I cannot "teach" the Church Year

... or the liturgy or any number of other important items.

I am finishing up an Adult Catechism Class. It is a fine group of eager catechumens.

But no matter how long or extensive the class, it is impossible in a few months or in a catechism setting to get across what is really happening in the church year or the liturgy. I can explain them, of course, but it is then simply a set of facts, data.

The truth is that the church year must be experienced over years repeatedly for it really to be "learned". It must become a part of oneself, a part of one's piety to to truly be understood. Catechesis is lifelong.

Same with the liturgy. I can dissect the parts show how they fit together, where they come from in the Scpripture and in history, what they mean, why they are so precious but until you pray the liturgy week after week. in joy and tears, when your family member has died, when you are baptizing your child or grandchild, month after month, you do not really understand the liturgy.

Catechesis is lifelong. The school of the Word, forming and shaping.

I hate when catechism class ends because I have an overwhelming feeling that these students are not done. And they aren't. Neither am I. What is left on my part as pastor is prayer that they will continue in the faith, continue week after month after year in the lap of mother church, singing praying and receiving.

Mollie Ziegler Blog on Get Religion

It is coming. So says this post. I am looking forward to it. Many of you probably know of Mollie Ziegler. You can read all about her in the entry. She should be quite interesting, she is, as the note says, a "live wire".

She begins on or about December 1.

Christian Karaoke and Doubt as a Religion

The Hickory, NC paper ran a story (which is not on the Web unfortunately) on a new business venture: a Christian karaoke cafe. Aarrgghhh! Karaoke is bad enough but sing along to praise songs, Amy Grant? Isn't that what contemporary worhsip is, anyway? Actually the praise worship I have been exposed to has been very weak on congregational singing. The band and show off vocalists tend to hog the show and intimidate the voice out of the congregation.

And last week this story ran in the LA Times focusing on Universism, a new religion that has only one tenet: uncertainty.


Universists might believe in God, or might not. (Personally, Vox thinks he does.)

The only dogma they must accept is uncertainty.

Relinquishing any hope of cosmic truth, Universists worship by wondering how we got here, and why, and what lies ahead.


The Internet is key :


From his base here in the Bible Belt (Alabama), Vox has built an online congregation of more than 8,000 in the last two years. They meet in cafes and living rooms across the nation; they join online chats with scientists and theologians; they find profundity in admitting their confusion.


And, of course, even skeptics end up with a creed:


Vox wrote tens of thousands of words about this new faith for the faithless. For a guy devoted to doubt, he sounded pretty sure of himself:

"Universism seeks to solve a problem that has riddled mankind throughout history: the endless string of people who claim that they know the Truth and the Way." His religion, he wrote, would "dispel the illusion of certainty that divides humanity into warring camps." It would unite the world.

"It wasn't arrogance," Vox said. "I'm not a guru. I just feel that a lot of the things people believe in, they should be a lot less certain about."

Skeptics point out that Vox demands certainty about his own concept of truth — namely, that it doesn't exist. Russell D. Moore, dean at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, dismisses Universism as a bleak "parody of a church."

He adds: "It's very hard to create a sense of community around a nonbelief."

Harry Potter and the Acquisition of Virtue

I told myself I would not blog this month about Narnia, Thanksgiving or Harry Potter figuring so many others would. Well I have not yet blogged on Thanksgiving.

But here goes Harry P.

I saw the movie Wednesday with three of my children and two nephews and a niece.


My brief thoughts on Harry P in general as a casual fan, not a scholar of the books and films. Harry P. is, I think, not an overtly Christian fantasy but it is a helpful one. It is helpful in illustrating and fleshing out a story about the acquisition of virtue. Harry P's quest is one of growth in the battle against evil, in courage, and in sacrificing himself for the good of others and the defeat of that evil which is arrayed against him.

Virtue, self sacrifice and the growth of goodness in battle against evil is harldy a uniquely Christian theme but has great value nonetheless. It is a story which touches on how we live and what is the good thing to do and the chances we take and the risks and the hurt we encounter trying to be the people we are supposed to be.

The most helpful piece I have read on Harry P is this one ( a while back in Touchstone) which relates Harry P to the alchemist tradition in English literature. Very interesting and convincing.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/16.9docs/16-9pg34.html


Here are a few paragraphs:


So what was alchemy? It was a traditional or sacred science, supporting the work of the revealed tradition and its means of grace, for the purification and perfection of the alchemist’s soul in correspondence with the metallurgical perfection of a base metal into gold. It requires a view of man and of creation or cosmology that is opposite and contradictory to that of the physical scientist and chemist of today, for whom alchemists had only disdain; they thought of men who were interested in matter only for its manipulation as “charcoal burners” and anything but wise. To an alchemist, the chemist neglects the greater thing in the lesser thing—and in himself.


Rowling clearly understands both “alchemy in literature” and the “alchemy of literature.” Her books satisfy the need in us, born in a profane culture without heroes or avenues of transcendent experience—a materialist world in which such experience is not considered possible by “serious people”—of at least an imaginative experience of human transformation and perfection. We get this experience in our identification with Harry, and we are better, more human even, for having been at least for a while in the alembic vessel, changing from spiritual lead to gold, dying and rising from the dead. In brief, Rowling’s novels are so popular because her works transform the human person via imaginative identification, katharsis, and resurrection.

The great irony in the objections that Rowling’s books undermine or violate the tenets of the Christian faith is that her books offer initiation, not into the occult, but into the symbolist worldview of revealed faiths (and sacramental religions specifically) and the dominant symbols and doctrines of traditional Christianity. Ignorance of alchemy and the larger traditions of English literature—not to mention the Christian understanding of the relations of faith and secular culture—has caused many to turn away a great help, perhaps providential, in the trouble and struggle we have to prepare our children for fully human, which is to say “spiritual,” lives.

Christ's First and Second Coming

From Cyril of Jerusalem


We preach not one advent only of Christ, but a second also, far more glorious than the former. For the former gave a view of His patience; but the latter brings with it the crown of a divine kingdom.

For all things, for the most part, are twofold in our Lord Jesus Christ: a twofold generation; one, of God, before the ages; and one, of a Virgin, at the close of the ages: His descents twofold; one, the unobserved, like rain on a fleece; and a second His open coming, which is to be. In His former advent, He was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger; in His second, He covereth Himself with light as with a garment In His first coming, He endured the Cross, despising shame; in His second, He comes attended by a host of Angels, receiving glory.

We rest not then upon His first advent only, but look also for His second. And as at His first coming we said, Blessed is fire that cometh in the Name of the Lord, so will we repeat the same at His second coming; that when with Angels we meet our Master, we may worship Him and say, Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord. The Saviour comes, not to be judged again, but to judge them who judged Him; He who before held His peace when judged, shall remind the transgressors who did those daring deeds at the Cross, and shall say, These things hast thou done, and I kept silence. Then, He came because of a divine dispensation, teaching men with persuasion; but this time they will of necessity have Him for their King, even though they wish it not.

Cyril of Jersualem, Catechectical Lecture XV. (Here)

Dogmatics and the Bible

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/011/23.66.html

Ben Witherington III takes on the Biblical basis for all three of these theologies. An interesting interview. One wonders what he would say of Lutheranism. Maybe we ought to mail him a Book of Concord.

He brings up the point of how dogmatics must be supported exegetically. Seems obvious but in practice somwtimes this point is lost. We sometimes may think teaching the Bible is not really teaching Lutheran theology since everybody teaches the Bible.

When I teach a class in my parish on a book of the Bible or a story, we are learning Lutheran dogmatics but learning it exegetically. Abraham and Sarah teach justification by faith, David and Bathsheba Law and Gospel ( and Absolution !) and so on.

There is only one truth but that truth is expressed in many ways in the church. Sermons speak differently than hymns and hymns differently than the Catechism.
Dogmatics has the job of safeguarding and expressing in precise language the content of the faith so that it is not lost or disfigured. That truth which dogmatics guard is expressed prayed and sung in other ways in the life of the church.

Attacks on Narnia

I thought I might be the only blogger or media outlet that did not mention CS Lewis or Narnia in November but here I go.

Adam Gopnick in the latest New Yorker takes out an ill informed hatchet and wields it on on C.S. Lewis.
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/051121crat_atlarge

And the NYT just does not get religion, at least the Christian religion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/movies/13narnia.html?8hpib

For a rebuttal of both go here :

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~edwards/news.html

You talk too much

I have a little scientific formula ( lets call it the Alms theory)

The amount of actual mission work that is done is in inverse proportion to the amount of talk about missions.

I believe this to be true on denominational level, district, congregational and pastoral.

Jesus meant us to go and "gospel" peopel not wring our hands about mission and stats and how effective we are. He said "Go and baptize and preach." He did not say, "Go analyze yourself preaching and evangelizing." We get so hung up on berating ourselves and energizing ourselves to do mission and be mission orented. The fact is all we are doing is looking, pointing and drawing attention to oursleves. It is not about us. It is about the gospel.

So stop talking about missions and go and do it. Forget the big mission emphasis and the workshops and the training. Just be Christians. Be the church , ok? Preach, forgive, receive, sing, pray.

The Triumph of Faith

In Christ's person, exists all sin (the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world) and all divinity. Good Friday/Easter is a battle within Christ's person wherein all sin and death are slayed. Faith participates in and has a real union with this living divine person so that by faith Christians can say, "I have no sin."
Luther writes:

To the extent that Christ rules by His grace in the hearts of the faithful, there is no sin or death or curse. But where Christ is not known, there these things remain. And so all who do not believe lack this blessing and this victory. "For this" as John says, "is our victory, faith." 1535 Commentary on Galatians. LW 26:282


Here is where the blessed exchange theology of Luther fits in. Christ is the greatest sinner; we are the purest Son of God. We absorb his life and righteousness; he our wretchedness and death.


A long quote follows but it is a dandy. It is amazing how Luther turns our normal thoughts upside down. We normally think sin is present in the flesh, world and sinners and Christ is holy, pure, righteous and without sin. But Luther says the opposite: sinners are free and pure and Christ is where sin is. Do not look for your sin in your heart, look for it on the cross, Luther is saying. That is what faith can see and no other sense can make out.


This the existential battle of faith. Rationality, common sense, indeed all our senses and mind and heart cry out that we are sinners, our birhtright is teh lost-ness of this existence. Yet God's word says There is no sin in you it is all on Christ and he has buried it, bled it away and you, Christian, are joined to him in faith. So faith must turn away from its senses, it experience and cling to the promise.

I will let Luther say it :


Now that Christ reigns, there is in fact no more sin, death, or curse - this we confess every day in the Apostles' Creed when we say: "I believe in the holy church." This is plainly nothing else than if we were to say: "I believe that there is no sin and no death in the church. For believers in Christ are not sinners and are not sentenced to death but are altogether holy and righteous, lords over sin and death who live eternally."


But it is faith alone that discerns this, because we say: "I believe in the holy church." If you consult your reason and your eyes, you will judge differently. For in devout people you will see many things that offend you; you will see them fall now and again, see them sin, or be weak in faith, or be troubled by a bad temper, envy, or other evil emotions. "Therefore the church is not holy." I deny the conclusion that you draw. If I look at my own person or at that of my neighbor, the church will never be holy. But if I look at Christ, who is the Propitiator and Cleanser of the church, then it is completely holy; for He bore the sins of the entire world.


Therefore where sins are noticed and felt, there they really are not present. For, according to the theology of Paul there is no more sin, no more death, and no more curse in the world, but only in Christ, who is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, and who became a curse in order to set us free from the curse.


On the other hand, according to philosophy and reason, sin, death, etc., are not present anywhere except in the world, in the flesh, and in sinners. For the theology of the sophists is unable to consider sin any other way except metaphysically, that is: "A quality clings to a substance or a subject. Therefore just as color clings to a wall, so sin clings to the world, to the flesh, or to the conscience. Therefore it must be washed away by some opposing motivations, namely, by love."


But the true theology teaches that there is no more sin in the world, because Christ, on whom, according to Is. 53:6, the Father has laid the sins of the entire world, has conquered, destroyed, and killed it in His own body. Having died to sin once, He has truly been raised from the dead and will not die anymore (Rom. 6:9). Therefore wherever there is faith in Christ, there sin has in fact been abolished, put to death, and buried. But where there is no faith in Christ, there sin remains. ! 1535 Commentary on Galatians. LW 26:285-86


(All of this is a summary/reaction to Mannerma's book: "Christ Present in Faith")

Joshua, the Pastor

Joshua had a great task ahead of him. He was to enlarge God's kingdom, defeat the enemies so the kingdom could grow. It was a mission opportunity.


Don’t you think Joshua was tempted to be the visionary mission developer? Don't you think Joshua really wanted to use spears and swords and catapults and whatever weapons he could think of? Don’t you think Joshua wanted to devise some strategies, the latest military techniques? After all, he was the one in charge of enlarging the kingdom. There he was ready to embark on a great church expansion. Don't you think he was tempted to say, "Ok we've got to use new thinking now. It is a whole new situation. No more wilderness thinking. That’s the old paradigm. No more wilderness maintenance ministry. Now, its Promised Land time, time to grow, expand."


And what does the Lord say? "Use the Ark, the dusty old ark. Use the priests. Use trumpets. Have a procession, a liturgical procession and that , Joshua, is how the kingdom will live."


The Lord says to Joshua. "Joshua, use these, You are not fighting the battle, I am. You are not growing the kingdom, I am. You are not giving the land to the people I am. Use these instruments. I have promised to work through them. They will do the job. I am doing this, not you. Believe in my Word, in my promise. It is crazy, nutty, silly but the walls will come down if you march around and blow trumpets, I promise."


I feel like Johsua alot. Water on the head gives eternal life? Really? Can't see a thing. This bread is the body of Christ? Eating this bread is taking into my body the flesh of God? Preaching to these stubborn people is the power of God? So easy to use, have faith, trust in something else. My personality, learning, hard work. That's what is really going to work, keep the church going, expanding.


Faith, faith, faith. The pastor's vocation (all vocations in the end) is one of faith, Joshua's faith. God will do it. Now we are marching around Jericho. Soon the walls will fall.

Jesus, the only sinner

(These posts on Luther -starting with the previous one- are little ongoing summaries of an excellent book I am reading:Christ Present in Faith: Luther’s View of Justification by Tuomo Mannerma. The book summarizes the Finnish school of Luther interpretation which finds an affinity in Luther for the doctrine of “theosis” in patristic thought. It very much worth reading.)

Here is Luther:

This is the most joyous of all doctrines and the one that contains the most comfort. It teaches that we have the indescribable and inestimable mercy and love of God. When the merciful Father saw that we were being oppressed through the Law, that we were being held under a curse, and that we could not be liberated from it by anything, He sent His Son into the world, heaped all the sins of all [people] upon Him, and said to Him: "Be Peter the denier; Paul the persecutor, blasphemer, and assaulter; David the adulterer; the sinner who ate the apple in paradise; the thief on the cross." In short, be the person of all men, the one who has committed the sins of all men. Commentary on Galatians (1535) LW 26:280.


So, not only is Jesus the greatest sinner, he becomes the only sinner. All sin is now in his person and the rest of humanity has none. There is, then, a blessed tension in the person of Christ. On the one hand he is divine, righteous, blessing, grace and life. Yet, on the other, he is THE sinner, the one who is and has committed all sins. The drama of the atonement, of the cross then is the drama of Christ’s own person. When Christ triumphs at Easter, risen from the dead, he has triumphed over all sin and death, for all sin was in his person. Cross and Resurrection are not separate events, the atonement is not one thing and Easter another. When we are joined to the body of Christ we are joined to that body which has in itself triumphed over sin.

Jesus, the Greatest Sinner of All

It is said so often Jesus was perfect the only human being who was ever perfect. This truism often has the opposite effect it intends. It intends to present Jesus as the Savior, as God in flesh for us.

But what it often does is reinforce the distance that we sinners feel from Christ. Jesus is perfect; we are not. Jesus is sinless; we are guilty. Jesus is God; we are human. There seems to be a great distance between Jesus and ourselves. This is not what the Scriptures are after when presenting the Incarnation and Atonement.

Luther writes a fascinating paragraph that takes the very opposite tack : Jesus, not as the perfect one but as the dirty sinner, the greatest sinner, the worst sinner of all. Notice how Luther brings Christ close to us, by emphasizing his sinfulness.


And all the prophets saw this, that Christ was to become the greatest thief, murderer, adulterer, robber, desecrator, blasphemer, etc., there has ever been anywhere in the world. He is not acting in His own Person now. Now He is not the Son of God, born of the Virgin. But He is a sinner, who has and bears the sin of Paul, the former blasphemer, persecutor, and assaulter; of Peter, who denied Christ; of David, who was an adulterer and a murderer, and who caused the Gentiles to blaspheme the name of the Lord (Rom. 2:24). In short, He has and bears all the sins of all [people] in His body--not in the sense that He has committed them but in the sense that He took these sins, committed by us, upon His own body, in order to make satisfaction for them with His own blood.

Commentary on galatains (1535)LW 26:277

Fad Driven Church

Pr. Todd Wilken, host of the radio program Issues Etc on KFUO, has written a nice little article entitled "The Fad Driven Church." You can read it here.

Here are some good quotes:


Os Guinness has written recently about the "idol of relevance" and accurately described the mentality of the fad-driven church:

And of course, whatever is next must be a great deal better still... The past is beside the point, outdated, reactionary, and stagnant. In a word that is today's supreme term of dismissal, the past is irrelevant, Everything Christian from worship to evangelism must be fresh, new, up-to-date, attuned, appealing, seeker- sensitive, audience-friendly, and relentlessly relevant... ."All new," "must-read; "the sequel that is more than equal" - the mentality is rampant and the effect is corrosive.7



William Inge said, "Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next." Take away the fads, and what of the Church is left in the fad-driven church? In some cases, what's left isn't the church at all, but a collection of principles, practices and ideas that don't add up to anything resembling the Christian faith. Rather than "the pattern of sound words"10 there are only the remnants of past fads.



In the name of saving the lost, the fad-driven is trading the saving message of the Gospel for the newest gimmick. If such a church does reach the lost, will it have anything to say that can save them? ... Will the fad-driven church give Cristians Jesus or Jabez, lasting forgiveness or the latest fashion? And for the member of the fad-driven church who has known nothing but fads, will these fads leave her a Christian on her deathbed (or will she be left wondering what that whirlwind of best-sellers, seminars, video sermons and three-ring binders was all about?)



As I write this, my 12 year-old daughter is convinced that hip-hugger bell-bottoms are the greatest idea in fashion history. I don't have the heart to tell her that I used to think so too. She thinks her father looks old-fashioned and lacks all sense of style. I don't have the heart to tell her that I look back at pictures of my bell- bottom days and laugh. I don't have the heart to tell her that someday she will do the same. The Church is an old man who has been wearing the same clothes in the same style his whole life. He refuses to change with the fashions. He simply lets the fads pass him by. Yes, he seems behind the times. But look again at what he is wearing. He is clothed in Christ.

Issues Etc

I will be on Issues Etc on KFUO this Sunday (13th) night 11- 1 am EST.

The topic is "The Fad Driven Church." I think you can listen online and all that stuff and also catch it later on the Web if you cant hear it as it happens.

www.kfuo.org

Should be fun. So if you cannot sleep and want to hear some good theology to put you to sleep ....

Vocation, Grace and Gospel

The vocation discussion in Lutheran blog circles goes on in several places. Here is my feeble attempt at trying to express what I have been hearing. It is too long I know. If you don't have the patience to read it, I dont blame you. I hate long posts (ecept my own!).

I begin with a question : is there a difference in our speaking between grace and Gospel?

Grace connotes gift, of course, and all good things are gifts from God. Food , family, fun become for the baptized opportunities to recognize/experience the goodness of God, indeed his grace, in gifting us with such things. Baptism situates us in a new relationship to God and to our daily life. No longer are we trudging through our tasks as though righteousness and life depended upon them. Christ whose death and resurrection and risen life claim us in our baptism has done all and given all to us.

Through baptism we are re-ordered to Eden, in a manner of speaking. In our baptismal life, Law has no hold on us and we receive God gifts as grace in faith, trusting in them for life as God intends. Our baptism is an eschatological reality which restores us to a pristine relationship with our Creator, a relationship of grace and faith, giving and receiving. This grace and faith is lived out in eating, working, playing. In the garden, all gifts of God were grace and man's posture was one of reception, that is faith. Grace and faith marked man's relationship with God, even with no sin or condemning Law. There was no Eucharist, for all meals were Eucharist, food that carried God's very presence, received in thanksgiving. There was no baptism, for in every moment man was clothed with innocence and righteousness and experienced every moment as God's gift and presence. This is the baptismal life we live today through faith.

Gospel on the other hand has the sense of proclamation, though we use it in shorthand speech as meaning grace or forgiveness or God for us. Gospel carries with it the connotation not just of grace as gift (God's goodness received as such by the baptized) but of a message (not a mere message, of course, but words which effect what they proclaim) of God's grace and favor in Christ. The Gospel comes as good news, as power for salvation to bring what we otherwise do not have: Christ and his victory over sin and his pardon and righteousness. This Gospel is not available to us in this life in the ordinary things of creation because of the wreckage of sin: nature itself is muted to us and cursed and we are ourselves disfigured and have no mechanism of ourselves to receive God's goodness in a ruined creation.

The Gospel for the baptized is available in special places where God again takes up his creation and uses it as He first intended : to give us his gifts of divine life. These gifts overcome our sin and establish and maintain us in a new relationship with God. The fact of sin and the fallen world make these special God's places necessary. Not all creation is Gospel for God has not marked all his creation as Gospel. They are working, active-on-us foretastes of the feast to come.

In this way of speaking , my family (my vocation) is not Gospel to me. Yes, as one baptized, as one Gospel-ized and placed in a new relationship with the Creator who has given me my family, I experience my family as gift and grace and goodness. I also experience my family as burden and accusation and death which is why I must flee to those Gospel places the bits of the creation God has set up for me to be Gospel-ized.

Blessed Assurance

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain:
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.


The Lutheran comment I have heard on this very popular "old" hymn is that there is no assurance in it at all! It is filled with expressions of joy and happiness but no mention is made of the places where true assurance is found: in the God established places where God gives Christ and his gifts.

Christians sometimes have this temptation to look to ourselves and our experiences for assurance that God loves us. The joys and gifts we experience prompt us to say wow God loves me! And of course He does and we see his gifts in our food ( we say "grace" after all) in our families and in our fun.

But in all of these things we do not have real and lasting assurance. There is a danger in saying I know God loves me because he feeds me. What if you have no food? There is a danger in saying I know God loves me because God ha given me such a good family. What if your Dad is a jerk?

Real assurance that does not fail is given through Gods word. God's Word proclaimed to us, the living active word of God is a strong fortress that will not fail. It is a fortress because it is true and does not change. That Word of God comes to us and assures us that God loves us in spite of our sin and has sacrificed his Son for our life. That Word comes to us attached to physical things transmitted through human voice so that we can have definite places to run to in the midst of sin and uncertainty.

Baptism, Supper, Absolution are the fortresses of certainty for us as we journey to heaven. They are cities of refuge for sinners chased by avengers. They are harbor, rock, refuge, shadow ands strength. They are blessed assurance!

What a tussle!

If you have not been following it, the blogs over at Higher Things have been engaged in quite a discussion on vocation and Law and Gospel and whether the new life of a Christian is properly called Gospel and what is the Gospel anyway. It touches on alot of important themes in Lutheran theology. It is well worth a look.... if you have a couple, three hours.

Check it out here and

here and

here and

Pr. Petersen has some comments on his excellent blog here.

Video saints, skins, Yancey and vocation

Some random thoughts ...

1. A neighboring LCMS church plans to use a screen and projector on this coming All Saint Sunday to project photos and videos of the departed members whom they are remembering. Is it just me or does that seem a tad much? Can you say "anthropocentric"?

2. Isn't the fact that God kills animals and clothes Adam and Eve with the skins a cool text? They try to cover their shame with clothing of leaves but God makes a sacrifice (something dies) to truly cover them. Works righteousness versus vicarious atonement.

3. Here are some interesting reflections by Philip Yancey on being Christian in our culture today. Here is a good quote about the change in perspective from a largely Christian culture to one that is not :

Josh asked me to recommend some books by C. S. Lewis or someone else who could explain the faith in a way that he could understand. "My sister sends me Christian books, but they're totally unconvincing," he said. "They seem written for people who already believe them." I happily complied.

Reflecting on our conversation, I remembered a remark by Lewis, who drew a distinction between communicating with a society that hears the gospel for the first time and one that has embraced and then largely rejected it. A person must court a virgin differently than a divorcée, said Lewis. One welcomes the charming words; the other needs a demonstration of love to overcome inbuilt skepticism.


4. Some parts of the blog world are discussing the Lutheran doctrine of vocation quite vigorously. (Check out the Higher Things Blogs and the comments sections) Here Professor John Pless has a paper that focuses on the relation between liturgy and vocation.

Where is Mary ?

Where is Mary?


One of the joys of this All Saints time in the church year is the knowledge that our earthly worship is joined with that of heaven. We sing the Sanctus with the angelic hosts (Isaiah 6). The scenes of the Apocalypse roll back the curtain to show us the heavenly throngs gathered around the wedding Supper of the Lamb and, in joyful faith, we dare to join in the same feast at the altar of our Lord's body and blood.


One of the nice hymns of this time of year is "Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones" (The Lutherna Hymnal #475 and Lutheran Worship #308). In this hymn, we get a direct sense of being engaged in worship with the heavenly hosts . Each verse is spoken to differing groups in the heavenly choir : watchers holy ones (those would be saints) seraphs, cherubim, patriarchs, prophets, martyrs the Apostles. All join in the one pursuit for which we were created : praise of the Holy Trinity.


In the TLH version, there is one complete verse given to the Blessed Virgin Mary the "bearer of the eternal Word". The verse, in poetic fashion as the rest of the hymn, invites Mary, who is "higher than the cherubim" and "more glorious than the Seraphim" to lead the praises of the church. This makes perfect sense for she is the first NT hymn writer to magnify the Lord for the gift of Christ the Incarnate God. I have no doubt she is at the head of the heavenly choir.


But here is the strange thing. LW leaves out the verse given to Mary! I have always found this strange. What exactly were the editors afraid of? Why couldn't we address the bearer of the Eternal Word in the 1980s if we could in the 1940's? I am sure it has something to do with fear of Roman Catholicism and the specter of praying to the saints. But we must beware that our fear of falling into one ditch of idolatry toward the saints does not lead us into the opposite ditch of cutting short the fullness of the Biblical image of worship so that we impoverish our liturgy.


We do sing with Mary and all the saints. She does join us in praise of Her Son: "Most Gracious, magnify the Lord!"

A Golden Aardvark

I love getting awards.

Even a golden aardvark. Aardvark Alley (Pr. Walt Snyder) has awarded me witht this august distinction and I resemble it!

Anyway, thanks, Pr Aardvark. A. Alley is a fine blog. As is his other blog Ask the Pastor

Check out all his other golden aardvark awards. It makes for fine blog reading.

Little things

Little things. The church lives on little things. The crucified flesh of a Jewish man. Words of absolution. Water. Bread. Wine. The big and flashy, the church ignores. Famous, powerful, wealthy? The church pays no mind. All must bow their head at the font of baptism. Good looks, strength, reputation? The call to repent strikes all ears the same.


The church gets off-track when she pays attention to the big and observable things : programs that work, the moral lives of members, the cash balance at the end of the year. These things seem so real to us : we can see them and know them and make sense of them, feel them. They are "big" in our eyes.


The lurching of the church toward “big things” like social justice or programs or revivals or emotional charismatic renewal is at base a loss of faith, an attempt to get something solid to stand on. It is an attempt to give a stronger foundation for this crazy idea that God is with us and has made us and redeemed us and will bring
us to himself.


But the church lives on the little things. And she makes a big deal about the little things : builds cathedral and sews vestments and chants magnificent hymns and dies a martyr death, and teaches the faith and fills libraries and stakes a million little Christian lives all on what? Scripture Eucharist, Baptism, faith. God says these things are life and the church believes and lives as if these tiny things are heaven itself for they are.