The Church's Call: Welcome All People, Tell the Truth About Sin and the Son, Jesus

Over on Facebook, Holly Robinson, who, like me, is part of the crew that produces the blog The Moderate Voice, wrote to say that a friend of hers is leaving an ELCA [Evangelical Lutheran Church in America] congregation because the ELCA is not "gay-friendly enough."

I'm a pastor of the ELCA and, as many readers of this blog will know, I remain opposed to recent policy changes in the denomination allowing gays and lesbians in monogamous relationships to be ordained as pastors in the church. (By the way, current policy states that heterosexuals living in monogamous relationships without the benefit of marriage may not be ordained, unlike their gay and lesbian counterparts. Figure that one out, if you can.) My opposition to this policy change is based on the clear teaching of Scripture that the genders were created to express sexual intimacy in covenants of marriage involving one man and one woman (see: Genesis 2:18, 20-25; Exodus 20:14) and the overt Biblical condemnation of sexual expressions outside of lifetime heterosexual marriage (Leviticus 18:22*; numerous Biblical condemnations of fornication, which is sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage; Romans 1:26-27, where homosexual activity is seen as a consequence of humanity's utter disregard for God's will).

None of this discussion, so far as I'm concerned, has anything to do with the debate over gay marriage as legitimized by state governments, by the way. The state's interest in domestic relationships is entirely different from that of God and the Church.

Here, slightly revised for clarity, is how I responded to Holly's comment:

The question before the ELCA is not about friendliness or hospitality.

The Church should welcome all people and should stand for civil rights for all people.

The question before the ELCA rather, is whether we will stand under the authority of God's Word or will stand over it as its judge. "Unsinning" that which God calls sin is not an option.

  Another question is whether we will uphold the Scripture's teachings on such issues as Jesus as "the way, and the truth, and the life." (See here, here, here, and here.) (There are no other pathways to God but through Jesus.)

Another is whether we will uphold the Scriptures' teachings on the physical resurrection of Jesus. (See here.)

Yet another question is if we will uphold the Scriptures' teaching that there will be a physical resurrection of the dead who trust in Christ as God and Savior. (See here.)

Yet all of the alternative views roused by these questions have been legitimized by the ordination of and the failure to discipline those pastors who adhere to them by the ELCA. For many of us, including myself, the actions of the ELCA last August are the official, public confirmations of the denomination's slide away from Christ, the Scriptures, and the Lutheran Confessions which has been ongoing for twenty-one years.

In the name of being friendly or nice, we as a denomination have often forgotten the Gospel and our call to share it with the world. (See here.) That, in fact, is the core purpose of the Church and everything we do should revolve around this Great Commission given to us by Christ Himself.

The consequences of our ELCA's spiritual amnesia can be tragic for all whose lives we touch! To consider this point, imagine a little scenario for a second. If you see a pedestrian floating unknowingly into heavy traffic, what is the most loving thing to do: allow them to do it unchallenged in the view that such floating expresses their natural inborn impulse, or warn them with all the compassion and passion at your disposal that her or his life is endangered by this behavior? The Church is called to proclaim God's Law and God's Gospel, because until we recognize that our eternal lives are endangered by heedlessness of God's Law, we won't understand what the Gospel--the good news--of Jesus' death and resurrection, involves. Until we who are blind are helped to see, we won't understand that Jesus has come to give those who dare to turn from sin and trust in Him, new, everlasting lives.

There is no love in a "Gospel" that fails to explain that our sins put the sinless Jesus on the cross and that apart from repentance for those sins and faith in Jesus, our deaths will result in eternal separation from the God Who wants nothing so much as to forgive us and live with us for all eternity!

The ELCA has chosen to float along with the prevailing winds of the intellectual currents in this post-modern world. We've bought into what C.S. Lewis once described as God as grandfather, a jolly old soul who doesn't mind what we do so long as a good time is had by all. God is turned into an irrelevant caricature with no sense of right and wrong and with no need to send the Messiah to save us from sin and death.

I believe that the Church is called to cling to the God revealed in Jesus and to His cross, no matter what.

So, whether the congregation I am privileged to serve votes to stay or leave the ELCA, I will continue to proclaim the Bible as it stands and pray for the moment when the ELCA or what's left of the ELCA turns back to God and proclaims the Word in its truth and purity.

I am a sinner, an imperfect person saved only by God's grace. I welcome others to worship and study and repent with me because God welcomes me, imperfections and all.

I have learned though, that while God loves me just as I am, God loves me too much to leave me that way. I, like all who repent and believe in Jesus, are, in Martin Luther's phrase, "the Holy Spirit's workshop," submissive to the often painful and jarring, but always rewarding and joyful process of being made over in the image of my Savior. That painful, jarring, rewarding, joyful process will continue for the rest of my days on earth so long as I keep submitting to Jesus. I love Paul's words in Philippians 3:8-16:

I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹²Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. ¹⁶Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

Being a Christian is about submission to God and to God's will, even when we don't like it. Absent such submission or the daily desire for submission to God, there is no reason to speak of God as God. Without submission to the God we know in Jesus Christ and to the revealed will of God, the one true God of the universe becomes just another entree in a spiritual buffet, a choice among many, rather than the one God Who will reign over us without rivals or will not reign over us or have anything to do with us at all. I honestly struggle with submission to God each day and this is why confession of sin is a daily part of my life. This is also why I refer to the Church as a fellowship of recovering sinners who have hope not because of their rectitude or their virtues, but solely because the God revealed in Jesus has covered our sins and sent the Holy Spirit to help us make the painful midcourse corrections we all need to undergo each day in order to keep walking with Christ.

When we--members of the ELCA or human beings, in general--reserve the right to call our own shots irrespective of God's revealed will in Scripture, we become our own gods and that is a violation of the first and most basic commandment, the one that inheres in each of the other nine: "You shall have no other gods before Me."

God wants to welcome all the prodigals home. But God can't welcome prodigals who want, simultaneously, to come home and do their own things. It is impossible to follow two gods and that, sadly, seems to be what the ELCA is currently intent on doing: the God of Israel and Jesus, on the one hand, AND the God of post-modern me-worship, on the other. In Exodus 20:5, we're told that God is a jealous God, meaning God will not accept our spiritual waffling. God will either reign over us and our churches or God will be absent from our lives and from our churches; there is no other course. ELCA members who, in the name of not hurting people or of being nice, want to waffle, are flat-out refusing to unambiguously adhere to the basic Lutheran understanding of "grace alone, faith alone, word alone."

At our congregation, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, I believe, the welcome mat is always out for all people. But all who come should consider these Biblically-rooted lines from an old Randy Stonehill song:

"You'll be tempted, tried and tested
There'll be wars the devil wins
But God's love is not a license to lie
there in your sins
He understands the human heart
His mercy is complete
But His grace was not intended
As a place to wipe your feet"
('Angry Young Men' Randy Stonehill, 1984)

God bless you, Holly!

*Not all of Leviticus should be read in the same way all through. But the section from which this verse comes is one in which the Ten Commandments, the Mosaic Law, valid for all peoples everywhere, are explicated. In Leviticus and other places in the Old Testament, there are three different kinds of laws. I talk about this issue here.

Pastor Jaynan Clark Tells It Like It Is

Here.

"Human foot is discovered on beach" "Big strides"

Those were the top two headlines, in order, on the BBC News Front Page feed on Google Reader just now. It's hard not to make a connection between the two stories. Here's how they appeared on the BBC site:
Foot
Strides

By the way, the subject of the second article, is pictured on a beach.

'Fine Line' and 'Helter Skelter' Live by McCartney

Love this!

Zoo Seven

I downloaded this band's new LP for free earlier today. I like it!

By the way, here's a video for the title track, 'Lifesaver.'

"Think about how good it will feel when it stops hurting."

And it will one day, through Christ!

It makes me think of this song by Randy Stonehill:

WORLD WITHOUT PAIN
Words and Music by
Randy Stonehill

All the earth will watch in silence
When love banishes the night
Every heart will worship in His
light

(Chorus)

And we'll all be together
In a world without pain
And we'll fly like eagles on the
wind
His breath from which we came

All our longing will be over
Every secret shall be know
When His voice of thunder calls
us home

(Repeat Chorus)

© Copyright 1983 by Stonehillian Music &
Word Music (a division of Word, Inc.)
(ASCAP)

Equator is available on iTunes!

THE

I love this T my wife picked up for me at a thrift store recently. As every Buckeye alum knows, we who graduated from the school mentioned here, matriculated at THE Ohio State University. Back in the day when I wrote out checks for my tuition, I heeded the bursar's instruction to note the payee in just that way.

Living as a Christian is Always Subversive

This is an outstanding devotion and so appropriate for us today when the culture seems to encourage and reward narcissism, self-absorption, and winning at any price.

It's amazing how countercultural and subversive Christian faith always is...and how gratifying for those who embrace Christ as Lord and King over their lives!

Ready?

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Luke 12:32-40
Like the other three gospels in the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, and John, the Gospel of Luke tells us about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. But each of the gospel writers do this in their own style. In Luke, chapter 9, verse 51 through chapter 18:14, a section that the scholars call the Great Interpolation, we see Jesus’ movement to His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension as a journey, a journey Jesus was intent on taking no matter what the cost, a journey that would bring all who repent and believe in Him everlasting life in God’s kingdom.

The careful reader of this section of Luke will notice that in Jesus' journey, there are echoes and allusions to another journey, the one taken by the ancient Israelites when God led them out of slavery in Egypt to a land that God had promised to give to them. That journey had taken forty years and had been filled with challenges, difficulties, and temptations. In the end, only two people from the original generation that left Egypt ended up crossing the Jordan River into the promised land. One was Caleb. The other was God's designated successor to Moses, God's hand-picked leader of His people, a man named Joshua, whose name in Hebrew is Yeshua, in Greek is Yesus, and English is Jesus. It's a name that means, God saves.

One-thousand, five-hundred years later, God the Father would send another Yesus, Jesus, this one both a sinless man and the incarnation of God Himself, to once again save people, this time from sin and death, and to lead those who believe in Him to a better place. So, there are good reasons for Luke to portray Jesus’ movement to the cross and beyond as a journey, not the least of which being that you and I are on journeys too; we call it life.

Along the way, we, like the ancient Israelites, as we read in the Old Testament, and like Jesus and His first followers, as we see in Luke's Gospel, face challenges, opposition, and temptations.

Will our journeys culminate in our living eternally in the presence of God and in the fellowship of all who trust in Christ?

This is a question being answered daily throughout our own life journeys. Forgiveness, life, and hope are free gifts from the God most fully revealed to us in Jesus. But, as was true of Jesus’ first followers, it's possible for us kick all of God’s free gifts away. That happens when we trust in ourselves, or our own reasoning, or wealth, or power, or acceptance, instead of trusting in Jesus Christ alone. Doing any of these things constitutes betrayal of Jesus and builds up walls between God’s grace and us that can only be torn down when we turn from sin and surrender to Christ.

During His journey to Jerusalem, when the temptation to look out for Himself must have been incredible, Jesus spent most of His time encouraging His first followers—and you and me—for our journeys through life, assuring us of God’s love and and grace and favor for us. Today’s lesson from the Gospel of Luke comes from Luke's journey narrative. If you would, please pull out your Celebrate insert and find the Gospel lesson.

Our lesson can be divided into two major sections. The first is verses 32 to 34. Here, Jesus is finishing up some teaching on money, possessions, and worry. Those three things always seem to go together. And after twenty-six years as a pastor, I can tell you that this cluster of issues is one the most important causes of marital discord. Most couples who call me up to talk about tensions in their marriages will immediately mention this as a major cause of tensions. So, Jesus’ words are really important here. Read along silently while I read these verses:

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms [alms are gifts of charity for the poor]. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Here, Jesus addresses His flock—the Church—and all its individual members. “Don’t worry about your finances [Notice that Jesus doesn’t say to be reckless spendthrifts. He says not to worry about finances.]” Then Jesus says. “Just as it brings God pleasure to give You His kingdom, give to others.” The God Who gave His Son and gives us, as James puts it elsewhere in the New Testament, “every good and perfect gift,” frees and commands us to be givers as well. Secure in all of God’s good gifts, we are set free to be the loving, giving people we were meant to be.

The WELCA group members know that, this past week, I read about two modern American churches that have tried to live out these words, not as a means of earning God’s favor, but as a way of expressing their thanks for God’s grace and as a way of saying that in the journey of faith, their fear of poverty would not trump their trust in God.

In one church, a pastor wondered one day how much money was being spent on altar flowers every Sunday. He then proposed setting up a fund made up of money the congregation otherwise would have spent on altar flowers; the fund was designated for the emergency financial needs of members of the congregation. Their sanctuary may not have been as pretty on Sunday mornings without the flowers, but all who gave and all who received were drawn closer to Christ!

In another congregation, members reached a stunning—and seemingly impossible--decision: “There will be no needy among us.” The church set up a fund to provide for the needs of its members.

These churches took seriously Jesus’ admonition not to allow our purses to become weighed down or worn out from carrying the stuff of the world. Instead, they invested in what lasts—the love of God and the people of God.

How might we do this at Saint Matthew? Where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also!

Do we treasure Jesus more than we do our wallets? That is a question that Jesus challenges us to ask ourselves every day!

When we do value Jesus more than anything, we will see our money not as an end—a god to be worshiped—but as a means of sharing Christ’s love. (I am still learning this, by the way.)

In verse 35, Jesus changes subjects. After He’s gone through cross, resurrection, and ascension, He says that one day, He will return to the world. When Jesus does that, He will set all of creation right. How should we live as we continue this journey of life before Jesus' return, then?

Again, read along silently with me while I read verses 35 to 38.

“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.”

In first-century Judea, where Jesus lived, weddings would begin whenever the groom and his party showed up at the door of the bride’s house. And the celebrations could go on for two weeks afterward. (And you think you've been to some wild wedding receptions!)

There was no telling when the groom would come back to his home. In this little parable, Jesus says that the smart servants or slaves of a groom would be ready for his return at any time. Elsewhere, the New Testament describes the Church as Christ's bride.

Are we in the Church ready for Christ the groom’s return?

Are we trusting in Jesus more than anything?

Are we heeding the authority of Scripture more than our own supposed wisdom or cleverness?

Are we seeking to love God and love our neighbor?

There are many congregations that are more social clubs than churches.

Some are more political organizations than churches.

Some are places for the elite to meet and exchange business cards.

Some are hubs for the self-righteous to look down on the rest of the world.

Jesus says that if, when He returns, we are serving Him and sharing His good news with the world, He will do something extraordinary. He’ll fasten His belt—that is, cinch up his robes, to be ready to work—and He will serve us. The God of all creation, Who has already given His life for us on the cross, will serve us!

That’s a fantastic promise. But it’s followed by daunting words from Jesus. Again, read silently along with me, if you would, verses 39 and 40.

“But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Thieves don’t announce their break-ins in advance. Jesus says that, just like a thief who arrives unannounced, He—the Son of Man—is returning to this world at a time we cannot predict. In 2 Peter, in the New Testament, we’re told: “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some of you think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”

Jesus’ return to the world has been delayed by a God Who wants to give we Christians the opportunity to share the Good News of new life through faith in Jesus with our neighbors, friends, and relatives, people who will be separated from God forever apart from repentance for sin and faith in Jesus Christ.

But, as surely as He first came into this world, as surely as He died on a cross, and as certainly as He rose from the dead, Jesus is coming back one day. Are we prepared?

We prepare ourselves for the return of Jesus by valuing Him more than anything on this earth—including our money.

And we prepare ourselves for the return of Jesus by turning from our sin, by trusting in Him.

We prepare by telling all we know about the God Who wants nothing so much as to love us, to give us His blessings, to forgive our sins, and to feed us on His grace for all eternity.

We prepare also by being steady in our praying, laying the whole world before God, asking His Holy Spirit to move in every facet of life, and by remaining steady in our serving others in Jesus’ Name.

Whenever Jesus returns or if we see Him face to face before He returns to this earth, may we be prepared. May we be found to be faithful. May we hear those words which I have said before I long to hear more than any others, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" Amen

It is SO not about us!

Here.

'People Get Ready'

The Gospel lesson for this coming Sunday, Luke 12:32-40, put me in mind of this song. This particular version is a live performance by Curtis Mayfield, who wrote and originally recorded the song with his group, The Impressions. Here, he's accompanied by an All-Star band that includes David Sanborn on sax and Taylor Dayne on vocals. People get ready; Jesus is coming back some day!

Phil Keaggy - Let Everything Else Go

Phil Keaggy is one of the finest guitarists you'll ever hear. A pioneer in the country-rock field with his band, Glass Harp, he toured with some of the top acts in the 1970s. Following his conversion to Christianity, he became a top artist in the emerging realm of Christian Rock. In the ensuing years, he has produced a stunning body of work and more recently, has gotten back together with Glass Harp for gigs--including some at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland--and at least one new CD. Last year, Keaggy released a wonderful collection of new early-rock style compositions with Randy Stonehill. That release, Mystery Highway, is worth checking out at iTunes.

"To know love, open your heart to Jesus. To show love, open your heart to others."

See here.

God, help me to live out my love for You by loving all of Your children, whether they think like me, look like me, or believe as I do. And as I love those who are different from me, teach me to be more like Jesus. In His Name. Amen

When the Expression of the Bible's Teachings is Vetoed by Political Correctness

R.R. Reno says that's what is happening in academia today.

It isn't just at universities that the stifling atmosphere of political correctness inhibits or condemns the expression of Christian moral judgments about homosexual behavior.

For twenty years now, clergy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have felt, at the least, uncomfortable in expressing our view that, while we may support full civil rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons (as I do), we also believe that engaging in sexual behavior outside of heterosexual marriage is contrary to the will of God. We also believe that it's our duty as ministers of the Gospel to acquaint people with all that God has to say about sin, repentance, grace, and forgiveness, including what God has to say about our sexuality. Failure to do so puts the eternal destinies of those God calls us to serve in peril.

To express moral judgments on the godly use of our sexuality though, however clearly rooted in the teachings of Scripture and in two-thousand years of Christian theology, is seen among many, if not most, of my ELCA colleagues as simplistic, out of touch, or bigoted.

One ELCA colleague, hearing me say that I favored civil rights regardless of sexual orientation, asked me, with condescension, how I could say such a thing since I clearly believed gays to be "perverts." It didn't seem to matter to him that I have never said such a thing. But the purveyors of correctness love to ascribe the basest and most inhumane motives to those who don't fall into line. Making people out to be monsters is easier than actually dealing with the merits of the moral arguments they advance.

Given this two-decade history, you can see why I'm skeptical that purveyors of political correctness in the ELCA are going to be content in allowing some congregations and pastors continue to preach and teach in accordance with the Scriptures. My experience suggests that they won't be happy until they've made their unscriptural views on sexuality, sin, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ the only ones that ELCA churches and pastors can teach.

It's time for a new reformation!

No Automatic Pilot for Living as a Follower of Christ

This is the text of today's daily emailed inspiration from my colleague, Pastor Glen VanderKloot of Faith Lutheran Church in Springfield, Illinois. You can receive Pastor VanderKloot's emails by leaving the requested information here.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Thought for the Day

There is no automatic pilot by which we can run our
lives.  We constantly need the Lord's direction as we
face all the decisions of life.

Somehow, in some way, the Lord will guide our steps
in the way we should go.  He will honor our desire to
seek his will and blessing.
   
    Jim Cymbala
    The Church God Blesses p.  140-141

Scripture
Psalm 25:9 NIV

He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.

Prayer
Lord, I seek your direction for my life and in every
important decision.  Guide my steps in your pathway.
  Amen

*************************************************

"God's Word Never Changes"

Here.

An Outstanding and Non-Partisan History of US Budget Deficits

That's what historian Rick Shenkman presents here. It makes me feel good that someone as sharp as Shenkman is, nonetheless misses grammatical errors just as I do when I blog. Kidding aside, this article is worth the few minutes it'll take you to read it: It provides some good basic economics while putting the events it chronicles in context.

Confession of Sin is Agreement with God

This is what my colleague, Pastor Glen VanderKloot presented in his daily emailed inspiration this morning:

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Thought for the Day

Real confession means to say the same thing about sin that
God says. Real confession involves humbling ourselves and
agreeing with him about the very nature of our sinfulness. To live
under the blessing of heaven is to always be running toward God
with our guilt and not away from him

Jim Cymbala
The Church God Blesses, p. 94-95

Scripture
Psalm 32:5 TNIV

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD."
And you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Prayer
Lord, lead me to real honest confession of all my sin.
Amen

*************************************************

The bottom line, of course, is that when we disagree with God about sin, guess whose opinion needs to change?

Suburba or The Suburbs?

Why not both?

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Put Off the Old, Put On the New

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Colossians 3:1-17
1So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, ³for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

⁵Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). ⁶On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. ⁷These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life.
⁸But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. ⁹Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices ¹⁰and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. ¹¹In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

¹²As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹³Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. ¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Chapter three of the New Testament book of Colossians represents something of a break from the first two chapters of this letter on which we’ve been focused for several weeks. In the first two chapters, Paul (with the help or, at least, the assent of the young pastor Timothy) makes an extensive confession of Who Jesus is: God in the flesh come to earth to die and rise and share His victory with believers. All who believe and are baptized are Christ’s resurrection people.

In fact, just to get you in the right frame of mind, I invite everybody to make two affirmations right now:

• “I have died and risen with Christ!”
• “We are Christ’s resurrection people!” 

No matter what the current state of your health, finances, family relationships, or anything else, those two affirmations ought to make you feel good! You belong to God just as much today as you will in heaven! You already have eternal life!

But it’s at this point that a question should arise in our minds: Now what? Jesus hasn’t come back yet nor have we died and come face to face with Jesus yet, so how do we live today?

This was an important question for Paul and Timothy to answer for the Colossian Christians because they wanted to correct the incorrect impressions of the Christian faith created by teachers who had come to the Colossian church and told the believers there that, on top of Jesus, they also needed to obey a string of regulations. (Some of their regulations seem to have been like Jewish ritual law, some of them like a first-century version of New Age mysticism.)

No, says the letter to the Colossians, we only need Christ to be saved from our sins and to have life with God!

So, does that mean that we Christians can do anything we want? There have been some Christians who have thought so. Some of you will remember the scandal that enveloped televangelist Jim Bakker some years ago. His downfall involved extensive sexual scandal, financial misdeeds, and prison time. To his credit, Bakker later wrote a book, the title of which contained his confession: I Was Wrong. But when Bakker went to prison, one denominational group said that they would be happy to ordain him, repentance or not. Their reason: Bakker's sin was of the flesh, but as a Christian, he was only responsible for spiritual sins. I have no idea what that means; but it shows the extent to which we human beings can go to exonerate ourselves of responsibility for our sins.

Often, we all can be like the character in one of George Bernard Shaw’s plays who says, “I love to sin. God loves to forgive. It really is an admirable system.”

But in fact, the follower of Jesus Christ is called to choose an entirely different orientation for his or her life and daily decision-making. We are to live as people who, through our Baptism, have died and risen with Christ, no longer oriented to the sin and death of this world, no longer taking our cues from what the New Testament calls life in the flesh, but living lives that reflect the reality of heaven and the new life that is ours through Jesus Christ.

Now look at verses 1-4 of our lesson on the special handout we distributed this morning. Read those verses silently, while I give a more literal translation from the Greek in which it was first written:

If therefore, you were co-raised with the Christ, seek the things above where Christ is sitting at the right hand [that is, the power hand] of God. Fix your mind on the above things, not on the things of this earth. For you died, and your resurrection life has been hidden [in this world] with Christ through God Himself. Whenever Christ, our life, becomes visible in this world [that is, when Jesus comes back to the world], then also the glory of God living in us will be seen by all. 

After these verses, we’re told that if our basic orientation has shifted from earth to heaven, there is something we must do. Verse 5 expresses it this way: “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly…”

This is what Martin Luther was talking about when he said that each day we need to come to God to repent for our sins and each day, through the forgiveness God gives through Christ, we’re to walk in the power of Christ’s new life. That's daily repentance and renewal.

Colossians then lists five interrelated, overlapping sexual sins that Christians need to put to death within themselves.

First there’s fornication. The Greek word is porneian, from which we get the English word "pornography." According to the most renowned theological dictionary of the New Testament Greek, in its entry on porneia or fornication, “the [New Testament] is characterised by an unconditional repudiation of all extra-marital and unnatural intercourse.”

The list of sins we are to put to death through repentance goes on to include uncleanness (which would include any dirty, demeaning, or sexist words about sexuality), passion (which, in this case, means the desire to use another person for one’s own desires with no regard for the other person), evil desire (which refers to improper sexual desires, such as the desire for someone else’s spouse), and greed (which is actually a covetousness that makes either sex or the object of sexual desires a god for the covetous person).

That list pretty much runs the gamut of all of humanity’s sexual sins and they all, Colossians says, are to be put to death by daily repentance. Failure to strive to put them to death, our lesson tells us, will cause even those who have been baptized to incur God’s wrath.

I know that this makes God seem like a terrible spoilsport. But, in fact, God wants us to respect the gift of sexuality He has given to us. We see God's elevated view of our sexuality throughout Scripture. Genesis, for example, says that God created us male and female. The Song of Solomon celebrates in beautiful imagery the sexual relationship of husband and wife. In the books of the prophets, God said that the relationship of spouses stood as a metaphor for His relationship with Israel: He was Israel’s husband, Israel was God’s wife, and God lamented Israel’s faithlessness in running after other gods. In the New Testament, the Church is called the Bride of Christ. God wills that Christians’ relationships with members of the opposite sex be as unadulterated as our relationship with Christ. Thank God that whenever we fail to live in purity, either sexually or in other ways, we can turn to Him in repentance and receive forgiveness.

Our lesson goes on to talk about sins of the mouth—literally, the original Greek says, sins that come from our “stomatos,” our stomach or our gut. We're told to get rid of anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language.

God takes His gift of speech to us seriously, too. This is why the Ten Commandments include the eighth commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” In The Small Catechism, Luther explains the commandment in this way: “We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the kindest way.” Again, thank God for the gifts of repentance and forgiveness and fresh beginnings and new starts.

Verses 9 and 10 tell us: “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”

In the first century church, those who were baptized took off their old clothes, were baptized, and then received new white robes in recognition of their having put off the old orientation to this world and put on the new orientation to Christ and to heaven. Since we have put on this new way of life of being “Christ’s resurrection people,” our call is to keep putting off all the vices that our lesson lists, so that our relationship with Christ can be kept clear and clean and pure.

Now, I wanted to be sure to talk about verses 12-17, even though they're not appointed for today, because it’s important to see that a relationship with Christ is not just about the things we put off or get rid of. This is, by the way, one of the deficiencies I see in how we usually commemorate the Lenten season. Everybody talks about what they're going to give up during Lent: "I'm going to give up chocolate." "I'm going to give up swearing." That's fine if the giving up leads us to a deeper relationship with Christ. But life with Christ is also about putting on new ways of living, joyful ways of living! Read verses 12 to 15 out loud with me:

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.

Just think how different the life of the world and of the Church at large would be if, in the power of God’s Holy Spirit, we chose to put on those virtues every day of our lives?  That can happen as we daily surrender to Christ!

None of this is to say that Christians are to be milquetoasts. Verse 16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom…”

This passage bears directly on something coming up at Saint Matthew. You may have heard that there’s a vote on August 29. The issue at hand will be whether Saint Matthew should leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Some are worried about the vote because people have varying opinions. I’m not. As someone once said, “If two people agree on everything, at least one of them is irrelevant.”

Whether it’s on how the Church addresses social justice issues, what pastors and bishops should say on political matters, how much emphasis should be placed on evangelism and discipleship, how much heed we should give to Latin American and African Lutherans who are deeply disturbed by recent actions of Lutherans in North America and Europe, or what we teach our children about the gift of sexuality, if your opinions are rooted in the Word of God—chapter and verse—then, by all means, you need to share those views among yourselves.

When we let Christ’s word dwell richly in us, we will all have times when we have words that teach and even admonish one another and help us all to put off the ways of the world and to put on the things of Jesus Christ.

Finally, verse 17 says, “And, whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” May this be our aim every single moment of every single day. Amen

"Caring for God's creation is the believer's duty."

See here.

"Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you"

A great story from John H. Armstrong's Your Church is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ's Mission is Vital to the Future of the Church:

Some years ago, a friend shared a story about harsh attacks on Dr. Billy Graham in his early days of ministry. Many of these attacks came from former friends. His goal was to bless those Christians who attacked him. On one significant occasion, a major leader violated the work of Dr. Graham in a way that was particularly egregious. Dr. Graham hastily called a board meeting. He made it clear that there would be no counterattack. The board then prayed for the other minister and the issue was dropped.

May I learn the lesson of this story showing a faithful Christian applying Jesus' words in Luke 6:28:

"Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."

The Armstrong book is an important one, the truths of which I have been soaking up for several months now.

Another Great Observation

This one from John H. Armstrong himself:

"I have...come to see that the primary mission of the church is not just to bring people into the visible church but to bring into the knowledge of Christ and his kingdom."

Great Quote

John H. Armstrong shares this from Abraham Kuyper:

"No single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, 'Mine!'"

Christians and Immigration Reform

Recently, I've been critical of the presiding bishop of the denomination to which I belong, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), for his rather specific lobbying of President Obama on the subject of immigration reform. (You can see the substance of my criticism here and here.)

None of this is to say that Christians shouldn't think--and think hard--about issues like immigration reform from the perspective of their faith.

Four years ago, I did a series of blog posts on How Christians Might Think About Immigration Reform. In it, I didn't present a point of view or an opinion, but a series of windows through which Christians might want to think and pray about this big issue. Since it has come back to the fore as an issue, here are the links to all four installments:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

I hope that you find these helpful.

The Preacher, the Church, and Justice

The Christian preacher has a responsibility to speak for justice.

Pastor John Ortberg underscores this in a challenging article in the latest issue of Leadership Journal, Preaching Like the Prophets. There, he looks to the prophets of Old Testament times to show how important the quest for justice is for followers of the God Who revealed Himself to Israel and ultimately, in Jesus of Nazareth.

Writes Ortberg:

Events that horrified the prophets go on every day in our world, but we just get used to it--like you get used to wearing your watch. After awhile--we don't notice any more.

The prophets noticed. The prophets never got desensitized to sin. Injustice is sin. Justice is central to shalom.* We omit justice from our preaching at peril of our calling, and of our congregation's health and ability to see the reality around them.

Ortberg goes on to say that there are certain perils associated with preaching about justice, particularly in these times. "Our society has become so politicized," he points out, "that people often hear words like justice or life or the poor or compassion as code words for a partisan political allegiance in one direction or another." Also, he notes that preaching about justice can devolve into "self-righteous moralism" on the part of the preacher. But for all the perils it may entail, the preacher is still called to talk about justice as an outgrowth of Christian discipleship.

Most importantly maybe, Ortberg in this very good article, says that in preaching about justice, church leaders "will have to explain that the values embedded in the Bible do not necessarily have a straight-line translation into legislation." He writes:

For instance, all followers of Jesus are obligated to be concerned for the poor. But that does not mean that they should all be committed to passing a higher minimum wage law. Very bright economists disagree about whether such legislation actually results in helping the poor. As preachers, we do not further the cause of the authority of Scripture when we pretend to be experts over fields we have not mastered.

Amen!

Justice is an important element of the Christian's relationship with Jesus Christ. This is something we acknowledge in our Lutheran tradition, among other times, on the occasion of Confirmation, or Affirmation of Baptism, when adolescents or adult converts who have been baptized and trained in the faith publicly affirm their intention of living as faithful followers of Jesus Christ in their daily lives. Toward the end of the rite for Affirmation of Baptism, each individual is addressed and challenged to do just that:

You have made public profession of your faith. Do you intend to continue in the covenant God made with you in Holy Baptism: to live among God's faithful people, to hear His Word and share in His supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of our Lord Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth?

The confirmand is then asked to respond with the words, "I do, and I ask God to help and guide me."

The message of the prophets was, in a nutshell, "Turn from sin, including injustice, and turn to God." None of them laid out specific political programs, recommended particular outlays of money to address specific issues, or commended particular laws. They trusted that if they shared God's Word, including the call and the command to seek justice, God would help the people see what they needed to do.

Today, preachers (and denominational groups) are called to preach justice and trust God to do the rest.

*Shalom is a Hebrew term. It means more than peace. It has the idea of our enjoyment of peace with God and all the good things--including justice and love--that flow from it in our relationships with others. Such peace begins in a relationship with Jesus Christ in which Jesus is our Lord, God, and Savior. As Paul writes in Romans 5:1, "...since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ..."

[UPDATE: Just today, Bishop Mark Hanson of the ELCA, released the text of a letter in which he got deep into the weeds of immigration reform, not my idea of what the bishop is best at or called to do.]

May We Learn to Blush Again

I like this devotional article for today from Our Daily Bread, based on Jeremiah 6:14-20. But, as may be inevitable for a piece so short, it really only scratches the surface of Jeremiah's message for ancient Judah, the southern portion of the by-then long-splintered Israel (chapters 1 to 45) and for the nations (chapters 46 to 52).

It isn't just the priests and religious leaders of Judah who are about to incur God's wrath as Jeremiah writes. It's all people who should know better. Of course, God presented these prophecies through Jeremiah in the hope that they would turn to "the ancient path," the path revealed explicitly in the Ten Commandments, which Jesus summarized in the Great Commandment: to love God completely and to love others as we love ourselves. Those commands convey God's will for all of our relationships, priorities, our speech, our view of others' property, and how we use the gift of sexuality, among other things.

In the people of ancient Judah, God saw a people who didn't know how to blush any more. They were a people who should have known better. They should have known what ways of life were "blush-worthy." But this remnant of God's people overlooked the ancient path--the pathway of love for God and neighbor--and decided that, instead, they knew better than God or God's revealed will.

The Church of today, in many ways, resembles ancient Judah. God has been revealed to us in grace and mercy through Jesus Christ and yet, we too, have decided, whether by practice or by overt statements of policy, that we know better than God. And, at the risk of the immortal souls of those who listen to us for a Word from God, we in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have recently arrogantly arrogated to ourselves the power to tell some that it's OK to do what their sinful orientation tells them to do. (See here and here.)

For many, these actions were just the "straws that broke the camel's back," the first official statements of what has appeared to be long march away from God's Word and will in the ELCA.

God help us! May we learn to blush again! May we turn to the ancient path and begin to live repentant lives.

We are all sinners. We all fall short of God's glory. And we all have orientations to different sins. I personally have sins for which I repent each and every day. But may we never feel comfortable with our sins. May we never so worship ourselves that we dare to call God wrong or out of touch.

We in the ELCA need to repent and return to the ancient path!

I'm just sayin'.
**********************************************************************************
Here's Jeremiah 6:14-20, by the way:

They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. They acted shamefully, they committed abomination; yet they were not ashamed, they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord. Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, “We will not walk in it.” Also I raised up sentinels for you: “Give heed to the sound of the trumpet!” But they said, “We will not give heed.” ^151617
18 
Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. Hear, O earth; I am going to bring disaster on this people, the fruit of their schemes, because they have not given heed to my words; and as for my teaching, they have rejected it. Of what use to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba, or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices pleasing to me. ¹⁹²⁰

'New Day'

That's the title of this original composition performed by my blogging friend, Alex Jordan. It's nice! I hope that he keeps performing his songs on Youtube.

"This world is not reserved for the perfect, the wealthy, or the athletic."

"Each person, no matter their physical, mental, or emotional condition, is created in the image of God...and is of equal value and significance." Read the whole thing!

Staying Rooted in the Basics

[This was prepared for worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Colossians 2:6-15
One of the best hitters in the history of Major League Baseball was Tony Gwynn, Sr. of the San Diego Padres. In a twenty year career, he got 3141 hits and compiled a .338 batting average, meaning that he got hits almost 34% of the time he was at bat. (The average major leaguer hits the ball just 25% of the time.) As the baseball people would say, “Tony Gwynn could flat-out hit.”

Of course, every major league batter tries to hit the ball and all would like to be able to do it as often as Tony Gwynn did during his career. So, why don’t they? Well, not everybody may be as talented as Tony Gwynn was, of course. But I think I learned the real reason for Gwynn’s success as a hitter during a game I watched in his last season. A commentator said that every single day, on top of team batting practice, Tony Gwynn watched video of his at bats from the days before. With bat in hand, he analyzed his swings, correcting what he had done wrong, and reminding himself of the right way to swing a baseball bat. In short, Tony Gwynn’s success as a major league hitter came down to this: He always went back to the basics. He realized that if he didn’t get the basics right and build on them, his whole game would go nowhere. So, before every one of his 2440 games, Tony Gwynn schooled himself on the basics of hitting. That’s how he became one of the greatest players of all time.

In a way, the New Testament letter to the first century Christian church in the Asia Minor town of Colossae was a call to get back to the basics of Christian faith. That’s because the apostle Paul and his assistant Timothy had gotten disturbing reports that the Christians there were starting to hear from people selling a fake Christianity. We don’t know exactly what it was these people were selling. But it seems that they were telling the Colossian church that Jesus and His cross were OK, but that to be truly acceptable to God, they also needed to keep the right diet, be circumcised if they were male, observe certain festivals, and maybe, worship angels, have visions, and, as Paul and Timothy put it, get “puffed up by a human way of thinking.”

These enemies of the Gospel were commending what Martin Luther once condemned as “Christ and” theology. Salvation, they claimed, came from “Christ and abiding by certain rules, by worshiping angels, or keeping special feast days.” In Jesus Christ, God has revealed that there is but one way to reconciliation with God, one way to freedom from sin and death, and one way to personal wholeness. That one way is through Jesus Christ and our faith in Christ alone. In the New Testament book of Acts, Peter and John said of Jesus, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” And Jesus Himself, after affirming that God had sent Him into the world so that all who believe (or trust) in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life, referred to Himself in the third person and said, “Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

The most basic fact of Christian faith and of life itself is that life, true life, abundant life, life with God, comes from Jesus Christ alone. If we fail to root and build our lives on that reality, our lesson from Colossians tells us today, we risk veering away from God and from eternity with Christ as surely as a major leaguer risks veering off into mediocrity by failing to attend to the basics. “As you…have received Christ Jesus the Lord,” it says, “continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

Already, earlier in their letter, Paul and Timothy had taken great pains to remind the Colossian Christians of Who Jesus is and how all their hope for life, purpose, hope, and eternity reside in Him. In today’s lessons, those ideas are carried forward. Paul and Timothy say that, “in [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” They say that Jesus “is the head of every ruler and authority.” And then they make a basic statement of Christian belief that, even though basic, is, at the same time, amazing. Please be patient here, close your eyes, and try to hear what they write with fresh ears. Listen:

In [Jesus] also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands.

Circumcision, of course, was the Jewish rite of initiation for male babies. At eight days old, they were circumcised, a piece of skin lopped from their bodies. Christians undergo a circumcision; at baptism, the old self is drowned so that the new self can live forever with Jesus Christ. Paul talks about that in the New Testament book of Romans when he says, “we have been buried with [Christ] by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Luther talks about this same subject when, in The Small Catechism, he tells what Baptism means for daily life: “It means that our sinful self, with all its evil deeds and desires, should be drowned through daily repentance; and that day after day a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever.”

So, as Paul and Timothy push the Colossian Christians to go back to the basics, they remind them of two important things. First, they focus on the amazing fact that in Baptism, Christ shares His cross and resurrection with us. In Baptism, our old selves die and our new selves rise to live with Jesus forever. That fact ought to have an impact on us! We ought to be in awe of it!

At the McConnell Center in Riverside Hospital a few weeks ago, I lay on the table where my cardiologist had just finished implanting a stent in my heart. “I hope that none of you ever lose the sense of awe at what you’re allowed to do in this procedure,” I told the doctor and the five assistants then in the room with us. “It’s incredible!”

What I was urging them to do relative to heart catheterization was to always remember the basic fact that, in this procedure, they were giving people new leases on their lives. I would probably be dead without it. That’s awesome!

But how much more awesome is it that the King of the universe, the Maker of all creation, has come into our world to be one of us, has died to erase sin’s power over us and risen to give new life to fallen humanity? Not just the cross and the empty tomb, but the baptismal font where we actually share in Christ’s victory over sin and death, ought to cause us in the words of the old spiritual, “tremble, tremble, tremble.” That’s the first thing that Paul and Timothy wanted the Colossian Christians to remember.

Here’s the second thing they wanted the Colossians to remember: The gift of life with God through Christ is free. But we keep it only by, as our lesson puts it, “holding fast to the head [that is, to Jesus, the King of the universe], from whom the whole body [that’s we in Christ’s Church].”

Holding fast to Christ means consciously, each day, lopping off any trust we might put in the world and its supposed wisdom, even if that alleged wisdom comes from pastors, bishops, and theologians with miles of letters after their names, and instead trusting in Christ alone.

I thank God that my parents had me baptized as an infant; there at the font, God made His commitment to me. But I can tell you that had I died when I was nineteen years old, a time when I denied God’s existence and turned my back on Christ, I would have gone to hell. Christ never tires of extending His hand to us, offering forgiveness and life to the repentant. But we, in turn, in the strength of the Holy Spirit must grasp that hand, trust in Him to the extent we’re able, and hold fast to the One Who shares His resurrection victory with us.

Tryg Skarsten was one of my professors at seminary. He once told about taking an extended flight, on which he was seated next to a friendly couple. They asked Tryg about his work and Tryg told them that he was a Lutheran pastor who taught at a seminary. “How about that?” the man said. “I was baptized in the Lutheran Church.” Tryg and the couple talked for a long time. As they did, it became evident to Tryg that this couple had no connection with Christ or the Church. He felt compelled to make them an offer, “You seem like wonderful people. I wonder if you would like to pray with me to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior?” The man became incensed. “I told you I was baptized Lutheran, didn’t I?” What the Holy Spirit led Tryg to see though, was that while the man and his wife were baptized, they weren’t following Christ. God had done all through cross, tomb, and font, but they weren’t holding fast to Christ. That, say Paul and Timothy in today’s second lesson, is what we all need to do.

Mark’s Gospel quotes the risen Jesus as saying, “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned.” In Baptism, the amazing love and grace of God in Christ comes to us. But the question each day puts before us—at work, at home, in our daily decisions—is whether we’re holding onto Christ. Are we believing in Him? Are we trusting in Him? All eternity hangs on our answer to that question and if we want to say, “Yes,” the God Who understands our weakness, will help us hold on tight to Jesus today and eternally. Amen!

Some of My Summer Reading

Not everything I read is serious...especially during the summer months. This is a fun one.

What Causes Church Conflicts?

What causes church conflicts? This is a really good article addressing that question.

Years ago, I received training to be a conflict resolution consultant for the Northwestern Ohio Synod (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). The training came from someone with The Alban Institute and it was very good. This article, from the Billy Graham web site, succinctly summarizes major issues that give rise to congregational conflicts.

Conflict--or disagreement, it should be remembered, isn't inherently bad. I like the old saying: If two people agree on everything, at least one of them is irrelevant. If conflict is approached with love, it can be a time of growth for all involved, no matter what the resolution.

That was certainly the case with the first recorded church fight. It was over how Gentile believers in Christ were to be admitted into the fellowship of the Church, which up to that point, saw itself as a sect of Judaism. According to some scholars, there were at least four major groupings within the fledgling Church, each with their own views on the subject of Gentile assimilation and other subjects. Strong-minded people with strong opinions made their opinions known.

But that conflict didn't kill the Church. Instead, at a council in Jerusalem, informal representatives of the various groups met, prayed, and set out a new policy. They didn't depart from what God has revealed, not only in Christ, but in Old Testament times. God's character and will never change. But they were open to seeing old truths in new ways and so, found a solution.

Reliance on God's gracious love, shared even as we present the conflicting views to which we believe God and God's Word have taken us, is the key to resolving conflicts. I've seen that repeatedly in my 26 years as a pastor and student of Christ's Church.

And by the way, in reference to the teaser with which the article on church conflicts begins, I do know of a congregation that saw members leave because they didn't like the color of the carpeting selected for a new sanctuary. That is what I'd call majoring in the minors!

"Sometimes, it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble."

See here.

Interesting!

Historian Robert Dallek on how LBJ got Medicare passed and made it seem like a patriotic duty for the AMA to go along, Johnson was a master of the legislative process. It's sad--I would say tragice--that he couldn't use his legislative guile to end the War in Vietnam.

Never Forget!

A member of Saint Matthew sent a link to this album of photos from the Auschwitz death camp. It shows prisoners being brought in and sorted either to work in the camp or to be gassed. There no grisly photos. But they do act as further reminders of the inhumanity of which human beings are capable. May God help us to never forget!

When Worry Threatens

A quote which Norman Vincent Peale attributed to an anonymous sixteenth-century mystic:

"Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes away except God. God alone is sufficient."

UPDATE, MYSTERY SOLVED: After I posted this quote over on Facebook, my Lutheran colleague, Abraham Allende, left these informative comments and has permitted me to share them here:

The mystic was not anonymous. She was St. Teresa of Avila, also known as Teresa of Jesus, a native of Spain, a member of the Carmelite order and a leader of the Catholic Reformation in the 16th Century (better known as the counterreformation). She is commemorated on October 15. The text that you quoted is a poem she wrote and used in a Taize song sung in Spanish: "Nada te turbe, nada te espante. Todo se pasa. Dios no se muda. Quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta. La paciencia todo lo alcanza. Solo Dios basta."

Sorry to go on and on but she is one of my favorite poets and people of faith. I am surprised that Norman Vincent Peale would not give her proper attribution and I won't speculate as to why.

Three Awesome Gifts

The most awesome gifts God gives are grace, mercy, and peace.

It's by God's grace through our faith (or trust) in Christ that we all can have peace with God.

And, to paraphrase the first century preacher Paul writing at another place in the New Testament, faith in God isn't something we construct.

We don't talk ourselves into faith any more than the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz talked himself into courage. Faith in Christ is a free gift God gives to all who are willing to let God tear down our walls of resistance.

Through grace, God can tear down everything within us that keeps us from being who we were made to be and God can begin to build up everything we were made to be.

Interested in becoming God's construction site?

It's sometimes painful, but always rewarding. Sometimes challenging, but always joyful.

And through the process of growing God-ward, you will experience the grace, mercy, and peace of the awesome God of all creation!

Today's Our Daily Bread devotion takes the time to present short definitions of these three awesome gifts of God: grace, mercy, and peace.

Cockeyed Priorities?

From my colleague, Pastor Glen VanderKloot's daily emailed inspiration for today:

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Thought for the Day:

 "Most middle class Americans tend to worship their work,
to work at their play,
and to play at their worship."

    Gordon Dahl
            
Scripture:
 Hebrews 13:16  (The Message)
Make sure you don't take things for granted and go slack in
working for the common good; share what you have with others.
God takes particular pleasure in acts of worship—
a different kind of "sacrifice"—that take place in kitchen and
workplace and on the streets.

Prayer:
Lord, help me to keep worship, work and play in the right order.
  Amen
*************************************************

Avoiding things that can destroy our relationship with God

Here. Really good!

What Women (and Men) Need as Leaders

I picked up a copy of the July/August issue of The Atlantic magazine at Laguardia Airport in New York on Thursday morning, before flying back to Columbus. It's the magazine's annual "Ideas Issue" and the featured idea was presented by Hanna Rosin in an interesting article called The End of Men: How Women Are Taking Control---of Everything.

Read it if you get the chance. There's a lot of good stuff, both in terms of summarizing ongoing trends and projecting what they all might mean for men and women in coming years. Here, I want to briefly mention one of Rosin's observations. She says:

A new kind of alpha female has appeared...the more women dominate, the more they behave...like the dominant sex...

Back in the 1970s, I excitedly looked forward to the day when women got the upper hand in society. I reasoned that with women as CEOs, mayors, governors, police chiefs, factory supervisors, college presidents, and such, the institutions they led, and the country at large, would experience seismic (and compelling) shifts. Female leaders, I thought, would bring more collaborative, even nurturing styles of leadership to their work, making institutions more humane and nurturing and because there would be less turf-battling, more productive.


In some cases, as Rosin points out between the lines in her article, those outcomes have evidenced themselves as more women lead more institutions.

But increasingly, as females have become socialized to gender equality and women have become leaders, supervisors, managers, and such, many women seem to have adopted the very harsh and dominating behaviors once associated with men.


In my twenty-six years as a pastor, a role which I have always felt called for collaboration, the harshest criticism I've received has come from women urging me to be more "assertive" as a leader, by which I've usually felt they meant I should not worry about giving people their say, but just do what I wanted to do. "Leaders," I've had to explain, "aren't dictators." There are always some women who, even more than men, seem disappointed to hear me say that.


In my college days, excited by the rise of the modern feminist movement, I would hardly have imagined such a scenario. But then I wasn't a Christian back then either. My atheism and faith in human nature militated against realism about human beings, be they women or men.


As a Christian, I came to see certain important realities, though.


First: There is no fundamental difference between men and women. The domination of one gender over another by whatever means, isn't God-given, but acculturated, something we're taught. Genesis says of the creation of humanity and of the genders:

Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness...So God created humankind in His image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them...(Genesis 1:26-27)

Male and female both were created in God's image, neither one reflecting that image less than the other. Men and women are equal then.


Second: Both men and women are prone to the same faults. Exhibit one of this can be seen in a passage of Scripture I cited in my sermon last Sunday, the story of how Adam and Eve abandoned defending one other when they disobeyed God by eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The condition of sin means that, no matter our gender, we can engage in sin. We can be alpha males or alpha females. We each can be devastatingly hurtful to others, ourselves, and to God.


I'm glad to be living in an era in which women are making dramatic--and increasingly unquestioned--strides toward true equality. But Rosin's article suggests what the Bible, in many and various ways, taught long ago: It's foolish to trust that the domination of either women or men will bring enlightened human leadership.


That can only come from people--female or male--whose knees are bent and hearts are turned to God. "The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge," King Solomon wrote under God's guidance (Proverbs 1:7). Solomon forgot that truth and so, in spite of his acquisition of power, influence, wealth, and wives, left a house of cards for a kingdom on his death. May we all--male, female, leader, follower--not repeat his mistake, instead putting God first in our priorities. When we do that, we won't be alpha-, beta-, or anything- people. We'll simply be people leading useful lives, affirming the equal usefulness of others' lives.

Hanson Statement Highlights Problem with Churches of the Left...and the Right

One of the biggest problems in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), of which I am a part, is its leadership's insistence on speaking out on a variety of political issues, pretending, it seems to me, that their positions are unambiguously "Christian," when in fact, Scripture gives no such authority.

It matters little to me that the agenda pushed by our denominational leadership is "liberal," which it mostly is. I was complaining about the Religious Right's equation of Christian faith with conservatism a long time ago, and for the same reasons I am so critical of my own denomination's leadership today. Both the ELCA's leaders with their liberalism and those of denominations pursuing conservative political agendas are, I believe, equally heedless of the Gospel, equally prone to an "idolatry of ideology," and equally likely to confuse people about what it means to be a follower of Christ while alienating the very people with whom we're called and commanded to share our "good news.

I returned from a few vacation days in New York to find an email and press release announcing that the ELCA's presiding bishop, Mark Hanson, is pressing the U.S. Congress for immigration reform.

Immigration reform along the lines proposed by Bishop Hanson may very well be a fine idea. And there can be no doubt that we Christians are commanded to treat the strangers in our midst with hospitality and love.

But Bishop Hanson can hardly argue that he has a warrant for saying that two of the "principles" he endorses ("helping new neighbors come out of the shadows...and seeking a path to permanence for new neighbors") have Biblical or confessional authority. They are merely his political preferences, nothing more and nothing less, even if he feels a churchwide assembly vote gave him the right to issue such a statement in the Name of Christ and the Church.

Except in cases where the witness of Scripture is unambiguous in its message for civil authority and a pluralistic society, the Church needs to stay out of politics. Our mission is to share the Good News--the Gospel--of Jesus, not win legislative votes, elections, or coercive power.

Here are some other places where I've written on this subject:
No Politics from the Pulpit...or From Preachers

A Pledge I Wish Every Christian Leader Would Make
Jesus is Not a Republican. Jesus is Also Not a Democrat.
Who is the 'Values Voter'?
"Do religious ideas undermine democratic discourse?"
Dr. Dobson, Stop Playing This Dangerous Game!
Politics Endorsed by a Church? I Don't Think So!
Why Separation of Church and State is Best for the Church and Its Cause
Iraq, the Church, and 'Christian' Political Commentary

All You Need is Love...All You Need is Jesus

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Colossians 1:1-14
This past week brought the seventieth birthday of Ringo Starr, drummer of the Beatles. Several days before his big day, an interviewer asked him what he might like people to do to celebrate. At noon on that day, Ringo said, he wanted everybody to hold up their hands in peace signs and say, three times, “Peace and love.”

It’s absolutely silly, of course. Humanity has known for centuries that “all you need is love,” but having that knowledge and even engaging in gestures like Ringo Starr suggested in order to remind us of it will do nothing to make us all the loving people who, in our heart of hearts, we really want to be and who we often pretend to be to the outside world.

There’s a lot of hatred in the world, much of it done in the name of God, some of it done specifically in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s not only tragic and sad, it’s sinful and demonic.

When I speak of hatred, I don’t have in mind just the sort of hostility we may harbor for someone we feel has betrayed our trust or hurt us. Those Cleveland Cavaliers fans who now say, as one was quoted as saying in the Columbus Dispatch this past week, that they’ll hate LeBron James forever, harbor a deep passion (I would say a way too deep passion) about LeBron, the NBA, and sports, in general. You see, at some level, those now professing their hatred for LeBron James once passionately loved him, his sport, and the promise of a championship that he seemed to carry away with him to the South Beach of Florida. 

That kind of hatred is born of love and disappointment. We see it all the time. A jilted lover can harbor a deep hatred for her or his ex, precisely because of the love they felt for that person. An assembly line worker who has thirty years on the job who suddenly finds his work shipped elsewhere or eliminated altogether, can feel hatred toward the company precisely because he loved his job, its income, its routine, and all that it brought into his life.

But there is another kind of hatred, one that is far more widespread than the hatred of overt hostility born of love and disappointment. It’s the hatred of indifference, of looking out for number one without regard to others. It isn’t hostile, mind you. It simply doesn’t consider others.

This kind of hatred was seen in the Garden of Eden when Eve tried to beat the rap by blaming the serpent and Adam did the same by blaming Eve.

It's seen in two fictional characters created by Jesus, the priest and the levite who passed by the wounded man on the road in the parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson. These characters felt no hostility toward the wounded man; they didn’t know him or even try to know him. They were simply so absorbed in their own agendas that they didn’t ake him or his wounds into account.

We’re rightly outraged and mystified by what we might call “passive hatred” we see, hear, and experience in our real-life world. And yet I personally have to admit my own culpability for this very sin.

A few weeks ago, Ann and I were walking across the parking lot of a Starbucks when a woman pushing a child in a stroller approached us. She said that her baby’s father was being released from jail the next day and she needed money to move to a different place where he couldn’t find her. Was she telling the truth? I don’t know. But I didn’t give her a chance to repeat her story. I dehumanized her by simply refusing her request and moving on. The image of that woman and her child has haunted me since.

This is an example of the hatred of indifference and I confess it to you, really, with shame. I should know better.

But it pleases me that I recognize it for what it is: a sin, a violation of the great commandment that we love God totally and love our neighbors—all our neighbors—as we love ourselves.

The reason it pleases me that I recognize this indifference as sin is that it shows that, despite my   imperfections and flaws, a powerful seed has been planted within me. It’s the seed of the gospel—the good news of new and everlasting life that belongs to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ. The messiah Jesus brings those who trust in Him forgiveness of sins and ushers us into His kingdom here and now. I don’t think that I would recognize the subtle hatred of indifference as a sin of mine if Jesus weren’t working within me, working in spite of my faults and frailties to make me part of His new creation.

Today we begin a short sermon series on the New Testament book of Colossians. Colossians is a letter written jointly by the apostle Paul and his assistant, the young pastor Timothy, to a church in western Asia Minor, what is today western Turkey, in the town of Colossae. Paul was imprisoned, probably under house arrest, at the time of the letter’s writing. Some think that he was imprisoned in Rome; others say he was held in the nearby town of Ephesus. Whatever the case, the letter was probably written in the early-60sAD, several years before Colossae was destroyed by an earthquake.

By the time Paul and Timothy sent this letter, Colossae had fallen on hard economic times. Its major industry, the production of dark red dyed wool, had nearly died out. Colossae sat in the Lycus Valley, near the Meander River, and was largely forgotten by the greater Roman Empire beyond it.

But Colossae and the Lycus Valley weren’t forgotten by God! (Anymore than any of us are ever forgotten by God. God is never more than a prayer away, something I have learned again beyond all doubt in recent weeks.) Paul had sent a member of his ministry team, a Colossian named Epaphras to start a congregation in Colossae. There, under the daily pastoral leadership of Epaphras, a congregation composed of Jews and non-Jews (Gentiles, like us) had taken root and grown. But it wasn’t just an organization that had taken root and grown. Paul says that the very word of God’s truth, the gospel, had born fruit in them and was displaying itself in their love: in love among believers, in love of the believers toward others.

In the original Greek in which Colossians, like the rest of the New Testament, was written, the word that Paul and Timothy use for love is agape. In secular Greek writing, the word agape for love was rarely used until the second and third centuries. When the early Christians used it, they had a very specific understanding of love in mind.

• Agape love is self-giving love. 
• Agape love is also in-spite-of love, given and acted upon in spite of how one may feel about the person to whom they’re loving at the time. 
• Agape love is about actively looking out for others, even when you don’t know them or when you don't approve of their behavior or know that God doesn't approve of their behavior. 

The ultimate expression of agape love, of course, is Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus gave His life to wipe out the power of sin and death over our lives and He did so in spite of the fact that at that moment the world’s hatred—our hatred—in the forms of both hostility and indifference—were the very things that pounded the nails into His flesh and forced the crown of thorns down on His head.

But Jesus is more than an example of agape love. Seeing representations of His death on a cross—while it may build up our faith—won’t necessarily have any more power to turn us from the hatred of indifference to agape love than will holding up peace signs and saying, “Peace and love” three times.

It’s only when we trust—when we have faith--in Jesus and give Him access to our hearts, minds, and wills each day that He can plant the seeds of His love in us and make us and every part of the world we touch different, better, more human, more divine.

In the opening verses of Colossians, our second lesson for today, Paul exults and thanks God that Jesus’ word is growing in the Colossian Christians and showing in their lives of tough agape love! That's what happens when the Good News of Jesus takes hold in people's lives.

A few years back in our former community, a strip joint opened. Some churches got together and demonstrated, protesting the existence of the place. They were concerned that it would breed prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse. But they did more than demonstrate. Demonstrators befriended the dancers, found out about their lives, and set up schedules so that while the women were working at night, volunteers from the churches babysat their kids. Why? Christ’s agape love lived within those Christians. They refused to be indifferent or hostile to people who, just like them, needed Jesus Christ living within them.

And this is no isolated incident. Tony Campolo is a Baptist pastor and a sociologist. I tease that he's so cool, he could be a Lutheran and Campolo, in fact, often speaks at our Lutheran gatherings. One evening before a presentation in Hawaii, he and a colleague walked into a diner that turned out to be the gathering place of prostitutes before and after they went out onto the streets. Campolo struck up a conversation with these women. When it was clear that he wasn’t interested in buying what they were selling, they asked questions about him and his work. He explained that he was a Christian and a pastor.

As they talked, Campolo learned that it was the birthday of one of the prostitutes. No one would send her a card or give her a cake and she would spend the evening in her humiliating trade. Campolo found out that this woman and the other prostitutes all would return to the diner at 3:00 in the morning. So, he and his friend went to a bakery to buy a cake. They bought streamers and hung them in the diner. When the prostitutes returned, they were stunned, especially the one whose birthday it was. "What kind of God do you believe in?" she asked. Campolo answered: “The kind of God Who throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:00 in the morning.” The God we know in Jesus Christ is the One Who fills us with His tough, self-giving, in-spite-of agape love to share with the world!

I thank God for the strong agape love I see and experience in the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church.

I thank God that I am privileged to be your pastor.

I thank God that I'm given a front row seat on the kingdom of Jesus I see growing in you each day.

And, I thank God that He has made me a grateful beneficiary of your agape love for me, imperfections and all.

My message for you today is as simple and as direct as the one we find Paul sharing with the Colossians in our lesson this morning: Keep trusting in Jesus and keep allowing Him to grow His self-giving, in-spite-of love for all, not just in your sentiments and attitudes, but in everything you do, in every decision you make, and in every word you speak.

All the world needs is love. And that love is found only in Christ Jesus. Amen!

Paul McCartney - Full Broadcast - Hard Rock Calling

A terrific concert from about a month ago during the Hard Rock Calling Festival in London. Macca's voice is a bit rough during the first few songs, no doubt the product of his refusal to warm up before concerts. But he and the band really cook as time goes on. It's striking to see and hear the audience, composed of people of all ages, sing along with music from every portion of his career, testimony to the fact that the guy has composed a huge chunk of everyone's soundtrack for nearly fifty years now.

The arrangement of 'Mrs. Vandebilt' is fantastic and the crowd obviously agreed. ("Ho, hey, ho. Ho, hey, ho!")

Worshiping by the Lives We Lead

These words come from the daily emailed inspiration sent out by my friend and colleague, Pastor Glen VanderKloot, Faith Lutheran Church in Springfield, Illinois:

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

 A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Live Christ's life in your action.
Don't just go to worship.
Live the worship in everything you do.
Don't just partake of communion.
Be the Body of Christ in every action that you take.
Don't just observe the baptism.
Live the death and resurrection in your work, in your planning.
Don't just read the words.
Be the Word!
Let the Word become flesh and dwell among and in and through you.

    (Eric Law  "Sacred Acts, Holy Change"  p. 5)

Scripture: 
Colossians 3:16   New International Version
           
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach
and admonish one another with all wisdom,
and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs
with gratitude in your hearts to God.

Prayer:
Lord, help me to embody the Gospel,
not just think about or talk about it.  Amen
   
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