Category: Pastors Corner

With Fear and Trembling

Philippians 2 – our Epistle Lesson for this week – is one of the richest passages in all of scripture.  And I think it speaks to our modern Spiritual climate in ways that we don’t want to hear.  We are all children of the Reformation.  It doesn’t matter Catholic, or Protestant or None really.  We have all absorbed a watered down sense of Grace Alone.  We have absorbed God and the Spiritual life as one big warm fuzzy. God loves you and everything is going to be ok.  Which has the advantage of being true.  But the modern add on to that is the conclusion.  So, you don’t really have to think or do anything about this spiritual life stuff. It has been taken care of.  It is Grace Alone that refuses to confront the Sovereignty of God.  It is Mere Christianity that is forever content to live in the hallway.

Paul rehearses the reason for that Grace Alone in Philippians 2:5-11.  Christ, who was God – begotten of his Father before all worlds – did not consider that equality with the Father something to be grasped.  Instead Christ took on the form of a servant. Descending into that state of humiliation all the way to death on a cross. Christ did this out of his own Sovereign Choice.  He did it to free His Father’s creation from the corruption that had taken it. He did it to free you from your sins and eternal death. It is by the Grace of Christ Alone, and because of that every knee shall bow.

But Paul’s rehearsal of Grace Alone is placed within the question of how we should then live. From Philippians 2:3-4, “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”  This was and is the mind of Christ – loving your neighbor as yourself – and should be ours. And it is here that the world we live in wants to walk a different way.  It is completely happy with God as sacrifice for our benefit.  But when the Sovereign starts asking that we follow, the world gets dramatically upset. It will take the grace, but living the faith?

Yet living the faith is exactly what Paul demands. He, Paul, cannot live it for you. “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence…. (Philippians 2:12) ”  Nobody can live the faith for you. You yourself must “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).” This is not a negation of that Grace Alone for this is “God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).” This is the necessary action of faith.  His Grace is Sovereign.  We don’t get to live in the hallway. You have been made a resident of the house.  Do you want your inheritance?  And like any inheritance you can compound it or squander it. Work it out.

But then Paul adds one more thought.  While he – and we – cannot live the faith for someone else, how we live it is not meaningless. Even if it might appear to be fruitless. You live “in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Philippians 2:15-16).”  And we are probably familiar with that metaphor of light, but it is that idea of running or laboring in vain and what follows that hits harder.  “Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all (Philippians 2:17).” As Christ was The Sacrifice for all mankind, Paul views his life as a sacrifice for the faith of those who would believe through him and be saved eternally. This is how Paul worked his faith out in fear and trembling.

We are not Christ, THE sacrifice.  Nor are we Paul.  But we do have the same call.  To work out our faith in fear and trembling.  To humbly consider others more significant. To have the mind of Christ among ourselves. To serve the Sovereign in the means and manner available to us by his good will and pleasure. That is a strong and meaningful vocation whatever form it takes. And one that should engage the soul – your whole person.

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Mt. Zion Stewardship Request

The council and the elders in various configurations have met a few times over the past month to discuss the budget, stewardship and Mt. Zion’s overall financial picture. We are going to ask something very specific of you.  We need you to consider increasing your offering by $20/week. More than consider, we believe that is necessary for good stewardship. The rest of this article is going to explain how we got to that request.

The Baseline budget is everything that it costs to run this place as it has been run for years.  The numbers in there in order of magnitude are Pastor’s Salary and benefits, Mortgage Payment, Utilities, Musician Salary, Building Maintenance (including landscaping and janitorial), Office (including secretary).  We have already decided for the foreseeable future that we will not be seeking a new church musician.  We will be using the iPad Substitute Organist Service and the choir will be guided by Nicholas. Those changes move the new baseline to $256,000.

Now comes the more difficult part. Last year (2025), at the higher baseline, we closed the year in the black.  We managed to close in the black due to some generous donations both mid-year and at the end of the year.  What I have labeled Current Offerings Baseline represents the offerings Mt. Zion received excluding those exceptional donations. Our donations so far this year through August are fully in line with that baseline. And as you can see, our baseline offerings do not come close to covering the baseline budget. If we did nothing, before the end of 2027 we would have exhausted our savings cushion.

So, the council and elders considered the question “what else can be cut?” There are three available items, but each item comes with trade-offs. Doing without a church secretary would save roughly $8,000 for the year. Those 10 hours a week or the tasks they represent would be moved onto Pastor’s desk which would impact lots of other things.  The second items also save $8,000 for the year.  We do without janitorial and landscaping. The trade-off is that the church presentation deteriorates. We would be putting forward a much worse face to any visitors.  The last thing looked at would be refinancing the mortgage.  This has been done repeatedly in the past.  This is why 25 years later Mt. Zion still owes quite a bit on it.  If we refinanced the current balance over 30 years that would save us roughly $9,000 for the year.  If we took all of those actions the new baseline would be $231,000. Even doing all of those actions we would still have quite a deficit.

I’m hoping that you can agree that this is not an expense problem.  This is a stewardship problem.

We asked the counting team for a specific number.  How many families or individuals gave at least $1,000 to Mt. Zion in the past year?  The response was 55. And this is what shapes our request.  Our current baseline deficit is round numbers $59,000. Doing simple math, asking each of those 55 contributors to increase their offering by roughly $1,000, which over 52 weeks turns out to be roughly $20/week, closes the deficit. So that becomes the request and challenge.  If you are reading this you are probably part of that 55.  Will you increase your offering by $20/week?

We recognize that since the number was pulled from those who donated at least $1000 in the previous year, we are asking some people to double their tithe. But we also decided that $20 is roughly one fast food meal a week. On a weekly basis we did not consider this onerous. Spiritually this is a request to look at what the LORD has provided you, and to return to the work of his Kingdom a larger percentage. I’d make the same encouragement as Malachi.  “Bring in the full tithe (Malachi 3:10).” I’ve never met a full tither yet who if you get past reluctance to be seen bragging won’t tell you that God keeps his promises and “pours down blessings (Malachi 3:10).”

We also would encourage you to talk with your assigned elder about this.  If you can happily do this, share the good news.  If this request causes angst, talk with your elder.  Those talks will serve a dual purpose.  We – the leadership boards of Mt. Zion – really need to have some idea if this will happen.  Because if it will not, much tougher decisions need to be made. But that talk would also be good for your spiritual health.  There are people who in other contexts are keen to say that Jesus talks more about money than insert your favorite political cause.  And they aren’t wrong. Jesus does talk about money quite a bit. How you spend your money – who you are rich with and where you skimp  – is the surest sign of spiritual health.  “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matt. 6:19-20).”  

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Acceptance vs. Absolution

I don’t know if any of you are podcasts fans.  The Rest is History is an occasional rabbit hole, and it isn’t a nothing as it boasts 20 million downloads a month.  It is hosted by two decent British Historians – Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook – who together have an easy repour.  Maybe it is because neither has anything left to prove academically, they are both willing to cover “popular” historical eras and they are willing to indulge in what used to be called moralizing. The entire reason history as a subject exists was moralizing. The Greek and the Roman historians wrote so that current and future leaders might emulate the good and avoid the bad. They drew conclusions about their subjects and their times.  Something that fell out of favor among modern academic historians. In a recent work of his, Dominion, Tom Hollard put forward a thesis that is both undeniable and yet shocking to actually state.  Christ changed the world.  Things that Homer or Caesar took for granted as the way of the world were flipped upside down. The Rich Man’s treatment of Lazarus at the time not only would not have been remarkable, it would have been thought appropriate.  It is Christ who commanded the care for the poor, the least, the unfortunate. It is Christ who claimed to be the servant of all.  It is Christ who redeemed suffering.  And as much as someone my age might lament what feels like a complete loss of Christendom, Holland’s book points out just how Christian we all are. The release of the movie The Odyssey this summer had some talk about this. Many Classicists complained that the director Nolan Christianized Odysseus and the story. And Nolan’s reply was rather blunt.  You couldn’t tell it any other way and be understood.  Straight Homer doesn’t make sense to us anymore. Christ flipped the world upside down.

That’s a long introduction to something I’ve been pondering which I think is woven through our lessons this week and that is the concept of sin itself.  I’ll use Freud as the historical marker.  The concept of sin prior to the therapeutic concept was both well developed and personal.  As we say in the corporate confession “we have sinned in thought, word and deed.” And a mere catechism lad could have expounded and identified his sin in textured ways.  And over all of that would be spoken the absolution from the cross and the call to life in the Spirit.  “I lay my sins on Jesus” to “How clear is our vocation Lord when once we heed your call.” That’s the progression in our hymns this week.

But the therapeutic concept pronounces all of that morose. The therapeutic tends to remove personal responsibility and cast blame on social faults and systemic injustice.  At the extreme, sin itself is just the internalization of some oppressor’s unjust rule over you.  They no longer even have to be present because you have internalized their judgements. And the therapist is not present to grant absolution.  The therapist is not there is set you free from your sinful condition by the indwelling of God.  The therapist is present to free you from your own mental shackles. You are good enough, and you have every right to strive for full self-actualization, however you want to do that. And anything that gets in the way, any institution be that Family or Church or State, anything that demands loyalty at the expense of personal expression must be torn down. The therapist is present to pronounce acceptance.

And I can understand the appeal.  Things are not my fault but the fault of impersonal forces beyond me.  I am not the bad person and any bad I feel is just my struggle to be authentically me against the oppressor. I can be who I am without any necessary change and that is just ok.  But here is my problem.  To Hell with acceptance. I know what the authentic me would do.  And I don’t like that guy. And I certainly don’t want to live in the world that looks more like straight Homer. What I need is that absolution. What I need to the Word of God that says this suffering is not meaningless.  As Joseph says to his brothers, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20).” And then brothers can live in harmony and not fear. To the therapist there are no sinners, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ is only for sinners. Jesus sinners doth receive.

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Invite a Friend – Liturgy Isn’t Scary

I’d like to welcome any friends and neighbors who have joined us today.  And I want to use this space, along with some of the space in the bulletin, to guide you through our Worship service.  Which may or may not be familiar to you.

The first word I’d introduce to you would be liturgy. Now every church or denomination has a liturgy even if they don’t call it that.  A liturgy is simply the normal order of how the worship proceeds. Things don’t even have to be overtly religious to have a liturgy.  Pregame sporting events have a liturgy from low church simple singing of the anthem followed by kindly applause to high church presentation of the colors by fully uniformed officers, a soloist singing of the anthem, followed by a low altitude fly-over of the stadium by an American bomber. After which the appropriate reply is a full-throated cheer and chanting of USA USA.  Life is full of liturgies.

Low church liturgies these days are modeled after the 18th and 19th century revival tents. Congregants gather.  A band warms people up steadily increasing the volume and emotional pitch. The band then turns it down a notch for one last song.  The Preacher comes out, reads a verse or a passage which will be the text of his preaching.  He then proceeds to preach.  There may or may not be an altar call.  At the end the band comes back out for one wrap-up song. And then there is a dismissal.  High Church liturgies – or what might today be called High Church but not long ago would have simply been church – all stem from a 2000 tradition that probably goes back to the Jewish Synagogue.  You can get a bit of that flavor in the gospel of Luke when Jesus goes to his hometown Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:16).  The liturgy you will experience today in this Lutheran church would have been quite low church mid-century.  It would have been called a simple service of the Word as we are not celebrating the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper today.  This congregation follows a rhythm of the Sacrament on 2nd, 4th, any 5th Sundays or any specific Holy Days. 1st and 3rd Sundays are for the Word alone. All of that following a church year calendar.

The service opens with a Hymn of Invocation. An invocation should tell you both what God is being worshipped here in this service and is the opening prayer of the gathered believers. Today that invocation is both specifically to the LORD Jesus Christ and a Trinitarian invocation. And the request is for His presence to move our hearts to continued faith.  Immediately after the invocation is the Corporate Confession and Absolution. For most of church history, confession and absolution would have been private and would have been expected in the week prior if you wanted to receive communion.  I’m just old enough to remember my parents having to declare for communion.  Within the Lutheran Church corporate confession has become the standard.

The Lutheran Liturgy – today our simple Service of the Word  – proceeds in three large steps: Scripture, Preaching and Prayer.  The first step are the various readings of the Word of God and congregational responses. From the entrance Psalm (the Introit) with its response of the Gloria, to the assigned readings with the response of the public confession of the creed and the Hymn of the Day. The rhythm of the liturgy is often Call and Response in big ways and in small.  You will see that Call and Response in a small way after each reading.  This is the Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

We are gathered to hear God’s Word and we first do that in the Words of Scripture which are for all peoples of all times. Our specific readings are assigned.  We follow something called a lectionary. That lectionary each week has a specific Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel reading.  The use of a lectionary ensures that I the preacher don’t harp on the same thing every week but preach “the whole counsel of God.”  The sermon or preaching is to be the Word of God for this people gathered today. And then in the simple service we turn to prayer and blessing. Other weeks we would celebrate the Sacrament before the sending.

That is a quick overview of how a Lutheran service flows. We hear the Word, we interpret and apply the Word for our lives, and we ask God for his care and blessing. It might seem a little formal, but not everything  – maybe especially the things of God – has to be in an informal register.  The vestments I wear are not meant to mark me personally out, but are the dress of the office.  The colors of the various hangings that make the sanctuary beautiful follow the colors of the church year.  Right now, being in the Season of Pentecost which is the season of the growth and mission of the church, they are green. Come back in Advent they are blue. Christmas is white. Festivals an audacious Red.  What the liturgy and everything around it does is attempt to create a sacred time and place. A place to withdraw from the world and encounter God. To hear God in his word and his promise.

Thank you for worshipping with us today.

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Marriage Allegory

 had the occasion recently to review the Wedding liturgy.  I was once again reminded of what might be the best short sermon ever written.  And also reminded of just how clever Satan can be.  That best short sermon is what is typically labeled The Wedding Address. In reality that address is both deathly serious and full of deep kindness.  Which brings up Satan’s cleverness. You know this address because of Hollywood’s various representations of absolutely silly Bishops in their bling stating either “Dearly beloved” or “Marriage” with full lisp.  Usually in front of two people who absolutely should not be getting married.

That last bit  – two people who should not be getting married – had me reflecting. Is Hollywood making fun of this because of the hypocrisy of the clergyman? Pronouncing the address while knowing he should not be doing the wedding. Every minister has at least one wedding that they look back on and grimace. And because we remember the mistakes, and not the much larger number of happy occasions, they are the ones that haunt. Or is Hollywood, and Satan, merely trying to cover up with farce the clarity of Thomas Cranmer’s statement on the purpose.

The first thing Cranmer’s address does is establish where marriage comes from.  “This is an honorable estate instituted and blessed by God in paradise before humanity’s fall into sin.” This is the way God made the material world to be. Before anything messed it up.  Before our sin.  This institution was present. That leaves the question why? Why would God create this?  What meaning does it have?  And Cranmer’s address immediately tells us. In the material reality of marriage, “we see a picture of the communion between Christ and His bride, the church.” Marriage is a living allegory. The physical reality is the base, but Christological, Moral and Eschatological carry the meaning. The fundamental institution that most of us live our lives within is a reflection of Christ and His people. It is an expression of the love of God for his creation “proclaimed by his presence and first miracle at Cana in Galilee.”

The Address then moves on to the moral dimension.  What does this institution require of us?  And it includes four things that build on each other. The base of any marriage is the “union in heart, body and mind intended for the mutual companionship, help and support that each person ought to receive from the other, both in prosperity and adversity.” Marriage is hopefully more than a long-term contract, but it is never less than a long-term contract. Maybe contract is the wrong word, say alliance. That alliance has its physical dimension. “Marriage was ordained so that man and woman may find delight in one another.” As with all things planted by God – good trees – they are fruitful.  “God established marriage for the procreation of children.” This often gets overlooked in our day, but be fruitful and multiply is a law that was never repealed. The last bit of the moral dimension is what to do with those kids.  “Who are to be brought up in the fear and instruction of the Lord.” Marriage as an institution was created that our greatest heritage – The Word of God – might be preserved to generations’ generation.

And that leaves the eschatological. Where does this all go?  “That they may offer Him [Christ] their praise.” Marriage – the image of Christ and the Church – is the institution that functions as the ark in this world. It is the institution that puts us in the boat, trusts the love of God to see that boat to shore, and populates that heavenly number that no one can count. 

“For these reasons God has established the holy estate.” Marriage is a living allegory of our hope. Some particular marriages are better representations than others. There are those who absolutely should not be getting married. And sin makes all kinds of things eminently mockable. But as with all things of God, the reality – the love and the hope  – are not erased. If we live into the faith that it requires. If we have the faith that Christ has blessed and honored this estate.

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Your Hair is On Fire

I’ve used it enough that I think our council is probably tired of it.  But I call August around churches the annual Hair on Fire month. Why? There are a number of reasons. Attendance is often a bit depressed as people get in the last summer trips before school starts – the actual New Years Day.  Leadership teams are usually turning to budget season.  And they are turning to budget season usually at the lowest point. And this year is probably no different. If you haven’t looked, through the month of July we are reporting offerings of $118K against expenses of $163K for a deficit of -$45K.  That is why I call it Hair on Fire.  Almost every August in my experience you look at bad numbers at exactly the time you are thinking about next year.

Now I do want to call attention to something just under the covers of those top-line numbers. The first is that on the expense line, year to year comparison, we are running roughly -1.5% less.  Our expenses are less than we said they would be. And that will continue for the foreseeable future. The iPad Organist is cheaper.  I hate to say that.  And it might not be good long term because I tend to think live music is important.  But right now it is true. The live portion is going to be your voices and the person pressing play. And the iPad in my judgement is a lot better than it has any right to be. But, that reduction still would not solve that deficit. Not completely.

The real problem is the top line. Offerings year to year are down almost 18%. I can’t really blame attendance as it has been solid year to year. Collectively we managed to close in the black last year.  Although that came late.  In August our hair was on fire.  Maybe the same thing happens.  Maybe it doesn’t. The main point here is that you can’t make up an almost 20% decline in the top-line with stuff below it. Not really.  Unless you want something that looks dramatically different.

And I think this really is the time of trial.  Of course the answer is more people sharing the burden. Most people when they say that mean something like “we need more people in here.”  And I’m not saying that is false, just that is not how God tends to work.  Saying to God “you need to send more people because I don’t want to bear the cost of this church” is rarely a compelling argument with God. What He tends to say is something like Haggai.  “These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD…Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruin?…Consider your ways, Go up to the hills and bring wood to build the house (Haggai 1:2-11).” Or God says something like Malachi.  “Bring in the full tithe…and thereby put me to the test, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no need (Malachi 3:6-12).”   Or if you want the New Testament and Jesus, he has no problem saying something like “give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. (Luke. 6:38).” Or “Make friends for yourselves by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings (Luke 16:9).” Or, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matt. 6:19-21).”

Stewardship is always the acid test of are you on mission with God.  God wants people who are on mission with him. Budget problems are almost always spiritual mission problems. Do you believe the promises?  Do you want to see the Kingdom grow? Prove it. Put God to the test.

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The Law and the Promise

In the Young Adult group that meets on Wednesday evenings, in between silly movies, we’ve been reading Galatians. And to Lutherans in the know Galatians is probably the most Lutheran book of the bible. It is a book about the proper distinction of law and gospel. And distinction is the right word.  They are two separate covenants – Abraham and Moses. But the covenant with Abraham – “he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6, Galatians 3:6)” – is both prior to that with Moses and more direct. God speaks directly with Abraham.  The covenant of Sinai with Israel is mediated by Moses.  Exodus has Moses going up the mountain and down the mountain and up and down each time relaying parts of a negotiation.  Down, I’ve met the LORD. Up, the people of Israel say you are scary.  Down, tell them they are right and to back away from the mountain. Up, they’ve agreed and backed away. Let me bring down your word. You should go down first.  Down, witnesses the golden calf. Breaks the law. Cleans up Israel.  Up, yes, God, I’m sorry, I dropped the tablets. I’ll make a copy.  Down, here is the law again, will you keep it? Up, they said they’d keep it. Down, we need to assemble the elders for a meal on the mountain. Up, a meal with the Elder and the LORD to celebrate the covenant of Moses.  The covenant with Abraham is the promise – the gospel.  Believe, God will do it, God has done it. The covenant with Moses is the law.

Isaiah 56, our Old Testament lesson for this Sunday, is an interesting mixture of the promise and the law. But I can’t help but hear the gospel predominate. “Thus says the LORD: Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed (Isaiah 56:1).” Paul would say something like the law was given to us as guardian (Galatians 3:24). And there is nothing wrong with the law.  The law is good and wise. It is justice. It is righteousness. It’s problem is that the law cannot make us righteous. It instead exposes that we are far from righteous and injustice is what sow. Often injustice is what we sow exactly when we think we are meeting it out.  And so what we need is the promise.  “My salvation will come, my righteousness be revealed.” God will act.  And in the act of God we shall find our salvation, even victory over our sinful selves.

And this is the superiority of the Gospel – of the direct promise. It is available to all. It is available not to the offsprings of Abraham, the pure physical descent.  It is available through the offspring – Christ (Galatians 3:16).  Isaiah puts this in a different key.  He calls out the foreigner, that is the gentile, and the eunuch, that one literally cut off. Our lesson cuts this line out.  Probably because of squeamishness over eunuch.  “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say ‘The LORD will surely separate me from his people’; and let not the eunuch say ‘behold, I am a dry tree. (Isaiah 56:3)’” Isaiah implores both to “hold fast to my covenant.”

Which covenant?  He mentions the Sabbath and the sacrifices.  The sacrifices are clearly part of the law.  But the Sabbath goes back to the beginning.  On the seventh day, God rested.  The toil of the law – the guardian – is felt.  But he Sabbath rest comes.  And yes, the necessities of the sacrifices of the law once filled the temple.  And Christ cleared it saying “my house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples (Luke 19:46).” For Christ is the salvation of God.  And Christ is the righteousness of God.  It is not that the law is useless or contrary.  It is that the promise is stronger.  The law kills us, but God is the God of life.

And he gathers us all into his house of prayer. He promises the eunuch “I will give you a house within my walls, and a name that shall not be cut off.” He promises the foreigner, “I will gather others to him, besides those already gathered.”  These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in prayer. Paul would say in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. In Christ we are heirs of the promise.  And we have seen his deliverance revealed.

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Job’s Answer – The Character of God

Note: I’ve been cajoled into including a reading of these Pastor’s Corner articles. I guess I’m going to include it in the podcast feed now.

Our Old Testament Lesson this Sunday (Job 38:4-18) is chosen for one specific line – “Have you entered into the spring of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?” – which lines up with the gospel lesson’s Jesus walking on the water. And the impact of the Old Testament lesson as it is read is exactly what Jesus walking on the water signals, what the disciples intone together at the close, “truly you are the Son of God.” God is always something completely beyond us.  Even while being true man, he remains true God.  And if that doesn’t scare you a little, instill a holy fear, check your heart to be sure you are still living.

But this Job passage in its larger context speaks to a deeper mystery than simply awe.  If there can be such a thing. We roughly know the start of Job.  He is describes as “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” This is better than the OT’s description of Noah who was “blameless in his generation.”  Of course his generation is the one that God chose to wipe out with the flood. Job as described is more like Enoch who “walked with God and God took him (Genesis 5:24).” Enoch being the pre-history version of Moses whom God took and nobody knew where he was and Elijah who was taken up in the fire-y chariot.  And if you are Roman Catholic or open to a bit of Marian devotion, like Mary assumed into heaven. Job both had faith in God Almighty and he walked it. Job was innocent, and yet Satan – the accuser –  decides he wants to sift him.  And God lets Satan do what he wants. Yet Job does not really sin.  His wife comes out at one point and tells him to “curse God and die (Job 2:9).”  To which Job replies, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”” And the narrator tells us “in all this Job did not sin with his lips.” 

Job, lying in a pile of his own pus and blood, has three friends arrive.  And the three friends take turns telling Job in some way he had to have done something to deserve this. They rotate through all the arguments we know that we hope will keep tragedy from our doorstep. That will ensure the innocent receive justice and the guilty are punished correctly. And Job answers them all with three assertions. 1) I am innocent, 2) Yet my redeemer lives, and 3) That redeemer – God – owes me an answer.  And Job has the best of the argument to such an extent that a fourth person shows up.burning with zeal to defend God’s honor. His argument is better than the first three.  He doesn’t deny Job a superficial righteousness but blames Job for his heart “he does not regard any (i.e. you Job) who are wise in their own conceit.” And the conceit is that God owes Job an answer.  God’s sovereignty exempts him from any explanation.

And it is here that God himself show up in the whirlwind. And as you read our lesson it might sound a bit like Job’s last visitor.  God proclaiming his own majesty and glory and sovereignty. “Where you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?”  And some of that is clearly there.  But if all we are doing is pointing out God’s majesty it is a slander against the character of God.  Borrowing a line from the greatest B movie ever – Constantine – “God is a kid with an ant farm.” If all we say about God is that he can shake it whenever he wants to we have “darkened counsel by words without knowledge.” For God goes on to call out all kinds of things, like the apparent idiocy of the ostrich who just leaves her eggs “that the wild beast may trample them.” Or how a variety of animals: goats and donkeys, and oxen and horses and hawks and eagles all seem to have their place.  “Did you give this to them?”  The character of God is not that he is a tyrant doing anything he wants without regard. But that the LORD orders all things mightily.

Job gets an answer of sorts. All these things that we see made by God’s majesty have a way of working, and we know not how. It is above our pay grade. It is beyond our ability. Yet we trust them daily. Should we not also trust that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Rom. 8:28).” That the God who has revealed himself is the God of steadfast love. And this is what is required.  That we believe in who Christ has revealed the Father to be, not that we know.

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Robert Barnes and English Lutheranism

July 30th on Church calendar is a remembrance of Robert Barnes, Confessor and Martyr.  Now I know that most of us don’t pay any attention to the church calendar beyond Christmas, Easter and maybe a nip of green beer on St. Patrick’s Day. But Robert Barnes got me thinking about one of history’s great “what-ifs” and the history of Lutheranism in the English language.  In the US it is always interesting looking at common languages at the turn of the 19th and 20th century.  The US was much closer to a Canadian two-language reality – with the two being German and English – than any of us can imagine.  The turn of the century naturalization laws and then two wars against Germany eradicated that fact.  The LCMS had been so German right until the 20th century that it kept The English Synod – which eventually became our English District – as a separate entity. The first English hymnal was by that English Synod in 1912.  Which largely became the 1941 The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH) that I imagine many readers might still call “The Hymnal.”

And it is that which gets us on our way back to Robert Barnes.  In translating the common service and all the prayers of the day and everything else that is part of liturgical worship the English Synod did what anyone not concerned about copyright would do.  They stole Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s English. Which isn’t as big a stretch as you might imagine. Compared to today’s variance of service even within a body like the LCMS, most of the magisterial protestant churches had kept a liturgy that resembled the Common Service. The service in the Book of Common Prayer is quite close. Cranmer in his first edition of the BCP took from Luther’s reworking of the Mass (in our hymnal as the stub DS5).  And so even today, many of the prayers and wording in our services bare a striking resemblance to that Anglican BCP.

And that leads to the great “what if?” In 1525 Robert Barnes brought the reformation formally to England. Cambridge educated and brother of the same Augustinian friars as Luther, he was a doctor of theology and prior of the Cambridge convent. And he preached the first public proclamation of the Reformation gospel from his pulpit in that year.  He was arrested leaving the pulpit and charged with heresy. Somehow he escaped and made his way to Wittenberg and was a personal acquaintance with Luther. He returned to England in 1531 with the mission of converting Henry VIII.  He rose in office and stature rather swiftly, until as with a lot of Henry’s advisors, he was tasked with getting someone to agree to Henry’s first divorce. Barnes was sent back to Germany to secure Luther and Lutheran theologians’ approval for the king’s divorce and remarriage.  They would not agree.  (Which is ironic compared to the response later given to Philip of Hesse over bigamy.) Barnes returned without what was desired and Henry soured on Lutheranism. The thought of a Lutheran England, which was quite possible, remains the what-if.  What if the Virginia aristocrats (Washington, Jefferson, Madison) had been Lutheran-Anglicans? What would European history have looked like if England and the Northern Continent shared a church?

As it was, Robert Barnes would not recant his Lutheran confession and was burned at the stake for it, July 30th, 1540. His final words were a prayer, ‘Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” Luther wrote upon hearing that news something that probably sounds strange.  “It is a particular joy for me to hear that our good and pious guest has been so graciously called by God to pour out his blood and to become a holy martyr…Hope betrayed him. For he always hoped his king would be good in the end.”  As the apostle Peter says, “Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (1 Pet. 4:13 ESV).”  Hope in earthly kings and their glory is bound to fail, but we have a more sure and certain Hope in the resurrection of Christ the King.

Convention Reflections

The every three years LCMS National Convention finished up its business this week.  There really isn’t that much to report.  It went as scripted. This is what I mean by that.  In the run-up to a convention individual members (pastors and congregations), voting circuits (groups of congregations that elect the representatives to the convention) and even entire districts in their conventions can send memorials to the national convention.  And they Do! Hundreds of them.  Those memorials are grouped and divided by something called floor committees.  A floor committee is a working group of members of the Synod that receive memorials and reconcile them together into floor motions.  Hundreds of memorials, many of them duplicative, are reduced to a number of motions that the floor committees deem important enough for the time of the roughly 1000 representatives gathered. This is important because it only meets every three years and the cost is thousands of dollars per minute.  Not including the vacation time the delegates themselves use. The floor committees also tend to create a couple of Omnibus motions.  Omnibus motions are like the Island of Misfit toys.  There is something off about them.  Some of them are just “not the current thing.” Others are perfectly fine but don’t have “the rizz.” There is usually an omnibus of motherhood and apple pie motions that nobody could be against.  There is another one of this is so embarrassing we are going to table it and forget it exists. And there is usually one of things that all good people agree should be rejected and it is important to say so. When I say the convention went as scripted I mean nobody extracted anything from an omnibus onto the floor.  Nobody extracted an original motion to replace the floor committee work.  No offered amendments from the floor to a floor committee draft were accepted. The vast majority of the elected positions went to people on “the United List” which is a list of people who wink and nod have the Synod President’s endorsement. And most of these votes ended at about 60%-40% if not 90%-10%.  For what was an interesting election for the Synodical President decided by 4 votes, the convention turned into a deep ratification of the president’s desires.  Even if most of the votes that were taken tended to do things like “instruct a joint seminary panel to study and report in three years.” It was the rare motion that put money or teeth into something.

There are positives out of that. You could read this a broad agreement across the church on important things.  You can read it as good alignment between the elected officials of the body and the body itself.  At the very least you can read it as everyone knowing the pulse of those who care the most about the Synod, those who care enough to put the time into getting elected and spending a week away from home in downtown Phoenix in July.  You can also read this as excellent leadership.  Both at an election organization level, but more importantly at the handling of issues between conventions.  You don’t really want to send coinflip issues to the full powered legislative and deliberative body of the church.  You want leadership that has studied and experimented.  Because if that body decides something 50.1%-49.9% we all know it really isn’t over. And you have made the 49.9% into scofflaws until they get another crack at it.  When the vote is 65%-35%, the 35% tend to get into line, or at least not parade their non-compliance.

There are also some negatives. There is a simmering split between younger representatives and the larger body, and probably not in the way you might think. It was the 70+ retired majority on the floor that was content to place most things in the “study” bucket.  Those who were younger – and this might be relative as 50 is young at these things – it was the younger delegates that would have put more money and teeth into certain motions.  It is the younger delegates who would have liked to direct the officers of the synod to act with more haste and determination. To make some deeper changes. That simmering split goes back underground, or I should probably say online, for another three years. Maybe three more years will temper that desire for change.  Or maybe three more years will give time for the various burrs under saddles to find resolutions. Or in three years it might be interesting times.

Looking at how the sausage is made church-politically is never encouraging. We are human and being human we are sinners. And being sinners requires ways to mediate disagreements.  We call that politics.  Unless you want to turn toward war – politics by other means. But in line with the Theology of the Cross, God is present, even most present in this world, in the rough places. “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).” Even church-politics and Synodical Conventions are working together for good.  And nothing in how the sausage is made separates us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39). Even if the least it might due is whet our appetite for the Return of the King.