even as the forgiveness of sins drips sweetly from the very mountains, where life is endless and perfect.

For you, Lord Jesus, “have kept the good wine until now.”

Thanks be to God! Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Siberian Adventure - Day 24 - July 20, 2011

2012-01-14T22:49:00.003-06:00

Begin: Yekaterinburg
Fly to: Moscow (Domodedovo Airport)
Fly to: Washington (Dulles Airport)
Fly to: Kenner (Louis Armstrong Airport)
Drive to: Gretna

My alarm goes off at 4:30 am. Dan is up and ready to shower. I begin to pack my bags and close up my cot. I am able to IM with Grace one last time. We are very excited. I am bleary-eyed. The sky looks as bright as it did three hours ago when I went to sleep - not quite dark. In a matter of minutes, the sky becomes blue.

I distribute my things between bags and pack clothing as best as I can to protect fragile items. I pack my backpack inside my carry-on in case I can't have my carry-on with me under my seat.

Father Sergey arrives on time and drives us to Yekaterinburg's Koltsovo Airport. The language barrier and time of day makes it a quiet ride. Before we leave the car to walk to the terminal, Sergey gives me two CDs - the ones he had been playing in the car. He gives the third disk - Dire Straits - to Dan. He accompanies us to the terminal. He joins us through the preliminary security search. It was not aggressive, but I was frisked by a lady officer - something that (at least so far) is not done in the U.S.

We head to the check-in line and say goodbye to Sergey (who has to work at his full-time secular job today), and head off to security. Again, the blue footies and the naked-scanner. This time I see that there is a small locked room blocked off by frosted glass where the naked-scanner operator works.

We make it to our gate and a bus drives us to our plane. It is an A320 - not large but not small either. There are three seats on each side per row. Dan and I are seated together.

The Ural Airlines staff is friendly, but they speak almost no English - but enough. Our flight to Moscow is less than two hours. They serve a hearty boxed breakfast - which is almost like every other meal in Russia: salad, hot dish (chicken and rice in my case), bread, butter, cheese, meats, a cookie, a small cup of tea, and even a little chocolate bar. I save the bread, cheese, meats, and chocolate to bring back home to share.

Our flight was wonderful and comfortable.

We arrived at Domodedovo Airport, and it is very familiar thanks to my introduction by Elena. What was formerly exotic and a bit intimidating had become comfortable.

There are a few new experiences, however.

We were selected for some kind of interview after checking our luggage. Perhaps this was because of the crucifix around my neck. We were asked what we had in our bags. The young woman x-rays our bags, but strangely, there is no operator at the console to look at the images. She then had us open our bags and rifles through all of our things, asking questions about whether or not we have "cultural" items. What the hell does that mean? The only reason I think I know what she might be after is because of the story I had heard of the LCMS pastor a couple years back who was detained at the airport because he had an antique crucifix that he had purchased. He had bought it legally, but such things are not permitted to leave Russia. The irony is that in the Soviet Union, such things were destroyed. Now, taking them out of the country - even if you have purchased them legally - is not allowed.

The lady officer handles my books repeatedly and asks questions about "icons." Since all of my icons are in my checked bag, and none of them are antiques, I answer "no" to all of her questions. She wants to know what souvenirs I have. I explain that I have refrigerator magnets, coffee mugs, etc.

She is finally (though reluctantly) satisfied, and we hastily repack our things and leave.

We head to Passport Control. This is in a section of the airport known as Passenger Control. Dan and I go to different lines, as he has one of the new electronic passports with the chip.

There are two young women decked out like Panamanian generals in the booth. One takes my passport and unceremoniously removes it from the plastic cover. She looks at it, looks at me, yawns, and flips through it trying to look official. I stand patiently. She doesn't ask me any questions at all. She gives me my passport back and turns on the green light for me to exit.

At security, we were again (for the second time, I believe) asked if we had packed our own bags. We then head to the blue footies and the naked-scanner, assemble our stuff, and finally emerge into the airport proper.

As the airport has wifi, I was able to IM with Grace. Dan and I have to hang out and wait for the United agent to show up. Dan discovers the self-check-in kiosks and is ale to get his seat assignment and boarding pass. Mine will not work for some reason. I have to wait until 9:15 for the United personnel to arrive.

In line, we meet an elderly man who is a native Russian who has lived for more than 30 years in San Francisco. He is a trained mathematician and was a designer of computer chips in Silicon Valley. His wife is dying of cancer. The details of his story are unclear. He considers both Moscow and San Francisco to be his homes. Like many scientists and mathematicians, he went to school in Novosibirsk.

The United agent is a young Russian woman who asks me if I packed my own bags. She takes my passport to another clerk, and there seems to be some kind of discussion. I wait. I still have no seat assignment and no boarding pass. She finally returns with my passport and sends me to the booth to check my bag.

The agent there asks me if I would like to upgrade to Economy Plus for $100. I decline. What seems to be happening is that the economy seats have been overbooked. Nevertheless, I receive what appears to be a boarding pass, though without a seat assignment.

Lacking available airport seating, Dan and I take up a position near the elevator in the main part of the airport. We have some time. We take turns going to the bathroom - there are long lines. I'm able to briefly IM with Grace again.

I'm reflecting on the airport security issue. We went through the naked-scanner. I'm wondering why we still have to remove our belts and shoes if they are able to look at the inside of our gonads. I guess it keeps the blue-footie people at their jobs. More likely it is the general principle of Soviet government (from which we in the United States are not exempt) according to one of our Russian friends: to humiliate and dominate the individual at every turn. It's about control.

Anyway, I would like a coffee, so Dan and I take our carry-ons and go for a walk. Ah! A nice coffee shop whose Cyrillic letters spell out "Coffee Mania." It's a mania all right! A cappuccino is $13 U.S. A simple cup of tea is even more! There are vending machines in the airport, but we don't have any small bills.

We return to our gate to learn that our flight is delayed. I get online and send a few e-mails and facebook "thank yous." We learn that our plane has "mechanical problems." Great. We find a small airport magazine store that sells drinks. A plastic bottle of Coke is only 47 rubles (a little more than a buck and a half). Iced tea is 170 rubles. Interestingly, Diet Coke (Coke Light in Russia) is twice as expensive as regular Coke. It's made, I believe, with saccharine - and tastes terrible. I buy us a couple drinks and pay with Visa.

Prior to boarding, there is yet another agent at the gate who asks us if we packed our own bags. There are not enough seats at the gate, and we are standing - like many others.

After a long wait, we board. Dan and I are not sitting together. In fact, he has been put into an Economy Plus window seat, while I am again in "the middle of the middle" for the longest part of the trip home. We are informed that our connecting flights are being rerouted.

I'm squished between two Russian guys whose families are in the rows in front and behind. I had taken my Nook, my computer, and a couple books and put them in my backpack at the gate. This enabled me to have them under the seat in front of me while my red wheeled-carry-on is overhead.

At 2:45 we are in the air - about two hours late. Our connections are being rescheduled.

I'm tired. I'm going to take a nap.

Here come the drinks. I order a ginger ale. The stereotype is true: all the Americans want ice while the Russians decline. The Russians prefer juice - orange or tomato - while the Americans prefer soda - as a rule, that is.

Dinner (lunch?) was not as good as what the Russian airlines served. It wasn't bad, but rather just tasteless. The salad was a bowl of leaves that tasted like paper. I took a bite and didn't touch the rest. One of the Russian guys next to me asked me what the salad dressing was for. I told him that it was for the "salat" - and then told him that Russian "salat" is better. He laughed.

The chicken dish with rice wasn't bad, nor was the little cake - a sort-of mildly industrial strawberry. he bread was definitely industrial. Welcome back to America! Rather than risk another instant coffee, I opted for a tea. Less of a gamble. It's hard to screw up tea, though it was not served with the bag as it was on Russian flights.

I would have liked to have practiced Russian with my neighbor, but I didn't even know enough to get started. I will have to work on it.

It's 8:00 am NOLA time and our plane is crossing the border from Sweden to Norway.

I sure hope that either I can make my connection or get another route home today. This is a long flight, but knowing that I will see Grace and Leo makes it a great joy! I can't wait to get home!

The stewardess comes by with the coffee. It is brewed! I'm sure drinking coffee will be a mistake. My poor system is not going to know whether it is time to sleep (it is 8:00 pm Novosibirsk time) or time to wake up (it's 8:00 am NOLA time) - but I'm really Jonesing for a coffee. The Moscow Airport cheated me out of my cappuccino by its avarice. So, no matter the consequences, I'm having my coffee, dammit, and with milk and sugar to boot! It's not good, but it's coffee - and it didn't set me back twelve bucks either! I figure this will help ramp me back up to the good stuff.

I almost bought a Turkish coffee urn at the Moscow airport, but Dan had warned me about the Moscow prices (confirmed by the cappuccino), and I said "nyet." Besides, I really didn't have room in my carry-on.

After all of this liquid, I have to pee. I'm in the middle of the middle, of course, just as I was on the way to Moscow, and both of my seatmates are sleeping. I nudge the poor guy on my left and say: "Извините. Туалет." (Excuse me. Toilet.). He's a good sport, and gets up to let me go by.

I have to wait a long time.

After returning, my seatmate speaks to me in broken English. He says, "I love God." I remember this expression from one of Richard Wurmbrand's books. This seems to be an idiomatic way of confessing Christianity. Indeed, he is a Christian - a Pentecostal. He knows that I am a Christian, perhaps from my table prayer and sign of the cross, or maybe because of the cross around my neck. I tell him that I am a Lutheran pastor. He has lived in the U.S. for a few years, though English remains difficult for him. His wife and children are in the seats behind us. His children are fluent in English. They used to live in California, and now they live in Maryland. They just returned from a seven-month trip to Belarus to care for elderly relatives.

I get back to writing and he gets back to sleeping. Since we are back in the Western hemisphere - just off the coast of Iceland and almost to Greenland - I change my wedding ring back to my left hand. It feels more natural there, but has been on my right hand long enough to create a small calloused ridge.

After several hours of transferring journal notes, I decide to rest my hand. I'm beginning to get a little tired. It's 12:20 am Novosibirsk time, 12:20 pm New Orleans time. We're heading into Labrador. We have covered 5,396 km at 34,000 feet, 3:09 (hours) to destination, 2,500 km to go. It is -38C outside of the plane. Our ground speed is 517 mph, 835 km/h.

We land about an hour late. It does look like I will miss my flight. I meet up with Dan as we rush off the plane. We head to customs, go through quickly, pick up our bags, recheck our bags, and go through security again - even though each minute that goes by means missed connections.

People are steamed.

The line is chaotic. People are frustrated and in a hurry. I finally emerge to inquire about my flight. The board says it has left. The customer service rep, an elderly man, is smart-alecky and rude, being quite obnoxious to a couple of German girls in front of me - who don't seem to understand his "humor." He sends me to customer service at C-20, and tells me with a smirk. "There will be a long line." I consider for a split second telling him this is why Americans are not always liked around the world. Instead, I thank him for his "help." Welcome back to the United States.

Anyway, I rush over to gate C-20 and meet up with Dan. This is the selfsame place that I had met Herbert and Klaus at the other end of this adventure. And it isn't quite over yet! Dan had phoned me and met me there. From the line of unhappy international travelers, I ask him if it is possible just to go back to Siberia. Things are not looking good. The clerk informs me that there are no other flights to New Orleans today. He could get me to Houston.

But, here comes a break in the gloom, a tiny crack in the window of opportunity that could slam shut any second. It seems that there are (what else?) mechanical problems on the flight to New Orleans, and it hasn't actually taken off yet. He suggests that I run to the gate - which is a long, long way.

Dan and I sprint along the airport. At the gate, I am told we are waiting for information. Nevertheless, I am given a boarding pass! Of course, this assumes that we will fly.

Dan and I head to the bar and enjoy a final пива - a couple of Stella Artois. We were both very pleased with how the trip went, and both expressed appreciation for one another as travel companions.

We say goodbye, and I head back to my gate. There is a Starbucks on the way, and a latte makes friends with the beer in my belly. They seem quite as compatible as Dan and I seem to be. I return to my gate, and it turns out that I have even more time to wait. So, I walk back, meet up with Dan again, and wait with him at his gate. After a short wait, he boards and departs. I walk back to my own gate, and, thanks be to God, we are boarding!

I am even in Economy Plus this time on the A319.

God willing, I will be with my family at home soon!

It's time for this adventure to draw to a close. We land at New Orleans Louis Armstrong Airport - which is actually in nearby Kenner where Grace and I first lived when we moved to the area - with Leo in tow in utero. That was an adventure of a different sort, as planes used to fly so close to our home that we could just about see the faces of passengers in the windows.

We land! With excitement that borders on disbelief, I head to baggage claim. And there they are: Grace and Leo! My bag arrives quickly. Leo is beaming as both are clinging to me with excitement. Grace drives us back to Gretna where we celebrate my homecoming to America with ice cream at McDonald's.

So now, this adventure has ended, and our adventure together as a family begins anew. Thanks be to God! Amen!

Here is a link to all of my pictures from Day Twenty-Four.

More "What if?"

2012-01-12T23:11:00.000-06:00

Sermon: Baptism of our Lord – 2012

2012-01-11T19:30:00.005-06:00

11 January 2012 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Matt 3:13-17 (Isa 42:1-7, 1 Cor 1:26-31)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

The baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ is a great mystery. For baptism is a washing away of sins. But Jesus had no sins. John’s baptism was a sign of repentance. But our Lord had nothing of which to repent.

This mystery is reflected in St. John’s reaction, whose gut reaction was to refuse Jesus baptism with words reflecting his shock: “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?”

What’s the point of washing someone who is not only clean, but pristine, perfect, immaculate, and without so much as a single cell reflecting a flaw of our fallen world? As Jesus Himself said: the people who are well don’t need a physician. And God certainly doesn’t need forgiveness.

Jesus needs no baptism.

And yet He submits to it, just like a poor, miserable sinner; just like a sinful son of Adam; in the very manner of the same vast crowds of the tax collectors and sinners who lined up to take the plunge in the Jordan at the hands of this eccentric preacher of righteousness. Righteousness.

The Lord’s explanation of the mystery uses this very word “righteousness.” For Jesus answered John’s protests: “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” And only then does his blessed cousin consent to cleanse God.

Our Lord Jesus did not come into our world merely to teach us right from wrong, to give us ethical principles, to leave behind things we have to memorize in the catechism. All of these things are related, but only secondary to the one great important truth about Jesus: He has come to save us from our sins. He is our Champion, our Redeemer-Kinsman, the One who rescues us from death itself. And He does this by imparting righteousness to us.

As our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ was baptized and cleansed from our sins – and His baptism of water was completed by His baptism of blood. For at the cross, He was to become sin for us – sin that He promises is washed away through baptism, by means of the faith that makes us well, by the pledge of a pure conscience – indeed, in the very repentance His holy cousin John came preaching in the wilderness!

Jesus had no sins of His own to wash away. But He took ours. Jesus had no consequences and punishment to bear for His own transgressions. For He took ours. Jesus had no need of sacrificial blood to reconcile Himself with His Father – rather He gives us His own blood: at the cross and in the cup.

For something else happened at our Lord’s baptism, dear brothers and sisters, dear fellow baptized and redeemed sinners. And it happened “immediately.” As the Lord emerged from the water, as He drew His first breaths of our foul air following this public action of taking our sins upon Himself: “the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him.” And then came the spoken revelation from the Father Himself, the voice that was to be repeated at the Lord’s Transfiguration: “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” We are baptized into the most holy Name of the Most Holy Trinity!

This is not just God the Father accepting His Son Jesus and praising His righteousness. For the baptism of our Lord pleases the Father, the obedience of the Son pleases the Father, the humility of the Son pleases the Father. The act of accepting the burden and punishment of sins He did not commit pleases the Father – because, dear friends, think of just how profound this is: the Father is pleased in our redemption, in the Son’s cosmic rescue mission to drag us literally out of the fires of hell and to restore us to what we were created to be – all by the draw and the call of the Holy Spirit.

This is what it means “to fulfill all righteousness.”

Jesus did not come just to teach us about baptism, nor to set an example of baptism, but to become baptism, to be the washing away of our sins that saves us.

He, Jesus, is the “servant” whom God “upholds,” who is “chosen,” who bears the Spirit, and indeed, He has come to bring justice. And even when He was being rained upon with the unjust blows of fist and scourge, of nails and spear, He did not “cry aloud or lift up His voice.” He manfully, what’s more, divinely, endured our punishment and bore God’s wrath – and in bearing that wrath of God He pleases God. For it pleases God to save us!

Such is the love the Lord has for us, dear brothers and sisters. That love, that incarnate love, that redemptive love – is the heart of the mystery of the baptism of our Lord.

And so we who have been baptized into the Lord’s name, the Triune Name of the Triune God, numbered among His redeemed, we who are grafted into His Church and wedded to the perfect Bridegroom, have been elevated to righteousness with Jesus who emerged triumphant from the water and from the grave. Not many of us are deemed “wise according to worldly standards.” Not many of us are of our own nature “powerful” or of “noble birth.”

Yet here again is the mystery, dear friends, the love of God and the mystery of the righteousness He gives to us, His beloved: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong,” the low and those who don’t even count in the world’s eyes “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

Here is what ties it all together, what it means to be a Christian, the glories of the mystery of the love of Christ, the revelation of the Holy Trinity and of Holy Baptism. Here, dear friends, is the significance of the baptism of our Lord: “Because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

Indeed, we confess with John: “I need to be baptized by You,” Lord Jesus. And so, by God’s grace and according to the wonder of His love and mercy, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and by the righteous obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ – we have been. And in Christ, we too are the Father’s beloved sons and daughters, vessels of the Holy Spirit, whose boast, whose only boast, is “in the Lord.”

“I need to be baptized by You,” and indeed, Lord Jesus, “You come to me.” Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Epiphany 1 – 2012

2012-01-08T10:00:00.003-06:00

8 January 2012 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Luke 2:41-52

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

“Did you not know that I must…”

The word “must” may well be the most extraordinary word in today’s Gospel. Of course, the fact that Jesus refers to God as His Father is also extraordinary. He is God’s Son. He knows it. He confesses it. And His mother and step-father must to come to grips with it. But that little word “must” when Jesus says: “I must…” easily misses our notice.

For what does it mean that Jesus “must” do something? He is the King of the Universe. He is God. Isn’t it a contradiction to say that Jesus “must” do anything? Isn’t this a little like the question: “Can God make a stone so heavy that He can’t lift it?” Is Jesus bound by the word “must”? “Must” God do anything?

We all understand the word “must.” We must all do all kinds of things we would rather not do. We all have responsibilities and chores and things we don’t like. There are things we must do because others depend on us. And when we must do something, it also implies that we have no choice or control of the matter.

So, how can Jesus, as God, also live within the confines of “must”? How can He really be God at all?

Well, dear friends, this “must” is the very love of God itself. For love always acts against the self-will and self-interest. Mothers and fathers routinely sacrifice for the sake of their children – out of love. Police, firefighters, and military personnel make sacrifices out of love for country and community. Christians of every vocation have a list of things they must do – which have been collected into our catechism’s “table of duties.” These duties are done out of love for the sake of people who depend on our doing them. They are also our priestly sacrifice to God as a thank offering. As Jesus said: “When you fast…. When you give alms…. When you pray….”

When the 12-year old Lord Jesus said: “I must…” He did not mean that He was begrudgingly obeying an order out of fear or compulsion, but rather He was doing His saving duty out of love for His Father and for His creatures. This love is why He took flesh in the first place, laying aside His glory to live in our fallen world of pain, misery, and death. And out of love He even “must” forgo the pangs of death – not because He has called death upon Himself by His sins (as we have), but rather because it is what He must do to save us.

Jesus must be in His Father’s House because that is what a Son does, that is who a Son is, that is who the Son of God is, and that is what the Son of God does. As the Word Made Flesh, He is found in the flesh where the Word of God is proclaimed: “in [His] Father’s house.”

And this was true when our Lord was 12 years old at the Temple, when He was 33 years old at the cross, and even now, two millennia later as He is still present where His Word and flesh are present – for, by, and with the people He loves, forgives, restores, saves, and gives life.

“I must be in My father’s house.”

One remarkable thing about our Lord’s statement is how often one hears people today make the bold claim: “I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” What a selfish contrast to the humble statement of our Lord and God: “I must be in My Father’s House.” If Christ must be in His Father’s house, why would Christians not be?

For to be a Son is to have a Father. To be a child of God is to call God Father, to hear His Word, to be where He is revealed, to be where He is. And the Father is most fully revealed to us in His Son. To be with our Father is to be with the Son – and to be with Him is to be where He is found according to both His flesh and promise.

“I must be in My Father’s house.”

Those who disbelieve in the Real Presence in Holy Communion sometimes mock this teaching by saying that God is not called up by priestly magic when a pastor says words over bread and wine – like a genie being conjured up to do our bidding. And that is most certainly true. Pastors do not conjure up God, and certainly have no magic to offer. Instead, we invoke God, call upon Him, as He invited us to call upon Him – calling upon His Most Holy Name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, invoking the Most Holy Name of Jesus, and submitting to Him and His Word when He said: “Do this in memory of Me.”

For the Lord isn’t commanded into bread and wine by magic words, rather the Word Made Flesh joins us in the flesh according to His own miraculous Word and promise. For just as God the Son “must be in [His] Father’s house,” so too must the Word Made Flesh keep His promises. And the Lord has promised us: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” He must keep His promise.

Indeed, He cannot not be present in Holy Communion within His confessing Church that invokes His Word and uses His own promise-laden words, words which must do what they say. God does not come to us like a captive genie to do our bidding as a reluctant slave, but rather joins us freely as God Almighty, captive to His own love for us, faithful to His own Word in order to save us, His beloved – even taking the form of a slave in order to redeem us in word and in deed.

“I must be in My Father’s house.”

Dear friends, this holy house is the Father’s house – as are all holy houses that bear a Christian altar, a Christian pulpit, and a Christian font – all holy houses be they big or small, elaborate or simple, wealthy or poor – and Jesus “must” be in His Father’s house. It is His promise to us, dear friends.

If you wish to find Jesus, you must find Him where He must be found. You will find Jesus here among your brothers and sisters who confess Him who was obedient to His Heavenly Father and submissive to His fleshly mother and step-father. Jesus has taught us to be submissive and to be present where He is present. For if you want to experience the living God, you must find Him where He is living – where His presence and promise are, where He must be – and where we must be as well – out of love, in His mercy, under the forgiveness of the cross, in the majesty of His Word, in the mystery of the altar and in the presence of His potent words of forgiveness and eternal life.

In His submission He “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” Holding onto Jesus we join Him in this wisdom, stature, and favor – even as we join the Lord Jesus in His confession and promise: “I must be in My Father’s house.” And concerning the Lord Jesus, who must be in His Father’s house, there is no other name by which we must be saved.

And we join Him not just here, but in eternity. “I must be in My Father’s house,” now and forever, thanks be to God!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Technical Difficulties, Comrades!

2012-01-05T19:46:00.001-06:00

That's CCCNN for you!

HT: Lew Rockwell

As Christmas winds down...

2012-01-04T22:17:00.000-06:00

God jul, alle sammen!

If you liked the above, then Happy New Year!

Sermon: Epiphany (observed) – 2012

2012-01-04T19:30:00.000-06:00

4 January 2012 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Matt 2:1-12

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

In his most famous short story, author O. Henry illustrates what true love is. It is a Christmas story of a poor husband sacrificing what is most dear to him to buy his wife a gift. It is also the poor wife sacrificing what is most dear to her to buy her husband a gift. And though both are materially less well off, the demonstration of love for one another shows that they are rich indeed.

O. Henry called this story “The Gift of the Magi” as the Magi are the wise men who brought gifts to the Holy Child, who was Himself the greatest gift of all. The wise men presented the best of their treasures to the Lord: “gold and frankincense and myrrh,” and the Lord Jesus offered His very body and blood as a sacrifice of love for all men – even Gentiles from afar.

Love is not only a mystery, it is also a paradox. For the more one gives in love, the richer one becomes. Our Lord Himself taught us that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

The gifts of the magi who traveled to see the boy King are love offerings and sacrifices of thanksgiving. They are also something else: a confession. In giving these gifts, these wise men from the east are proclaiming to the world and to all of history that they confess this Jesus to be Prophet (bearing the sweet aroma of God’s Word), Priest (surrounded in the smoke of the incense of the divine presence of God), and King (possessing the richness of material treasure). And this long journey of these men was not merely for the purpose of attending a party or to drop off a few parcels. Their purpose was simple: “We… have come to worship Him.”

“We have come” dear brothers and sisters, “to worship Him.”

That is why the wise men came from hundreds of miles away. That is why we have come here this evening. We have come to “worship Him.” And yes, He gives us the very same gifts as He offered to the wise men and all men at the cross: the forgiveness of sins through the atoning sacrifice of His blood. For like the husband in the O. Henry story, He is the perfect Bridegroom who withholds nothing – not even His very lifeblood – from His dear bride. And yes, we also offer Him gifts here as well – our own treasures in the form of monetary instruments that were at one time made of gold, the incense of our prayers, and the sweet myrrh of our hymns of thanks and praise – even as the bride in the O. Henry story: the Church withholds nothing – not even her most treasured possessions – from her dear Bridegroom.

But this gift exchange is not our primary purpose. We have not come in order to put money in a plate. Nor have we come out of sheer selfishness to get something. No indeed! For we give, and yes, we receive these holy gifts in faith. We receive these gifts in faith, love, gratitude, and in worship of the One who gives us everything.

The church is indeed like a hospital. We come to the church to get well. But it is not a for-prophet healthcare enterprise – rather it is a hospital that runs on charity and love. That is why we give gifts, dear friends. If we owe God our money, and if that is why we are here – we might as well put a check in the mail and gripe about the cost. No, we come in person “to worship Him,” to be with Him in the flesh, to be where He is, to adore and love Him. And because of that, we joyfully bear gifts – like the magi – as an act of faith, love, and confession before all men around the world and in every time that Jesus is Prophet, Priest, and King.

He is God in the flesh!

He is our Lord, our Savior, our Redeemer, our beloved Bridegroom. We worship Him for who He is, not because of what He does for us. And yet He does everything for us, holds nothing back, and rains treasure upon us now and even unto eternity. For He loves us, dear friends. He has come into the world to redeem the world, and to buy us poor miserable sinners back from death and hell, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.”

The magi “fell down and worshiped Him.” So do we, dear brothers and sisters. Just as these wise men knelt before their King – who for all the world looked like an ordinary helpless baby – we too fall upon our knees before the Lord who manifests Himself in Holy Communion – which for all the world looks like ordinary bread and wine. And this most holy sacrament is His gift to us: His true body and His true blood, one and the same as that which the wise men worshiped.

As the saying goes, “wise men still seek Him.” And yes, wise men still worship Him. Wise men still know the meaning of love, both in the meager sacrifices we can offer the living God as well as the priceless and incomparable sacrifice offered for us poor miserable sinners at the hands – hands of a little child and hands of a carpenter pierced by nails – at the very hands of the very God. Hands that receive gifts in our imperfect love; hands that offer and distribute gifts in His perfect love.

Today we celebrate the event the Church calls “the Epiphany of our Lord.” An epiphany is a shining forth, a revealing. It is what you see when the light is turned on, and the true image of a thing that was hidden becomes visible.

Love may be invisible in and of itself. But, dear friends, even as love is seen in the acts of love – like the husband and wife in the story, like the love we Christians have for one another, and for our fellow men in this fallen world – so too is love clearly shone forth in the cross, the empty tomb, the communion rail, the pulpit, the baptismal font, in the forgiveness of sins, and in countless acts of forgiveness and mercy, great and small.

Love shone forth as an epiphany to the wise men who came to worship Love incarnate, God incarnate, the forgiveness of sins incarnate, and life incarnate. God who was hidden on account of our sins shines brightly (on account of our forgiveness), shining as an epiphany before wise men of every age who confess Him as Lord.

And we poor sinners who have been forgiven are rich indeed. For “we have come to worship Him.” Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Siberian Adventure - Day 23, July 19, 2011

2012-01-02T02:13:00.000-06:00

Begin: Chelyabinsk
Drive to: Yekaterinburg
Drive to: Polevskoya
Drive to: Yekaterinburg

I woke up a little on the late side and took a shower. I was beginning to think that there was no hot water - but my patience was rewarded.

Dan, Alexy, and I enjoy a very nice buffet breakfast in the Green Restaurant downstairs - which is included. This breakfast is like Russian supper - with sausage, chicken, and pasta - along with more typical breakfast foods like boiled eggs. There are also the traditional drinks - water and fruit juices. One berry drink is translated as "hip drink." Father Alexey doesn't know why. The music is a little odd, quite loud, a sort-of disco or fitness club version of Indian or Middle Eastern music. I actually dig it. We check out of the hotel and meet Father Sergey. I'm armed with bottled water that Alexey purchased for me. Russians drink a lot of bottled water. This one is sparkling ("living.").

We drive to a drab factory building where Dan's wife's company has a branch office. He hopes to get inside for a picture, but security won't let us in. We wait in a cramped reception area. A manager with whom Father Daniel has corresponded comes down and apologetically gives Dan some brochures to take home.

We hit the road which is terribly bumpy, posing for pictures at the sign indicating that we have just left Chelyabinsk. The terrain between Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg is wide open with bright yellow fields. There are birch forests in the distance.

We arrive at the church flat, drop off our things, and eat lunch at the food court - at Blinoff, a pancake (blini) place. It's outstanding! I had a pancake with "old Russian meat" - which is a spiced beef - as well as a cherry pancake with a sweet condensed milk sauce. I also had a soulanka, a roll, and a coffee (which was not instant!). The pancakes are actually crepes. They are made on the spot on two large griddles.

After lunch, we head off the to the Orthodox diocesan store for my last opportunity to buy icons for souvenirs.

Father Sergey drives us to the archbishop's residence - which is opulent. There is an army of Mercedes and Lexus cars. We see bearded and cassocked clergy surrounded by secret-service-type bodyguards with sunglasses and earpieces. It was rather surreal - quite a contrast to our own bishop with his Toyota. A lot of people have apparently been turned off to Christianity in Russia because of the financial dealings of some of the Orthodox churches.

After parking, we walk into the store and start shopping for icons. Of all of our icon-buying trips, I have been unsuccessful in finding an icon of St. Raphael the archangel to bring back to Grace. Even now I can't find one - until I visited the very last room and looked at the very last icon! I see a small icon of an angel. The Cyrillic letters are hard to read, but I sound it out and it comes out like "Raphael" to me. I point to the icon to buy it, and the lady says: "Raphael." Very cool!

Father Daniel and I pick up some icons and Father Alexey buys a stack of books.

Afterwards, we head back to the church flat for a quick change of clothes. We all get into our clericals as we are headed to the local ELKRAS congregation for a visit. This is Father Dennis's congregation, the pastor I offended regarding women's "ordination." His predecessor was a woman who was there for three years.

Father Sergey drives. He has been playing an interesting and eclectic mix of very good pop music in the car: soundtracks from House, MD, an album called Dead Man's Bones, a collection of Christmas tunes by Annie Lenox, some blues, and Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms album. Father Sergey is a Dire Straits/Mark Knopfler fan. Dan asks about Dire Straits and I fill him in on the Brothers in Arms album. Sergey listens in with amusement.

The ELKRAS parish is located in Polevskoya. The congregation meets in a rented room in an office complex. We are greeted warmly by the pastor, who is young and speaks some English and German in addition to Russian. The congregation is nearly all older women. There are two younger women and one young man and one old man in the congregation.

Fathers Sergey, Daniel, Alexey, and I sit in the front row behind the small keyboard. Father Alexey translates as Father Dennis explains that we will sing a couple hymns, have a prayer, and then we (the guests) will speak.

The service book has many short hymns. They are essentially "praise songs" of a Taize character. We sing one such song, singing the Russian part three times, a Latin translation twice, and then repeating the Russian again. The next song we only sing n Russian. Dennis led the singing and played the electronic organ.

There is a small but dignified altar set up for communion with a Bible situated in the middle. There is also a small, dignified pulpit. Both altar and pulpit are adorned by a pair of flickering candles.

There is a small icon of Christ on the wall, under which are three western depictions of our Lord. There is a little table underneath with a candle, an open Bible, and a crucifix. On the Bible is an Orthodox rosary.

After a short prayer, Father Dennis introduces us. I spoke about our congregation back home, about New Orleans, and about my family. Father Daniel does the same regarding his family and parish. I related the story of how Grace had once told me that she would live anywhere but New Orleans which everyone found amusing. I also told them how Grace was the daughter of a nun and the wife of a priest who was given a most appropriate name for a Lutheran pastor's wife.

Afterwards, a lady asked about Hurricane Katrina. I took her e-mail and will send her links to pictures.

Dan also spoke about the catechism and the sacraments. I spoke about the heroic nature of Russian Lutheranism and implored them not to take their freedom for granted as, unfortunately, many Americans do. Sergey and Alexey also give brief addresses.

The congregation was very hospitable and treated us to tea and dessert pastries afterward. They gave us a box of them to take with us. I offered to take some home to my family, but they warned against it - as they were home-made with sour cream. So I took a picture instead.

We drove back to the church flat in Yekaterinburg and reflected on what a tragedy women's "ordination" is. These are nice people who have been led astray - including women in their eighties who had never seen such things in he churches of their youth.

We arrive at the flat and say our goodbyes to Father Alexey. He is flying back to Novosibirsk, having found a flight for the same price as the train would cost. Father Sergey will be by at 5:20 am tomorrow morning to bring us to the airport.

Dan and I change clothes. I check e-mail and have an IM session with Grace. I send my dad a SnapYap message. Dan and I head back for one final visit to the beer tent. First, we decide to walk around the mall. Unfortunately, it is in the process of closing. But we take a short walk and snap a few pictures.

We drop into the beer garden to find our familiar waiter working. He knows just what beers to bring us. I decide to eat, and so does Dan. I order mante (steamed dumplings) and a plav (rice and meat). The portions are pretty good-sized, and the price is reasonable. Dan also orders a plav, and along with the beers and a generous tip, the total is 600 rubles - about $20.

Our waiter takes our picture. We explain that we are flying back to America tomorrow. Actually, Dan explains in Russian accompanied by hand gestures.

We head back to the flat to pack. I decide to shower then rather than waiting until 4:30 am. I am excited to be going home, as I am missing my wife and son terribly! It is hard to fall asleep as my mind races.

Here is a link to all of my pictures from Day Twenty-Three.

Dr. Block Shreds the Race Card

2012-01-02T00:01:00.000-06:00

One of the most frustrating things about politics is the way we Americans have turned it into the Jerry Springer Show (in fact, Springer is a former mayor of Cincinnati - which speaks volumes for American political discourse). Americans are easily drawn into mud-wrestling - all the while convincing themselves (like some of my childhood friends) that pro-wrestling is not scripted, and what you see on TV (and now on the internet) is always real.

Thanks to talk radio entertainers and TV "news" programs that are basically reincarnations of SNL's Weekend Update - combined with the American culture's lack of attention span and disdain for deep reading and study - our political process has become a cross between a bad Zombie movie and an episode of Jackass and our political discourse has become both Troglodyte and Trotskyite.

Just recently, a facebook "friend" forwarded a rant alleging that U.S. congressman (and presidential candidate) Ron Paul is a "racist" - based on things written by other people that the congressman himself expressed disagreement with in no uncertain terms. But given our Idiocracy-like political culture (some people actually think the film is a comedy instead of a documentary...), this issue has become a toe-hold for other Republican candidates who are alarmed at Paul's recent rise in the polls. And so, several of these privileged white upper-crust candidates have begun playing the race-card. You can't make stuff like this up!

Here is a little something that shows the race-card for what it is when played against Dr. Paul.

At any rate, my facebook "friend" began to spread the race-card "wealth" around to the Ludwig von Mises Institute and its founder Lew Rockwell (guilt by association). The Mises Institute is a scholarly educational organization devoted to the free-market school of economics as taught by several brilliant 20th century Austrian economists (such as F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises) who defended the market economy and sound money even in the midst of the seeming triumph of Socialism and Nazism and central banking. Hayek opposed the more-popular John Maynard Keynes and defended free markets against the rising tide of centrally-planned economies. In 1974, Hayek was awarded the Nobel Prize. Ron Paul is a close personal friend of Lew Rockwell and a member of the Mises Institute (which explains the political mudslinging). Many economists in the Austrian School predicted the recent international turmoil, the debt crisis in the United States, the bursting of the stock market, and the meteoric rise in the price of gold.

Given this reality, a lot of people are starting to listen to what the Austrian School has to say - even to the point of including some Austrian economists in mainstream analysis of our economic situation - and the Austrian economists have a lot of establishment Keynesian economists (and politicians) running scared. For if nations around the world were to listen to the Austrian economists, they would have to cut back on spending, cut taxes, reduce regulations, stop looking for wars to fight, and get out of the centrally-planned economy and the printing of paper money out of thin air (like the United States has done for a century by virtue of the Federal Reserve system).

Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate who espouses Austrian economics. This makes him more of a target than any other in the field.

But back to my facebook "friend."

I challenged his use of the race card for both Paul and Rockwell. I do not know Ron Paul, but I have read a good bit of his writings, and his political philosophy can be called "libertarian" - which by definition is not "racist." For libertarianism views individuals as bearing inalienable rights rather than seeing people as members of tribes or collective groups that enjoy government privileges. One can no more be a "libertarian racist" than one can be a "free market communist" or a Protestant who believes the pope is the head of the Church by divine right. It is a preposterous charge - the desperate act of desperate politicians who will do anything to win an election.

The made-up-guilt was then associated with Lew Rockwell.

Another person piled on at my "friend's" facebook wall and called Lew Rockwell a "Jew hater." Now, I am not Lew Rockwell's drinking buddy. I don't purport to know him personally. In fact, I've never met him face to face. I had a close call this year, but it didn't work out. But again, I have read a considerable amount of Lew Rockwell's writings, I've corresponded with him over the years and he has published some of my writings as a guest columnist thirteen times (I believe) at lewrockwell.com. I've corresponded with a good number of other Lew Rockwell writers - quite a diverse and provocative group! One of them is also a Missouri Synod pastor named Heath Curtis (whom I count as a dear friend and brother in the ministry). I personally have no time of day for collectivism of any kind - which includes judging people based on nationality. In fact, as a believer in the literal account of Genesis, I believe there really is only one race of human beings who are all descended from common ancestors. Even atheistic DNA analysis confirms that all living human beings are related by blood. Anyone who has ever lived life in any cosmopolitan setting can point to remarkable and intelligent people of every ethnic background - and ditto for those who are thuggish, not so bright, or violent. Brilliance and stupidity do not confine themselves to skin color or ethnic heritage. Unfortunately, there are Philistines from every bloodline. Fortunately, there are also heroes and geniuses from every ethnic heritage. The beautiful thing about liberty is that it unites people of every race, color, and creed. For everyone wants to be free.

My facebook "friend" implied that anyone "associated" with Lew Rockwell (you know, the "Jew hater") was also a "racist." I challenged him on this, and pointed out what he obviously did not know: Ludwig von Mises was Jewish. Also, the most beloved (and probably prolific) economist and writer within the modern Austrian economics movement is the late Murray Rothbard, who is also Jewish. When I pointed out that Lew Rockwell's two favorite economists - including the one he founded a society after - were Jewish, it was implied that this was just more evidence of Rockwell's "antisemitism" - as there were many Jews who collaborated with the Nazis. I am not kidding about this!

What can one even say? I shot off an e-mail to Dr. Walter Block, another beloved economist within the Austrian school and a longtime regular at lewrockwell.com. He wrote back with his typical terse and biting wit. Shortly after, he released the above YouTube video-blog about the issue. I'm not claiming credit or anything like that. What I am saying is that my facebook "friend" (who by the way, "unfriended" me unceremoniously - and pusillanimously - rather than address the issue further through civilized and intelligent debate) is talking about real live individuals with real live reputations - and he doesn't know diddly about them as men. In the 8th Commandment, God calls upon us not to bear false witness against our neighbor, and I think the Small Catechism's explanation says it best that we are always to "explain everything [about our neighbor] in the kindest way." Savaging reputations of people using the race-card is a prime example of this sin - and the fact that it is done in the name of politics will not absolve people of their responsibility to their neighbor.

It is fair to disagree - even vehemently - with Ron Paul's politics or Lew Rockwell's economics. Good people can disagree about politics - even radically so. There are intelligent people all over the political spectrum. I have many friends and people I admire who disagree greatly with me. That is to be expected, and makes the world interesting. But lying about these men and assassinating their characters is not part of our God-given freedom. Honest and spirited discourse is one thing - especially when grounded in well-read and articulated reason. The race-card (especially when it is demonstrably ridiculous) is the mark of a weak mind trying to make a weak argument.

And so, my hat is off to Dr. Block - who teaches Austrian economics close by at Loyola University - for taking a courageous stand against this kind of shallow neanderthal politics. I had the honor to be at a meeting of the Mises Institute in New Orleans when Dr. Block was awarded with the Gary G. Schlarbaum Prize for his "lifetime achievement in the cause of liberty" and lauded with great affection and respect by his "antisemitic" colleagues and former students. I get regular invitations from Dr. Block to participate in Economics functions at Loyola. I am going to try to do so this year, and am gratified that there are still a few great American minds out there who can think deeply and provocatively rather than simply aping radio loudmouths and re-posting internet slander in the name of politics.

Shalom, Dr. Block! And thank you for being a thinking man, a person of integrity, and one who aspires to a society based on human liberty!

Sermon: Circumcision and Name of Jesus – 2012

2012-01-01T10:00:00.003-06:00

1 January 2012 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Luke 2:21 (Num 6:22-27, Gal 3:23-29)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Circumcision was not just a religious ritual. It was a contract. Instead of hiring a lawyer and signing papers, a covenant in ancient times meant making a promise in front of everyone, and literally “cutting” the deal, slicing flesh and shedding blood as a sign and confirmation of the oath and promise.

When God established his covenant with Abraham, the cutting of the deal took the form of circumcision of male children on the eighth day after their birth. And the deal made by God is this: “I will be your God.” The deal made by the people is this: “and you will be My people.”

The deal was cut with Abraham and with his descendants – both physical and spiritual. But one Descendant of Abraham is actually the One who made the deal in the first place, and this Child who was circumcised on His eighth day following His birth was named at that time, and His name is “Jesus.”

His name is Jesus, dear friends, the name that is above every name, the name before which every knee shall bow, the name that every tongue will confess, the only name by which we must be saved. For the name Jesus means literally “God saves.”

You see, that is the covenant, the contract, the deal. When Jesus was circumcised, God signed on the dotted line in blood, and He offered His only-begotten Son as collateral in the deal. Jesus is our salvation and His circumcision was the down-payment on the greatest cosmic transaction in the history of history itself. On the eighth day following the birth of Jesus, it is as if history finally moved beyond the six days of creation and the Sabbath rest of the Lord. It is as if the eighth day following the birth of Christ became the first day of the new week of creation, the new covenant that was cut that does not abolish, but fulfills, the old covenant. For once this perfect male Lamb was sacrificed, there would be no more shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins. For this Circumcised Jesus would thirty three years hence be the Crucified Jesus, the one whose blood of the New Testament would be poured out completely for us as a sin offering, as the very fulfillment of the circumcision and name of Jesus: “God saves.”

The Lord promised it to Abraham. In fact, the Lord hinted at His name to Abraham, calling Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In other words, the God of the people who bear His name – as the Lord promised covenantally to Moses: “So shall they put My name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

His name becomes our name. And His name is also a promise: “God saves.” This is not a slogan, but a description of reality. Jesus was not named “Jesus” because Mary thought it sounded nice, or she googled it to make sure it would be unique, nor was it even selected as a tribute to someone in the family. No, the name “Jesus” was “given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.”

The name “Jesus” is not just a way to call the Son of Mary to the dinner table, but rather it is the only way for all of us cousins of Mary to call upon our God – even when we are at the dinner table. And what’s more, we partake of the One named Jesus, whose blood was shed in the flesh, when we approach the table of His altar, partaking of His flesh and blood, uniting ourselves in that fleshly and bloody covenant, and holding God to the terms of the contract God Himself cut for us: “God saves.” For that is what it means that He will be our God and we will be His people. “God saves” is the covenant, dear brothers and sisters!

“God saves.” We say it and confess it and pray it every time we speak the name “Jesus.” For us as people of the covenant, it is impossible to mention “Jesus” without mentioning “salvation.” It is impossible to separate “Jesus” from “salvation.” For the Lord Jesus is both our God and our Savior – just as Mary confessed in the Magnificat.

And since the Lord’s circumcision fulfilled the old covenant, and since the Lord saves us through baptism into the new covenant, St. Paul teaches us: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ…. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

And while sinful men routinely break promises – whether with good intentions or even through deliberate deception – God never breaks His promises, because His Word is truth. And His Word took flesh, was cut in the flesh, bled in the flesh, died in the flesh, and rose again in the flesh. And this Jesus gives us His flesh and His blood – and we are His people, we are His rescued, we are those who bear His name. We are Christians because we are Christ’s beloved. We are Christ’s beloved because of the circumcision and name of Jesus: God saves.

And today is not only the eighth day of Christmas, it is the eighth day of creation, the first day of the new and everlasting covenant. For in this covenant of salvation, each and every day is a new day in Christ, dear friends. As the world makes New Year’s resolutions and fails to keep those promises, we Christians receive New Year’s blessings from Him who always keeps those promises. He has come to save us, redeem us, rescue us, imprint His name upon us, and fulfill His very real flesh and blood promise that was signed at His circumcision, sealed at His crucifixion, and delivered at His resurrection – and received by us through faith.

This gift is yours, dear friends, yours by virtue of the name – that most holy name of Jesus: “God Saves.” And by the saving name of Jesus, you have an eternal promise of blessing in that name, the blessing solemnly spoken to and upon God’s people: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Bonne Année and Happy 20!

2011-12-31T19:08:00.000-06:00

Today is the 20th anniversary of our first date at Parliament Hill in Ottawa! Quite a bit has changed in the last two decades, including the advent of our son (who turns seven in a fortnight)!

Below is a pic taken five years ago at Parliament Hill. Happy New Year, everyone! Bonne Année and Happy Twenty Years, Miss Grace! Here's to Auld Lang Syne, Veuve Clicquot, and the next 20 years of fighting the Sassenach!

My Siberian Adventure - Day 22 - July 18, 2011

2011-12-31T00:59:00.001-06:00

Begin: Yekaterinburg
Travel to: Chelyabinsk

Father Daniel wakes me up at 8:00 am. I'm tired. I get some tea and some Coke. I take a quick shower in the church flat's super high-tech shower stall. It looks like it was made in Japan and includes many sophisticated knobs and settings - not to mention a radio.

Dan offers some cheese and bread - which I am happy to accept. I get on the computer, and have a slow internet connection through Father Sergey's cellphone USB gadget.

I am able to finally IM with Grace. It is still her birthday there. It's kind of like when the day was lengthened for Joshua. Grace's birthday will be about 36 hours this year - not counting our family tradition of extending birthday celebrations over several days.

We are both very happy to "talk" to each other, as our separation is getting very long. We have been married 17 years and have spent only a few nights apart - when I toured with the Concordia Theological Seminary Kantorei as a student about ten years ago. Needless to say, I am greatly homesick.

Fathers Alexey and Sergey arrive about 10:30. Sergey is waiting for technicians to install a wireless router - which has to go through the heating duct of the building. Father Daniel and I join the two of them in the kitchen for tea. We have a long extended discussion about the movie Catholics: A Fable - which Alexey enjoyed very much. There are great parallels to today's liturgical conflicts and pressures for the church to change with the times. It is an intriguing film on many levels.

Sergey announces that we now have wifi. We take it for a spin. I download three free books by Dostoevsky - including Crime and Punishment (the detective character in which is the inspiration for the character Columbo) - which Dan is reading.

Father Alexey shares with us that he has just received an e-mail from a young man who attended one of our summer seminars and now desires to enroll at the seminary in Novosibirsk. He remarked that at the summer seminars, the Gospel was clearly taught, articulated, and proclaimed. Alexey notes that his trip has been fruitful, yielding at least two likely prospects for the seminary.

We hit the road.

At least in my admittedly limited experience, Russians drive far more aggressively than we do - but without the road rage. They do more passing on the highway. It's best not to look. I begin reading Crime and Punishment on my Nook. In the opening paragraphs I run across this poignant quote: "It would be interesting to know what it is that men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most."

Father Sergey, our driver, plays an eclectic mix of music in his car. He and Alexey speak animated Russian in the front seat. We are now 41 km from Chelyabinsk. We begin to see the smokestacks that epitomize this industrial city .

We arrive at the Malachite Hotel, a large Soviet era establishment downtown. There is a lot of English in the lobby as well as the feel of the older Soviet hotels.

We check in, filling out forms and leaving our passports. There are clocks on the wall showing the time in Moscow, Paris, New York, and Chelyabinsk - all in Latin (as opposed to Cyrillic) letters. The lobby has a dated (or perhaps more flatteringly, "retro") feel to it with wood paneling and steel lettering. Customer service is very good, though the staff speaks only Russian. We rely on Father Alexey as translator.

The elevator is a dinosaur, complete with clunky manual push-buttons for the floor numbers (reminiscent of the old-fashioned car radios with the push-buttons) and a button to make the thing go. It lurches and clunks loudly upon reaching the desired floor.

I will be sharing a room with Father Alexey tonight, and Father Daniel will have his own quarters. Our room is small but comfortable.

After checking in, we walk around the corner to the pedestrian mall. The weather is pleasant and a lot of people are out walking. We buy a few souvenirs and take pictures as we head off to eat lunch. Chelyabinsk is often symbolized by camels - though they no longer live here - as a nod to the history of the nomads that used to travel on camelback. Hence the camel on Chelyabinsk's city coat of arms and the frequent statuary depicting camels. The Ural region is also famous for its pelmini - which are like little raviolis stuffed with meat. They are boiled and served hot. It was originally peasant food that sustained the people of the region all winter. They were made after the harvest time and kept outside frozen, to be eaten throughout the winter. We pop in to a popular pelmini restaurant.

I have the now-familiar salad of tomatoes and cucumbers, bread, and a boar pelmini - along with a cup of tea. This place is well-known and offers many exotic types of pelmini. It's very good and filling!

After lunch, we drive to the place where Holy Spirit Lutheran Church meets - a community center where many groups rent space. The usual room in which the church meets was rented to the church today for a special service of Vespers and Holy Communion because of our visit. However, the room was double-booked for a party of some sort. So the church was given a beauty salon room for the evening.

We pull in front of the building and Father Vlad (Vladislav Inanov) emerges with a big smile, gives me a large embrace, and says in English: "Hello, my friend!"

We make our way inside past a receptionist at a desk. We wind our way to the beauty salon in which a small desk was placed in the middle of the room and transformed into an altar. A crucifix was hung on the wall between two salon posters advertising beauty products. The room is surrounded in mirrors. Father Vlad quips that the mirrors make it seem like more people are in church. Father Sergey discreetly removes the towels that have been hung over the ledge to dry. A small padded kneeler, just big enough for three, is reverently placed in front of the altar for communion.

Father Vlad leads the service, and Deacon Victor assists. We sing hymns and Psalms a capella. The small congregation sings with gusto. The Mass is dignified in spite of the surroundings. Father Vlad is a capable and devout celebrant. We all take the Holy Supper together.

Video excepts of the liturgy follow: the opening hymn, the opening prayer, the Kyrie, Confession and Absolution, the Psalm, the Reading, the Creed and Lord's Prayer, the Consecration, the Agnus Dei, the Post Communion Canticle, and the Benediction.

This is for me one of the many high points of our trip. Only a few weeks before, I had confessed to Vlad that it was a dream of mine to come to Chelyabinsk and take the holy sacrament from his hand. Not only did I make it to Siberia and to Chelyabinsk, we were able to partake of the Lord's Supper together. A short description of this glorious event appeared on page two of the September 2011 newsletter of the Siberian Lutheran Mission Society: "With God, All Things are Possible."

Afterwards, father Daniel and I were invited to make a few remarks. I took the opportunity to present a plaque hand-made by a member of my congregation, Ron Cantrelle, which reads in Russian: "Holy Spirit Congregation" carved into a piece of Mississippi cedar.

The parishioners are very appreciative, and take turns sniffing the cedar. They are a small but faithful parish.

Father Vlad is very personable and friendly. He and Victor are both Ukrainians and I am told that Ukrainians generally smile more than Russians. Vlad's wife Svetlana came to the service a little late with her 6-month old Melissa and her well-behaved 3-year old Sophia.

Victor's wife Natasha (who is well along in pregnancy) is there with their teen-age son Nikita. It was a real joy to partake of the Divine Service with our sister congregation and to take the body and blood of Christ from the hands of Vlad and Victor.

Afterwards, we move the furniture down the hall to the original room - which has since been vacated. We head off to a park near Vlad and Svetlana's apartment building for a picnic. And was it ever a picnic!

We walk a ways to the woods by way of a path. Finding a suitable spot, Vlad and Victor assemble a small metal portable barbecue pit. They make a charcoal fire and lay out huge chicken shish-kabobs on the flame. It is my understanding that Deacon Victor used to be a chef, and he presides with aplomb over the burnt offering, fanning the flame with a plate and wielding a butcher knife. He smiles, laughs, and cracks jokes - none of which I can understand. The assembled congregation is relaxed and also laughs a great deal. We sit on blankets around the fire in a small clearing. Vlad and Victor are a good team and are obviously comfortable working together. They were actually laymen together in a congregation in Ukraine in the more liberal ELKRAS church - but sought a more faithful expression of the faith among the Siberians.

We sit in a circle around the fire. The weather is beautiful and provides a marvelous view of the birch forest.

The ladies prepare salads and drinks. Sophia plays in the dirt with a stick. Most of the conversation is, of course, in Russian. Sophia is shy around me. She has large precocious brown eyes and an expressive face. I win her over with a gift - a little green, yellow, and purple cat from Mardi Gras. She is also wearing a little Hello Kitty bracelet. The gift is a hit, and she excitedly shows her mother who smiles warmly while thanking me.

We dine and converse, sitting on blankets until nearly sundown.

I distribute a few gifts: tee shirts, flashlights, some pocket knives inscribed with scripture from a member of my congregation who is a retired Navy Seal. I present a little stuffed dog to Melissa - which Sofia also claims unto herself. Afterwards, we say our goodbyes, and Vlad joins Dan, Sergey, Alexey, and myself for a brief tour of the city of Chelyabinsk as the sun begins to set. Father Sergey is our driver. We visit a massive cold-war era monument at the end of Lenin Street in honor of Igor Kurchatov, the father of the Soviet atomic bomb. Serge quips that the monument's purpose is to get foreigners to take pictures. We all have a laugh, and sure enough, Dan and I hustle out to take pictures.

A bunch of young people are hanging out nearby. It's 11:00 pm on a Monday night, and a lot of people are still out and about. The young people are amusing, as the guys are hanging out with each other, looking at one another's cars, while the girls likewise are clustered together, looking bored, dressed as if they are going to a wedding.

In honor of my desire to make a pilgrimage to the Molnija watch factory (I am carrying the watch I puchased on the internet in 2004 that was made by hand in Chelyabinsk at the factory founded by Stalin), father Vlad brings me to a large building aptly named куб (The Cube) - a shopping mall that used to be the Molnija watch factory until it closed in 2007.

We return to the hotel and say goodbye to Father Vlad. He gives me a hat and a t-shirt of Chelyabinsk bearing the camel symbol of the city. He presents Dan with a hand-towel also depicting Chelyabinsk.

Back at the hotel, I use Father Sergey's CD drive to rip my language instruction CDs into MP3s for my mini-computer.

Here is a link to all of my pictures of Day Twenty-Two.

Make room at the table...

2011-12-30T11:21:00.001-06:00

As the year winds down, we are mixing things up at the family breakfast table. In fact, we have invited a rather large and rotund guest to spend the next few days with us - whose mind is even more expansive than his physique: Mr. G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936).

As I mentioned a little over a month ago, our morning coffee and meditation ritual has grown to become a lecture series as well. And it is one of the greatest things that we have instituted here at the Hollywood Mansion.

A few days ago, we wrapped up our breakfasts with Dr. Peter Kreeft (1937- ) and M. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) - and I am sorry to see them have to go! Christianity for Modern Pagans (a collaboration by Pascal and Kreeft) is one of those books that needs to be read again and again. I can't thank Rev. David Petersen enough for sending me the book as a gift, and I am grateful to Dr. Kreeft for reintroducing Pascal to modern readers. Pascal is utterly unique, prescient, brilliant, and yet easy to read - especially with Kreeft's cut-to-the-chase explanations and elucidations. In short "Read this book!" Buy it now. In just a few minutes a day, we had it done over coffee in not much more than a month of readings. If I can put together some time, I will blog a recap/review/reflection or some such. As I said, the book has already become an old friend.

So here is where we are right now, and where we are going for the coming year...

We continue with the ESV One Year Bible as read by the narrator. Mrs. H. follows along in her paperback copy and attends to the computer narration while I prepare the cappuccino during the Old Testament reading. And by the way, our ancient Krups espresso-maker is still carrying out its matinal and quotidian duties as if yet in its prime.
After the Old Testament reading, I bring my offering to the table just in time to join in the New Testament reading. I skim along in Greek as the narrator reads from the ESV (I like using my my sleek leatherbound Reader's Edition - thank you to Rev. Daniel Johnson for introducing me to it).
For the Psalm, I follow along in Latin using my Gaba bilingual Psalter.
For the short Proverbs reading, I just listen.
After the Bible reading, we embark on our lecture (see below)
We conclude with a brief closing meditation and prayer - this past year from St. Augustine. Beginning January 1, we will broaden these meditations to other saints (unfortunately, the latter volume, unlike the former includes prayers to the saints, which we will simply modify as prayer to God).

So, regarding the lecture portion, having said "goodbye" to our good friends Kreeft and Pascal, we decided to invite C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) to the breakfast table, but in looking at schedules, we found that it fit in better with everyone's plans to first invite Mr. Chesterton for a reading of his brilliant Orthodoxy. I've read it twice before myself (with nearly every other sentence highlighted), but this time, we are reading it together thanks to a narrator from LibriVox. (And thanks to Rev. Philip Miller who told me about Librivox - a source of free audio books for works in the public domain). We both follow along with the text in our Nook readers. As of today, we are about a third of the way through Chesterton's witty and rollicking 1908 work defending the traditional Christian faith against both heresies of atheistic materialism (on one side) and pantheistic postmodernism (on the other) - though the word "postmodernism" would not be coined for another 40 years after the publication of Orthodoxy. If you have not read Orthodoxy, it is a must read! It is also free in many formats being out of copyright.

Indeed, we have had to shift around the furniture to make room for Mr. Chesterton.

He is a big man, with a big brain, a big personality, and big ideas! He also has a big heart and a big humility, and we are delighted to have him join us! We are also greatly looking forward to a lengthy visit from Dr. Lewis when we must say goodbye to Chesterton. Our kitchen is simply not big enough to entertain all of our friends at once. We expect to have bigger accommodations in eternity.

Once we complete Orthodoxy, we plan on reading through the works of Lewis as contained in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics, namely Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, A Grief Observed, and The Abolition of Man (some, and possibly all, of these are available in audio format). When we get to Screwtape, we will have to scramble to find an extra chair for Mr. John Cleese of Monty Python, whose reading of the letters is beyond perfect. Interestingly, a couple parishioners just gave us another collection of Lewis works for Christmas: The Beloved Works of C.S. Lewis, containing Surprised By Joy, Reflections on the Pslams, The Four Loves, and The Business of Heaven - if we can get Dr. Lewis to commit for a longer stay, maybe we can work through those as well.

Anyway, we are pleased with the depth and direction of our morning routine. It is a good way to get the mind and soul moving in the morning along with the body. We encourage anyone and everyone to turn the breakfast table into a monastery and university. It is the highlight of our day.

Sermon: Holy Innocents – 2011

2011-12-28T19:30:00.002-06:00

28 December 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Matt 2:13-18

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

The Church’s remembrance of the Holy Innocents – those young boys murdered by the evil so-called king Herod in his futile quest to prevent the Savior from coming into our world is unique. We don’t know who these children were, how many of them there were, who their parents were, or even if their parents were believers. These boys died without baptism – and yet we honor them as saints in the church. We call them “innocent” when Scripture tells us that no-one is without sin except for the One Herod was trying to exterminate.

And it is a disturbing thing to think about, how horrible this scene was, how evil one must be to order brave, hardened soldiers and police officers to wrench defenseless children from their mothers’ arms and put them to the sword. One can only imagine how much the soldiers must have resented being ordered to demonstrate the ultimate cowardice and dishonor, and how much trauma this left with them the rest of their lives.

But this horrible tragedy that we might wish to forget is worth remembering – for Scripture itself records it – and not only after the fact in our Gospel, but centuries before in our Old Testament. The Lord calls upon us to meditate on this holocaust while the world is basking in the glow of Christmas.

The harsh reality is that amid the warm sentiments of the season, we live in a cold and fallen world. We are all destined to die. We are in a cosmic war, and in any war, there are casualties – even innocent collateral damage and loss of life. And evil sometimes wins battles

We are at war against Satan, and sadly, we often ally ourselves with him.

When do we ally ourselves with the devil? When we sin, when we rebel against God, when we place our own will over that of the will of the Father. And we do it all the time.

This text is often used to show that abortion is a terrible sin. And indeed it is. It is murder. And it is easy for Christians to become almost hateful in their rhetoric against those who commit abortion. And while the church is to be a prophetic voice for good, a defender of the sanctity of life, an advocate for the little children who cannot speak for themselves – we are primarily in the business of forgiving sin by the blood of the most holy innocent of all: our Lord Jesus Christ, the crucified one, the infant who was in Satan’s crosshairs and nearly in Herod’s bloody hands.

We must indeed speak up for human life and speak out against murder – which means that we must speak out against all forms of murder: including hateful thoughts, the attack of reputations by gossip, all forms of rage and anger – even when we think we are justified, the excessive use of force by those in authority, wars of aggression, the deaths of civilians in warfare, the abuse of children (physical or otherwise), the conviction of innocent people – in some cases resulting in the execution of the wrong people.

To be pro-life is to oppose abortion, but it is also to oppose hateful thoughts against our fellow human beings. For all murder begins with a single selfish thought: be it the desire for living conveniently child-free, or the compulsion to scheme and to take something from someone else. All sin is conceived in the sinful heart – Herod’s ancient sin of the atrocity of Bethlehem, and our sins that we commit here and now.

And until the Lord returns, there will continue to be “weeping and loud lamentation.” There will be innocent children killed in the womb, innocent prisoners killed on a gurney, innocent soldiers killed on a battlefield, innocent civilians killed by bombs and mines and IEDs – and innocent reputations destroyed by our careless words.

And, dear friends, we must repent of our murders – no matter what form they take. For we are all guilty of internal rage and hatred and wicked desire and rebellion against our Creator as was Herod. And if that weren’t true, we would not need a Savior to die innocently for the sake of our guilt.

And yet He does, brothers and sisters. Jesus’s manly blood was shed sacrificially “for us men and for our salvation” in our place. Jesus’s boyhood life was spared because these innocent boys were sacrificed by Herod in the place of Jesus. For Jesus was sacrificed by us poor miserable sinners by the Lord’s own consent to save us poor miserable sinners.

The only way to understand this travesty, this murder, this “Rachel weeping for her children,” the news of injustice and oppression that is in the newspaper every day – the only way any of this makes any kind of sense is when it is seen in light of the cross.

Our Lord died as the Holy Innocent for the sake of the unwholesomely guilty. The children of Bethlehem died as holy innocents for the sake of the Innocent One who came to forgive the sins of the world – including their own sins.

For indeed, the Holy Innocents were innocent of any crime leading to execution in the earthly sense, but all people are guilty of sin – even those yet unborn. We all need the Savior who came and Himself died innocently and unjustly, in order to make us just and innocent by His blood.

These unbaptized murdered children have been made innocent by the blood of the Lamb for whom their blood was shed as a sacrifice. And if indeed baptized infants can be believers, so can martyred infants. The Church recognizes this “baptism of blood” and honors these little ones who became the enemies of Satan, enemies of Herod, and enemies of the enemies of God. Jesus died for them even as they died for Him.

Jesus did not only die for those with mature minds and mouths old enough to confess Him. Jesus died for the sins of the world. Jesus even died for Herod’s sins and the sins of those who have killed the innocent of every age and of every time. All of our murders – be they abortions, gossip, hateful rage, doing harm to another person, or harboring evil thoughts – separate us from God. But the good news is that separation has been closed, the gap has been bridged, by the One who escaped Satan’s wrath and Herod’s sword, Jesus Christ our Savior. It is He, the only truly Holy Innocent, who calls us to repent of our sins and come to Him to receive pardon and everlasting life. And even when we must endure the cross of injustice in this world, we know that the cross leads onward to the tomb, the grave of Jesus that was left empty at His resurrection.

Rachel’s tears of sadness will be turned to tears of joy as those little ones who are no more will be among those who are no more dead, but living. When we confess our sins – whether these sins against life are sins of thought, word, or deed, we know that the blood of the Innocent One covers us, pardons us, a restores us to life.

The whole point of Christmas – the coming of the living Christ into our dying world – is also the whole point of Easter, as the crucified Christ paid for our sins and rose from the grave, not only outwitting Herod and the devil, but destroying the power of sin and vanquishing the bitterness of death. Indeed, the resurrection is the only thing that will comfort Rachel, that will right the wrong committed against these Holy Innocents, that will redeem all of us murderers and sinners who rightfully deserve nothing but death and hell. So dear friends, let us repent! Let us confess! Let us receive life!

And indeed let us be that prophetic voice in the world advocating for life – life unborn, life imprisoned, life around the world, lives in torture chambers, lives in abject poverty, lives under the domination of tyranny. But most of all, let us be prophetic voices of eternal life, of the forgiveness of sin, of peace and reconciliation between men, and between men and God. Let us bring the comfort of the empty tomb to the otherwise inconsolable Rachel, and let us look forward with great joy to the day when, in Christ, death will be no more.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

New pics uploaded

2011-12-27T18:43:00.000-06:00

Intéressant? Peut-être, ou peut-être pas.

Of course, this is likely only of interest to family and friends. As one of my Christmas presents was 2 GB of memory for my computer, uploading pictures isn't as big a chore as it once was. So here is a link to all of my Flickr sets (a set is like an album). If you click on set, you can hit the "slideshow" option to see all the pictures in that set.

Have fun, y'all!

Earthquake in Siberia

2011-12-27T14:36:00.000-06:00

St. Luke's, Abakan

Almost as it was happening, I got an e-mail from Bishop Vsevolod Lytkin of the Siberian Evangelical Lutheran Church that a Magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit Siberia near the city of Abakan. The quake was felt as far away as Novosibirsk where Bp. Vsevolod lives (the two cities are about 350 miles apart).

Fr. Pavel Zayakin and his family live in Abakan where he serves St. Luke's Lutheran Church. Fr. Dmetri Dotsenko and his family live in Abakan as well (he serves St. James Lutheran Church in Novokuznetsk).

Father Pavel, near Abakan

Father Dmetri and Family, near Abakan

Thanks be to God so far, it seems that there was no major damage nor any casualties. Let us keep our brothers and sisters in our prayers in hope that the seismic activity has settled down.

You can see Abakan in real time here.

Снег в Новом Орлеане!

2011-12-27T10:12:00.000-06:00

For my Russian friends, here is typical New Orleans snow: "Snow to Go."

I wish the Saints would play every day!

2011-12-26T22:09:00.002-06:00

Gretna, Louisiana during a Saints game (not exactly as illustrated)

We just went to WalMart on the day after Christmas. Normally, that would mean parking somewhere near Hattiesburg, Mississippi and walking, bringing three days of provisions for the wait in line, making arrangements for the animals at home to be fed and cancelling the newspaper delivery while the cashier begins to collect Social Security checks.

But not today! More specifically, not this evening.

The New Orleans area is a ghost town! No traffic! No-one in the stores - not even at Wally World!

The 16-game season definitely needs "further review." I propose that they play at least three times a week year round.

Where does this road end? And when?

2011-12-26T11:10:00.002-06:00

Sobering. Q: How long can we "kick the can down the road" spending "money" we don't have on a worldwide trillion-dollar empire of military bases abroad, and a spiralling ponzi-scheme of entitlements at home, desperately begging and borrowing from China (and whoever else will buy our increasingly risky debt) and printing money out of thin air to "pay" for it all? A: Until the road ends.

Hallelujah Alaska Style

2011-12-25T16:38:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas, y'all!

HT: Lew Rockwell

Sermon: Christmas Day – 2011

2011-12-25T09:00:00.003-06:00

25 December 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: John 1:1-18

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

“In the beginning…”

The Word of God begins with these words. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” On Christmas Eve, 43 years ago, the crew of Apollo 8 read the opening words of Moses from the Book of Genesis, the Book of the Beginning, as they were orbiting the moon and looking back at the reflected light of the sun on planet earth.

On Christmas Day it is traditional to read and reflect on the words “In the beginning” as well. But these words and this beginning are a new beginning, new words from a new Book of the Beginning – the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as given to us by the Apostle John at the beginning of the Gospel that bears his name.

It was no accident that John begins with Moses and gives us Jesus. It’s no coincidence that Moses begins with the Word of God, and points us to Jesus.

For indeed, dear friends, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” And, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word of God is not a what, not merely spoken words. Rather the Word is a who: God Himself. “All things were made through Him.”

And so we must be clear in our confession. We are not randomly evolved bits of protein and protoplasm. We did not come from a mindless big bang. We are not the haphazard offspring of earthworms and primates. We are not cosmic junk that accidentally developed a consciousness. Rather, we are, as the Word reveals to us, creatures created by the Word, and we are created in the image of God the Father, our Creator. And the true image of the Father is the Son – the Word through whom we were made.

This is good news, dear brothers and sisters! For we need not look at the stars and ponder how insignificant we are. Instead, we can look at the stars, the planets, the galaxies, and the vastness of space knowing that none of these great celestial objects has consciousness. None of these celestial objects will ever ask: “Where did we come from.” None of these celestial objects will ever receive a revelation from their Creator.

But we do ask, and we did receive an answer!

And what’s more, dear friends, the Creator who made us loves us. He answers our question “Where did we come from?” The crew of Apollo 8 read the answer from space. He also answers why He made us. “God is love.” And He also explains why things are so messed up, why we feel so insignificant when we look to the sky, why we seem so distant from God, why we hurt, why we struggle, why we have sickness and problems of every kind, even why we die.

Because we have chosen to rebel against our Creator. We wanted to do what was forbidden to us. We have sinned, and we have continued to sin. We deny God’s existence. We send a rocket into space and think we are gods. We live our lives as if there were no God. We turn created objects into gods. We sin and act as if there is no such thing as sin.

And yet, God loves us. God rescues us. God has always had a “Plan B.” And He had this plan “in the beginning.”

For God does not take a rocket into space to see what He can see, rather He takes human form in space and time to save what He can save.

And so, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The Word became flesh! This is the Christmas miracle, the beating heart of flesh of the Christian faith. God, the Creator, the one by whom all things were created, stepped into time and history, broke into matter and the cosmos, taking the form of a Child born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem under the reign of Caesar Augustus. He “dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory.” The Word became flesh!

Jesus did not come out of curiosity. He is not an explorer. He already knows everything about our universe down to the last electron. And He already knows everything about us. Rather, He came on a mission of mercy. He came to save us from ourselves. He came to rescue us from our sins. He came to redeem us from death itself! He came to wrench us from the grasp of the darkness of Satan. For “in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” In our darkness, we tried to overcome the light. We continued to begrudge our God His rightful place of worship. We denied, betrayed, and even crucified our Savior. We “did not receive Him.”

But by a miracle, dear friends, some on our planet did receive Him. The twelve received Him. Those to whom the twelve preached received Him. Those who were baptized into His name received Him. Those who repent of their sins receive Him. And “to all who did receive Him, He gave the right to become children of God.”

And this all goes back to “in the beginning.” For before the foundation of the world, before the moon was set in its orbit, before the sun was placed in its own gravitational track in our galaxy, before the first man was placed in the first garden, before the first woman and the first man committed the first sin, indeed, “in the beginning was the Word.”

Blessed Moses teaches us where we came from. St. John teaches us where we are going. “For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

Dear brothers and sisters, “In the beginning” you were created and hand-crafted by a Creator who loves you. “In the beginning” you were redeemed by a Savior who would not abandon you. “In the beginning” you were called out of darkness and into the life-giving light by the Holy Spirit who makes you holy and sets you apart as “children of God.”

And in this reality – the reality that Jesus Christ came into the world to save the world, that He came to sinners to save sinners, He came to you to save you – now you have yet another new beginning. Right now, we begin another day in the Lord, another week in the Lord, another year in the Lord. We have another opportunity to begin anew in the Lord, to repent, to look to Jesus, the Child born of Mary, the Son of God, the One who lives among us to this day in Word and Sacrament, the One who remains with His Church until He comes again, the One who was “in the beginning.”

It is in this beginning that He invites you to come back into His orbit – again and again. He invites you to hear anew the Good News that the Creator loves us and calls us back to Himself. He invites you to another year of grace and truth in His Word and at His altar.

We are not on a tiny space capsule named after a non-existent Greek god, rather we are on our earthly home created for us by the One True God. And in spite of how we have corrupted our world, the Lord has come into our world to save us from sin, death, and the devil. He has come to bring us to a new heaven and a new earth – through His blood, through His grace and truth, through His mercy – all offered again this Christmas Day to you, my dear brother or sister in Christ, offered to you right here and right now, even as it ever was, for “In the beginning was the Word.” Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Christmas Eve – 2011

2011-12-24T17:00:00.007-06:00

24 December 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Isa 7:10-14, Mic 5:2-4, Isa 9:2-7, Matt 1:18-25, Matt 2:1-12, John 1:1-14

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way” says St. Matthew.

The “in this way” part means that we are being told the circumstances. For the circumstances of this birth and of this Person are what make the story not only interesting, but historically unique and relevant today.

Sadly, a lot of people aren’t interested in history. We live in a world bombarded by information overload, so much so that information that is older than the latest tweet or status update is long forgotten. And sadly, a lot of people today question why the Christian faith is relevant to their lives. And so, the world largely sees this Christmas story – this narrative of the birth and life and death and resurrection and coming again of Jesus Christ – to be irrelevant. And this is why Christmas has been created in modern man’s image.

In the quest for relevancy, modern Christmas is largely a holiday without holiness, a Christmas with Christ surgically removed, a Christ’s Mass where the Holy Supper is largely forgotten, having been replaced by large meals and parties and drinking binges and family squabbles.

But listen to God’s Word, dear friends: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.”

Did you catch the little word “now”? The birth of Jesus is supernatural, but it isn’t a myth. It happens in the “nowness” of time. It happens in a place. It happens according to God’s plan revealed through centuries of prophets. Jesus is physically born of a mother – but this birth is anything but ordinary.

This is the miracle of Christmas, dear friends, that God, the Almighty Creator, takes on creaturely flesh in space and time, becoming a mortal in order to die, for the purpose of giving us mortals immortality!

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.”

This miracle is relevant, dear brothers and sisters! It happened in the “nowness” of time, and because of that, is timeless. The latest news about the polls in Iowa will be forgotten. The recent bloodshed of shoppers over tennis shoes in a shopping mall will be forgotten. The many wars and political struggles around the globe will be forgotten. Our sadnesses, pains, sicknesses, anxieties, and even death itself will be forgotten. “But the Word of the Lord endures forever.”

For “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

In our fallen world full of deception, full of lies and broken promises, full of advertisements luring us to buy more and more stuff with false promises of happiness, in a world where truth is considered either relative or subjective or non-existent, we have the Truth, dear friends! And that Truth was born that first Christmas, the “way, the truth, and the life,” the Truth that is not just factually correct, but true in the sense of perfect, straight, a true and correct image of what man was created to be, a Man who is the Truth because He is the very Creator of man! And He is “full of grace.”

This “grace” does not mean that Jesus can dance like a ballerina or catch a football like a hall of fame receiver. It means that He bears the fullness and the goodness and the mercy of God Himself – in the flesh, in our flesh, for the forgiveness of our sins, and the reclamation of our flesh – and He graciously offers these gifts as gifts, without price and given in love.

For “He will save His people from their sins.”

This had long been prophesied and foretold, though centuries upon centuries, far longer than our technological gadgetry and changing wants and whims of the flesh last. No matter how much our technology changes and improves, our greed, our lusts, our hatreds, our self-absorption, our petty-mindedness, our desire to make ourselves seem bigger than we really are, our laziness, our dishonesty, our desire to control others, our gossip, our covetousness, and our indifference to others is always the same. It has been the same since the fall in the Garden of Eden, when and where the Lord promised the coming of the Messiah to save us.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.”

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the birth of Jesus in space and time, the Word becoming flesh in order to save His people from their sins, is not only relevant to us today, it is the only relevant thing. Nothing else matters. All other “good news” is meaningless by comparison. For this good news – this Gospel of the forgiveness of sins, of redemption, of a new creation, of forgiveness, salvation, peace, and eternal life and eternal communion with God – is the reason why Christmas is such a time of joy to those who confess Christ as the living God in the living flesh.

For “‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).”

God is with us, dear friends, with us! He came into our flesh, lived in our flesh, suffered in our flesh, died in our flesh, and rose again in our flesh – so that we too might rise in our flesh. The angelic song of “Peace on Earth” is not just a Christmas card sentiment or feel-good slogan to sell trinkets – rather this peace is a gracious gift of the grace-filled Prince of Peace – a gift hand-delivered to us where we are, handed over to us by the same hands that shared His body and blood with us “on the night in which He was betrayed,” when He was “handed over,” the same hands pierced by nails, the same hands shown to St. Thomas and the twelve, the same hands raised in benediction over His people as He ascended to the Father – the same tiny hands caressed by the hands of His virgin mother after His miraculous birth. “God with us.”

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.” Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Siberian Adventure - Day 21 - July 17, 2011

2011-12-22T21:25:00.001-06:00

Visit: Yekaterinburg

I woke up fairly late, got ready quickly. Father Sergey is picking us up at 10:30 am for the 11:00 Divine Service - which will likely start somewhere around 11:15.

Before Sergey and Alexey arrive, Dan and I go to the 2nd floor of the hotel for the buffet breakfast again - which is similar to yesterday's offering, but with a little variation in the fare. We notice that there are several families on vacation and a lot of English writing on t-shirts - especially among the children.

Sergey and Alexey pick us up. We arrive at church.

Father Sergey is the celebrant, and Father Alexey Trapiznikov - whom I have not met before - assists. Before the service, we are greeted by a visitor, a pastor from Canada who has a missionary ministry. He serves the Association of Free Churches (I think this is the name of the church body), a Norwegian Pietist church that is, I believe, headquartered in Minneapolis. It is a denomination that is both liturgically "low" and has a "low" view of the office of the holy ministry. He has worked with Father Pavel (Zayakin) for many years, and the two are good friends and colleagues. He is on his way to Abakan to assist with Father Pavel's Bible camp for young people.

He is dressed in civilian attire, and he tells us about his eclectic Lutheran background, having served congregations in both the LCMS and in the ELCIC. he currently lives near Vancouver, and makes annual mission trips to Russia and India.

He ended up in the Free Church because of their particular brand of low-church conservatism. His church body does not "ordain" women. When we ask him what is his church body's view of the Lutheran confessions, he is unsure. He is a very likable middle-aged man and is shadowed everywhere by his 30-ish Russian translator.

After our morning visit and tea, Father Sergey prepares for Mass. He is a soft-spoken middle aged man with a kind face, a closely-cropped beard, and short dark hair that is starting to develop "salt and pepper." As the celebrant, he is clearly in charge. Not typical for the services is Father Alexey (Streltsov) snapping pictures on his Nikon. Father Alexey (Trapiznikov) preaches the sermon and serves liturgically as the deacon.

The communion rail only accommodates two communicants at a time, and the pastors only have room to scoot sideways between rail and altar to distribute the Holy Sacrament. The church furniture originally came from the fist seminary in Novosibirsk.

After Mass, we retire to the kitchen for tea and cookies. In deference to my caffeine addiction and shortfall, Father Sergey presents me with a day-glow yellow half-liter bottle of Mountain Dew with a rascally smile on his face.

We all pose for a group picture in the sanctuary - except of course, Father Alexey, our photographer.

Sergey and Alexey bring us to the hotel to check out and then bring us back to the church flat. They go off for a while. While waiting for them to return, I look out the window and journal. It is warm and sunny outside, about 80F.

It looks very much like an American scene outside - with a few differences. A young girl is walking a dalmatian, who would just as soon stay put under a tree. She has to coax him to go. Two babushkas (elderly ladies) walk together down the street clad in their "uniform" of flowery dresses and head scarves. Two middle-aged women walk together with what appears to be a dachshund/beagle mix. Two younger guys are checking out a car - perhaps to buy. One of them is smoking a cigarette.

Cars zip down the highway that is maybe a quarter mile (if that) from the flat. The building across the street has typical enclosed balconies with clothes hanging outside. Some people are on foot bearing plastic grocery bags.

Tired looking Latas (a Russian domestic automobile) roll by in sharp contrast to the more modern-looking imports - mainly Toyotas brought in directly from Japan, as evidenced by the steering wheel placement on the right.

Summers are very short here, and I get the impression that people make the most of their warm season. Like my family members in Ottawa, they experience about six months of winter - with short days, reaching a peak of sunrise at about 10:00 am and sunset at about 4:00 pm.

Fathers Alexey and Sergey return and pick us up. We are headed to lunch somewhere in Yekaterinburg. Dan reads Crime and Punishment on his Kindle. Alexey and Sergey converse intensely in Russian. I'm getting a little road-weary. I'm also quite homesick and looking forward to getting home. Today is Miss Grace's birthday, but it's only 4 am back home. Maybe I'll be able to get on an Internet connection some time today. Otherwise, I'll ask Dan for his phone and fire off a text message to my dear wife.

Our drive takes us to a large event called the Technology Expo at Yekaterinburg - held in a huge convention center. Parking and admission are free. It is really incredible!

On the way in, we have to pass security. The guard laughs at me good-naturedly as I have to deal with my crucifix, pocket watch, Palm device, pocket knife, and all sorts of coins, etc. Unlike in the U.S., my small Swiss Army knife was not a problem. I scramble to gather all of my things as my companions also have a laugh.

We ate lunch there, traditional Russian fare: salad (tomatoes and cucumbers), bread, pelmini (dumplings) and coffee/tea. I took a chance on the instant coffee, as the brand name suggested it might be some kind of espresso. It was a mistake. I should have gone with the tea. But the rest of the meal was nice.

We spent a good bit of time at the show. We took a lot of pictures.

Father Alexey eplained that by air, Yekaterinburg is six hours from both London and Beijing. The movers and shakers of Y-burg are trying to position the city as a business hub, an alternative destination at which to meet halfway. Alexey is skeptical. Russian president Vladimir Putin is very much pushing "nanotechnology" and Russians teasingly refer to him as the nano-president ("little president"). There is a girl at the show who wears what seems to be a red latex suit consisting of a skimpy top, short-shorts (also latex?) with the word "NANO" written in western letters on the bum. The outfit was completed by her towering high heels. It's quite a tableau.

There are also a couple of girls in day-glow green leotards advertising a bank. They look a bit like the way C.S. Lewis portrayed the blue woman in his science-fiction novel Perelandra. Father Daniel suggests that I get a picture. Since my new policy is not to automatically say "no" and not hide behind my being an introvert - especially as a non-Russian-speaking foreigner - I walk up to them and motion to my camera asking: "Фото пожалуйста?" They insist on including me in the picture. They are fluent in English and are interested as to where Dan and I come from. They are very good sports.

In the middle of the exhibit there is a huge, detailed model of the city of Yekaterinburg. There is a section devoted to various businesses in Chelyabinsk. There is even a booth selling Christian icons - which would have been unheard of twenty years ago. The place is crowded with people of every age group. The most amusing to watch are the young couples. Almost inevitably, the guys are quite casual - if not bordering on slovenly - while their wives or girlfriends are dressed to the nines. It is so common as to be a cliché.

I buy a coffee mug on the way out that epitomizes Alexey's critique of many politicians' vision of modern Russia. The mug had a tribute to Russia on one side, and another to the USSR on the other. The caption reads (in Russian) "One History, One Country." It is the view of those who see modern Russia as simply a reconstituted Soviet Union. We go outside where there there are various trucks and heavy equipment - including a high-tech helicopter.

Afterwards, we drive downtown for some sightseeing.

In front of the main administrative building is a statue of - who else? - Lenin. Father Alexey directs our attention to the top of the Soviet-style administration building complete with statues of triumphant workers and stars and other garish Soviet symbolism. But Father Daniel is not with us. I turn around to see him chatting with a group of young people who are sitting on the base of the Lenin statue. I figure Dan is fielding questions about the United States or helping young people practice English. I take a picture as Dan calls me over.

The college-age students hail from Spain, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Russia. They are loud, gregarious, and friendly. They all speak very good English, and are respectful. We chat a little about where we come from. One of the guys jots down his e-mail address so I can send him the pictures.

Father Sergey tells us a funny story about the Lenin statue. Down the avenue are statues of Sverdlov and Kirov - two other Bolsheviks. They seem to be pointing to Lenin. The joke is that they are asking Lenin where he got his nice coat, and Lenin in turn is pointing at the shopping center across the street.

We went to that shopping center, which is located on a beautiful brick pedestrian mall. We stroll along the walkway in the sun and chat. We go inside and up the escalators to the 5th floor of the mall where there is a small food court.

There we find a restaurant called Hot American Pizza, a pelmini place, a more traditional Russian lunch establishment, and a (believe it or not) dessert place called Cherry Berry (back home we frequent a frozen yogurt shop of the same name).

Dan and I order pizza - of which Alexey quips is actually neither hot nor American. Sergey gets the Russian food, and Alexey opts for the Pelmini.

We eat our "hot American pizza" in the capitalist mall as we look out the window to see Lenin pointing at us. It is surreal and ironic. Lenin seems so lost, so anachronistic and defeated, though his body is frozen in his usual triumphalistic pose. From our view we see a good sized crater behind a fence. It is filled with water. Alexey explains that in Soviet times, it was a public toilet. He said that it was free. I remarked: "It still is" to the great amusement of my Russian brothers. I think my attitude for Big Government and natural inclination to make fun of the state dovetails nicely with the post-Soviet sense of humor about the USSR.

From, we see a sign on the wall that is missing a letter. I ask Father Alexey about it. It says ССС-. The last letter has been torn off. Alexey confirms that indeed the now-truant final letter was a Р - the Russian R. This was the sign for the now-defunct "USSR Cafe" - but the R has been taken away. The word Кафе remains though. More symbolic irony.

We visit a bookstore, a sort-of Russian version of Barnes and Noble. They have a small English language section of books in English - some paperback classics. They also have a section for learning Russian. I buy a Random House course with 40 lessons, a book and 3 CDs. I also pick up a phrasebook with CD for half the cost back home.

Father Daniel buys a beautiful political map of Russia. Alexey picks up a few books. Pastors are seldom as happy as when they are in bookstores. I wandered off to buy some souvenirs. My inability to communicate is a profound frustration. The clerks are patient and kind, and they treat me like a child counting my coins for me and taking them from my outstretched hand. I do know how to apologize and indicate to them that I don't know Russian.

On the way out, I see a 3D book with a jumping spider on it. It includes a 3D viewer with various stereoscopic photos of bugs and spiders. It costs the equivalent of $10 U.S. Of course, I have to buy it for Leo. My Visa card is declined - which Dan suggests is a safety feature because I had just used it a few minutes ago. I pay cash.

We continue our stroll. The architecture is western, modern, and beautiful - in some cases even opulent.

Father Sergey goes back to the car and meets us at the other end of the pedestrian mall. Sergey and Alexey drop us back off at the church flat. Dan and I venture out for a stroll and end up back at the beer tent. We order a couple beers.

This time, I have my phrase book and dictionary. With these tools, Dan and I set out to figure out the menu. I call over to our waiter whose name is Ильхом (Ilichom?) - who is probably Kazakhstani. He remembers us from before. This time I use the phrase book to order in Russian.

He is amused and asks to see the phrase book. He uses the book to ask me how much the phrasebook costs. He is looking at the English section. We all have a good laugh. I took a couple pictures with him and the phrasebook.

I pay for our meal in cash, and Dan picks up the tip. We head back to the flat. I have trouble getting to sleep.

Here is a link to all of my pictures of Day Twenty One.

Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!

2011-12-22T20:39:00.000-06:00

Which Candidate Supports the Troops, and Is Supported By the Troops?

2011-12-17T20:46:00.000-06:00

If you watch to the end of this short video, you may be shocked. Don't expect the mainstream media (nor any of the chicken-hawk talk radio entertainers) to share the last irrefutable statistic with you.

Which candidate really supports the American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines - and is a veteran himself? Check it out...

Where women's "ordination" leads

2011-12-08T23:23:00.000-06:00

This article about a recent conference (featuring a priestess of the goddess Isis) at a "Lutheran church" (sic) - a member congregation of the ELCA (not affiliated with the LCMS) - is an honest explication of what, and who, is behind the recent phenomenon of women's "ordination." It is also an indictment of the leadership of the ELCA to not only tolerate this kind of thing year after year in one of their congregations, but to actually encourage it by allowing one of the "church's" leading scholars to participate (a point cogently made here by ELCA member Dan Skogan).

Here is a link to the conference. Here is a link to the "church." And here is a link to the Isis temple. This is a crystal-clear confession of feminist theology. At least they are being honest about it.

I know that we're not really in a position to throw stones, but when the name "Lutheran" is attached to pagan goddess worship, it affects us whether we like it or not. Kyrie eleison!

If this were going on in Afghanistan...

2011-12-04T21:05:00.001-06:00

HT: Lew Rockwell

Sermon: St. Andrew – 2011

2011-11-30T19:30:00.003-06:00

30 November 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: John 1:35-42 (Ezek 3:16-21, Rom 10:8-18)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

St. Andrew has the honor to be the first of the Lord’s disciples. In fact, he was a disciple of John the Baptist and the one who introduced Peter to Jesus. St. Andrew was among the first to hear what we hear nearly every time we gather for worship: “Behold the Lamb of God!” St. Andrew truly bridges the gap between the Old Testament and the New Testament, between the lambs offered as sacrifices and the Lamb offered as the one all-availing sacrifice, between Israel’s twelve tribes and the Church’s twelve apostles.

And Andrew is drawn to Jesus. “Rabbi… where are You staying?”

What a glorious question? It is a question that leads us to the Church, the place where Jesus is found in our world, in our time, among us, in ways that we can see and hear and taste. What wonder that St. Andrew was able to not only seek out God in the flesh, but to call Him teacher – which is an invitation to be taught.

St. Andrew is a man of conviction and courage. He has just basically invited himself to lodge with God.

And how does our Lord react to this rather forward question (“Where are you staying?”)? “Come,” says Jesus, inviting the disciple, “Come and you will see.”

“You will see” says our Lord. And Andrew was to see indeed! He would see our Lord preach and teach, cure the sick, cast out demons, and even raise the dead. He would see a Man who is God and God who is a Man. He would see the ultimate wisdom, patience, kindness, joy, and suffering. And St. Andrew was indeed to partake in all of these as a disciple of Jesus Christ and as a preacher of the Word of God. He would see many brought to the Messiah.

Imagine how amazing it was to follow Jesus to His home and to lodge with Him! Imagine what it must be like to be under the same roof as Jesus, to see and touch the flesh of the Lord, to hear Almighty God speak His very word!

Dear friends, this is the privilege of being a Christian, of being in the Church. And yes indeed, they are one and the same. One cannot be a Christian apart from the Church any more than there can be an arm apart from a body. And there is no Church apart from Christ, as if a body can exist without a head. For where the Master is found, there are His disciples. And among the students, there is certainly the Teacher.

“Teacher, where are You staying?” That is what every Christian should be asking – not in an intellectual way, as if trying to Google some piece of trivia or to satisfy curiosity. No, this is something deeper. Indeed, when we Christians ask “Teacher, where are You staying?” we want to be where our Teacher, our Rabbi, is to be found. As students, we seek to learn. And we are learning something more profound than facts and figures. We are learning by living, and in Christ, we live in love, from love, for love, and by love – for God is Love, and Christ is God incarnate.

The love Jesus has for us is a perfect love, without ulterior motive, untarnished by selfishness and unblemished by a wandering eye. Our Lord’s love for us is pure and chaste, limitless, and unconditional – unlike the so-called love with which the world is enamored to death.

St. Andrew became the first of the disciples, the first to come to Jesus. He was the first to confess Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. And he brought his own brother, Simon Peter, to Christ.

And while much of our attention is focused on St. Peter, the leader of the apostles, the brash, the loud, the controversial, Peter the beloved writer of two epistles of the New Testament – we must remember that Peter was brought to Jesus by Andrew.

Everyone is brought to Jesus by someone. And Jesus calls preachers to draw men to Himself – preachers like Peter and Andrew. And both of these fishermen were themselves to become “fishers of men.”

For as Paul would ask: “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?”

St. Andrew and His brother St. Peter were “sent ones,” that is to say “apostles.” St. Andrew brought the Gospel to his own household, as well as to a group of Greeks who sought Jesus. And St. Andrew would, like his brother and like his Master, die on a cross. Indeed, he was, like Ezekiel, a “watchman for the house of Israel.” As a preacher of Christ and forgiveness, he was also a preacher of why Christ came: sin. He called people to repentance, and he forgave those who repented. He baptized. He administered the Lord’s Supper. He is one of those of whom St. Paul spoke of: “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”

This is why this first apostle’s feast day sets the first week of the new church year. For this new follower of the New Testament brings us anew, along with St. Peter, to Jesus. St. Andrew confesses with us and with Christians of every age: “We have found the Messiah.”

Dear brothers and sisters, we too have found the Messiah, the Christ, the One who is the Lamb of God, the Lamb who is God, the sacrifice which takes away our sins, and the very God of very God who was made Man. And along with St. Andrew, we seek to be where Jesus is, to stay with Him, abide with Him, lodge with Him, to be near unto Him and to hear Him. And this is why we are here in this place at this time, dear friends! We have been brought to Jesus by the apostles and those who came after them. And we too bring others to Jesus, who likewise gives them forgiveness and salvation and life.

Let us ever pray with St. Andrew: “Rabbi, where are You staying?” and let us ever seek to be with Him, learning from Him, and walking with Him, even if, as it did for St. Andrew, that road leads to a cross. For we too have “found the Messiah,” dear friends! We have found the Christ! Behold the Lamb! Thanks be to God! Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What if?

2011-11-28T00:22:00.000-06:00

Sermon: Ad Te Levavi (Advent 1) – 2011

2011-11-27T10:00:00.006-06:00

27 November 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Matt 21:1-9 (Jer 23:5-8, Rom 13:8-14)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord.”

Whenever a prophet says “Behold,” we can do one of two things: either we listen to the prophet, or we can listen to other voices. We are always listening to something, dear friends. We are either resonating with the Word of God, or our ears are being tickled by the noise of this world.

“The days are coming.” Some people didn’t believe Jeremiah when he spoke these words 26 centuries ago, they didn’t believe them 20 centuries ago when their fulfillment began with the coming of our Lord, and many do not believe them today as we wait for the completion of the fulfillment when our Lord returns.

Nevertheless, dear friends, the Lord speaks, and we do well to listen to that ever-faithful Word. “The days are coming when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and He shall reign as king.”

And even though the people did not fully grasp what kind of a King they had in Jesus, they received Him the same way they had received his ancestor King Solomon – “humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” Solomon was to become a king great in might and power and wisdom – and yet rode into the city of his father David on a humble donkey. For Solomon’s greatness lay within himself as opposed to within the trappings of the external riches which he enjoyed.

So too, King Jesus, also a Son of David, a Son of Solomon, the very Son of God, rides into David’s Royal City on a donkey. And this King is great in might and power and wisdom – exponentially greater than His grandfather Solomon, for this King’s Father is God, and this King is God!

God riding on “the foal of a beast of burden.” God becoming a humble man to die for sinful men. God riding triumphant into Jerusalem to the cheers of Hosanna merely a week before being condemned to the jeers of “crucify Him!” And yet, in spite of their later treachery against the Lord, on the day of the advent of their King, they cried out: “Hosanna!” – which is to say that this King is also their Savior. They are right to cry out “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” For this King is to be blessed by those whom He has blessed, for He bears the blessed name of the Lord – the name that is above every name, the name by which we are saved, the name into which we are baptized, the name through which we have eternal life – the name that is to be spoken with reverence and worship and yet with joy and jubilation! All hail King Jesus!

This King has come to save His people through the cross, though they would refuse to save Him from the cross. This King has come to die upon the cross for all people whose sins have placed Him on the cross. This King has come to forgive the sins and bring to life of all of us who put the One without sin to death. This King has come to conquer – not in warfare to lord over and enslave people, but rather in peace to live and die in perfect humility in order to liberate humanity.

Indeed, this is a King greater than David and greater than Solomon. This is a King like none other, and His Bride the Church continues to receive Him with royal pomp and circumstance, with thanks and praise, with reverence and awe. And, dear friends, we wait for His return.

And yet, even in our waiting for Him to return, He abides with us in the great mystery of His Word and His sacraments. For this King’s Word is not just Law, but reality. This King’s Word is not merely a command for His subjects, but life for His beloved people. This King’s Word is a Word of forgiveness, life, and salvation. This King’s Word draws us into His kingdom as fellow heirs and rulers with Him in the promise of a new heaven and a new earth!

And so we wait, dear friends, we wait in anticipation and joy, in praise and in glory. We continually sing “Hosanna” to our Savior King week in and week out when we gather around the same flesh and blood as those who “cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.” We too are filled with joy to hear the royal announcement: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” as we hail Him at our altar and receive Him into our very bodies. We too can hardly contain our excitement as He draws near to us.

The anticipation of Christmas – especially from the point of view of the Lord’s beloved little ones – is a flicker of the kind of joyful expectation we should have for the return of our Lord. For no matter how tired and overwhelmed we are, no matter our pain and depression and loneliness, no matter how burdened we are by sin, death, and the devil – we join the pilgrim throng on the streets of Jerusalem and throughout the world singing “Hosanna” and cheering the ever-nearer approach of our Lord and King. Each year we are a year closer to His return and His re-creation of our bodies, our world, and our universe as they were meant to be before creation was trodden down and corrupted by sin.

This is why St. Paul’s warning is a fresh today as it ever was: “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” We do not wait in gloom and sorrow, but in joy and hope. This, dear friends, is what empowers us to “walk properly” and to “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

The Lord is just around the corner, and He is calling us, dear brothers and sisters, calling us to follow Him, to wait for Him, to be healed by Him, to be made anew in forgiveness and life – awaiting the return of Paradise in a glorious new heaven and earth that has no end.

This is the Advent, the coming of the Lord, foretold by the prophets of old, played out in the coming of our Lord into Jerusalem, and yet to be fulfilled in the return of our Lord in His triumphant return!

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord.”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Thanksgiving Eve – 2011

2011-11-23T19:30:00.001-06:00

23 November 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Luke 17:11-19 (Deut 8:1-10, Phil 4:6-20)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. We all know we should be grateful. We are all taught to say “thank you.” We all know that there is something terribly wrong when a person is an ingrate. But with God, this is not just a matter of being polite.

For unlike us, God is not concerned about His own feelings or His ego. God is perfectly all-loving. And so when the Lord speaks through St. Paul to tell us: “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God,” it must be for something other than not hurting God’s feelings or for us not to look like a social oaf. In fact, St. Paul completes the thought by saying that as a result: “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

So when we “offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving” and “call on the name of the Lord” – it is really for our benefit, not to give God a big head.

What is it about gratitude that is so important? After all, we have already received the benefit of God’s grace, haven’t we? Moses recounted to the people how God had already promised to bring the people “into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing…. And you shall eat and be full.”

Indeed, this promised land could well describe our own America – for we lack nothing and we most certainly “shall eat and be full” – especially tomorrow!

So what difference does it make if we are grateful or not? What does it matter to us if we pray? As we confess with Luther in the Small Catechism: “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.”

Dear friends, when we receive with thanksgiving, we confess that we have indeed received unworthily. We acknowledge God’s love for us, and we accept these gifts of God on faith. And as we all know, faith is important! Faith is our lifeline to continue receiving these gifts. For, dear brothers and sisters, apart from faith we can do nothing. Apart from faith we have no hope. Apart from faith we have no life in us! And so, offering a sacrifice of thanksgiving is a sacrifice made in faith, the faith with which we commune with the living God, the faith through which we are saved.

And this, dear friends, is the work of Christ! He is the Victim and the Priest; He is the Host and the Feast; He is our Life and Salvation. To Him belong thanksgiving, because He is the Giver of every good gift. And He is the Gift itself!

Indeed, the Lord Jesus cured ten lepers – the grateful and the ungrateful. He took away their sickness, their shame, gave them the gift of life, and restored to them that which was lost. He did this through His Word and His presence in the world. And only one returned in thanksgiving, “one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God in a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks.”

This man received God’s grace in faith – genuine saving faith. And this man offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving and calls on the name of the Lord. He comes to where Jesus is found in His flesh and in His Word, fulfilling promises, healing, saving, and strengthening faith. This man came to Jesus to offer thanks and praise to the One who saved Him! And he, not Jesus, is the beneficiary. It is his faith that is strengthened by Christ’s faithfulness.

Our Lord observes: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Our Lord is not concerned with etiquette or even with His own feelings. For listen to the next thing the Lord pronounces, dear friends. “And He said to him, ‘Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.’”

Dear brothers and sisters, we all have much for which to give thanks. Did you just draw a breath of air? God created an atmosphere with just the right mix of oxygen. By means of a complex series of electrical impulses and muscular contractions, you pulled just the right amount of air into your nostrils and windpipe, led into your lungs and air sacs, transferring just the right amount of oxygen through the microscopic walls of your capillaries, enriching your blood to nourish every cell in your body, exchanging oxygen for wastes, which are returned in the same bloodstream to be exhaled as carbon dioxide through your nose. And you live to draw another breath. And if this process is interrupted for even a few minutes, we die. The Lord watches over us in “plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” In the spirit of thanksgiving, we learn to depend on the Lord and “in whatever situation to be content.”

We live in a country where most people around the world would like to live. We are free to come and worship the True God without fear of persecution. Even the poor among us are well-fed and live in luxury compared to the vast majority of the world’s people. We are blessed to have homes, cars, vacations, clothing, health care, televisions, entertainments, conveniences, technology, temperate weather, and many other things we pray for when we ask for “our daily bread.” And most of all, we have salvation through the blood of Christ who saves us at the cross and delivers salvation to us in His Word and in His sacraments! We can, like the Tenth Leper, approach Jesus, adore and worship Him, thank Him, and receive Him in His flesh and in His Word. And we come, unworthy as we are, to this rail where He blesses us and proclaims anew the forgiveness of sins, granting communion with the Most Holy Trinity, and bestowing upon us eternal life.

What more could we ever want or need in this body and life, dear friends! What more could we ever desire at this time and in this place?

Let us live each day of our lives in fervent and humble gratitude for all that our Savior has done for us, continues to do for us, and will do for us unto all eternity! Let us realize that our faith – which is itself a gift of our Savior – is a faith that has made us well! Let us continually offer our lives as thanksgiving, enjoying the gifts of God – both temporal and eternal. Let us pray every moment of our lives, praying with every breath we draw, praying with gratitude and thankfulness for Him who gave everything for our sakes.

“And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Siberian Adventure - Day 20 - July 16, 2011

2011-11-20T22:56:00.001-06:00

Visit: Yekaterinburg

Father Daniel and I slept in a bit and went to the hotel's breakfast. It was a very western buffet meal that included sausage, rice, cream of wheat (which looked not unlike grits and jambalaya), also bread and a hard-boiled egg. I also had a coffee with milk. There is a TV on in the dining room which has what seems to be a 24-hour news channel tuned on.

Father Sergey picked us up and drove us the short distance to the church.

We met several people - including Deacon Victor Shtraube (from Chelyabinsk) and his expecting wife! I spoke with a young layman about 25-years old or so. He speaks English though not fluently. His name is Vadim, and he lives in Siberia in the city of Kurgan between Yekaterinburg and Omsk.

He's a member of Father Sergey's parish (Sts. Peter and Paul) and has a 6-hour bus commute to attend church on Sunday. His parents are atheists, though his grandmother was Russian Orthodox. He had been baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church, but was never able to understand the liturgy because of the language barrier (Russian Orthodox liturgies are not conducted in Russian, but rather in Old Slavonic). He stumbled upon a children's Bible, and that set him on the course to become a Lutheran.

I have a cup of tea. Father Sergey shows up with a half-liter bottle of Mountain Dew for me. My Russian brothers are sensitive to my caffeine addiction, and they genuinely care about my comfort.

We have a brief prayer service along the lines of Daily Prayer according to our Lutheran Service Book (LSB) hymnal. Father Sergey is dignified as he leads prayer. I'm seated in one of the small pews next to an older woman wearing a head scarf.

I believe my friend Vladimir (see page one of this Siberian Lutheran Mission Society newsletter, "A Lutheran Soul") - who speaks very good French - has arrived. Father Daniel has begun his lecture. We will have two hours each today.

After an hour, we take a break. I met Vladimir, and gave him a small gift: a fridge magnet from New Orleans which has some French on it. I explain to him that le français est une langue officielle d'état de la Louisiane, et il y a beaucoup de personnes qui parle français dans notre état (French is an official language of the State of Louisiana, and there are many people who speak French in our state). We chat back and forth in French, as I am certain that I've butched the language. I am, however, amazed at how much I am able to understand as Vladimir speaks, though my own spoken French is terribly rusty. I think being immersed in a non-English environment has stimulated the linguistic part of my brain (then again, maybe it was the Mountain Dew...). Vladimir is quite fluent and enjoys speaking French as much as I enjoy hearing it.

In fact, it feels good - liberating, actually, to be able to speak in another lingua franca of the world, to be enjoying conversation with Vladmir in a language that is native to neither one of us, with neither one of us relying on a translator. As we chat, we are speaking with more rapidity. It's a great encouragement to grow in understanding and fluency in multiple languages.

After Dan concludes his lecture, we speak to the lady sitting next to me (our translator, as I will learn later, is Evgeny, a young guy who has only been speaking English for about a year and a half). Her grandfather was a Lutheran pastor who was executed by Stalin. He had served in the Volga region. As a young woman, she wished to go to medical school, but was not permitted to study because her grandfather had been condemned as an "enemy of the state." She was mocked as a student because of her Christian faith, which she retained even after all that her family had suffered. I asked her to write her name for me, and she wrote in my little notebook "Альвина" - the letters of which I could not read very well in their cursive form. Father Alexey later rendered this into Latin letters for me as "Alvina." She is more commonly known by the diminutive form "Ала" ("Ala"). The German form of her name is "Albina" - and although I did not make the connection at the time, the Siberian Lutheran Mission Society had run a fascinating three part article telling Albina's story - which you can read here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

It was a great honor to have my picture taken with Albina.

Father Alexey gives his lecture on Romans. We break for lunch, and a large group of us walks over to the Cafe Dadazh (where we went yesterday) - where we have a very typical Russian "business lunch" with a bit of Asian influence, consisting of salad, soup, and a main dish of chicken and rice. We also drink a peach soda - shared by the four of us at our table - served in very small glasses - and we finish with tea. The salad is dry (in a good way). No glop. The soup has some kind of seafood or fish in it. It reminds me of New Orleans. I'm seated with Father Alexey, Vladimir, Vadim, and another young guy named Evgeny (who previously served as my impromptu translator in my chat with Albina). It turns out that he is a 4th year Orthodox seminarian.

After lunch, Father Alexey concludes his lecture.

I begin my Augsburg Confession lecture at about 4:00 pm and go on until about 6:00 with a break after about an hour. My listeners seem engaged - especially Evgeny. I cover the history part and I get through Article 8.

When I field questions, one attendee raised the question of the validity of a baptism conducted by a woman "pastor." I answered that my pastoral practice is to treat such "baptisms" as outside the church. One ELKRAS attendee (ELKRAS is the German missionary denomination in Russia, a more liberal body that "ordains" women), a young pastor named Dennis, became quite agitated. I calmly confessed what I believe and what my pastoral practice is.

I was a little concerned, not wanting to offend my hosts, but Father Alexey assured me that my answer is actually the same answer as the position of the SELC. To make things more interesting, we will be traveling to Dennis's congregation to speak to them on Tuesday evening.

Afterward, Fathers Alexey and Sergey take Dan and me to McDonald's. It looks similar to its American cousin, only with Cyrillic letters. Russia has similar language laws as Quebec, and this regulates the amount of English that can be used on signage. I don't know how Traveler's Coffee gets around this. The McDonald's sign looks like this: Макдоналдс - a direct transliteration. I order the equivalent of a Quarter Pounder, known is Russia as a Royal Cheeseburger (Роял Чизбургер). In Russia, you have to pay extra for condiments. Dan and I both order "large" drinks. The clerk says something in response to Father Alexey, who looks at me gravely and says: "Uh, Father Larry, he says that the large drink is a liter." Of course, this is considerably smaller than the large in the U.S. (which explains why Americans are considerably larger than Russians). Father Daniel and I, unfazed by the liter, laugh and confirm our order with Alexey. Also, there are no ice in the drinks. I never saw an ice machine in my time in Russia. I also believe one of the staff was scolding me for taking pictures.

The four of us (Dan, Alexey, Sergey, and I) go outside to eat under one of the red and yellow umbrellas.

Next, we make an excursion to the "Alcohol Supermarket" subtitled: "Magnum" where Dan shops for cognac - which is of very high quality and considerably cheaper than in the states. He has promised to bring back a bottle for a fellow pastor back home.

Afterward, our Russian brothers drop us off back at the hotel.

Dan would like to buy another bottle of Armenian cognac (Ararat brand), and I need some batteries. We stroll around, find a supermarket, make ou purchases using a combination of gestures and pidgin Russian. The clerks are helpful and friendly. Dan buys a bottle of Ararat, and I purchase a small bottle of "Мохито" (mojito). Dan forgets to buy himself a beer, and the store has no AA batteries.

We walk back.

We see a funny sight: a drunken man carrying a bottle in one hand, and in the other hand he holds a cellphone to his ear. Paying no attention to his surroundings, he crosses the busy highway, chatting and swaying between the zooming cars. It looks staged. The traffic doesn't even slow down. He staggers at a steady pace completely absorbed in his phone call. Somehow, he arrives untouched at the other side without missing a beat, talking in his cell the entire time.

We visit a little kiosk where a customer can bring an empty beer bottle and the clerk will fill it with any beer that they have on tap, charging by the amount.

It's now well after ten, but the sky is still bright. We stroll back to the hotel. I enjoy an extended chat with Grace and upload pictures. Our room in the Atlantic Hotel has a large and deep bathtub, so I indulge in a steaming hot bath. My knees get sore sometimes, so the soak feels very good.

Photo: http://www.rushotels.com/hotel/1126

Here is a link to all of my pictures of Day Twenty.

Sermon: Last Sunday – 2011

2011-11-20T10:00:00.001-06:00

20 November 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Matt 25:1-13 (Isa 65:17-25, 1 Thess 5:1-11)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Our Lord Jesus Christ tells a story that contrasts wisdom and folly, showing us the difference between being wise and being foolish. But unlike the philosophers, Jesus is not just talking about what will make us happy in this life, he is talking about eternity.

And the bottom line on wisdom is this: have your priorities in order. This is a hard lesson to learn. Hopefully it comes with age, but not always. Hopefully we learn such lessons from those who teach us, but sometimes we must learn from our mistakes.

In this fallen world, we can’t have everything. In our human limitations, we can’t be in more than one place at the same time. A wise person will use his resources wisely, and a fool will use his resources foolishly. A wise person will set priorities, and make first things first; a fool will convince himself that important things can wait. A wise person invests his time, talent, and treasure in a way that will bring a long term return on the investment, whereas a fool only thinks about the pleasure he can experience in the present.

And, dear friends, there is no longer term than eternity.

Just as a wise person saves for a rainy day, and a fool spends money he hasn’t even earned yet – so will the spiritually wise “store up treasures in heaven” while the spiritually foolish will convince himself that nothing bad will happen to him so he might as well have fun now. The wise live for the kingdom; the foolish only live for themselves.

Our Lord Jesus not only teaches us to be wise, He uses the Parable of the Ten Virgins to teach us the consequences of being spiritually foolish.

“The kingdom of heaven will be like,” He says. Our blessed Lord is not simply imparting wisdom so that we will be healthy, wealthy, and wise, achieving our potential on the job or on the golf course, or just for the sake of self-actualization. Rather, He is trying to keep us out of hell. For that is the end result of foolishness. Dear friends, the Lord Jesus has sacrificed His life as a ransom, an atonement, a redemption, a buy-back, to pay for the sins of the whole world. It is a free gift of grace extended to every human being who draws a breath, and even those yet unborn. This is the good news, the best news in human history.

And to the wise, this good news is their top priority. It is the single most important thing in their lives. It is where the wise channel their time, their thoughts, and their resources. But to the foolish, this news is either not believed, or it is believed but relegated to a low priority and largely ignored.

For “the kingdom… will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.” Five girls were prepared for their journey to the wedding feast, with lamps trimmed and full of oil. However, the other five were foolish, having wasted their time, talents, and treasure on other things rather than on being prepared for the return of the bridegroom.

This story that Jesus continues to tells even today is a tragedy. While it ends well for the wise virgins, the prepared, the girls who had their priorities in order, it ends like a nightmare for the foolish virgins, the unprepared, the girls who did not have their priorities in order. For they didn’t merely lose a few hours while they went to the store. Rather, they lost eternity serving themselves instead of being obedient to their Master. For “Those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.”

“The door was shut” dear friends! Jesus compared himself to a door, a portal into heaven, a pathway from this broken world of sin and death, a passage to the world made new, a world in which we will resume our feast in paradise that was interrupted by our fall into sin. “For behold,” says the Lord, “I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.” We will be so joyful in our restored paradise that we won’t even remember what it was like to be afraid of death, to mourn the loss of loved ones, to be grieved by pain, to be harassed by crime, to be gnawed by hunger and poverty, to be unsure of ourselves, to be tempted by sin, to be depressed, to be addicted to substances, to be betrayed by friends, to be attacked by enemies, to feel distant from God, or to be worried about hell.

“I will rejoice in Jerusalem,” says the Lord, “and be glad with my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.”

This is what lies beyond the door into which the wise virgins entered with the bridegroom, with the Lord Jesus Christ. And listen to what lies beyond the door that was shut, leaving outside the five foolish virgins, who cry out too late: “Lord, lord, open to us.” “But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’” And so our Lord concludes his story with a sobering lesson, and, dear brothers and sisters, we do well to listen very carefully. Are you listening? Please listen now. Listen to this single sentence from our Lord. Please listen as if this is the last thing you will hear in this life: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

The foolish virgins were foolish because they believed they had control. They were foolish because they allowed selfish desires to be made a priority over the bridegroom and the wedding feast.

Our Lord calls us to be wise, to be prepared, to trim our lamps, to have our oil already – so that when there is a cry at midnight: “Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!” – we will be prepared. The wise do not begin evacuating when the storm has arrived, but are prepared ahead of time, ready to go hastily on short notice. It is a matter of priority, of thinking beyond the present, of wisdom

Dear brothers and sisters please hear me. This world is falling apart! The things that are of such a high priority to us now count for nothing in the kingdom of heaven. The things that make us happy and sad, that motivate us, that in some cases control us, these worldly things only distract us from the kingdom.

It has been said that Americans “worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship.” This reflects the messed-up priorities of our culture. The church’s counter-culture has a different view, one that comes from the Word of God: “You shall have no other gods.” “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” “Take up your cross.”

The Word of God is wisdom only to those who receive it in faith. For in faith we wait for the Bridegroom to return. In faith we know there is a new heaven and a new earth awaiting us. In faith we receive the gift the Lord Jesus earned for us at the cross and delivers to us in the Gospel and in His sacraments. In faith we confess our sins and in faith we receive absolution. In faith we live out this salvation in wisdom, with heavenly priorities, storing up treasures in heaven, and crucifying the old Adam with his fleshly passions and selfishness. In faith we live day to day in our baptism, in a life of repentence.

In faith we confess that the Lord is returning, but also in faith we confess our ignorance of when: “For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”

For they are the foolish virgins, those of misplaced priorities, those who think there will yet be time to trim their lamps when the Day of the Lord is upon us suddenly and without warning.

Dear friends, the Lord weaves this tragic tale not to frighten us, not to upset us, but rather to warn us. “Watch” He says. The word translated “watch” literally means “be vigilant.” It means to keep vigil, to be prayerfully awake and aware, waiting in joyful expectation for the Bridegroom to come, with our lamps trimmed and full of oil, ready to leave this crumbling and broken world in the blink of an eye for an eternal life where “the wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox,” where all creation lives together harmoniously, where sin, Satan, and death will not even be called to mind, and where we will live out the Lord’s making of His broken creation His own priority, a priority of love, and that life of love and joy will have no end.

Watch, therefore. Watch in joy! Watch in expectation! Watch in hope! Watch…

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The One Year Bible's Old Testament Reading...

2011-11-18T08:56:00.000-06:00

... for today edited and set to music courtesy of the Delta Rhythm Boys (who have a very interesting history).

The standard recording of "Dem Bones" is here.

On Quality of Life

2011-11-18T00:36:00.000-06:00

From Peter Kreeft's commentary on Blaise Pascal's Pensées called Christianity for Modern Pagans, page 58:

[Pascal writes]: Man's greatness comes from knowing he is wretched: a tree does not know it is wretched. Thus it is wretched to know that one is wretched, but there is greatness in knowing one is wretched. (No. 114).

[Kreeft writes]: Thus the greatness and high dignity of Greek drama. It is not only that the wise sufferer is rewarded in the end, like Oedipus (and Job), but that even in the act of suffering well there is dignity, because the suffering is not just a negative event in the physical world but also a positive event in the spiritual world. By the sufferer's understanding and will, his suffering is granted entrance into this second world. It becomes not merely an event in space but an event in consciousness. It is taken up to Heave: the Heaven of thought, even if not the Heaven of bliss.

How utterly low and brutish is the level to which a human mind has to sink before it csn look at an old lady in a nursing home bed suffering some incurable disease and call this life and this suffering "meaningless", lacking in "quality of life". To call this the "quality of life ethic" is like calling a cannibal a chef.

If this sneeringly snobbish judgment is true of the old lady, it is true a fortiori of Christ. If her cross of suffering, her death-bed lacks "quality", then His cross and death-tree also lack "quality".

"Quality" is thus used as a professional euphemism for sex and money. We find this brutish mentality only in the "upper" classes, the professional and "educated" people, especially journalists and professors, not among the poor, not among real people. Such "intellectuals" are as intelligent as radical "feminists" are feminine."

An Endangered Species: A Politician with Integrity

2011-11-16T23:04:00.001-06:00

I'm not a big fan of politicians. But Nigel Farage is a glorious exception. He is a man of courage and integrity. Not only is he fearless about speaking truth to power, he's fun to watch. You can see his opponents cringe when his name is called. And while he speaks, you can watch them contort their faces, gesticulate, wag their heads, and shift uncomfortably from cheek to cheek. I make it a point to watch any newly uploaded YouTube videos of Nigel Farage speaking in the European Parliament.

Mr. Farage (as part of a larger home-rule movement called "Euroskepticism") has repeatedly argued that the European Union is nothing more than an un-elected bureaucratic superstate designed to rob member states of their sovereignty and freedom. Member nations are repeatedly denied referendums - and when they do vote "no," the euro-crats use deceptive end-runs to achieve their goals anyway. And unlike most politicians who are concerned with keeping their jobs, Farage doesn't just look the other way and play along. Nigel Farage is quick to remind Europe of its history of tyranny, and does not shy from even pointing out the bloody careers of some who sit in the European Parliament.

Now we are seeing the collapse of the euro - hardly a surprise as Socialism is always a failure - be it Soviet Socialism, National Socialism, or Bureaucratic Socialism (which has a perfect two-letter abbreviation). And Nigel Farage is there to call a spade a spade.

Watch and be amazed.

Update: Here is the proof that Nigel Farage is right! You can judge for yourself what to think of the euro-crats and their plans to form a political union without the consent of the member states. For some reason, this just sounds like a bad idea to me, and yes, I'm definitely whistling Dixie here!

My Siberian Adventure - Day 19 - July 15, 2011

2011-11-14T00:07:00.001-06:00

Visit: Yekaterinburg

I slept in a little. The other guys are still asleep. I instant-message a little with Grace and Leo for a short while (where it is still July 14, twelve hours behind me). I take a shower - and it is a real treat! It's a high-tech little booth with shower heads everywhere - and even a radio! It's so high-tech, in fact, that I have to ask Dan how to turn on the water.

We have a typical breakfast of bread, cheese, meat, and tea. There is a nice, fresh baguette of French bread and only real butter - not a bit of margarine in sight! Father Daniel and I chat about the happenings back home in the Missouri Synod.

Father Alexey gets up as well.

A pile-driver pounds out its rhythm outside. The windows are open and the sounds of the city enter the flat. Father Alexey is chatting with Father Sergey on the computer. It's a nice day - very sunny. There may be thunderstorms later in the day. Father Sergey will be by to get us in an hour and a half. I pass the time doing some reading. I wonder if my vision is getting worse. The 1.5 glasses are getting a bit blurry and I'm now taking out my 2.0 spectacles for a spin. Maybe my eyes are just tired.

The latter leg of the trip is the most difficult. I'm homesick. But I'm also looking forward to meeting Father Vlad and the people of Holy Spirit - Chelyabinsk.

Dan, Alexey, and I went to lunch close by to the church at a delightfully cozy Asian place called Кафе Дадаж (Cafe Dadazh). The meal was nice. I had a chicken shish kabob - which was basically wings. There was a very mild sauce that was tasty. I also had French fries for the first time in Russia, a side of onions (very strong, I barely ate any). I also had a coffee with sugar.

We joked about how Tim Quill ate here a year ago - and we carried on about it. We marveled that we were at the famous Tim Quill table. The Rev. Dr. Tim Quill was the head of the Russian Project at Concordia Theological Seminary. He is beloved of the Russian clergy - and held in equally high esteem by me. I have pages of pithy quotes from Professor Quill, and count it a high honor to call myself his student to this day.

On the way out, I purchased a half-liter of Mountain Dew from the cooler for 50 rubles. I explained to Alexey that it has the most caffeine of any major American soft drink (so I've been told anyway). The clerk was chuckling at me, explaining that the only people who ever buy it are foreigners. We all had a good laugh.

We take the short stroll back to the church flat and wait for Father Sergey. Dan and I cannot resist playing around with the large pothole in the parking lot and taking pictures.

About 6:00 pm local time, we check into a local hotel. I believe we will be staying two nights, as the church flat is spoken for by some other visitors. They take our passports to register us. The lady at the desk speaks decent English and has clearly been trained in customer service.

Father Sergey drives us to the imposing Orthodox church erected on the site where the Romanovs were murdered. It was only built a few years ago, and the gilded onion domes radiate in bright shining gold tones. People are selling icons and religious books in small booths on the street.

We take some pictures.

A lady speaks to Father Alexey. She has invited us to a concert set to begin in a few minutes in the adjoining building which is technically the patriarch's residence.

We put on those weird blue show-covers like they have at the airport. We go up the majestic marble staircase. A small crowd is gathered. A woman is seated at a piano - which is reputed to be the same instrument played by the Romanovs when they were in exile.

There are several powerful poetry readings interspersed with intense piano flourishes. Since Father Daniel and I don't understand the Russian readings, we slip out. Father Sergey has gone off for about an hour, and Father Alexey has been quietly translating the poetry for us. The lady who invited us directs us to another performance - this time a woman who plays traditional Russian folk instruments and sings. She was simply amazing! One of her instruments was similar to an auto-harp, though without the buttons. Another was a kind of pipe that could sing like a bird. I need to get the names of the instruments from Father Alexey. The performance was mesmerizing.

We visit the display of the Romanov memorabilia - which includes a hand-written note from the eldest daughter to her father, the deposed Tsar, shortly before the family was murdered.

We also visit the inside of the church very briefly.

Alexey explains that during Soviet times, the fate of the Romanovs was not known. Nothing of the pre-Bolshevik era was taught in school. Russians began to learn what happened to the Romanovs under the governorship of Boris Yeltsin (he was from Yekaterinburg). As the word began to spread, Yeltsin had the house where the Romanovs were killed torn down.

Father Alexey explained about the many strange and inexplicable things that happened to the people who shot the Romanovs and tried to cover up their crime. The plan to destroy the bones of the family failed. They had been buried in a mine-shaft, and had recently been discovered. DNA tests confirmed the identity. The church was built, and the truth could no more be hidden. Eventually, the truth wins out even when it seems that injustice will prevail forever.

Fathers Alexey and Sergey bring us back to the hotel, the Atlantic. Dan and I walk to the mall hoping to get dinner. It is close to 11:00 pm. The mall is closed except for a billiard hall. We walk and find an open beer garden. No-one there speaks English. We order three plates of shasklik - not knowing what kind it was. Our waiter was patient and displayed a great sense of humor.

We also had a couple beers. I also ordered a Pepsi Africana. I had no idea what it was, and so I tried it. It is a Pepsi with lemon and lime - very tasty!

We walk back to the hotel. It's now midnight, and still twilight. I IM (Instant Message) and Snapyap (video conference) with Grace and Leo. Dan is watching movies on his computer.

Here is a link to all of my pictures of Day Nineteen.

My Siberian Adventure - Day 18 - July 14, 2011

2011-11-13T22:24:00.000-06:00

Begin: On the train toward Yekaterinburg
Visit: Yekaterinburg

I just woke up on the train. It's about 10 minutes until 9:00 am. Fathers Alexey and Dan are still asleep. The screen on the window is pulled down and consequently it is absolutely dark in the cabin. I had no idea what time it was when I awoke.

We all slept soundly. I slept well in spite of my consumption of Coca-Cola with its lovely bouquet of caffeine.

The ride is very smooth, and this train yields a superior experience compared to Amtrak as far as the ride and the comfort of the cabin go. Unlike our last Russian train, there is no bulky mattress to contend with. The beds merely fold out and the seat cushions function as a mattress.

I am on one of the top bunks. It's quite comfortable. Dan and Alexey are on the bunks below.

I get up, put on my jeans, descend the little ladder, and make my way to the bathroom at the end of the car. We stopped briefly at the station in Tyumen. I clear a little section of the table and have a little morning Coca-Cola.

Dan and Alexey get up. It is nearly noon. We were all a bit worn out from the travel, I think. We eat some cookies for breakfast and have tea. We enjoy more good conversation regarding the history of Lutheran Christianity in Russia - especially recent history regarding the Lutheran Church of Ingria and the situation of fellowship with the Missouri Synod.

I have been copying notes from my pocket moleskine into my leather journal, and I am finally caught up! Dan is reading Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment on his Kindle. Alexey is scanning his Lonely Planet Guide to Russia - which he finds to be so-so. We are having a brief technical stop, as explained by the staff, to empty the toilets (in some matters, Russians do not shy away from "TMI"), after which we will be in Yekaterinburg (in about 12 minutes). I need to pack up!

We arrive at Yekaterinburg on time. The staff is competent and polite. We exit the train and go into the rather run-down train station. The signage is bilingual. We make our way outside and cross the street to the parking lot. Father Sergei Glushkov meets us there, and we pile our things into the back of his small but nice mini-SUV.

Our drive takes us past the main square - as evidenced by the Lenin statue and the impressive Soviet-era administrative building.

There is also a shiny new Orthodox church nearby - and a Traveler's Coffee. The attire seems to be a little more casual here than in Novosibirsk. There are not as many high-heels, although the dress is still on the stylish side.

There is a lot of western influence here. We passed a large Subway restaurant - which I understand is quite popular in Russia. However, the business model is different. You have to pay for each topping and condiment. Father Alexey explains that if something is free in Russia, people will take it - even if they don't like it. The idea of "free refills" on drinks in the U.S. is inconceivable to the average Russian.

There is a huge number of restaurants int he downtown district, and a lot of advertising. My first impression of Yekaterinburg is that is has the feel of being a much bigger city than Novosibirsk - when in fact it is smaller. Novosibirsk is actually the third largest city in Russia after Moscow and St. Petersburg. Yekaterinburg is the biggest city in the Ural region. Technically, we have left Siberia.

A cafe outside advertises "Интернет 24" (meaning 24-hour Internet) and a sign says "Free Wi-Fi Spot" (in English).

There are huge shopping centers. One has a large theater and a water park (Аквапарк).

We make it to the church flat. It's a small apartment, and one of the rooms is the sanctuary of Sts. Peter and Paul Lutheran Church. It is simple and yet churchly. There is a large, elegantly hand-carved crucifix. There are kneelers.

In a side room in a model of the old Sts. Peter and Paul building - which was demolished by Stalin in the late 1930s. This parish is a continuation of that parish, but unlike many Russian Orthodox congregations, has not received any restitution from the government.

We head over to a mall food court to eat. We settle on the not-so-subtle McDonald's knock-off called McPeak's. The prefix "Mc" appears in front of many of the menu items; they even serve "McBeer." McDonald's filed a lawsuit against them, but lost. I had a shwarma and a side-dish of some kind of middle-eastern pasta with vegetables. I also had a Pepsi. Dan had a McBeer.

Afterwards, we head back to the flat. My Nook e-reader, which has been "rooted" - which is legally modified to expand its capabilities - occasionally has a hiccup. It took me a while to reboot it, but I got it squared away. There is no wifi in the flat, but Father Sergei has loaned us his USB phone connection so we can have Internet access. Trying to preserve his airtime, I get online briefly.

After taking it easy in the church flat, we will be going for a stroll around Yekaterinburg.

Father Daniel, Father Alexey, Father Sergey, and I get into Father Sergey's car, and Sergey drives us first to a surprising monument near the main highway that goes all the way to Moscow. This memorial commemorates the deaths of innocent people killed in the concentration camps and the gulags. I have never heard that such a monument exists. There is a large cross that dominates the vista of the park grounds. There is also a series of bronze plates carved with thousands of names and the dates they were killed. It is a somber reminder of the Stalin-era Soviet totalitarianism that was erected under the Yeltsin presidency. Father Alexey translates some of the stones for us, and takes pictures with his Nikon.

Next, we visit another monument (Russians are fond of visiting statues and memorials and posing for pictures - which was wonderful for me as a tourist) - one more frivolous than the last one. This marker demarcates the continental border between Europe and Asia. Here we take pictures, shoot video, and just plain goof off. There are often weddings here. There are mileposts indicating the distances to various cities around the world.

We go downtown to where Yekaterinburg was founded. We visit the monument downtown to the two co-founders of the city - one of whom was a Lutheran. The center part of the city is absolutely beautiful - sporting both a river and a canal. The main street is called (what else?) Prospect Lenina. A lot of people are out and about, enjoying the gorgeous weather.

We make a pilgrimage to the original location of Sts. Peter and Paul Lutheran Church - which, of course, was razed by Stalin. We take pictures under the plaque that commemorates the original site of the church. I took a picture with Father Sergey - the current pastor of this congregation, whose immediate predecessor was shot.

We visit Father Sergey's office (he works a full-time secular job in Information Technology). There is an outstanding view of the city from his desk - five stories high.

Father Sergey then drops us off at the church flat, where Father Daniel and I drink tea, eat cookies, and converse until about 1 a.m.

Here is a link to all of my pictures of Day Eighteen.

Sermon: Trinity 21 – 2011

2011-11-13T10:00:00.000-06:00

13 November 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: John 4:46-54

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

One of the reasons the Christian faith has so much trouble in the current culture is that we discount faith for reason. In other words, in our world, if we can’t see it, touch it, measure it, analyze it, put it in our hands and send a text with it, eat it, drink it, weigh it, and put it up on YouTube – then it doesn’t exist. It might exist, but it certainly isn’t important. It might be important, but we have other priorities.

In our culture, we want things we can see and hold, and they had better do something for us right here and right now. There is no room for faith in the culture we live in. Faith is seen as primitive and superstitious, as unfit for life in this modern world.

But, dear friends, we exercise faith every time we turn on the power button of a gadget. For we expect something to happen. We don’t know for sure that it will – since we can’t see into the future. Sometimes things don’t work as they should. But our reason does give way to faith when we find it reasonable to believe that the light will turn on when we flip the switch.

We Christians put faith in God’s Word – both in what God says and who God is. For we find it reasonable to believe the One who created all things visible and invisible. We find it reasonable to conclude that the Word of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Word Made Flesh – is true and trustworthy. Moreover, we have reason to believe that the Word of God is powerful and effective: “Let there be light, and there was light.”

Science can analyze light, measure light, and even harness light as a means of energy. Technology can move light to where it needs to be to serve us. Business and commerce can make light available to the customer. A child can turn on a light switch and make a room bright.

But only God – by means of His Word – can make light.

The Maker of light has enlightened mankind by revealing Himself to us – especially by coming to us as one of us. “Jesus Christ is the light of the World, the Light no darkness can overcome.” And in the darkness of sickness and death came an official whose little son was dying. And this father came to the Son of God, who in turn had come to Capernaum to bring light to those who dwelt in darkness. Our Gospel recalls this historic meeting in which the flint of this man’s need struck the steel of the living Christ.

The official knew – he believed – in the divine power of Jesus. He believed enough to seek out Jesus. He believed for the sake of his dying son whom He loved. He did not know that Jesus had just told Nicodemus that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” All he knew at this point is that he seeks to redeem the life of his own dying son. And he “asked Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.”

In response, Jesus speaks to the crowd by addressing the official. He says: “Unless you (and this is the plural “you”),” that is to say: “Unless y’all see signs and wonders y’all will not believe.” Jesus had turned water into wine at Cana. It seems that word was getting out about His miraculous abilities – and people wanted to see the show.

Some things never change, dear friends. People want a freak-show religion. People love the lurid and ostentatious. The media radiate with stories of crooked filthy-rich TV-preachers, of snake-handling charlatans, of folks who claim a miraculous gift when all they are really doing is speaking nonsense words that mean nothing. People want to see the sideshow of staged miracles and healings – all carefully filmed at just the right angles to make for compelling TV. People still demand signs and wonders. People still want a Jesus that does tricks and entertains. Indeed, entertainment is the national religion of the United States.

But this official who came to Jesus is different. Of course Jesus knows this. The official calmly repeats his prayer: “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

Death is the wages of sin. Death is what we got when we coveted the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We know evil all too well, its bloody wages are shown when we die the death we deserve. But the One whose life-giving blood paid for all evil by His own undeserved death spoke to the official: “Go, your son will live.” The original Greek text is more blunt: “Your son lives.” He lives! He lives, and in Christ and by Christ he has conquered death. He lives because the Author of Life has said so. “Let there be life…”

At this point, the official could have demanded a sign, or dragged Jesus to come to confirm His Word. He could have scoffed at Jesus, or even gotten angry with him for scolding the people for their lack of faith without signs. He could have justified himself or picked a fight with Jesus. But instead, he “believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.” He believed. He had faith. In Christ and by Christ, he believed the Word.

And this belief, this faith, was manifested in his works. For after he believed, he went. He obeyed. He carried out the wishes of the Word made flesh whose Word gives life. He believed the Word.

At the very moment that the Lord spoke, the son’s fever left him and he recovered. “Let there be life.” This is what happens when we believe. We have life. We have forgiveness. We have healing. And the healing that Jesus gives is more than skin deep. For it is eternal. For even though we will die in the flesh, we will rise again in the flesh – according to the Word Made Flesh who Himself rose in the flesh.

And notice what happens to this Word. It is brought home by the official, now a witness and proclaimer of the Word. “And he himself believed, and all his household.”

The healing Word of life was not confined to the son, but also came to the father and the entire household. The Word gives faith. Faith brings forth healing. In healing there is life. And in this life, the Word goes forth again and again to do its healing work – like beams of light shattering the darkness.

Dear friends, the Lord Jesus has come as a beacon of light in our dark and sinful world to bring us light and life. He has come to bring healing and restoration, reconciliation and resurrection. He has come on a mission of mercy motivated by love, armed with the Word, and bearing the gifts of redemption and faith.

It is in this faith that we receive this faith, we are made new in body and spirit, we are brought again to life in a restored creation that will indeed once more be “very good.”

For we actually do have a faith that is rooted in what we can see and hold, a faith that does something for us right here and right now. It is not a “what” but a “who” – Jesus Christ. He has come into our world in the flesh and gives us life that has no end. He comes to us in His body and blood that we see and hold as bread and wine. He comes to us in His Word that we hear. It is a Word of hope and promise and life. The Word, Jesus, brings forgiveness and healing, and is both the source and the fulfillment of our faith.

I know my faith is founded
On Jesus Christ, my God and Lord
And this my faith confessing,
Unmoved I stand on His sure Word.
Our reason cannot fathom
The truth of God profound;
Who trusts in human wisdom
Relies on shifting ground.
God’s Word is all-sufficient,
It makes divinely sure;
And trusting in its wisdom,
My faith shall rest secure.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Two new guests for breakfast

2011-11-13T00:02:00.000-06:00

Two years ago, I reported on the Hollywood family's morning ritual of Scripture reading. Since that time, the practice has been expanded and altered to an extent.

Back in January, we decided to add a guest lecturer to our morning ritual - St. Augustine of Hippo. We began to read a chapter from his Confessions each morning, followed by a very brief meditation and prayer from Augustine as found in Augustine Day by Day.

A few weeks ago, we made a slight modification to the rite by having the ESV narrator read the daily offering from the One Year Bible while we follow along. For further study, as the narrator reads, I skim the New Testament text in Greek and the Psalm readings in Latin. The narrator moves along at a good clip, and this is not the time for parsing and memorizing vocabulary. The timing works out pretty well as the narrator wraps up the Old Testament lesson about the time that I am serving the cappuccino.

After ten months of learning from our dear brother in Christ and doctor of the church, the sainted bishop of Hippo, we have for the past week invited a couple of other great Christian minds into our home (upon the advice of, and kindly introduction by, the Rev. David Petersen): a fellow named Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) and his modern-day commentator and interpreter Dr. Peter Kreeft. We are still praying with St. Augustine and enjoying his short meditations through the end of the year - but it is getting a little crowded at our breakfast table. It is fortunate for us that we don't have to feed all of these people - though they are certainly feeding us. The Pascal-Kreeft book is entitled Christianity for Modern Pagans - and it is a running conversation between the two as the latter engages the former's famous work, the Pensées, carrying on like old friends.

Our lectio continua is truly the highlight of the day: a time of God's Word, meditation, theology, and philosophy - a few moments of monastic peace each morning, any of which can become a day transformed into a sudden maelstrom of activity, stress, tragedy, or just plain hard work. Our morning ritual is a time to stop and listen to the still, small voice of God's Word and to bask in the glow of saints and Christian thinkers - washed down with the most un-monastic treat of a frothy cappuccino.

Father H. on Issues, Etc.

2011-11-11T11:43:00.000-06:00

I had the great pleasure to be on the world's greatest Christian radio program, Issues, Etc. yesterday (November 10, 2011) in a pastor's roundtable with the Revs. Todd Wilken (host of the program and assistant pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Millstadt, Illinois) and Brian Holle (pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church, Lebanon, Illinois) on the topic of the upcoming Gospel text according to the historic one-year series for Trinity 21: John 4:46-54 ("Jesus Heals the Official's Son").

Here is the link where you can listen.

This is my second time on Issues, Etc. I was interviewed on May 11 of this year on the topic of the Augsburg Confession. You can listen here. I really enjoyed the great discussions with fellow panelists and with callers who asked challenging and intelligent questions and who made outstanding contributions to the conversations. That is the rule rather than the exception at Issues, Etc.!

If you're not familiar with Issues, Etc., it is an eclectic and informative talk radio program run by confessional Missouri Synod Lutherans (under the auspices of "Lutheran Public Radio") and presented from that perspective - and yet includes guests who run the gamut from every point of view. Pastor Wilken treats his guests with respect and yet balances this with his own steadfast confession. Issues, Etc. is especially a treat if you are a Lutheran, but you don't have to be to enjoy the "Cross-Centered Christ-Focused" format. It is definitely a balanced presentation of both a thinking-man's Christianity and a faith rooted in Christ's love in the Gospel.

You can listen live (Monday through Friday, 3:00 - 5:00 pm) here. And, you can peruse the archives any time here - and note the diversity of guests and topics! These programs make for great podcasts to listen to on a long commute, while exercising, or for old-fashioned family listening time. They provide insights not only into the timeless Scriptures but also on the ever-changing face of our culture and how the Christian faith intersects with it. The program also serves as much-needed theological education and discussion all over the world.

You will definitely find something interesting and uplifting at Issues, Etc.!

Sermon: All Saints (transferred) – 2011

2011-11-06T23:42:00.003-06:00

6 November 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Matt 5:1-12 (Rev 7:2-17, 1 John 3:1-3)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Our Lord Jesus points out the many differences between the kingdom of this fallen world and the kingdom of heaven. For example, in the eyes of the world, riches are considered a formula for happiness. But in the kingdom of heaven, poverty of spirit is blessed. In the eyes of the world, those who mourn are seen as being punished, or unlucky, or just plain losers. But in the kingdom of heaven, our mourning will give way to comfort from the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of God Himself.

Similarly, the world frowns on the meek, those who hunger for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers. Rather the world values brute force, the self-serving, the mighty, the dominant, and those who seek out conflicts and battles and achieve victory by raw power.

One of the most profound differences between the world and the church involves persecution. In this world, persecution is meted out by the powerful over the weak – often as a means to “put people in their place,” to lord over the defeated, to humiliate and humble one’s foes, and to exercise what St. Augustine called “the lust for domination.” But our Lord tells us that suffering persecution is a cause for rejoicing! For this is a mark of the church. Which means that if you are persecuted for the sake of Christ, it is evidence of your salvation, of your blessedness. It is a cause for joy!

These are indeed great differences in the way the world and the kingdom of God operate.

But there are also similarities.

In this life, especially in our fallen world, we need mentors, heroes, examples. We need teachers and trailblazers, role-models and helpers. We need forebears in the faith to show us how to live out the life of the kingdom. We need real-world examples of what the Lord’s kingdom looks like, to be in the grace of God, under the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the comfort of the Comforter.

We are saved by grace. We receive this grace through faith. It is given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ through His blood as a free gift. And yet, we need examples of how this manifests itself in our dark and fallen world. We need heroes and heroines to show us how to bear up under persecution. And there is no shortage of such saints!

This is what All Saints Day is all about.

We look to the past and the present, and we reflect on the lives of our sainted brothers and sisters – some known and celebrated by the entire church, others who are lost to history. We rejoice in the victory won in Christ by those who lived long lives of service to the Lord and His Kingdom, as well as to the martyrs whose lives were cut short by the devil’s servants, and yet whose lives continue to serve as a testimony of Christ and as a witness of faithfulness to believers and unbelievers alike.

Indeed, they bear the title “children of God,” and we confess with St. John: “See what kind of love the Father has given us.” The Lord in His love and mercy has given us heroes and heroines in the kingdom who have shown us the path to walk, the same path as our Lord who said to them and to us: “Take up your cross and follow Me!” We follow in the footsteps of those who followed the Lord even unto death, and then, even unto life.

Dear friends, we are not alone in our walk – though our own footsteps are heavy laden and we are exhausted at times. We walk the same path as our dear brothers and sisters of old: saints, martyrs, doctors of the church, pastors and laity, men and women, parents and virgins, the old and the young, Jew and Gentile, the mighty and the weak – heroes and witnesses all. Indeed, we are not alone, for as St. John testifies: “I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes.”

And they sing their eternal song from the eternal liturgy! We have joined them today, singing the great hymn “Dignus est Agnus,” “Worthy is the Lamb!” On earth, they were fed to lions. Their terrified children were taken from them. They were burned at the stake, humiliated and mocked, tortured by beatings and crosses. They were tempted to be unfaithful to Jesus by the offer to save their own lives and the lives of their children who were also tortured.

Dear friends, being a Christian is no trifle. The saints remind us not only of the high price paid by our Lord Jesus Christ for our forgiveness, but also the high price in blood that is required of some Christians in making the good confession before kings and princes, before the wicked world and before the holy church. And though we may never be called upon to die as martyrs, but we are all most certainly called upon to live as martyrs, as witnesses of our Lord Jesus, as those who die to self in order to live in Christ.

The Lord’s promise is for every man, woman, and child who faced sword and beast, stake and cross, prison cell and torture: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” And that promise is for us.

Rejoice and be glad!

To this day we have brothers and sisters who sit in lonely isolated cells: men and women who would give anything just to see their beloved spouses or children even for a single second, just to touch them one more time, just to speak face to face a single word. They would give anything to do for a single second what we take for granted every day. Rather they would do anything except one thing: deny their Lord and Master.

At this very moment, Pastors Behnam Irani and Youcef Nadarkhani sit in cold, dark cells in Iran for following the Lord’s call to preach. Today, Pastor Ilmurad Nurliev is serving his 437th day in a cell in Turkmenistan. Imran Ghafur, a Pakistani layman, is in his 859th day of captivity for the sake of Christ. He has asked for our prayers and rejoices that the Lord is using him for the sake of the kingdom. Asia Bibi remains also in a cell in Pakistan in her 870th day of captivity – only she has actually been sentenced to hang – to the terror of her Christian husband and two young daughters. There are many, many others who today are giving up their freedom and even their lives as a testimony and a witness to our Lord’s message of the cross, of forgiveness, of freedom from the devil’s dominion, and of the promise of the resurrection and eternal life.

How we need such heroes today, dear friends!

We do not need more “heroes” who can throw a ball, play a guitar, shock and scandalize with their behavior, those who throw money around or bully others. We don’t need any more “heroes” as the world sees them, but we need the encouragement and the example of our brothers and sisters who are willing to lay down their lives as a thank offering to the One who laid down His life for us as a sin offering – the one all-availing sacrifice for the sin of the world!

How weak and shameful we are by comparison! How quick we are to allow other things to take precedence over our Lord and His Word! Oh, how badly we need heroes to point us to the path that leads to the cross and the empty tomb, the way that leads to life and victory and glory!

How we long for the day of vindication for all the saints, that day about which we all sing, whether seated comfortably in freedom on a padded pew cushion, or chained in agony to a concrete slab:

“And when the fight is fierce the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong,
Alleluia! Alleluia!”

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Siberian Adventure - Day 17 - July 13, 2011

2011-11-01T20:34:00.001-05:00

Begin: Novosibirsk
Ride the train: Toward Ekaterinburg

We sleep in again. I take a quick shower and read ready for Father Pavel to meet us for another walk through Akademgorodok (Академгородо́к), the beautiful Novosibirsk neighborhood that is the "educational and scientific center of Siberia." We visit the little rustic Orthodox church in the woods where I continue buying small icons for souvenirs for friends and family back home.

A friendly Russian Blue cat greets me in the church yard. We visit the inside of the church, and we are told not to take pictures. I had already snapped one - and the flash was accidentally on. There was no-one inside except for two women who was overseeing things in the absence of the parish priest. Father Pavel explains that this congregation is very strict. It is simple by Orthodox standards.

We leave the sanctuary and enter the kiosk on the church grounds where icons are sold, and I buy a few. We leave, and I am a bit concerned that the cat is going to follow me. He tails us for a good while, but ducks into one of the outbuildings after saying goodbye.

Pavel takes us along a gloriously picturesque path that leads past the houses of some professors and research scientists: nice by American standards, affluent by Russian standards.

We drop into a Chinese restaurant near the shopping center. They take Visa, and so I pick up the tab. It is one way for me to say "thank you" to our gracious hosts. It is a very nice and cozy place, decorated in typical Chinese restaurant style that one sees in the States - except for the Cyrillic lettering (which is stylized to look like Chinese characters). I have a ginger beef dish and a Coke - and I use chopsticks. Pavel is a good sport and takes up his chopsticks as well, but gives up and returns to his fork about halfway through. Dan sticks with western cutlery and enjoys his meal as well.

We stroll to the shopping center, where Father Pavel purchases some chocolate bars for Father Dan to present to an American pastor and his family as a gift. I buy a few bars for Grace as well.

We walk to Pavel's flat for coffee and dessert. He retrieves three varieties of ice cream from the freezer, and makes coffee in the auto-drip. Pavel is very fluent in English and has a quick wit and sharp sense of humor. We take our chairs into the bedroom and set up a small coffee table for our visit. Father Pavel also presents some chocolate chip cookies, and pronounces them to be a great import from America. I reply that we export both good and bad - like chocolate chip cookies over and against Lady Gaga.

We walk back to the seminary as we need to start getting ready to catch our train. With a twinge of sadness, I realize that we will be leaving Novosibirsk not to return this trip.

I pack hastily and drop off the room key for Pavel's office with the guard. I need to return Olga Suhinina's phrase book, and I ask the guard where her mailbox is. The guard does not speak English, but he gestures to indicate that Olga is upstairs.

I find her in the translator's office, say goodbye, and return her book in person.

I meet Dan outside where we wait with our bags packed and ready to go.

Father Pavel and the bishop drive up. Bishop Vsevolod presents us with gifts. Dan is given a genuine Russian Army canteen, and I am presented with a Soviet sports jersey, as the bishop explains that I am now "part of the team." We pose for pictures and say goodbye to Father Pavel.

We pile into the bishop's car and drive to Alexey's.

Father Andrey is there to greet us. He is concerned about his eight-year old daughter Alexandra , who is having heart problems. We say goodbye and take pictures. Father Alexey emerges from his building wearing a New Orleans t-shirt.

The bishop drives aggressively, often driving on the lines instead of between them. Dan and I both check the buckles on our seat belts. The bishop is playing his eclectic collection of favorite Beatles' tunes - which he explains helped him to learn English many years ago.

After driving a ways, we turn back toward Alexey's, as he forgot something back home. I begin to worry that we might miss our train.

Siberians are delightfully phlegmatic about such things.

Well, we actually arrive with plenty of time to spare. We hang out at the Novosibirsk train station. I realize that I have left my camera in the bishop's car - again! Unbelievable! Undaunted, Alexey calls Vsevolod on his cell to check for me.

Dan and I take a little walk around the station. I found a kiosk selling icons. I buy a couple. I check back with Alexey who hands me my camera. I apologize. He shrugs and says: "It happens." Dan and I went upstairs to see the the huge mural of the map of the Trans-Siberian Railway. We take some pictures. A uniformed guard comes over to us and explains that we can't take pictures. We apologize (Извините!), and he is very nice about it.

One of the kiosks is also selling matryoshka dolls. Funny (considering the Transsiberian movie). We board our train - which is nice, new, and has air conditioning. It is nicer than any Amtrak train that I have ridden.

Father Alexey explains some of tyhe history of Novosibirsk as the train lurches from the station. We take pictures. Dan shoots a picture of Alexey and me - he clad in his New Orleans shirt and I in my CCCP (USSR) jersey.

Father Alexey has brought water and delicious sandwiches for us - made by Elena. We are avoiding the dining car as it is expensive. Alexey also has tomatoes, cucumbers, and nuts.

I used Dan's phone to send Grace a text message that I was now on the Transsiberian Railway and that I have matryoshka dolls in my bag. She later tells me that she did not find that too amusing.

This is a very relaxing ride, and I greatly look forward to extended conversations with my clergy brothers. We discuss American and Russian literature, Alexey's time in the U.S., and church matters.

The bathroom on this train is nice - even by American standards - a bio-toilet that can be flushed any time and nice hot water from the sink faucet!

We stop at Barabinsk, between Novosibirsk and Omsk. We step outside in the rainy cool air to buy chips from a vendor. I get a Coke. All that is available is a two liter bottle. It costs 100 rubles (about $3.50).

We fix up our beds - which are really nice - and we call it a night. I journal in my bunk and shut off my light and turn in about 1 a.m. as it gets dark and the train rocks me to sleep.

Here is a link to all of my pictures of Day Seventeen.

My Siberian Adventure - Day 16 - July 12, 2011

2011-11-01T19:13:00.000-05:00

Visit: Novosibirsk

Dan and I both sleep in. It is rainy out, and we scrounge around the bishop's fridge for breakfast. Dan listens to music and I transfer pictures. IT's a lazy day.

Father Pavel drops by, and we go for a stroll to the shopping center and drop in at East-West for lunch. They have a very good "business lunch" consisting of харчо, a spicy Georgian soup along the lines of vegetable-beef. There is also a main dish that resembles a Salisbury steak. Very good! I wash it down with a kind of berry juice that tastes like fruit punch.

We make our way back to the seminary/church in time for Vespers.

Afterwards, Father Alexey brings us to his home for a cozy dinner. We arrive at the Stretsovs' flat and remove our shoes at the door according to Russian custom. Fathers Dan, Alexey, and I go out into a sort-of enclosed patio for some drinks, snacks, and extremely delightful and stimulating conversation that went very well with the sausages and cheese that served as our appetizers. We discussed relationships between the SELC and the LCMS, as well as various issues faced by our respective church bodies.

We make our way to the kitchen/dining room where Alexey and Elena have souvenir coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets from their travels - including a mug from Cafe du Monde - which is a New Orleans institution. I'm struck by a sudden rush of excitement to see a bit of home sitting on the shelf, followed by a twinge of homesickness. I also ponder how small the world has become, and both mug and I have traveled halfway around the planet, as have Alexey and Elena. It is a strange feeling of distance and proximity at the same time.

Dinner consists of a small green salad with tomatoes. I don't think there was any dressing served with it - and Russians do not bathe their salads in sauce as Americans often do. There are small garnishes of tomatoes, cheese, and some pieces of spicy eggplant. There are two main dishes: fish and rabbit.

I take some of everything and it was very good.

Elena seemed pleased and remarked that I was their first American visitor who tried everything. The rabbit was very tender and tasty - as was the fish.

We finish off with ice cream. We also enjoyed a Madeira wine that looked and tasted like Tokay.

We had a relaxed and pleasant evening, and afterwards, Father Andrei showed up to bring us back to the seminary. We picked up Alexey's 13-year old son Tikhon and drove him back to the Streltsov home. I spoke a little (very little!) German with Tikhon, who is undertaking a difficult German class in school. He is a lot like his father in bearing, polite, brilliant, and attentive.

Back at the seminary, Dan and I stayed up quite late trying to copy files from a computer that only speaks Russian.

Amazingly, this is my only picture from Day 16, but it is a lovely portrait, isn't it?

October 31, 1517

2011-10-31T00:00:00.010-05:00

Disputatio pro Declaratione Virtutis Indulgentiarum

aliter dictum 95 Theses

by Martin Luther

D. MARTIN LUTHERS WERKE: KRITISCHE GESAMMTAUSGABE 1. Band (Weimar: Hermann Boehlau, 1883). pp. 233-238.

Amore et studio elucidande veritatis hec subscripta disputabuntur Wittenberge, Presidente R. P. Martino Lutther, Artium et S. Theologie Magistro eiusdemque ibidem lectore Ordinario. Quare petit, ut qui non possunt verbis presentes nobiscum disceptare agant id literis absentes. In nomine domini nostri Hiesu Christi. Amen.

1. Dominus et magister noster Iesus Christus dicendo `Penitentiam agite &c.' omnem vitam fidelium penitentiam esse voluit.

2. Quod verbum de penitentia sacramentali (id est confessionis et satisfactionis, que sacerdotum ministerio celebratur) non potest intelligi.

3. Non tamen solam intendit interiorem, immo interior nulla est, nisi foris operetur varias carnis mortificationes.

4. Manet itaque pena, donec manet odium sui (id est penitentia vera intus), scilicet usque ad introitum regni celorum.

5. Papa non vult nec potest ullas penas remittere preter eas, quas arbitrio vel suo vel canonum imposuit.

6. Papa non potest remittere ullam culpam nisi declarando, et approbando remissam a deo Aut certe remittendo casus reservatos sibi, quibus contemptis culpa prorsus remaneret.

7. Nulli prorus remittit deus culpam, quin simul eum subiiciat humiliatum in omnibus sacerdoti suo vicario.

8. Canones penitentiales solum viventibus sunt impositi nihilque morituris secundum eosdem debet imponi.

9. Inde bene nobis facit spiritus sanctus in papa excipiendo in suis decretis semper articulum mortis et necessitatis.

10. Indocte et male faciunt sacerdotes ii, qui morituris penitentias canonicas in purgatorium reservant.

11. Zizania illa de mutanda pena Canonica in penam purgatorii videntur certe dormientibus episcopis seminata.

12. Olim pene canonice non post, sed ante absolutionem imponebantur tanquam tentamenta vere contritionis.

13. Morituri per mortem omnia solvunt et legibus canonum mortui iam sunt, habentes iure earum relaxationem.

14. Imperfecta sanitas seu charitas morituri necessario secum fert magnum timorem, tantoque maiorem, quanto minor fuerit ipsa.

15. Hic timor et horror satis est se solo (ut alia taceam) facere penam purgatorii, cum sit proximus desperationis horrori.

16. Videntur infernus, purgaturium, celum differre, sicut desperatio, prope desperatio, securitas differunt.

17. Necessarium videtur animabus in purgatorio sicut minni horrorem ita augeri charitatem.

18. Nec probatum videtur ullis aut rationibus aut scripturis, quod sint extra statum meriti seu augende charitatis.

19. Nec hoc probatum esse videtur, quod sint de sua beatitudine certe et secure, saltem omnes, licet nos certissimi simus.

20. Igitur papa per remissionem plenariam omnium penarum non simpliciter omnium intelligit, sed a seipso tantummodo impositarum.

21. Errant itaque indulgentiarum predicatores ii, qui dicunt per pape indulgentias hominem ab omni pena solvi et salvari.

22. Quin nullam remittit animabus in purgatorio, quam in hac vita debuissent secundum Canones solvere.

23. Si remissio ulla omnium omnino penarum potest alicui dari, certum est eam non nisi perfectissimis, i.e. paucissimis, dari.

24. Falli ob id necesse est maiorem partem populi per indifferentem illam et magnificam pene solute promissionem.

25. Qualem potestatem habet papa in purgatorium generaliter, talem habet quilibet Episcopus et Curatus in sua diocesi et parochia specialiter.

1. [26] Optime facit papa, quod non potestate clavis (quam nullam habet) sed per modum suffragii dat animabus remissionem.

2. [27] Hominem predicant, qui statim ut iactus nummus in cistam tinnierit evolare dicunt animam.

3. [28] Certum est, nummo in cistam tinniente augeri questum et avariciam posse: suffragium autem ecclesie est in arbitrio dei solius.

4. [29] Quis scit, si omnes anime in purgatorio velint redimi, sicut de s. Severino et Paschali factum narratur.

5. [30] Nullus securus est de veritate sue contritionis, multominus de consecutione plenarie remissionis.

6. [31] Quam rarus est vere penitens, tam rarus est vere indulgentias redimens, i. e. rarissimus.

7. [32] Damnabuntur ineternum cum suis magistris, qui per literas veniarum securos sese credunt de sua salute.

8. [33] Cavendi sunt nimis, qui dicunt venias illas Pape donum esse illud dei inestimabile, quo reconciliatur homo deo.

9. [34] Gratie enim ille veniales tantum respiciunt penas satisfactionis sacramentalis ab homine constitutas.

10. [35] Non christiana predicant, qui docent, quod redempturis animas vel confessionalia non sit necessaria contritio.

11. [36] Quilibet christianus vere compunctus habet remissionem plenariam a pena et culpa etiam sine literis veniarum sibi debitam.

12. [37] Quilibet versus christianus, sive vivus sive mortuus, habet participationem omnium bonorum Christi et Ecclesie etiam sine literis veniarum a deo sibi datam.

13. [38] Remissio tamen et participatio Pape nullo modo est contemnenda, quia (ut dixi) est declaratio remissionis divine.

14. [39] Difficillimum est etiam doctissimis Theologis simul extollere veniarum largitatem et contritionis veritatem coram populo.

15. [40] Contritionis veritas penas querit et amat, Veniarum autem largitas relaxat et odisse facit, saltem occasione.

16. [41] Caute sunt venie apostolice predicande, ne populus false intelligat eas preferri ceteris bonis operibus charitatis.

17. [42] Docendi sunt christiani, quod Pape mens non est, redemptionem veniarum ulla ex parte comparandam esse operibus misericordie.

18. [43] Docendi sunt christiani, quod dans pauperi aut mutuans egenti melius facit quam si venias redimereet.

19. [44] Quia per opus charitatis crescit charitas et fit homo melior, sed per venias non fit melior sed tantummodo a pena liberior.

20. [45] Docendi sunt christiani, quod, qui videt egenum et neglecto eo dat pro veniis, non idulgentias Pape sed indignationem dei sibi vendicat.

21. [46] Docendi sunt christiani, quod nisi superfluis abundent necessaria tenentur domui sue retinere et nequaquam propter venias effundere.

22. [47] Docendi sunt christiani, quod redemptio veniarum est libera, non precepta.

23. [48] Docendi sunt christiani, quod Papa sicut magis eget ita magis optat in veniis dandis pro se devotam orationem quam promptam pecuniam.

24. [49] Docendi sunt christiani, quod venie Pape sunt utiles, si non in cas confidant, Sed nocentissime, si timorem dei per eas amittant.

25. [50] Docendi sunt christiani, quod si Papa nosset exactiones venialium predicatorum, mallet Basilicam s. Petri in cineres ire quam edificari cute, carne et ossibus ovium suarum.

1. [51] Docendi sunt christiani, quod Papa sicut debet ita vellet, etiam vendita (si opus sit) Basilicam s. Petri, de suis pecuniis dare illis, a quorum plurimis quidam concionatores veniarum pecuniam eliciunt.

2. [52] Vana est fiducia salutis per literas veniarum, etiam si Commissarius, immo Papa ipse suam animam pro illis impigneraret.

3. [53] Hostes Christi et Pape sunt ii, qui propter venias predicandas verbum dei in aliis ecclesiis penitus silere iubent.

4. [54] Iniuria fit verbo dei, dum in eodem sermone equale vel longius tempus impenditur veniis quam illi.

5. [55] Mens Pape necessario est, quod, si venie (quod minimum est) una campana, unis pompis et ceremoniis celebrantur, Euangelium (quod maximum est) centum campanis, centum pompis, centum ceremoniis predicetur.

6. [56] Thesauri ecclesie, unde Pape dat indulgentias, neque satis nominati sunt neque cogniti apud populum Christi.

7. [57] Temporales certe non esse patet, quod non tam facile eos profundunt, sed tantummodo colligunt multi concionatorum.

8. [58] Nec sunt merita Christi et sanctorum, quia hec semper sine Papa operantur gratiam hominis interioris et crucem, mortem infernumque exterioris.

9. [59] Thesauros ecclesie s. Laurentius dixit esse pauperes ecclesie, sed locutus est usu vocabuli suo tempore.

10. [60] Sine temeritate dicimus claves ecclesie (merito Christi donatas) esse thesaurum istum.

11. [61] Clarum est enim, quod ad remissionem penarum et casuum sola sufficit potestas Pape.

12. [62] Verus thesaurus ecclesie est sacrosanctum euangelium glorie et gratie dei.

13. [63] Hic autem est merito odiosissimus, quia ex primis facit novissimos.

14. [64] Thesaurus autem indulgentiarum merito est gratissimus, quia ex novissimis facit primos.

15. [65] Igitur thesauri Euangelici rhetia sunt, quibus olim piscabantur viros divitiarum.

16. [66] Thesauri indulgentiarum rhetia sunt, quibus nunc piscantur divitias virorum.

17. [67] Indulgentie, quas concionatores vociferantur maximas gratias, intelliguntur vere tales quoad questum promovendum.

18. [68] Sunt tamen re vera minime ad gratiam dei et crucis pietatem comparate.

19. [69] Tenentur Episcopi et Curati veniarum apostolicarum Commissarios cum omni reverentia admittere.

20. [70] Sed magis tenentur omnibus oculis intendere, omnibus auribus advertere, ne pro commissione Pape sua illi somnia predicent.

21. [71] Contra veniarum apostolicarum veritatem qui loquitur, sit ille anathema et maledictus.

22. [72] Qui vero, contra libidinem ac licentiam verborum Concionatoris veniarum curam agit, sit ille benedictus.

23. [73] Sicut Papa iuste fulminat eos, qui in fraudem negocii veniarum quacunque arte machinantur,

24. [74] Multomagnis fulminare intendit eos, qui per veniarum pretextum in fraudem sancte charitatis et veritatis machinantur,

25. [75] Opinari venias papales tantas esse, ut solvere possint hominem, etiam si quis per impossibile dei genitricem violasset, Est insanire.

1. [76] Dicimus contra, quod venie papales nec minimum venialium peccatorum tollere possint quo ad culpam.

2. [77] Quod dicitur, nec si s. Petrus modo Papa esset maiores gratias donare posset, est blasphemia in sanctum Petrum et Papam.

3. [78] Dicimus contra, quod etiam iste et quilibet papa maiores habet, scilicet Euangelium, virtutes, gratias, curationum &c. ut 1. Co. XII.

4. [79] Dicere, Crucem armis papalibus insigniter erectam cruci Christi equivalere, blasphemia est.

5. [80] Rationem reddent Episcopi, Curati et Theologi, Qui tales sermones in populum licere sinunt.

6. [81] Facit hec licentiosa veniarum predicatio, ut nec reverentiam Pape facile sit etiam doctis viris redimere a calumniis aut certe argutis questionibus laicorm.

7. [82] Scilicet. Cur Papa non evacuat purgatorium propter sanctissimam charitatem et summam animarum necessitatem ut causam omnium iustissimam, Si infinitas animas redimit propter pecuniam funestissimam ad structuram Basilice ut causam levissimam?

8. [83] Item. Cur permanent exequie et anniversaria defunctorum et non reddit aut recipi permittit beneficia pro illis instituta, cum iam sit iniuria pro redemptis orare?

9. [84] Item. Que illa nova pietas Dei et Pape, quod impio et inimico propter pecuniam concedunt animam piam et amicam dei redimere, Et tamen propter necessitatem ipsius met pie et dilecte anime non redimunt eam gratuita charitate?

10. [85] Item. Cur Canones penitentiales re ipsa et non usu iam diu in semet abrogati et mortui adhuc tamen pecuniis redimuntur per concessionem indulgentiarum tanquam vivacissimi?

11. [86] Item. Cur Papa, cuius opes hodie sunt opulentissimis Crassis crassiores, non de suis pecuniis magis quam pauperum fidelium struit unam tantummodo Basilicam sancti Petri?

12. [87] Item. Quid remittit aut participat Papa iis, qui per contritionem perfectam ius habent plenarie remissionis et participationis?

13. [88] Item. Quid adderetur ecclesie boni maioris, Si Papa, sicut semel facit, ita centies in die cuilibet fidelium has remissiones et participationes tribueret?

14. [89] Ex quo Papa salutem querit animarum per venias magis quam pecunias, Cur suspendit literas et venias iam olim concessas, cum sint eque efficaces?

15. [90] Hec scrupulosissima laicorum argumenta sola potestate compescere nec reddita ratione diluere, Est ecclesiam et Papam hostibus ridendos exponere et infelices christianos facere.

16. [91] Si ergo venie secundum spiritum et mentem Pape predicarentur, facile illa omnia solverentur, immo non essent.

17. [92] Valeant itaque omnes illi prophete, qui dicunt populo Christi `Pax pax,' et non est pax.

18. [93] Bene agant omnes illi prophete, qui dicunt populo Christi `Crux crux,' et non est crux.

19. [94] Exhortandi sunt Christiani, ut caput suum Christum per penas, mortes infernosque sequi studeant,

20. [95] Ac sic magis per multas tribulationes intrare celum quam per securitatem pacis confidant.

M.D.Xvii.

This text was converted to ascii format for Project Wittenberg by Rev. Robert E. Smith and is in the public domain. You may freely distribute, copy or print this text. Please direct any comments or suggestions to: Rev. Robert E. Smith of the Walther Library at Concordia Theological Seminary.

Meet the New Raj, Same as the Old Raj

2011-10-30T20:24:00.000-05:00

From this New York Times article:

"'We will have a robust continuing presence throughout the region, which is proof of our ongoing commitment to Iraq and to the future of that region, which holds such promise and should be freed from outside interference to continue on a pathway to democracy,' Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Tajikistan after the president’s announcement."

"Freed from outside interference"?

This reminds me of an exchange from the movie Gandhi during a discussion about the transition to home rule:

Kinnoch: With respect, Mr. Gandhi, without British administration, this country would be reduced to chaos.
Gandhi: Mr. Kinnoch, I beg you to accept that there is no people on Earth who would not prefer their own bad government to the good government of an alien power.
Brigadier: My dear sir! India *is* British. We're hardly an alien power!
[silence]

Sermon: Reformation Day (transferred)

2011-10-30T09:00:00.004-05:00

30 October 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Rom 3:19-28

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”

Some might argue that the “we” in this sentence means “Lutherans.” But it doesn’t. For when St. Paul – under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration – penned this verse as part of his letter to the Roman Christians, there was no such thing as a “Lutheran.” Even the Christian pastor whose last name would lend itself to Lutherans would not even be born for another 14 centuries – another Christian theologian who was to write a few letters of his own to Roman Christians as well.

“For we hold…” says St. Paul. “We” is an important word, especially in our day and age of individualism and as we live in a culture where all opinions are considered equal. But the text says: “For we hold” – not “I hold.” The confession of faith that a person is “justified by faith apart from works of the law” is not merely a personal opinion or a Lutheran opinion, but rather the one universal Christian truth. This is not just what we believe because we bear the name of one man, Martin Luther, but rather because we – the big “we,” the collective “we,” the catholic “we,” – all Christians of every time and place “hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”

This biblical understanding of the relationship of faith, works, and the law is crucial to the confession of the Christian faith. So crucial, in fact, that St. Paul is really saying that unless you believe this, you are no Christian at all.

Does this mean that only Lutherans are real Christians? Not at all, dear friends! Not at all! For even though Lutheran and Roman Catholic theologians fought over this point, it is also true that rank and file Christians of every denomination believe that Jesus Christ is their Savior, that they cannot earn salvation by their works, that sin has crippled them to the point that they must depend on God’s mercy through the blood of Christ the Crucified, and that we, as St. Paul teaches us, have nothing to boast about in ourselves.

We Lutherans come from a tradition within the Christian church that teaches this point with clarity and confesses this doctrine, hopefully, with charity – knowing that this is not merely a Lutheran doctrine, but a Christian doctrine, not merely something the “small we” of Lutheran Christianity confesses, but the “large we” of the Church catholic has always confessed with St. Paul and the apostles and the martyrs and the doctors of the Church – right up until our own day and age.

Today, we celebrate the contribution of the sixteenth century reformers of the Church, largely led by a priest and doctor of theology named Martin Luther, in searching the Holy Scriptures for truth instead of relying on the fallen hearts and minds of sinful men. We confess with these reformers – whom their opponents insulted with the name “Lutheran” – that faith is necessary for salvation, as faith is the means by which we sinners receive God’s grace and mercy that He extends to us in Christ Jesus. And we also understand that if our faith were credited to us as a good work, we could boast of our justification as a personal accomplishment rather than as a “gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

St. Paul could not be more clear, dear friends, as he also taught the Christians in Ephesus: we are saved by grace, through faith, and not by our own works.

And we thank God for Doctor Luther and the reformers for preaching this, even when the hierarchy of the Church was more interested in saving dollars than saving sinners, more concerned with hoarding up treasures of gold for itself than for storing up treasures in heaven for the redeemed. The Church’s leaders needed to change, to repent, to hear and heed the Word of the Lord – but they refused.

And this is why the Reformation is such a bittersweet celebration. Of course, we are honored to wrap ourselves in the mantle of Luther, but we also know that it is a mantle that is splattered with the blood of thousands of peasants, of innocent victims of religious warfare, and of the devastation of war crimes committed in the name of the Prince of Peace.

We surround ourselves today in the color red: not only the color of the Holy Spirit’s fiery Pentecost descent upon the Church that He watches over, “calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies,” but it is also the color of the blood of the martyrs – ancient and modern – whose lives were laid down as a witness and testimony of a truth so sacred that people were, and are, willing to die rather than surrender it.

Many who confessed this truth of the “eternal Gospel” were put to death. Many were tortured. Many were exiled. Many were put on trial. But as our Lord taught us: “The kingdom of heaven has suffered violence.” Satan has always unsheathed his loathsome sword to shed the blood of confessing Christians. The Reformation was tragic insofar as Satan had infiltrated the Church itself and used Christians to shed the holy blood of other Christians – the blood of the body of Christ Himself being spilled by the Church in the name of Jesus.

And yet, brothers and sisters, our forebears made the good confession: pastors and laymen, men and women, nobles and peasants – people who yearned for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and who were taught the faith from preaching, from the liturgy, from the catechism – all rooted and grounded in the Holy Scriptures themselves.

This is what we celebrate in the Reformation – and it is a great and wonderful celebration – even if it is muted by the senseless and horrific acts of violence that characterize this period in our history.

But notice, dear brothers and sisters, dear catholic Christians who to this day bear the name “Lutheran,” notice that we are not to boast. For let us not forget what St. Paul also taught us: “What then becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.” We have nothing to boast about. The fact that we hold this clear and biblical teaching about justification is nothing for us to brag about, hold other Christians in contempt over, nor puff ourselves up. It is purely by God’s grace that we – each one of us – confess the teachings laid out in Luther’s Small Catechism. We have been taught the truth of Scripture, and we joyfully confess it – but never apart from the humility with which our Lord exhorts us to display. For we have been saved by grace, by God’s mercy – nothing more, nothing less. And we deserve this grace no more or no less than any other poor, miserable sinner. For that is the definition of grace: it is undeserved mercy. Dear friends, our own boast is in Christ. Christ alone. All other boasting is excluded.

Rather than boast, we are to be about the good works prepared before the foundation of the world that the Lord has prepared for us. We are to work out our salvation – that salvation given to us as a free gift – by doing the works that we do not have to do out of fear, but rather that we wish to do out of love.

St. John saw a beautiful vision that has been placed into our ears again this morning: “Then I saw another angel... with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.”

Given that we confess the gospel in its purity, we are not called to boast, but to proclaim, not to pat ourselves on the back, but rather to be the hands of Christ in the world, proclaiming an “eternal gospel” to all people.

When we are busy doing the work we have been given, knowing that we have been saved by grace, there is neither the inclination nor the time to boast. Dear friends, let us confess the eternal Gospel with clarity and let us confess this doctrine of justification with charity, knowing that our only boast is in Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer. Let us celebrate the Reformation not with pride, but with humility, knowing that at the heart of our Reformation is the cross – by which the Lord has saved us by the shedding of His blood. Soli Deo Gloria – to God alone be the glory – now and forever. Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Petition to Free Asia Bibi

2011-10-23T21:53:00.000-05:00

You can sign the petition here.

Sermon: Trinity 18 – 2011

2011-10-23T09:00:00.009-05:00

23 October 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Matt 22:34-46

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

“What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?”

The Pharisees were known for their knowledge of the Scriptures and their religiousness. They always went above and beyond when it came to the law and to the performance of rituals. And they were also known for their hatred of Jesus.

One day, a lawyer from the Pharisees came to ask Jesus a question. This was not really a question, however. Rather, it was a trap. For the question was designed to “test him.”

And so the Pharisee asks Jesus about the Law. And notice it isn’t about how the Law convicts him of sin, or how the Law drives us to seek forgiveness, or how the Law always accuses us so that we repent of our sins and turn to our Savior.

No, indeed, the Pharisee wants nothing to do with what the Law might do to him, how the Law might actually affect him in real life – but rather he wants to treat and tame the law like a dry academic subject. But, dear friends, our Lord points out that this is not the stuff of case law and argumentation. Rather, our blessed Lord – citing Scripture itself – retorts to the lawyer that the Law is all ultimately about love.

For the “great commandment” is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And right behind this greatest commandment is the second greatest: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Notice that our Lord doesn’t leave room for loopholes, excuses, or technicalities. Our Lord cares nothing for bureaucratic interpretations and political correctness. Instead, He cuts to the chase: “love.”

If you want to fulfill the law, really and truly fulfill it rather than just keep it on the surface, doing the letter of the law, jumping through hoops, and following mechanical directions – then you are to love God and love your neighbor. And if you do this, you will keep the Ten Commandments. For as our Blessed Lord teaches us: “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

The Pharisees knew the Scriptures, knew the doctrine, knew the rules and regulations – but they lacked love. When they externally obeyed the law, they did so for an immediate reward: recognition of men and the self-delusion that God is impressed. But without love, was this really obedience at all?

Our Lord’s long-running disputes with the Pharisees demonstrate what they thought of love. For they refused to eat with certain kinds of people, criticized Jesus for ignoring their manmade rituals, attacked those whom Jesus healed, accused Jesus of breaking the law when he did miracles on the Sabbath, and they plotted with the Sadducees, Herodians, and Romans to bring a capital charge of treason against the only Man who never sinned, murdering their God, the one who gave them not only life, but who won for them eternal life.

No wonder our Lord tries desperately to make them stop yammering on about the commandments, and which is the greatest, and implored them instead to interpret the commandments in light of love.

And the reason the Pharisees knew nothing of love is because they wanted nothing of Jesus. We know that God is love, and we know that love impelled our Lord to not only take on our flesh, but also to take on our sins, to take on our punishment, and to take on death itself.

If the Pharisees wanted to see what perfect love looks like, what it means to keep the two great commandments of the Law, how the Law and the Prophets are indeed fulfilled – they needed to look no further than to the cross.

Dear friends, at the cross, our Lord not only kept, but fulfilled the greatest commandment: to love God with every ounce of His being, with all his heart, soul, and mind. He carried out the will of His Father, selflessly, in love for God and in obedience to His will. But just as the cross has not only a vertical beam, but also a horizontal beam, the Lord Jesus, the Crucified One, demonstrates perfect love for us while we were still sinners, loving His neighbor as Himself.

Our Lord taught us that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, and Jesus lays down His life for the life of the world. He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, the One who does not just talk about the Law and pontificate on which part is greatest, but He who actually obeys the law and demonstrates, at the cross, how He has fulfilled both Law and Prophets in order to save us poor, miserable sinners – all through love.

This, dear friends, is why the Lord Jesus asks them a question they don’t expect: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” The Pharisees know that the Christ is the Son of David – for they know the Bible. But what they don’t know is that the Christ is this Jesus who is looking them in the eye and teaching them with His lips. They know the Bible but they do not know the Word.

For Jesus teaches them the sublime reality from Scripture that the Christ is to be a Man: a human descendant of David, but at the same time God: David’s Lord, David’s God.

And when Jesus asks them to spell out the implications of these passages of Scripture – the very Bible that the Pharisees claimed to know so well – they were dumbstruck. They had nothing to say: “And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask Him any more questions.”

Dear friends, let us never allow our faith to become a cold academic exercise, a way for us to earn earthly praise from others, a mechanical obedience to ritual. For we worship a God who took flesh, lived a perfect life, fulfilled the Law and the prophets, died for us sinners, and rose again for our justification and to the glory of the Father!

We worship a God who loves us, and who implores us to “go and do likewise.” And we can only “do likewise” if we know who it is that we confess as the Christ. Let us never be willing to be struck silent when asked: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” For we know our Creator, our Redeemer, the Lord and Giver of life, the One True God who loved us, loves us, and will love us unto all eternity. Let us always be willing to ask Him questions, not to “test Him,” but rather to know Him more deeply by His Word and to receive the forgiving love given to us as a gift in His Sacrament, in which the living God reveals Himself to be our loving Neighbor.

“What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Five Minutes on the Federal Reserve (Judge Napolitano)

2011-10-21T23:44:00.000-05:00

Sermon: Trinity 17 – 2011 and Baptism of Celeste Ward

2011-10-16T10:00:00.012-05:00

16 October 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Luke 14:1-11 (Prov 25:6-14, Eph 4:1-6)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Our Lord teaches us the importance of humility – which is the opposite of pride.

Pride is what got Lucifer expelled from heaven. Pride is what got Adam and Eve expelled from the Garden. Scripture teaches us that “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Pride gets in the way of salvation. Pride turns away grace. Pride believes it is too good to receive charity. Pride is not only the greatest lure to hell, it is based on pure self-delusion.

Dear friends, we have nothing to be proud of. For we are Christians. We are helpless. We are beggars. We are recipients of charity. We are poor miserable sinners who are by our fallen nature, sinful and unclean.

Pride drove the lawyers and Pharisees to watch Jesus “carefully” to see if He would slip up and break the law. They laid in wait looking to catch Jesus doing a good work on the Sabbath. For their pride was so great that they thought they were better than Jesus. Instead of looking inward to their own very real sins, they looked outward at our blessed Lord, fishing for imaginary sins.

Our Lord teaches them the value of humility by comparing their attitude to someone who attends a social function sitting somewhere where he doesn’t belong. Eventually, the person holding the ticket shows up, and the impostor has to be escorted from the seat, red faced, hopefully to find any place at all among the cheap seats. For in God’s kingdom, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Again, dear brothers and sisters, we have nothing to be proud of. For we are Christians. We are helpless. We are beggars. We are recipients of charity. We are poor miserable sinners who are by our fallen nature, sinful and unclean.

Our Lord finds us on the bleachers and escorts us Himself to the front row. Our Lord takes our hand as we lie in the gutter and carries us into His Father’s house. Our Lord meets us in the shabby home of our sinful dying flesh and says to us: “friend, move up higher” as He gives us immortality in a resurrected, glorified body through the forgiveness of sins and His gift of everlasting life!

And this is a gift that is spurned by the proud and missed by the arrogant.

The most humble person in this sanctuary is the littlest and most helpless of all. Little Celeste has nothing to brag about. She does not own a beautiful house, drive a fancy car, have letters behind her name, does not possess great learning, nor does she have reporters following her every move armed with a camera – unless, of course, we count her rightfully pleased parents and other relatives. But Celeste is a helpless little girl, not mighty, not powerful, and not laden with personal possessions. But she, whose name means “heavenly” has a name by which her heavenly Father has called her.

And this is exactly why she is our great teacher, dear friends. Heavenly, helpless Celeste is here today teaching us how to be a Christian! Jesus Himself told us to look to the little ones who believe in him, and become like them. For this is how we come to the kingdom: with nothing to be proud of. For we are Christians. We are helpless. We are beggars. We are recipients of charity. We are poor miserable sinners who are by our fallen nature, sinful and unclean.

Celeste has today become a Christian the same way we did – with a splash of water and the mighty invocation of the Holy Trinity, all by the command and promise of Jesus! And we are to emulate this little saint, to trust, to receive, to have the Holy Name placed upon us, to be baptized and to be humble! None of us should boast any more than Celeste is boasting today – except that we can speak about our Savior. In Him is our only boast!

And this is precisely what St. Paul means when he exhorted our brothers and sisters in Ephesus to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

This is only possible, dear brothers and sisters, because of what Jesus has done for Celeste and what He has done for us! For we have all fallen into a well, a trap of sin and death, and we were all pulled out on a day of rest and rescue; saved, redeemed, and brought into the kingdom by none other than the King Himself, being taken by the hand and led to a place of honor at the banquet.

For we are not lords, prancing about like peacocks, strutting and boasting. There is indeed only “one Lord” – the Lord Jesus Christ who has saved us; “one faith” – the holy faith delivered to the saints through which we are saved; “one baptism” – in whose waters we are reborn as helpless little children, yet also as heirs of the kingdom, made rich in the heavens by the grace of our “one God and Father of all,” who is indeed “Our Father who art in heaven,” who is also Celeste’s Father, she who has been made heavenly through this one baptism; “called to one hope,” brought into this “one body” and united with us in “one Spirit.”

Celeste has nothing to boast about, and yet she has everything to boast about! She has nothing of her own flesh to be proud of. But in the kingdom, her flesh has been united to our Lord’s flesh in Holy Baptism! And in Christ, she, along with the rest of us, have a genuine boast in Christ – the One who has called us to sit with Him in the place of honor at the banquet.

And though Satan was cast out, Celeste was invited in. Though the rich and boastful Pharisees were humbled, little Celeste (like children of the Father of every age) has been exalted. Though in our sins, we sinners have been expelled from the Garden of Eden, through the cross we the redeemed have been invited back to heavenly glory, to living waters, to the fruit of the tree of life, to the bread of heaven, and to riches upon riches that will have no end!

Dear friends, we have not put ourselves “forward in the king’s presence.” Nor have we stood “in the place of the great.” Rather in our humility and in our poverty of sprit, we have been brought to the font and told “Come up here,” invited to the heavenly regions, just as our heavenly sister in Christ has been invited and now reminds us about the kingdom.

Again, dear brothers and sisters, we have nothing to be proud of. For we are Christians. We have been helped. Our pleas have been heard. We have been shown mercy. We are recipients of the Lord’s grace and riches, given a new nature, washed by the water and cleansed by the blood – of Christ, by Christ, and in Christ.

And this is our boast, now and forever. Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

November Feasts

2011-10-12T22:54:00.000-05:00

It is nearly November, the time of year when folks in Chicago enjoy falling leaves and the folks in New Orleans enjoy the departure of hurricane season! The Church begins November with All Saints Day and concludes the month with the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle. In November, we end the previous church year with the last weeks of the year reminding us of the End of the Age, and with the beginning of the church year again calling to mind the beginning of the Last Days through the mystery of our Lord's incarnation. For Americans, November is also a time of thanksgiving - which in ecclesiastical terms, makes us think of the Eucharistic Feast.

November is indeed a special time of the Church's calendar.

A magnificent choir known as the Schola Cantorum of St. Peter the Apostle (formerly the Schola Cantorum of St. Peter's in the Loop) has given the Church a wonderful musical gift for this sacred time of transition in the her calendar.

This album, Music for the November Feasts, is one of my favorite musical albums of all time - in any category. This is definitely a "desert island" CD. It is an ecumenical collection of sacred music covering centuries in a diverse mix of ecclesiastical musical styles: hymn and chant, English and Latin, old and new, a choir of men and women singing both a capella and with musical accompaniment.

I cannot recommend it enough!

Here is the Amazon link to download the album ($8.99) or any of its twenty-two tracks ($.99/each). Lutherans will especially enjoy seeing many favorites from their hymnals: such as By All Your Saints in Warfare (LSB 517, 518), Jerusalem My Happy Home (LSB 673), In the Midst of Earthly Life (LSB 755), Come Ye Thankful People, Come (LSB 892), Hail to the Lord's Anointed (LSB 398), Crown Him With Many Crowns (LSB 525), and the sainted professor Rev. Dr. Martin Franzmann's masterpiece O Kingly Love, which was not included in Lutheran Service Book, but was in Lutheran Worship (LW 346). Also, though not technically a Lutheran hymn, the great Anglican composer and chorister Dr. Healy Willan's majestic setting of the Te Deum Laudamus as sung in many Lutheran schools and churches - including the Kramer Chapel of Concordia Theological Seminary (Fort Wayne) - is part of this wonderful collection!

And if you appreciate Gregorian Chant and Latin, there are some haunting and inspiring tracks that proclaim the catholic timelessness and comforting transcendence of the Church of Jesus Christ and His Word.

And here is more from the Schola Cantorum of St. Peter's in the Loop (known today as the Schola Cantorum of St. Peter the Apostle).

As a postscript, I was honored to have the Schola's conductor, J. Michael Thompson, drop by and leave a kind comment on an old FH posting about Dr. Franzmann. Mr. Thompson, blessings on your work in the Lord's kingdom! You have a gift that is also a treasure!

Sermon: Trinity 16 – 2011

2011-10-09T10:00:00.005-05:00

9 October 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Luke 7:11-17 (1 Kings 17:17-24, Eph 3:13-21)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

The Christian faith is a matter of life and death.

Our Lord’s act of compassion in raising the widow of Nain’s son from the dead is much more than a single good deed – it is a preview of what is to come and a summation of the entire reason our Lord Jesus came into the world, died, and rose from the dead.

He came in forgiveness to conquer death and give life. He came to restore life to that which was dead in sin.

Dear friends, in our busy lives it’s easy to forget this. It’s easy to forget why we are here, why we belong to the Church, why we are listening to this sermon and why we are coming to this rail to partake of Holy Communion. We are mortal. We are dying. We are all terminally ill – whether we are going to die today, next year, or decades from now. Unless the world ends and the Lord returns, we are all going to die.

A hundred years from now – with maybe the exception of the tiniest children in our midst – we will all be dead. Those who come after us will themselves be engaged in the things of this life. Hopefully they will be in this same place listening to a preacher yet unborn reminding them of the Lord’s life-and-death message and their need to pay it heed.

The Christian faith is a matter of life and death.

And sometimes the only time we really reflect on that is at a funeral. When a loved one dies, we are forced out of our routine. We take a day off work, we absent ourselves from school, we miss the football game, we skip the board meeting, we beg out of Girl Scouts and karate and the Legion meeting, we don’t go to the mall or to the movies or to the party we hoped to attend. We may need to put our vacation on hold or otherwise rearrange our already packed schedules.

Funerals invade our time and space and remind us that we too are mortal, that death is no respecter of schedules.

In our Gospel, Jesus showed up at a funeral to remind the world that though our bodies are mortal, we were created to live eternally. Jesus came to a funeral with people burdened by sin and sorrow, and He replaced that burden with a gospel – good news – of forgiveness and hope.

There were few people in ancient times more hopeless than widows. For the most part, they could not take a job. They had no pension plan. They had no Social Security or Medicare. They were forced to rely on their surviving family members or the kindness of strangers merely to survive. And in the case of the widow at Nain, her only son was now also dead.

She was not only mourning her only son, she was looking at a hopeless future.

But Jesus crosses paths with her, has compassion on her, and touches the open coffin upon which her lifeless son lay. And Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God leads the way to a future of hope and life, one that will never end!

The Author of Life speaks the Word of life: “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the “dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.”

The son’s life was restored. The mother’s future was restored. The family’s hope was restored. The faith of the entire community was restored. Communion with God was restored.

And this was done at a funeral!

The prophet Elijah did something very similar. The Lord used Elijah to restore life to another widow’s son centuries before our Lord Jesus gave life to the widow’s son at Nain. Elijah, the man of God, heard the woman’s plea: “What have you against me?” she asked, “You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” In fact, Elijah came to plead before God to show compassion on this widow, to restore her son’s life, and to give her hope.

Our Lord Jesus Christ does the same, only He does not have to pray to God to raise the widow’s son. For He is not simply a man of God, but the Man who is God. And He has not come to remember anyone’s sins, but to forgive them. He has come not to cause anyone’s death, but to suffer death in His own body on the cross, to be resurrected to eternal life. And He gives this same renewed life to the mortal and previously hopeless sinful men and woman of every time and place, in a resurrection like His very own.

Dear friends, our Christian faith is indeed a matter of life and death. And everything in this life, and I do mean everything – that seems so important pales in comparison. Is your job important? Next to your faith it doesn’t mean a thing. For jobs come and go. Bosses come and go. But Jesus and His word endure forever, even as He gives us everlasting life.

Is the education of your children important? Next to their faith, their education means nothing. Being good at math and science, getting a good job, and having wealth to show for it will mean absolutely nothing if they lack faith.

What about all those other things that are so very important in our day to day lives, things like our hobbies and sports, our recreation and vacation, even our charitable acts and positions of authority – even positions in the church? All are worthless compared to faith.

For none of these things are eternal. What seems to incredibly important today – whether this person or that person is bothering us, whether we get recognition or win the argument, whether our team wins or whether we get the job we really want – all of these things amout to nothing when we, like the widow of Nain, are looking at a dead child, or a dead father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, or even a friend or acquaintance. Every funeral is yet another opportunity to ponder what is important in life and what it is to die, what is important in this life, and what lies beyond the grave in eternity.

Doctor Luther meditated upon what death means to the unbeliever: “Since they are beyond the pale of faith in Christ, they must either cherish this temporal life as the only thing worthwhile and hate to lose it, or they must expect that after this life they will receive eternal death and the wrath of God in hell and must fear to go there.”

In our own day and age, we also find a different sort of person, one who thinks death is a sweet friend, a natural part of life, and some unknown adventurous border to be crossed that has nothing to do with the wages of sin.

But to us Christians, people who have been touched by the hand of Jesus Christ in the waters of baptism, we who have been commanded “Arise” by His Word, recipients of Christ’s compassion and forgiveness of sins – we see death differently.

We know that death is unnatural, evil, terrible, and not according to God’s plan. We know it is the wages of sin. And we know that we too will have to die. But, dear brothers and sisters, dear fellow victors over the grave in Christ – hear what Doctor Luther exhorts us from beyond his own grave through the written word, preaching on God’s Word, when he says: “We Christians, who have been redeemed from all this by the dear blood of the Son of God, should by faith train and accustom ourselves to despise death and to regard it as a deep, strong, and sweet sleep, to regard the coffin as nothing but paradise and the bosom of our Lord Christ, and the grave as nothing but a soft couch or sofa, which it really is in the sight of God.”

In this light, death is an ugly enemy – but it is a defeated enemy. Death is cruel, but the Lord of Life is compassionate. Death deprives us of our loved ones and of life, but Christ, who loves us, gives us back our life – all through His own death on the cross and His own resurrection from the grave!

This is how St. Paul can tell us “not to lose heart” – not even as Christians suffer. In light of our Lord’s conquest of death and victory over the grave, St. Paul can indeed pray for us to be “strengthened with power through His Spirit” in our inner being.

For we truly know the “love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” – the love that conquers death and raises us to life, that we “may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

In disappointment, in sorrow, in mourning; in sadness, in suffering, in sickness; in conflict, in distress, in bewilderment – let us ever call to mind the compassionate touch and mighty life-giving Word of Jesus to “Arise!” For it echoes throughout the world and in the Word, and it will be repeated to us, resounding with power and might in our own resurrection.

Our Christian faith is a matter of life and death, dear brothers and sisters.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.