Do We Worship Hundreds?

In the latest Lutheran Witness, there is an article written about church planting.

Part of the article consists of a pastor's bragging about how many people attend his congregation, including one instance where 500 showed up for a "baptism bash" and another "community celebration" that boasts of "more than 1,000" in attendance. But the most interesting boast involves how many come to church on Sunday now as opposed to the ten families he started out with in 2005. The author of the article says this congregation "now worships as many as 600 on Sunday."

I believe this is a case where grammar imitates life.

This is a sort-of Freudian slip. "Worship" in this sentence is acting as a transitive verb - which means it takes a direct object. We worship something or someone. We may worship money, we may worship Zeus, we may worship the Holy Trinity. We may worship the one true God, or we may worship the ground our children walk on. We may worship the Chicago Bears or Elvis Presley or Barack Obama or Glenn Beck.

We may worship our parishioners. Or, maybe more accurately, we may worship the number of parishioners.

It is not only grammatically wrong to say we worship the number of people in the pews. It is the very heart of the problem with numbers-driven, seeker-sensitive, church-growth thinking. It is the idolatry of the Ablaze!(tm) program, movement, initiative, or whatever the bureaucratic word of the day is.

Unless we are pagans, we do not, never have, nor ever shall "worship as many as 600."

The Athanasian Creed sums it up nicely:

"And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity." The Triune God must always be the direct object of our worship.

A numbers-driven person might accurately say: "We worship Three in One and One in Three." A Christian should never say: "we worship 600." For what is the direct object of the active verb "to worship"?

Again, this common grammatical misconstruction belies a faulty theology in the church-growth movement. The primary purpose of the worship service is not evangelism. This is not to say evangelism is a bad thing. But the primary purpose for which we Christians have been created is to worship the Triune God. Evangelism is not only good, but necessary. But it is simply poor evangelism to turn numbers into an idol and shift the focus of the Divine Service from the worship of the Holy Trinity and turn it into the worship of the multiplicity of parishioners.

As Richard John Neuhaus wrote in his tribute to Arthur Carl Piepkorn:

"We do not worship in order to assist, to facilitate, to serve any other end, no matter how honorable or urgent that end may be. We worship God because God is to be worshiped. Worship is as close as we come here on earth to discovering an end in itself, for it is our end eternally."

When we forget this, worship is curved in on itself and becomes idolatry.

Biblical Inerrancy and the ELCA

Here is a post I sent over to Four and Twenty Blackbirds on the ELCA and Biblical Inerrancy. Feel free to take part in the discussion there and comment if you are so inclined!

Sermon: Trinity 14 & Confirmation of Shelby Stokes

13 Sept 2009 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna,

LA Text: Luke 17:11-19 (Prov 4:10-23, Gal 5:16-24)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Jesus is in the process of restoring all things to newness, taking away our sin, sickness, and death, recreating our broken universe into a restored paradise of the sort God first created and called “good.” It would still be good were it not for our selfishness and sinfulness, our desire to set ourselves above God, and our failure to see ourselves as we really are.

In His three years of walking with us and teaching us in His earthly ministry, our Blessed Lord healed many people as a preview of what He is doing to the whole world, and as a demonstration that He is Master over all things – even over illness and death.

The ten lepers recorded by St. Luke who received miraculous healings from our Lord are in many ways fitting examples of all Christians. On the one hand, we have inherited our sinful flesh from our ancestors. In that sense, we are sinful and can do nothing about it. Just like these ten lepers, who did not ask to suffer from this horrific disease, we are forced to live with the consequences that we cannot fix.

No amount of good works, healthy living, or purchase of top-notch healthcare could make the mortal illness of the lepers go away. And even if they could be cured, something else will eventually kill them. In that sense, we suffer from a terminal illness.

But the ten lepers know that they can turn to God for help. They have heard about Jesus, and they go to Him seeking His merciful use of power. In fact, their prayer is: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Jesus heals them with His Word, and sends them to the priests – so that they can be judged by the law itself as having been cleansed.

But look at how the ten respond! Only one, and he a Samaritan, comes back to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, to say “thank you” and to kneel at the feet of the Lord Jesus in praise of the God who has restored his flesh.

Our Lord identifies this good work as evidence of the healed leper’s faith – a faith which has made him well in receiving the Word of God.

In short, this is the Christian life: helpless sinners, people on a crash course with death (which is the wages of sin) seeking healing from Jesus. And having gotten that healing, we offer ourselves back to God as thank offerings, as Eucharistic sacrifices of praise to our merciful Master who not only created us but redeemed us. The Christian life is not about curing ourselves through good living or buying God’s favor, nor is it simply postponing death by healthy living. The living out the Christian life is a result of our healing, not a cause of it. And in gratitude, we return week after week to fall at the feet of our Master, to seek his grace and mercy at all times, and that “thank and praise, serve and obey” Him.

Shelby, you are, and have been a Christian. But today, you have been invited to the Lord’s table, to take a mature ownership of your own spiritual life, and to begin to walk the way of the Eucharistic Christian life. In other words, you will join us in the Eucharistic sacrifice, the great Thanksgiving Meal of Holy Communion with the merciful Master who has forgiven you all your sins and taken away the leprosy of original sin by the very baptism that we all called to mind yet again today: when we made the sign of the cross and invoked the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

At this point in your Christian life, you could walk away and never return – like the nine, and like far too many of our young people the very moment they take their vows to suffer all things, even death, before forsaking the faith. You are free to take the Lord’s Supper today, have your picture taken, only to be excommunicated a year or two from now for cutting yourself off from the church.

But there is a better way.

There is the lifelong path of repentance, of mercy, of gratitude, and of love that your merciful Lord has called you to walk. Come and walk this path with us, your brothers and sisters in Christ! And in walking with us, you will also call us and encourage us to remain faithful as well. For we all have the calling and the responsibility to remind one another in our parish family to be like the thankful leper, to return again and again to the font and fountainhead of our faith.

For the Christian walk is, as St. Paul teaches us, a “walk in the Spirit” so that we “will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” This kind of flesh, the ones in opposition to the spirit, is like the decaying and diseased flesh of the lepers. That flesh is in need of healing, to be like the restored flesh of our Lord. For “if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” says St. Paul. And we are to flee the works of the leprous and dying flesh: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissentions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.”

But thanks be to God, dear brothers and sisters, that we are given the Holy Spirit, who produces fruit in us: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control.”

And, Shelby, this renewal of your heart and spirit given to you at Holy Baptism is what you are confirming today with your public confession of the holy faith and your vow to be faithful to our Lord Jesus.

Our father in the faith, wise King Solomon, exhorts young people to “hear… and accept my words that the years of your life may be many.” He exhorts all of us to “keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.”

Solomon, the ancestor of our Lord Jesus also warns us of the “path of the wicked” and encourages us “avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on.”

And Solomon’s exhortation applies to all the Scriptures when he says: “be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings…. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.”

Healing to all their flesh.

This, dear friends, is what the ten lepers found in the words of Solomon’s Descendant, the very Word of God made flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, who in the flesh restored their flesh. And the one grateful leper returned in the flesh to give thanks to the one who cured him in his flesh.

This is the Christian life. It is a spiritual life, but more. It is life in the Spirit that is also rooted in the flesh – especially the flesh of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving Feast that extends into eternity.

This healing of our flesh happens in our baptism and continues our whole life long in Eucharistic thanksgiving and praise of our Lord Jesus. Week in and week out we offer ourselves, body and soul, to Him who offered Himself as a Sacrifice for us, and who continues to offer His body and blood for us to eat and drink, to strengthen our faith, forgive our sins, and restore our dying flesh to eternal health.

And when the great day of the resurrection comes, as we all lie in our tombs, we will hear the voice of our merciful Savior calling to us: “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” Amen.

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

"The Lost Tools of Learning" and "How We Lost Lutheran Education"

The remarkable Oxford scholar (and Christian apologist) Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) wrote an uncannily prescient essay back in 1947 called: "The Lost Tools of Learning."

Here is a quote:

For we let our young men and women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects. We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were sent to fight armored tanks with rifles, are not scandalized when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a smattering of "subjects"; and when whole classes and whole nations become hypnotized by the arts of the spell binder, we have the impudence to be astonished. We dole out lip-service to the importance of education--lip- service and, just occasionally, a little grant of money; we postpone the school-leaving age, and plan to build bigger and better schools; the teachers slave conscientiously in and out of school hours; and yet, as I believe, all this devoted effort is largely frustrated, because we have lost the tools of learning, and in their absence can only make a botched and piecemeal job of it.

That which Sayers complained of has gotten exponentially worse, thanks to the age of television, the vast expansion of marketing and political propaganda, the rejection of tradition in society and the academy, and the experimental educational "progressivism" following the 1960s.

Interestingly, Dr. Sayers' conclusions are reflected by Lutheran scholar Dr. Gene Edward Veith more than 60 years later in his article "How We Lost Lutheran Education in the Missouri Synod."

Both Sayers and Veith point to the traditional classical educational model as the corrective. These are two very interesting articles to read in juxtaposition with one another. Though written six decades apart in opposite hemispheres and from two different Christian traditions, their diagnoses and proposed solution are basically the same.

Does the President Belong in School?

Like newspapers across the country, our local paper had a story about all the controversy surrounding a speech by U.S. president Barack Obama to school children today. There is even a piece about how former first lady Laura Bush supports Barack Obama's address to school students.

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.

I think the partisan motivation of conservatives who are opposed to Barack Obama speaking to school children is largely misplaced. Their issue is not so much with the president speaking to school children, but rather a left-wing Democrat president doing so. If this were four years ago and the president of the United States happened to be George W. Bush, these same people complaining would be pleased to have the speech, and they would be indignantly decrying left-wingers who did not want their children watching it as un-American or unpatriotic or some such.

If the motivation for parents being angry is only their partisan rancor, I disagree with them.

However, I believe that no president of the United States ought to be speaking to school children, period. It is none of his business. Public schools are run by local governments. The presiding officer of the executive branch of the federal government simply has no business interposing himself into the area that is run by local and state governments. Barack Obama has as much business speaking to school children in American local schools as the prime minister of India would. Neither one has any constitutional jurisdiction over local American government. It is an inappropriate for President Obama to speak to South Louisiana school children as it would be for the Jefferson Parish sheriff to have a personal audience with school children in Portland, Oregon. Laura Bush is wrong. We are not compelled to respect any president of the United States. The president of the United States is, rather, supposed to be compelled to respect the Constitution, which precludes his usurpation over local matters.

And this is across the board, regardless of party and no matter what his ideology is.

The federal government is simply too powerful and intrusive. And the federal government is doing a lousy job of running the federal government itself - bloated, in debt, inefficient, bursting out of its constitutional limitations, and intrusive (if not oppressive) of the states and local governments. One would think that Barack Obama would have enough to do regarding his own job and his own executive branch within the federal bureaucracy - without sticking his nose into the business of local governments, teachers, and parents. Local governments are often the only ones run with any kind of efficiency and responsiveness to constituents. To have the president of the United States getting involved in how local government is to be run is a joke. Let him get his own house in order.

Some argue that the president's speech was harmless cheerleading, being non-partisan, and basically just telling kids to stay in school. I don't care. The prime minister of India could have said the very same thing - it is still none of his business. The Jefferson Parish sheriff could just as well tell Portland kids to stay in school. And it would be equally ridiculous.

Everything the president does (whether Democrat or Republican) costs money - our money. He does not pay for his own vacations, transportation, nor does he bear the costs of security details every time he goes someplace to speak. He ties up roads, air traffic, and productive commerce; and for many teachers and students today, he ironically caused real teaching and real learning in the flesh to stop while he read from a teleprompter over a TV screen to millions of children he will never see, and who will never see him. One has to wonder how much this speech cost an already overextended and bankrupt federal government.

We Americans have turned the presidency into a monarchical cult of personality, as though his giving a speech is more important than the constant, productive, and unsung labor of parents, teachers, and other people who are actually doing the real work, day in and day out, of raising and educating children. Let us not forget that the president of the United States is a bureaucrat - whether Republican or Democrat. He produces nothing in exchange for his ample salary and the wealth and prestige he will enjoy the rest of his life. He has his job because of politics - not because he is qualified to teach anything to anyone.

Barack Obama chose not to be a school teacher. It apparently was not his calling. So he should butt out. He should not tell children how to learn, teachers how to teach, governors how to run state governments, nor janitors how to sweep floors.

I'm hoping that Americans one day grow up and see the federal government and the president as their servants with limited authority instead of worshiping them as masters with almost boundless might. It was good to see conservatives rise up and refuse to treat the president like a demi-god.

But if conservatives were to treat a Republican president the same way, or better yet, if the president of the United States were to say that such frivolous and expensive speeches are not his job - now that would be real progress.

Free-Market Austrian Economics Going Mainstream?

The mainstream conservative source of news, the Drudge Report, has an interesting cluster of articles today...

• There is an international desire to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency
• China, America's largest creditor, is concerned about the inflation of the dollar
• Switzerland surpasses the U.S. in competiveness of the economy and a weakening of the financial stability of the U.S.
• President Obama seeks to raise the U.S. debt ceiling
• The U.S. dollar hits its low for the year
• The administration is seeking to raise taxes
• A Nobel laureate writes that the U.S. is repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression and is headed for a collapse like that of Argentina
• Gold is trading over $1,000 an ounce, an 18-month high, and likely to go considerably higher
• And, anti-American hostility is on the rise and capitalism is being blamed for it all.

None of this is surprising in the least if you have been reading Lew Rockwell over the past few months or years, if you have been informed about the Federal Reserve and the Austrian School of Economics and studying the vast array of free scholarly works online. While the mainstream Republicans and Democrats and their lackeys in the media have been making the problem worse, there have been voices in government and in the private sector calling for sanity and freedom.

This meltdown is precisely why we need to return to Constitutional principles and end the Federal Reserve system. We are running out of time before we become a third-world country, and unless things change pretty radically and pretty soon, you'll be able to chronicle the decline and fall of America day by day on Drudge.

Ordering Pizza in the (Not Too Disntant) Future?

I won again!

I cannot believe my good fortune! Once again, I have hit the jackpot. This time, I won £750.000.00 courtesy of Toyota Online Program. They want me to reply with my "Name,Address,Sex/Tel,Country."

In good conscience, I have won so many of these in the past that I just wouldn't feel right taking this money. There must be so many others out there who have not had the thrill of winning hundreds of thousands, or even millions of pounds, euros, and dollars as I have. So I would like to offer my winnings to anyone who would like to have them.

In fact, the U.S. Government is broke, so maybe I should send them President Obama's address and phone number so he can use it to pay down the deficit and cut taxes.

Maybe some FH readers have some ideas as to who should receive this money.

BTW, the e-mail came from Mrs. Rose Wood at hinsonerickay@frontiernet.net, and any reply sent to this e-mail goes to a different address, namely toyota.uk1@9.cn.

How thoughtful of Mrs. Wood!

From the Land of George Orwell

British Nanny State bans boy scouts from carrying pocket knoves.

And here is a great rant on this topic from a commenter. I did not write this. I was never in Boy Scouts. But I like what this guy has to say here, even if he's being a little obnoxious about it...

Well, I guess it's official. Englishmen are now all women.

When I was a kid, American Boy Scouts were REQUIRED to carry a knife and a hatchet. The patrol leader also carried an axe in case you had to take down a good-sized tree to make a bridge or something.

When you backback into camp thru miles of forest trails, you don't bring the luxuries.You carry a sleeping bag, twine, and tent material. You cut and carve your own tent poles and pegs onsite, and make bedding out of pine branches. If you show up without a knife, you get stuck digging the latrine. With any kind of luck you might catch some trout or snare a rabbit so you wouldn't have to eat the MREs or dehydrated survivalist crap you carried in as insurance against starvation. If luck was against you, the bears and other woodland creatures ate all your stuff when you weren't looking.

THAT's scouting. There was no such thing as peanut or gluten allergies, drugged-up ADD kids, or political correctness. You just went out in the wilderness with a bunch of other idiot kids plus a couple of alcoholic adults and tried not to die for 3 days.

Without knives and axes, it's NOT scouting, it's Campfire girls.

Boiling the frog...

For some "education" about Wicca, start at 6:20.

The above video is from a 1999 Scooby Doo movie called Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost, a film designed to bring what our catechism calls "the Satanic arts" into the mainstream. Thanks to Harry Potter, Twilight, and a host of TV shows and books aimed at young people, the occult has largely been made acceptable in Christian homes, good and evil are being blurred, and young people are being enticed and teased into things they ought not be dabbling with.

Just the other day in the toy department at Target, I ran across a board game based on Twilight, and right next to it was a Ouija board.

And demonstrating that the Serpent is indeed the craftiest of the creatures, anyone who criticizes such incursions of the occult into the Christian life is ridiculed for it.

I mean, what kind of an "extremist fundie" must one be to be against an innocent cartoon like Scooby Doo?

Sermon: Trinity 13

6 September 2009 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Luke 10:23-37

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Dearly beloved of the Lord, we are privileged yet again to hear the greatest Author of all use a story to teach us the profound truths of the kingdom of God.

And the Lord tells this story, The Good Samaritan, in response to a lawyer’s attempt to forge a loophole in God’s law.

Lawyers and authors are both masters of words, both use language the way a craftsman uses a chisel to turn a block of wood or stone into a thing of beauty. The lawyer weaves words together in order to make an argument, and the author spins a tale the way a woman at a wooden wheel turns wool into yarn.

And in this epic meeting, the lawyer plays with words in search of a legal loophole. But he tries this on Jesus, who is not only the author of all words, but is the very Word in the flesh. Jesus is not merely the preacher of the law, but its keeper and fulfiller. Jesus is not just a teller of tales, but is also the Creator of all reality.

The lawyer’s motives are flawed; he is no honest inquirer. He is looking to outsmart and outmaneuver Jesus. And he does this by doing what lawyers do best: he asks a question. And when a lawyer asks a question, he isn’t really asking a question at all. It is loaded. He is manipulating the answer he seeks. Our Lord is not ignorant of this reality, as He knows the hearts of all men. The lawyer asks: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Notice the built-in assumption in the question. It presumes that one can do something to “inherit” eternal life. It is a trick question, for an inheritance is a gift. One inherits by virtue of being an heir – and there is nothing one can do to become an heir. If eternal life is inherited, than it is a gift, not something to be bought, earned, bargained for, or seized.

Our Lord answers the question with two questions of His own: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

The lawyer replies with what he knows best: a recitation of the law: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus tells him: “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” The lawyer craves being right as well as being rewarded for being right. And so our Lord obliges by rewarding the lawyer’s correct answer. But in being right, the lawyer is left without hope. For no-one is capable of perfectly loving God and one’s neighbor. Our Lord has just told the lawyer, in essence: “Your answer is right. Congratulations. And for being right, you will die and go to hell.”

Our lawyer, however, misses the point, and badly so. For his reply ought to have been to confess that he cannot keep the law, that he is a “poor miserable sinner” laden with “sins and iniquities” and deserving of punishment both “temporal and eternal.” He should have said he was sorry, that he repented, and that he sought the Lord to be “gracious and merciful” to himself, a “poor, sinful being.”

But relying instead on his clever legal argument, “desiring to justify himself,” he sought a loophole in the word “neighbor.” He asks: “Who is my neighbor?” For if the word “neighbor” can be defined so narrowly as to basically include no-one, than we are free not to love anyone other than ourselves.

And since the lawyer doesn’t understand God, or His kingdom, or the meaning and importance of “mercy,” or whom the law requires us to love, or the meaning of the word love – our Lord and Teacher instructs the lawyer by way of a story, a parable, an analogy for the lawyer to wrap his head around.

In His tale, our Lord sets up a crime scene. Robbers have beaten a victim, and left him by the side of the road. He is clearly in need of help – for without some kind of intervention, he will bleed to death. The first passerby is a priest, a holy man of God. Surely the priest, the one who stands in the stead and by the command of His Lord, will help. Who should understand his obligations better than a priest? Who is in a better position to comprehend what mercy means than one called by God to freely give the forgiveness of sins according to God’s pure grace?

But the priest crosses the street and refuses to help.

Next is the Levite. Surely this man of God, this helper of the priests, one who stands in the sanctuary of the Temple, will offer aid and comfort to his fellow man in need!

But he too crosses the street.

And finally, a Samaritan, a lowly half-breed, despised by the Jews, a man who is not only neither priest not Levite, but not even of the chosen people at all – encounters the robbery victim. He not only shows compassion, but goes way above and beyond. Though not under the same legal obligations as the priest and Levite, the Samaritan bandages the victim, cleans his wounds, transports him to an inn, and lodges him at his own expense. He promises to continue housing the him until he is well.

The Lord Jesus suddenly stops the story at this point. He asks the lawyer to answer his own question: “Who is the neighbor?” The Wordsmith who is the Word has outsmarted the lawyer who uses words to manipulate and craft an argument. The lawyer is trapped by his own question, hanged by his own words, and is forced to answer in a way that will not justify himself: the neighbor is “the one who showed him mercy.”

The lawyer could not justify himself, and neither can we, dear brothers and sisters. Every day we have the opportunity to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself,” and every day we cross the road to avoid the trouble of demonstrating compassion, to avoid showing Christian mercy to our neighbors in need. Like the priest and the Levite, we fail in our Christian duty to our neighbor, and we turn around just like the lawyer and try to justify ourselves.

But the law offers us no loopholes. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Keep the law perfectly, “and you will live.”

If, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if we stop trying to justify ourselves, but rather hear the Word of the Lord, we will find something other than condemnation and our failure to keep the law, namely “mercy.” For our Lord is the Good Samaritan, the Lowly One rejected by His own people, the One who does not walk across the street when He encounters people beaten up by sin and the world, not leaving them to bleed to death the way the unmerciful and demanding law does.

Jesus has compassion. Jesus loves His neighbor. Jesus loves God with all His heart, soul, strength, and mind. Jesus finds us lying in the street and pours on the balm of oil and wine. Jesus carries us Himself and spends all that He has, even His precious lifeblood, to nurse us back to health. We are His neighbor, and He shows us mercy. And having been given this healing, this demonstration of mercy, we can, even if imperfectly, “go and do likewise.”

We do not show mercy to others because the law says we must. We’re not capable of keeping the law. We do not show mercy to others because of who we are. For acting only out of what is expected is not love, nor compassion, nor mercy. We show mercy to others because we have first been shown mercy. We know what it is like to be beaten and battered and bleeding. We know what it is like to be ignored by the priest and the Levite. We know what it is like to be in dire need of mercy. And we also know what it is like to be rescued. Being on the receiving end of mercy should fill us with compassion for others who are in need of the same mercy we were when the Good Samaritan found us, cleaned our wounds, transported us to safety, and had mercy upon us.

We know it is foolish to justify ourselves, for we can’t. But the good news is that we have been justified by the One who shows mercy. We have seen and heard this compassion, and we live it every time we come to this place of mercy to receive the Lord’s free gifts of life and salvation.

“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” dear Christians. “For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” Amen.

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

Sermon: Wednesday of Trinity 12

2 September 2009 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: 2 Cor 3:4-11

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

St. Paul writes to the Corinthian Christians about “confidence.” This is a popular topic today. We all want to be confident, being assured that we know what we’re doing, whether at work, at home, or at play. Nobody wants to be unsure, un-confident, and hesitant.

Even more so, we want our children to be confident. We want them to be self-assured, able to take the bull by the horns, and make a name for themselves.

In fact, even more than the word “confidence,” we tend to use the term “self-esteem.”

And in the right context, self-esteem and self-confidence are very good things to have indeed. But when it comes to our spiritual life, the very last thing we ought to foster is a sense of self-esteem and confidence in ourselves. That would be misplaced confidence indeed!

For St. Paul is not speaking of being self-assured, but rather “the confidence we have through Christ toward God.” For as St. Paul explains, this kind of confidence is “not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.”

Perhaps this is why the Christian faith is so terribly misunderstood by the world. If nothing else, it certainly explains why people flock to religions and philosophies with self-esteem at the center – for these religions do not serve God but rather serve the self. Rather than submit to our Creator, such cults seek to make the ego one’s god. And though these self-esteem-based religions may seem new, they are nothing more than a reiteration of the ancient Satanic question in the Garden: “Did God really say…?”

Sometimes the people who understand the Christian faith best are those who were formerly atheists. One such person is the English writer, philosopher, and lay theologian C.S. Lewis. The Blessed Dr. Lewis understood the Christian faith in all its radical implications and paradoxical power when he wrote:

“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

Too many Christians themselves see the faith as a self-help tool to make them feel better, a sort of legal form of dope to help us escape from the stress and strain of the real world. If that’s what you’re looking for, dear friends, a short, artificial buzz to take your mind off of the miserable state of things, don’t look for that in Jesus Christ.

Perhaps this is the utter misunderstanding Karl Marx had when he described religion, including the Christian faith, as the “opiate of the masses.”

But the Christian faith is no opiate, no evasion of reality. Rather Christianity is a confrontation with the truth, the truth of who and what we are. And, dear brothers and sisters, if we are truly honest, the truth hurts.

St. Paul calls the Word of God engraved on tablets of stone to be “the ministry of death.” For, “the letter kills” – and the most murderous letters of all are those ten accusations blasted into solid rock atop Mt. Sinai.

When we really consider the Ten Commandments as St. Paul describes them, we have to wonder whether or not all those people who demand the Ten Commandments to be in schoolhouses and courtrooms really understand the Christian faith at all. For St. Paul speaks of the Commandments brought by Moses as the “ministry of condemnation.” The law always accuses.

So powerful and disturbing is this letter from the finger of God that the guilt-ridden Israelites could not even stand to be in the residual glow of the righteous God as reflected from the face of Moses.

For there is one thing the Ten Commandments are very good at: proving the point that St. Paul makes that we are not “sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us.” And this is as countercultural as it gets.

Christianity must be true, for no sane person would make up such a religion. In fact, it was one of the very first fathers of the Church, Tertullian, who is paraphrased as saying: “I believe, because it is absurd.”

But, dear brothers and sisters, there is more comfort in bearing witness to the truth (however harsh) than to falling prey to a lie (however captivating). For we know who the father of lies is, and we also know who the Way, the Truth, and the Life is.

Though “the letter kills,” though the law cuts us down, though the Lord’s demands of perfection destroy our self-esteem, we are now free to find our “sufficiency” outside of ourselves. “The letter kills,” St. Paul confesses, “but the Spirit gives life.”

“Life” dear brothers and sisters! Life overcomes death, even as the “ministry of righteousness” overtakes the “ministry of condemnation.” For our righteousness is not our own, and thanks be to God! We do not follow a path of self-esteem, self-empowerment, or self-actualization. Rather we crucify the old self, drowning the Old Adam. And we walk a humble road of grace, of divine mercy, of the free gift of forgiveness, eternal life, and communion with the Creator – overcoming the condemnation of the ministry of death. For the joyful glory of God’s Word of forgiveness surpasses the somber and terrifying glory of God’s word of condemnation.

As our Lord Jesus Himself has told us, He did not come into the world to condemn, but to save. And this is a glory that by far surpasses the passing fads of gurus and the empty slogans of the hawkers of self-help books.

And the great irony is this: as we grow in faith, we decrease, even as Christ increases in us. And far from losing our identity, rather the more we suppress our self-esteem and confidence in our own works, the more the Lord raises us up, increasing our faith for the very purpose of performing good works in the kingdom. This is the very opposite of the world’s phony self-based religion and vacuous promises of happiness. And yet, for two thousand years, the Christian faith, the one true faith, delivers what the talking heads and latest authors could never do in a million years.

For it is only the Christian faith that places confidence outside ourselves, solely in the mercy of God through the work and ministry of God the Son, Jesus Christ. The cross delivers what the happy face and the peace sign fail to give: true eternal joy and the peace that passes all understanding.

As St. Paul was suffering under an onslaught of the devil, being oppressed by the burdens of the world in all of its fallen misery, God told the apostle: “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Dear brothers and sisters, we are confident – not in ourselves, but in spite of ourselves. Our confidence is in Christ alone, and rather than hold ourselves in esteem, we proclaim with St. Paul, with all the saints, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven: “Worthy is the Lamb!” Soli Deo Gloria! To God alone be the glory! Amen.

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

Sermon: Trinity 12 and Baptism of Zachary Paul Bouvier

30 August 2009 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Mark 7:31-37

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, what a great and glorious day! For just as the people of the first century Decapolis witnessed a great miracle through the Word of the Lord Jesus in restoring a man to wholeness through His divine touch and a little moisture, so too have we, people of the twenty first century Louisiana also witnessed a miracle.

Using the mere word of God and a bit of moisture, the Lord Jesus restored our little brother Zachary to wholeness.

And now, his ears have been unstopped to hear the Word of God, the holy “Ephphatha” of the Gospel that our Lord proclaims to all of us, his beloved baptized, every time we stand to hear His Holy Word, every time we bow our heads to receive the gift of Holy Absolution, and every time the preaching of the Word condemns us in our sins, and yet restores us to life anew.

Our ancestors and fathers in the faith saw a direct connection between Holy Baptism and this specific miracle of the touch of Jesus that opened this man’s ears and mouth and resulted in the Gospel being “zealously” proclaimed.

In the early 1520s, Martin Luther conducted baptisms that included extra rituals that included a part of the service called “The Ephphatha” – a ceremony that included the application of spittle to the child’s ears and nose and an exorcism. The priest would then bless the child with these words: “The Lord preserve thy coming in and thy going out now and for evermore.” Then the priest would have the child renounce the devil through the sponsors. He would then ask the child if he believes in the creed, and the sponsors would answer on the child’s behalf.

Does any of this sound familiar? The use of the spittle was discontinued, as I’m sure suits Zachary’s parents just fine.

And yet we still understand Holy Baptism to be an “Ephphatha,” a miraculous opening done by the Lord, using humble earthly means to bring people into the kingdom. We still asked Zachary to confess the creed, we still pronounced exorcism: “Depart, you unclean spirit…”, and God’s children still receive the priestly blessing in baptism: “The Lord preserve thy coming in and thy going out now and for evermore.”

And all of these rituals, which teach and confess the truth, finally build up to the miraculous sacrament itself. For the administration of baptism is the very work of God in space and time, the execution of His holy will to save and claim us as His own. The words of invocation of the Trinity, given to the apostles by our Blessed Lord Himself ring anew from Christ Himself, the Word made flesh who pronounces His Words upon sinful flesh by sinful flesh. The holy water splashes down on this newly-born again Christian in a holy and healing flood, an opening of heaven and an opening of the ears and mouth of this newly redeemed son of God.

Zachary’s parents, in bringing him to this font, are pledging before Almighty God and this congregation to raise this child as a child of God, to faithfully bring Him to hear the Word for which the Lord has opened His ears, to teach him to pray and sing with a tongue released to give praise to his Savior.

And, dear friends, it is our duty to keep this family in the faith, to pray earnestly for Zachary, who is now in the crosshairs of the evil one. Hear the words of Blessed Martin Luther concerning what we have done this morning:

In all Christian earnestness I would ask all those who administer baptism, who hold the children, or witness it, to take this wonderful work to heart in all its seriousness. For here, in the words of these prayers, you hear how meekly and earnestly the Christian Church concerns itself about the little child and how it confesses before God in plain undoubting words that he is possessed by the devil and is a child of sin and wrath, and prays very diligently for aid and grace through baptism that he may become a child of God.

Remember therefore, that it is no joke to take sides against the devil and not only to drive him away from the little child, but to burden the child with such a mighty and lifelong enemy. Remember too, that it is very necessary to aid the poor child with all your heart and strong faith, earnestly to intercede for him that God, in accordance with this prayer, would not only free him from the power of the devil, but also strengthen him, so that he may nobly resist the devil in life and death. And I suspect that people turn out so badly after baptism because our concern for them has been so cold and careless; we, at their baptism, interceded for them without zeal.

Blessed Martin’s word “zeal” is also in our Lord’s proclamation of the Gospel to us this morning: Paradoxically, in disobedience. The people were told to keep this miracle quiet – for it was not yet our Lord’s hour to reveal himself. And yet, owing to the great miracle, the work and ministry of our Blessed Lord, “the more He charged them [to tell no one], the more zealously they proclaimed it.” Their mouths too were opened, their tongues released.

We, dear friends, are under no gag order. In fact, the Lord has charged me as a minister of the Gospel to zealously “preach the Word” in season and out; to call sinners to repentance, and to comfort the contrite with the gentle balm of the good news of God’s forgiveness, love, and mercy in Jesus Christ. And you, brothers and sisters, though you are not preachers under orders to publicly proclaim, you are a reflection of the Gospel by your words and works. You can confess your baptismal faith, and indeed you are instructed to be ready to articulate the reason for the hope of everlasting life within you.

For just as Zachary has had his ears opened and his tongue released by the Ephphatha of Holy Baptism, so have all of us. We are to zealously pray for Zachary and all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are to bring our friends and family members to likewise hear the miraculous Word. And we have been given the Holy Spirit at our own baptisms to likewise “release our tongues” to confess what the Lord has done for us by baptism and the Word.

And whether or not the Ephphatha rituals were carried out at our baptisms, whether or not the exorcism was explicitly pronounced, every Holy Baptism is an Ephphatha and is an exorcism. The water drowns the sinful flesh, the Old Adam, and fills the demons with horror, dispatching them, even as Pharaoh and his evil army were drowned in the sea.

Today is a great and glorious day, to be sure, dear friends. For we have seen the Lord work yet another miracle, a liberation of one held captive by the evil one, the opening of the ears and releasing of the tongue of a newborn child of God and eternal heir of the kingdom.

“And looking up to heaven, [Jesus] sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly…. And they were astonished beyond measure.”

And this astonishing work was done with the words of the Word made flesh, the divine touch of Jesus combined with a bit of moisture, by humble water and the mighty Word, the…

Word that caused blind eyes to see,
Speak and heal our mortal blindness;
Deaf we are: our Healer be;
Loose our tongues to tell Your kindness.
Be our Word in pity spoken,
Heal the world by sin now broken.

Amen.

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

Sometimes All You Can Do is Laugh...

"Laugh at the devil and he will flee from you" is a quote attributed to Martin Luther.

The near universal anger at Washington is now manifesting itself in biting satire from squeaky-clean Christian comedian Tim Hawkins. Check out his other videos while you're there - he is a genuinely funny man with a keen insight into the culture - a sort of George Carlin without the "forbidden words."

HT: Stacy McDonald at Your Sacred Calling

Police States of America?

The Constitution has become a relic, and anyone who has studied history can see where this is quickly leading.

By the way, the contact information for Officer Cheeks' superiors is here:

Major James A. Morris
Internal Affairs
Fairfax County Police Department
4100 Chain Bridge Road
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
(703) 246-2918

Col. David M. Rohrer
Chief of Police
Fairfax County Police Department
4100 Chain Bridge Road
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
(703) 246-2195

More Federal-Imperial Arrogance

This footage of the "town hall" meeting is illustrative of what ails our country (though I find the heavily made-up cheerleading "newscasters" - including the carefully crafted leg-shots of the blonde in the red dress - to be themselves part of the problem).

Federal politicians have been treated like demi-gods far too long. They are supposed to be public servants, but it has become clear over the last few weeks that the federal-imperial hubris is a bigger problem than anyone could have imagined.

Our founders envisioned citizen-servants representing the people in a republican manner - with dignity, humility, and in accordance with the Constitution. But what we now have is a Leviathan, and out-of-control juggernaut fueled by a combination of confiscatory taxation as well as essentially counterfeit dollars cranked out by a secretive cabal of bankers, accountable to no-one, who have the power to create money out of thin air with no restriction. Congress has the power to pass extra-constitutional laws and regulations to benefit those who donate to their re-election campaigns, but which cripple the ability of ordinary people to make a living.

Congressmen, used to the menial ministrations of bowing yes-men and scraping lackeys, are cordoned off, inaccessible to the vast majority of the people they represent, only trotted out for carefully scripted pageants and photo-ops. However, the paradigm of state-worship may be shifting, as the people are starting to find their voice and have been reminded that Congress is supposed to represent us. We are their masters, not vice versa.

This is a hard concept for this elitist gang of pampered mandarins, who hold the people in contempt, to understand.

Just look at this Congressman demanding "credentials" from a citizen who was invited to a public meeting! What arrogance. When Congressman are constantly being lauded and feted, adulated, and wined and dined (especially by lobbyists) there are no requests to see drivers' licenses. It is only when they are being criticized do they behave this way - for they are not used to criticism. Even the passing of Ted Kennedy, with all the abuse of power that man has been treating himself to for decades, has caused Congress to carry on as if one of the gods of Mt. Olympus has fallen off the mountain. They act as though we have lost a hero of the Republic, when in fact, if non-Senators did the same things as this privileged substance-abuser, they would be living in a cage. And do we need to be reminded that one of the illustrious members of the august Senate is (literally) a clown? It is apparent to everyone (Congress excepted) that Congress is a joke.

The mood of the country is not unlike 1775, when the people began to wake up and realize that rather than being served by their government, they were being used and fleeced, like hosts to the parasite, and treated with abject contempt once the leech has sucked his fill of blood from his victim.

Is it any wonder people are angry?

Our ancestors sent bureaucrats and government hacks back home arrayed in chicken feathers. Tea went into the harbor. The people refused to pay taxes (which were but a fraction of those we accept as reasonable today). And the effigies of the crown's representatives were openly burned in the streets. Colonial governors were arrested as new governments were put into place by the newly-independent states - whose governments - unlike our modern Democrat and Republican controlled versions - were no longer puppets to the general government and party apparatchiks.

And it was inconceivable to the king's representatives that they were seen as the problem, as the enemy.

Hopefully, this general government will start to take the hint rather than arrogantly steamroll over the people yet again. Taxation without representation didn't work out so well then, and it isn't now. The overwhelming voice of the people in opposition to the Wall Street bailouts (some 99% of the people were opposed) went absolutely unheeded by both the Bush and the Obama regimes. Federal officials of all branches (and from both parties) hold the people in utter contempt and ignore their concerns, confident that election day is a long way off and that the people can be lulled back into worshipful awe of the federal government through appeals to patriotism and propagandistic fear-mongering to make the federal government seem indispensable. The anger of the people is being dismissed as some kind of manipulation - because that is what Congressman do: play games of manipulation. They have done it so long that they have become jaded to real outrage.

The bottom line is that the federal apparatus is too big.

When the U.S. in its current form was established in 1789 (between 11 states at that time that had ratified the new constitution), each Congressman represented 30,000 people. There was no income tax. There was no standing army. There was no central bank. Congress's powers were limited to only those specifically enumerated in Article I Section 8 - and no more. Today, each Congressman represents over 700,000 people. The federal budget is in the trillions. The people routinely pay nearly half of their income in taxes of one kind or another (absolutely unthinkable when we were British subjects!). Our empire spans over 130 countries around the globe in over 700 military bases that must be serviced, manned, and paid for. And it is all financed by a central bank shell-game that has devalued the dollar to below five cents of real value since the Federal Reserve's genesis in 1913.

Barring a radical (and speedy) reform of decentralization and a massive dismantling of the federal monster (both the welfare- and warfare-state), we are on an inevitable trajectory of dissolution, just as was the top-heavy Soviet Union (which also considered itself "indivisible"). We are simply on a path of growth that is unsustainable. And on top of all the crushing debt, inflationary monetary policy, expansion of war in Afghanistan, the explosion of federal regulations, the encyclopedic bills passed by Congressmen who do not even read them, the massive tsunami of retirees expecting a Social Security check and medicare - the federal government has now made it a top priority to seize control of the entire health care system for all American residents, legal and illegal. It is sheer madness that surpasses any of that of King George III. The federal government continues to find new ways to burden the states illegally - which explains the recent outbreak of state sovereignty declarations, and even calls for secession.

But, of course, the demi-gods in Congress have their own lucrative pension plan (insulated from the Social Security ponzi scheme of their creation for the "little people"). They have a world-class health insurance plan - unlike the socialized monster they have in store for the "hoi polloi." And unlike everyone else, individuals and businesses, Congress is never required to balance a budget. They can tax, and when the people complain about taxes, they simply print new money and pay with that (even as our dollars lose value). Somehow, even on salaries that are not exceedingly great, "public servants" at the federal level all seem to leave office as millionaires. Hmmm. I wonder how that works. It must be because they are so brilliant at managing money - which is pretty apparent, isn't it? One can certainly see why members of Congress bury their heads in the sand and expect the gravy train to keep rolling forever.

But they can only do it so long.

You cannot indefinitely pay MasterCard with Visa. You cannot continue to have an elevated standard of living with increased polities of Socialism. You cannot have freedom coexist with "central planning." Eventually, the military-industrial complex is spread too thin, and at some point, the money paid to the common soldier risking his life either devalues to scrip or simply runs dry. The people, military and civilian, will get increasingly angry and hostile, even as the states become less and less loyal to Washington.

It may go out with a bang, or with a whimper, but one way or the other, the entire federal-imperial house of cards is going to fall, and the demi-gods, exposed as the worthless idols that they are, will have to join the rest of us picking through the rubble to rebuild what they have destroyed.

A virtual tour in photos of Pompeii as it is today

Pompeii in Pictures

HT: Latinteach

Reflections on the ELCA

Just a few somewhat random thoughts concerning the recent high-profile actions by the assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

One of the issues is the problem that this body uses the name "Lutheran" - which has the tendency to tar-brush the rest of us. In other words, when we read articles in the newspapers like "Lutherans Endorse Homosexuality," this gives the impression that all Lutherans have done this, that the ELCA represents "Evangelical Lutheranism" in America. It's especially confusing for congregations like mine which is called "Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church" and yet is not a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

So, this confusion requires us to constantly point out that the ELCA is one specific denomination that claims the label " Lutheran." The church body that my congregation belongs to is the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS). We are not the same, nor do we share communion, churches, or ministers with the ELCA. We are different in a similar way that Mexico and New Mexico are two entirely different jurisdictions, even though they have some common shared history and even some overlapping linguistic and cultural heritage. They are simply two different entities that make use of the same name - though they are far from being the same.

There is a pastoral concern here. In spite of many years of solid pastoral teaching by my predecessors in this congregation, and an emphasis on catechesis and orthodoxy in doctrine, I have had several of my own parishioners recently either visit and in some cases commune in ELCA congregations. Others have moved away and considered joining ELCA congregations - owing to the name "Lutheran" on the door. I had one parishioner who had moved away send a request to me for a "transfer" to an ELCA congregation, unaware that our two congregations have no relationship or fellowship.

Sometimes, a family will face a choice between an established ELCA congregation that is enjoying worldly success with a beautiful facility and a large Sunday School and youth group, versus a small, struggling, or even a mission congregation of the LCMS that has no youth group or Sunday School to speak of, a humble building, but with a solid pastor. Situations like this make us really check our priorities. Would we rather our children be members of the ELCA and have a "vibrant" youth group, or would we rather them have solid teaching in the faith and fidelity to Scripture? And if no-one is willing to be the "pioneer" so to speak, and help the struggling or mission congregation grow and have children in the parish, how are they ever to have a "vibrant" youth group or Sunday School?

And what about five years from now, if the local ELCA congregation that is today "conservative" decides that their next pastor will be a lesbian? Or what about a hundred years from now when the decision to shun the LCMS congregation means that a good number of one's great grandchildren are now established in the ELCA congregation - while the LCMS congregation closed decades ago?

These are things that need to be considered now.

As far as the recent decisions to bless same-sex unions and allow open and unrepentant homosexuals to be rostered as church workers and pastors, this was inevitable. This decision was a foregone conclusion when the ELCA began accepting methods of biblical interpretation that expressed a belief that error could be found in the Scriptures, which encouraged the Bible to be read critically, if not dubiously - to the point where one could read a passage and draw a diametrically-opposite conclusion than the clear reading of the text. And this owes to a human desire not to submit to Scripture as God's Word, but rather use it as a tool to advance a certain political and social agenda. It is a case where preconceived conclusions and purpose-driven goals are allowed to replace Truth as the ultimate end of our study and theology.

The advance of the homosexual agenda was only the next logical step after the shattering of the barrier between the sexes when the ELCA began to "ordain" women. At that time, many predicted that the inevitable conclusion would be an endorsement of homosexuality. Those concerns were met with scoffing, dismissed as hysteria, by many in the movement to ordain women. The more conservative element within the ELCA is no longer scoffing, but are now shell-shocked and wondering where to go from here. There have been some who repented of women's ordination when they finally did accept the fact that they deviated from the path of Truth and this deviant path was leading to further deviation from Truth.

The other big news from Minnesota was that the ELCA was entering altar-and-pulpit fellowship with the United Methodist Church. Again, this was hardly a shock. The two denominations had already been sharing churches and ministers before the agreement. For many years, the ELCA had already been in communion with church bodies that denied the physical presence of Christ in Holy Communion, asserting only a spiritual presence. Entering into a communion arrangement with the Methodists takes things a step further, as the Methodists, unlike the Presbyterians (with whom the ELCA already shared fellowship and who believe in a spiritual presence) completely deny the presence of Christ in the bread and wine, relegating the elements of Holy Communion to mere symbols. Accoding to the Formula of Concord, church bodies that deny the real presence have no presence at all, and have no valid Eucharist (FC SD VII:32). The ELCA is thus condemned by the books it claims to confess.

None of this matters to the ELCA, in which unity trumps truth. It is more important to share communion than it is to agree what that communion is. It would be like the United States and Russia declaring that we are one country, while each operates under contradictory constitutions.

Again, the development of the of the ELCA entering communion with the Methodists is hardly a shock. Once they mounted the slippery slope of open communion, even allowing communion fellowship to go beyond what Lutherans believe about the Sacrament, it quickly degenerates and becomes a situation of "anything goes."

At this point, what is to hold the ELCA back from sharing communion and ministers with, say, Unitarians and various Pentecostal groups that deny the Trinity? What, ultimately, is to prevent communion with Wiccans and Hindus? What seemed impossible and scoff-worthy 30 years ago is today reality. Once the restraints of submission to Scripture have been torn asunder, what can be considered a boundary at all? There have already been Episcopal clergy who claim to be both Muslim and Christian or Muslim and Buddhist at the same time. The ELCA is in full communion with the Episcopal Church. The sky is the limit as to how this "unity" will play itself out.

Practically speaking, I can only hope that the shock value of the homosexual agenda will finally translate into a withdrawal of LCMS involvement with the ELCA. There is simply no reason for us to be involved in joint missionary work, joint chaplaincies, and joint school and university projects. There is no reason why any LCMS rostered (or unrostered) church workers should be sent to churches with ELCA pastors and workers, or to foreign seminaries that train female "pastors."

It is time for us to move on and recognize that the "division" has become a "chasm," to borrow President Kieschnick's terms, and did so decades ago. The chasm has, in fact, become a Rubicon that is now a permanent border of separation between us. As the office of the holy ministry is a mark of the church, and as God's Word makes it abundantly clear that women are not ontologically equipped to be pastors, how can one even recognize the ELCA in an ecclesiological way at all - even without the added anti-Scriptural sexual conclusions they have drawn?

I believe we need to consider the ELCA in its official, national, and organizational sense to be outside of the Church, no different than the Watchtower Society. In destroying the office of the ministry in their own parishes, they have made their exit from Church, ministry, and sacraments. This is not to say that there are not churches and faithful Christians located under the umbrella of the ELCA. But it is simply a fact that LCMS churches will increasingly be presented with the situation of bringing in members who were allegedly baptized by women "pastors" outside of any emergency baptism situation, and that some of those (questionable, to say the least) baptisms will have been done using euphemistic language, avoiding the Trinitarian formula decreed by Scripture.

We need to develop a clear vocabulary as to what constitutes heterodox baptisms and ordinations that we will accept (though being schismatic or laden in error), vs. what makes for baptisms and ordinations that are heretical or apostate, liturgical actions that we will not accept. I believe we need to be clear that not every error is "heresy" and not every errorist is a "heretic." We need to also find a way to teach everyone in our churches that formal communion fellowship is important. The name "Lutheran" does not mean the same thing everywhere, and just because "Lutheran" congregations outside of the LCMS will allow you to commune with them does not mean that you should, nor is it a guarantee that there really is communion going on in that place at all. It is entirely possible as of now to walk into a "Lutheran" (ELCA) church and have a Methodist minister blessing and distributing elements to Methodists, ELCA Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians all at the same time. What is actually being given and received there? The answer, according to FC SD VII:32 is "only bread and wine."

And as refugees may come from the ELCA clergy roster seeking status as LCMS pastors, are we going to make distinctions between those who have been "ordained" by women ministers of ordination/bishops vs. those who have been ordained by legitimate pastors? Some in the LCMS would undoubtedly argue that a woman "pastor" can indeed officiate at an ordination, or that the congregational "call" is all that suffices, or that ordination is only an optional ceremony anyway. Lack of clarity in our confession and consensus on these issues will come back to bite us, unless we figure these things out now.

We need to be clear about what is heretical vs. what is merely heterodox. It does not help our situation be be triumphalistic and be eager to operate under the self-aggrandizing notion that all things LCMS constitutes orthodoxy, and all that happens outside of our communion fellowship is heresy. We must recognize "the distinction between errors that threaten the foundation of the church and going astray in less weighty matters, in general the distinction between false teaching and mistaken belief, between heresy and erroneous opinion" (We Condemn, Hans-Werner Gensichen, 1967 edition, CPH, p. 7) - especially as people cross denominational lines for many reasons.

In spite of the name "Lutheran," I believe it would be better for a Lutheran with absolutely no alternatives but a conservative Baptist church and an ELCA congregation led by a woman to choose to attend the former rather than the latter (though a better alternative might be to stay home and pray the traditional offices of the Church together until a local congregation can be established). Similarly, I believe a local congregation has more claim on being a real church if their pastor is an unrepentant homosexual than a "conservative" woman claiming to hold the office. In other words, I believe the female "ordination" to be a far bigger scandal than having an unrepentant gay man as a pastor. We live in confusing and convoluted times.

Again, this confusion we are now experiencing is the inevitable result of dabbling in "open communion" and seeking to make the Scriptures submit to reason rather than vice versa. Once a church body starts down that road, they all end up in the same place. We have been warned by history playing out before our eyes.

Though it draws us further at odds with the majority of those who use the name "Lutheran" in our country and around the globe, and though it exposes us to further ridicule and alienation from the world and our culture (including the American religious scene), we need to cling to Scripture and the confessions. We need to continue to hold a clear and unambiguous understanding of church fellowship and altar-and-pulpit relationships. We need to draw very clear lines about what constitutes the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and what makes for valid ordination and baptism. And we have to do it in a way that seeks glory only for God, not to ourselves, in a way that is humble rather than self-congratulatory and prideful. For we are saved by grace. Correct doctrine is given and believed by grace rather than the other way around, lest any of us should boast.

And like any time of schism, heresy, doctrinal confusion, and upheaval in the Christian world, this is our opportunity to be very clear in our confession for the sake of Christ and His Church, not just for ourselves, but for our brethren around the world and for generations yet unborn.

Is Tradition a Bad Thing?

In response to this post about bad clerical vestments ("Tradition is always, always, always better"), FH reader and frequent commenter Theophilus responded:

"Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition."(Matthew 15:6) This judgment applies today as well. This is always a present danger when tradition overshadows Jesus' covenant-gospel proclamation.

And I'm glad he raised this issue. For our Blessed Lord comes down very hard against tradition several times.

In fact, one could certainly conclude that Jesus is against tradition! Many Protestant Christians, in response to medieval abuses and excesses by the Church, abolished a good number of traditions of the medieval and ancient church, such as the traditional liturgy, music, vestments, lectionary, calendar, etc. while some reforming groups went even further, abolishing sacramental absolution, the office of the ministry, instrumental music, infant baptism, and other ancient traditions of the church.

The Lutheran Reformation got rid of some traditions, such as the prayers to the saints, the withholding of the cup to the laity, indulgences, and the liturgical language of the canon of the Mass that refers to a propitious (sin-forgiving) sacrifice, offered ex opera operato (by the work itself apart from faith) for the living and the dead.

But the Lutherans kept a whole lot more than they got rid of. "We keep traditional liturgical forms, such as the order of the lessons, prayers, vestments, etc." (Ap 24:1)

So, is tradition a bad thing? And is Jesus is somehow condemning tradition that "overshadows Jesus' covenant-gospel proclamation" in Matthew 5:6?

In fact, in that part of Matthew 15, Jesus is not preaching the Gospel at all, but rather the Law. He lays into the Pharisees not because they are obscuring the Gospel, but rather because they are obscuring the Law. In verse 4, our Lord quotes the Fourth Commandment: "Honor your father and your mother" and then demonstrates how the Pharisees weaseled out of the demands of God's Law and the need to repent of their sins by inventing a new tradition designed to circumvent the law. He calls them "hypocrites" (v.7) and cites Isaiah 29:13, applying it against their "teachings as doctrines the commandments of men." In this passage, Jesus never mentions the Gospel at all.

The preaching of Jesus is certainly more than the Gospel, the good news of forgiveness. Jesus's first sermon recorded in Mark's Gospel is a call to "repent" (Mark 1:15). A good bit of the Sermon on the Mount is Law, rather than Gospel. And Jesus doesn't shy away from warning His hearers hell and the wrath of God. There is a tendency among many in our culture toward a "gospel reductionism" by which the Lord's call to repentance and the truly Good News that "by His stripes we are healed," are allowed to be overshadowed by the misunderstanding that Jesus's primary mission is to be a Gandhi or Oprah or Mister Rogers telling us all to be nice.

Jesus is not merely excoriating the Pharisees for allowing tradition to trump the "covenant-gospel proclamation," but rather the "Word of God" - which includes the "whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27), the Law as well as the Gospel. The faux-traditionalism of the Pharisees was more often a way to circumvent the Law that they purported to uphold than anything concerning the Gospel.

St. Paul himself actually refers to the Christian faith that he preached and taught as "tradition":

"Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you." (1 Cor 11:2)

"Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle." (2 Thess 2:15)

"But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us." (2 Thess 3:6)

Note that in the 1 Corinthians passage, St. Paul refers to the traditions being "delivered." This same theme comes across in the 2 Thessalonians passages, as the traditions are both "taught" and "received."

The Greek word is "paradosis" - which means literally a "handing over" of something from one person to another, like a relay runner's baton. It can also mean to "hand over" in the sense of arresting someone - such as when our Lord was "handed over" (betrayed) by Judas. The Latin version of the word is "tradidi" - from where we get both of the words "tradition" and "traduce." St. Paul uses this same word in a bit of wordplay when he writes about the Lord's Supper "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;" (1 Cor 11:23). In other words, just as Jesus was "handed over" - so too does Paul receive that which was "handed over" to him, and he "handed it over" to the Corinthian Christians. This "handing over" (Greek: paradidomi, Latin: tradidi) is the very essence of Christian teaching. Our Lord taught the apostles, who in turn "hand over" this teaching. We, in turn, receive this apostolic teaching that is "handed over" (tradition!) to us, preserve it, and hand it over to those who come after us. This is why we confess the church to be " one holy, catholic, and apostolic."

This is a very different thing indeed than what our Lord is criticizing.

For the Pharisaic tradition is rooted in trying to distort God's Word, rather than uphold it. And this is why the traditional liturgy of the Church is so important. The liturgy is a repetition of the Word of God, spoken, chanted, and sung between pastor and people, for the sake of the Word of God, encompassing the Law and the Gospel, "handing over" the Word of God from one generation to the next - even among those who cannot read, the very old, the very young, and the illiterate. This same Word of God was handed over by our Lord, the apostles, the Church throughout the ages, and to us today. God's Word is thus preserved in tradition - which is why St. Paul commends tradition and exhorts is to keep the biblical, apostolic tradition.

Tradition that "nullifies" the Word of God is a bad thing, and must go. Tradition that upholds the Word of God is a good thing that ought to be retained. This was a very important principle guiding the Lutheran reformers, and it continues to guide Traditionalist Lutherans today.

Those who cut themselves off from the apostolic tradition cut themselves off from the Lord Jesus Christ and the Word of God, and are left with nothing more than their own imaginings and the sorts of "traditions" of the Pharisees that our Lord condemns.

Sermon: Trinity 11

23 August 2009 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA

Text: Luke 18:9-14 (Gen 4:1-15, Eph 2:1-10)

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

In the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord uses three “whens” describing the Christian life: “When you give to the needy…. When you pray…. When you fast.” These are not options. These are simply things Christians do. To be selfish with what the Lord has given us, to refuse to pray, and to allow our bellies to master us instead of vice versa are indeed all contrary to the Christian faith. These are sins we all need to constantly confess, struggle against, and repent of.

But there is a sin that is far worse and far more dangerous than forgetting to pray or eating the large order of fries – and that is the sin of self-righteousness. For this is rooted in the devilish lie that we can be righteous by ourselves, which is to say, we don’t need a Savior, that the Lord’s death on the cross was a worthless sacrifice.

In His presentation of a story, through the characters of the Pharisee and the tax collector, our Lord is comparing and contrasting two opposing religions.

The Pharisee indeed carries out the three “whens” of the Sermon on the Mount. He gives to the needy – a whole tithe, a ten percent of all that he gets. He prays. In fact, he prays a prayer of thanks right in the Temple that he isn’t like the tax collector! He also fasts, not merely once a week on the Sabbath, but twice that amount! The Pharisee is a religious man. But his religion is misguided. For he is exalting himself rather than glorifying God.

On the other side of the coin, we have the tax collector. These folks were scorned not only as collaborators with the Romans, but as greedy cheats. So terrible are the sins of the tax collector that he stands away from the altar, beats his breast, bows his head in humble prayer, and pleads: “Be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.”

“I tell you,” says our Lord, “this man,” the tax collector, “went down to his house justified, rather than the other,” the almsgiving, praying, fasting Pharisee. “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

It is sinful not to give to the needy, not to pray, and not to fast. It is sinful not to go to church and to avoid study of God’s Word. It is sinful when other church bodies that have the name “Lutheran” ordain women and give the church’s blessing to homosexuality, among other false doctrines. It is sinful for tax collectors and public officials to accept bribes and fleece the people. It is sinful to engage in sexually provocative dancing, to sing along with blasphemous music that mocks our Lord and our faith, to gamble away the money the Lord has provided to sustain the family, to drink to excess, and to indulge the lusts and passions and cravings of the flesh.

And indeed, people repent of these sins all the time, thanks be to God. But the really dangerous sin is self-righteousness. For it is much harder to recognize, let alone confess and root out.

Self-righteousness camouflages itself behind a religious façade. It lurks just under the surface of tithing, praying, and fasting. It grows like a weed alongside of church attendance and bible study. It actually thrives among those who attend churches that are more doctrinally pure and theologically rigorous. And it can take over the souls of those who go on crusades against drinking, dancing, gambling, smoking, the wearing of make-up, the partaking of Mardi Gras festivities, or even the enjoying of a fudge brownie or cup of coffee.

For the danger is that such attitudes deceive our sinful flesh by the desire to claim some degree of credit for our justification – as though we have the ability to be righteous unto our selves.

But this Pharisaical self-righteousness is condemned by St. Paul in his letter, his pastoral reminder, to the Christian Church in Ephesus, that “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

“No one may boast.”

Pride, boasting, and the pointing out of the sins of others in order to exalt oneself has no place among Christians. For we are to do all the good works that the Pharisee did, all of the “whens” of Jesus – but we are to do them with humility, in the knowledge and understanding that these works count for nothing towards our righteousness. They do not justify us, and are therefore nothing to boast of. In fact, we should, like the tax collector, be so consumed with the horrific nature of our own many and manifold sins, that we should derive no pleasure from the sins, errors, and false doctrine of others.

There is no room for Schadenfreude (that is, taking pleasure in the failings of others) in the Christian faith and life.

The genuine Christian, that is, the tax collector, bowed his head, stressed his unworthiness, and humbly prayed the very words of our liturgy in search of forgiveness. As a result, the tax collector’s lowly head was lifted up in exaltation. He was declared worthy and righteous by God’s grace “because of the great love with which He loved us,” and his sins were forgiven by God, who is “rich in mercy.”

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are saved by grace alone, through faith, as a result of our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross. This gift was given to us purely gratis by way of the proclaimed Gospel, Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Holy Supper. In securing our righteousness, Jesus has done it all, and we have done nothing. In fact, we have done worse than nothing, because we are “poor, miserable sinners.”

If you give to the needy, pray, and fast, it is by grace alone. God be praised! If your church holds fast to biblical doctrine and the orthodox Christian faith, it is purely a gift. God be praised! If you don’t engage in various social ills that have become acceptable in our society, it is purely by the love and mercy of God that you are held in this faith. God be praised! For not even the Pharisee had the right to boast, and not even the Pharisee went to his home justified. Soli Deo Gloria! To God alone be the glory!

We have no worthiness in us, and no reason to boast. And this, dear friends, is good news indeed! For it means that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

And when we, by the grace of God and through faith alone, do any good thing for the sake of the kingdom, all glory, all boasting, all credit goes to Him alone. And what comfort and joy this is!

For He has “raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith.” Amen.

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