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The Hope and Healing I Need….You Do as Well!
DevotionalDiscussion thought of the day:
15 I am speaking as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I am saying. 16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.
1 Corinthians 10:15-17 (NAB)
But suppose you say, “What if I feel that I am unfit?” Answer: This also is my temptation, especially inherited from the old order under the pope when we tortured ourselves to become so perfectly pure that God might not find the least blemish in us. Because of this we became so timid that everyone was thrown into consternation, saying, “Alas, I am not worthy!”
56 Then nature and reason begin to contrast our unworthiness with this great and precious blessing, and it appears like a dark lantern in contrast to the bright sun, or as dung in contrast to jewels. Because nature and reason see this, such people refuse to go to the sacrament and wait until they become prepared, until one week passes into another and one half year into yet another.
57 If you choose to fix your eye on how good and pure you are, to work toward the time when nothing will prick your conscience, you will never go.
it continues…
61 People with such misgivings must learn that it is the highest wisdom to realize that this sacrament does not depend upon our worthiness. We are not baptized because we are worthy and holy, nor do we come to confession pure and without sin; on the contrary, we come as poor, miserable men, precisely because we are unworthy. The only exception is the person who desires no grace and absolution and has no intention to amend his life (1)
The one thing that kept me going this week could be described with words from a sermon illustration of Tony Campolo, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a comin!” Except for me it was more like “It’s Saturday,Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but Sunday’s a comin!” It was a seriously rough week for me, not just physically, but spiritually. And my level of depression was significant, as I observed a depth of brokenness of the church, ( rather in the group of churches I am a member of) I had not seen before, and I could do little about it.
Let me be honest, I had done what I constantly encourage others not to do, what I tell them often to remember. That God is with you, that He is your refuge, your sanctuary, your peace. At times I stopped looking forward to Sunday, stopped looking forward to sharing in, participating in the incredible blessing that nourishes us, that reminds us that nothing can separate us from Christ.
He has given us His Body, His precious blood, He has drawn us to the cross, that our dead, dried out bones can find life. We have entered into a relationship with Him, where He binds Himself to us in the New Covenant. He doesn’t expect us to heal ourselves, nor does He expect us to be serene when we come to the altar, when we fall at His feet.
In a way, I suppose seeing the brokenness is a good thing, for it drives me back to the cross. After this week, I cannot take my own righteousness for granted, nor that of the church. We must seek the healing that we need, a healing that is found only in the presence of Christ, the one crucified so that our we could join Him in death and rise again with Him (see Romans 6 and Colossians 2)
And so I look forward to that point, 24 hours from now, when I will hear the people I shepherd utter those incredible words, “and also with you”. (for my RCC friends – and with your Spirit) and I will taste and know the goodness of the Lord.
He is our hope, our refuge, our healing, our ever-present help in times of brokenness.
LORD, HAVE MERCY!
Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 453). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.(from the Large Catechism:Fifth Part: The Sacrament of the Altar)
Ministry is About Enabling All to See and Hear
Devotional Thought of the Day:
3 Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the LORD! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God! 4 Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills. Straighten the curves, and smooth out the rough places. 5 Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. The LORD has spoken!” Isaiah 40:3-5 (NLT)
397 Don’t place obstacles in the way of grace. You need to be convinced that to be leaven you must become a saint, and must struggle to identify yourself with Him. (1)
Some may recognize the passage from Isaiah 40 quoted above as being fulfilled in John the Baptist. For he was the first to cry out that Jesus Christ, our Lord, and Savior was near, that the glory of His cross would soon be revealed to everyone.
John’s call for repentance leveled the playing field, for no man could stand higher than another, and when Christ was lifted up, all could see him. No longer would wee little men need to climb trees to see Jesus. All would be drawn to Him; all would be able to know the hope of salvation.
The problem is that we forget that we share in this ministry of making Christ accessible. The problem is that many of the obstacles, the hindrances, the mountains and canyons are ones we built. Perhaps not intentionally, perhaps to give us a better view, but they still block the view, they still delay people who are bring drawn to the cross.
We have to stop treating ministry as if people are to serve it, rather than it serve the people. It is wrong to make the one being drawn to Christ detour for miles or weeks or years to get around the trenches we dig, the barriers we put up to keep things safe and neat. We need a call to repentance, especially among those who are to shepherd the church, or who serve the church as the priesthood of all believers.
We need to hear these words, Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all the people will see it together, and recognize that in these words our commission is clear.
They need to see.
We cannot continue to get in the way, but rather, we are called to help them respond to Christ drawing all of us to Himself, to hear the answer to our prayer,
Lord, have mercy upon us, sinners,
(1) Escriva, Josemaria. The Forge (Kindle Locations 1548-1549). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Poverty Is A Christian Value?
Discussion thought of the day:
25 ‘That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and what you are to wear. Surely life is more than food, and the body more than clothing! 26 Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? 27 Can any of you, however much you worry, add one single cubit to your span of life? 28 And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; 29 yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his royal robes was clothed like one of these. 30 Now if that is how God clothes the wild flowers growing in the field which are there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you who have so little faith? 31 So do not worry; do not say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? What are we to wear?” 32 It is the gentiles who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. 33 Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on God’s saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well. 34 So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.‘ Matthew 6:25-34 (NJB)
“Yes. poverty is a Christian value. The poor person is someone who knows that, by himself, he cannot live. He needs God and other people in order to be, flourish and grow. On the contrary, rich people expect nothing of anyone. They can provide for their needs without calling on their neighbors or on God. In this sense, wealth can lead to great sadness and true human loneliness or to terrible spiritual poverty. If in order to eat and care for himself, a man must turn to someone else, this necessarily results in a great enlargement of his heart. This is why the poor are closest to God and life in great solidarity with one another.; they draw from this divine source the ability to be attentive to others.” God or Nothing, Robert Cardinal Sarah p.140
In the reading in blue came from another source, rather than a priest who grew up in true poverty, I would be more likely to dismiss the words as naivete, or as some idyllic rationalization. But they come from one who was poor, who ministered among the poorest of the poor.
One of the reasons I will struggle with this for a while is because it is written by one who has been there, seen it, ministered among it.
I want to justify this, to spin it, to remind the writer that money isn’t the root of all evil, but that the love of money is. Another way to confront the writer is to compare my wealth to those around me, and claim that I am relatively impoverished. After all, I don’t own my home, and the last time the place we rent remodeled was when Kennedy was president. And my salary is not what it could be by the standards my denomination set.
Compared to 95 percent of the world, we are, in fact wealthy. Maybe even 98% of the world.
Cardinal Sarah points out the real issue. The issue is not wealth, but how wealth adds to the problem of independence, of self-reliance. Wealth destroys the independence of a community. It is easier to forget the needs of others, when we do not have need, or have not faced it. It is easier to write off what happens outside our walls, like the Rich man and Lazarus. Like the Rich man we don’t have an appreciation what he is going through, and the value of the soul and mind of the impoverished.
If poverty is to be considered a virtue, a way to grow in faith, then we begin to see self-reliance as the real problem, the real sin. Or should I say, the illusion of self-reliance? Because poverty normally is thought of as financial, but the other poverties, spiritual poverty, emotional poverty, relational poverty – they all lead to brokenness, to a solitary existence that is contrary to who are made to be.
Here it is, blunt and to the point. We were created with one mission, one purpose. To love, to love God with everything we are, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. To have intimate relationships (not physically intimate – but spiritually and emotionally intimate) is the concept. It is in such relationships that we see the fruit of the Spirit grow, it is in such relationships where we can depend upon others and are depended upon by others., that the faith, hope and love the Holy Spirit nourishes in us matters, and is treasured.
Do I have to give up my wealth? Do I have to be like St Francis of Assissi or Luther (giving up law practice) or a Mother Theresa?
Honestly, I do not know. There is a harder option, which is to ensure the things that I own don’t become treasures. The treasures I have are found delivered by the means of Grace. First, the audacious love and mercy of God, and secondly the community of faith and those who will be part of it, delivered through word and sacrament with us. Those are our true riches.
May the Lord’s Mercy remind us of this, and may that reminder bring us to love one another.
The Soul of the Mission: The Lord’s Supper?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
6 In our union with Christ Jesus he raised us up with him to rule with him in the heavenly world. 7 He did this to demonstrate for all time to come the extraordinary greatness of his grace in the love he showed us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it. 10 God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10 (TEV)
For where God’s Word is preached, accepted or believed, and bears fruit, there the blessed holy cross will not be far away. Let nobody think that he will have peace; he must sacrifice all he has on earth—possessions, honor, house and home, wife and children, body and life.
66 Now, this grieves our flesh and the old Adam, for it means that we must remain steadfast, suffer patiently whatever befalls us, and let go whatever is taken from us.
67 Therefore, there is just as much need in this case as in every other case to pray without ceasing: “Thy will be done, dear Father, and not the will of the devil or of our enemies, nor of those who would persecute and suppress thy holy Word or prevent thy kingdom from coming; and grant that whatever we must suffer on its account, we may patiently bear and overcome, so that our poor flesh may not yield or fall away through weakness or indolence.” (1)
The sacraments, however, especially the most holy Eucharist, communicate and nourish that charity which is the soul of the entire apostolate.
One engages in the apostolate through the faith, hope, and charity which the Holy Spirit diffuses in the hearts of all members of the Church. Indeed, by the precept of charity, which is the Lord’s greatest commandment, all the faithful are impelled to promote the glory of God through the coming of His kingdom and to obtain eternal life for all men-that they may know the only true God and Him whom He sent, Jesus Christ (cf. John 17:3). On all Christians therefore is laid the preeminent responsibility of working to make the divine message of salvation known and accepted by all men throughout the world. (2)
I was recently reading a document which described the mission field as one where suffering may be more likely than not. It wanted to prepare (and or scare off) potential missionaries, warning them that life would be hard.
But it is not just missionaries in exotic foreign places who are to live life in that manner. It is as well those who are missionaries here. All people who pray that God’s kingdom would come. All who understand the grace of God, having received it in awe, and in awe spent time in adoration and thanksgiving. This is the glorious work that God has given all the church, both its shepherds and sheep to do.
Luther is deadly with his recognition that there is a part of us that we balk at living lives full of suffering. We don’t want to be self-controlled, living simply to put first in our lives God’s priority – that of bringing the message of salvation to the world, making it know and helping all to accept it. Being brutally honest, I think sometimes we are glad when they are repulsed by it, or when we offend them enough to drive them away. It is easier to say “we tried and failed” than “we tried, and because we love them, we will keep praying and trying.” Vatican II says it well – it is our preeminent responsibility, this work of the gospel.
Being missional, being part of the apostolate (same term) requires us to suffer, to be patient, to be driven by the Holy Spirit, enduring to the end that people know Jesus.
Throughout this article, I haven’t used the other word, Sacrifice. I have not used it, because honestly, giving up money or fame, separating ourselves from our idols and false gods is not sacrifice. At least we learn it is not, as we find ourselves at the cross. That was sacrifice. Our giving up things, our endurance is simply the process of sanctification, as God himself separates us from that which distracts us from His love, from His presence, from the sacrifice of Christ’s love.
It is for that reason the passage from Vatican II calls the sacraments, and especially the Eucharist, Communion, the Lord’s Supper, the soul of the apostolate, or as some would know it, the soul of being missional. It is there, in that intimate moment as God gives you and your family Christ’s Body and Blood, as the covenant is renewed and celebrated, that we find again what is so precious. Time with God, the refuge of peace that overwhelms us that assures us that He loves us, that He will heal us, that He cares for us. God is our refuge, our strength, our very help in time of suffering.
This celebration of Christ’s sacrifice which unites us to God is the soul of our mission; it is what is so amazing that we know others must know it as well. That life is simply not the same without it. We have to reveal it to others, we are compelled, not by force, but by love to do this.
It doesn’t matter whether we are in the mountains of Papua New Guinea or the coastal towns of Sicily. It doesn’t matter whether we are in the suburbs of Boston, or in the urban city of Bellflower, California. It doesn’t matter whether we are risking our lives preaching the gospel in the Sudan, or in Istanbul, or having breakfast with friends in Cerritos.
The need for us to reveal God’s desire to meet their deepest needs, to bring healing to their brokenness exists.
This is our mission; this is why we are part of the apostolate, those who walk with Christ bringing light and salvation to the world.
We are Christ’s masterpiece. We are united to Him, and doing the good words God has created in our lives.
(1) Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 429). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
(2) Catholic Church. (2011). Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity: Apostolicam Actuositatem. In Vatican II Documents. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
I Don’t Think This Scripture Meant What You Thought it Meant! Jer 29:11
Devotional Thought of the Day
11 For I know well the plans I have in mind for you—oracle of the LORD—plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope. 12 When you call me, and come and pray to me, I will listen to you. 13 When you look for me, you will find me. Yes, when you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me—oracle of the LORD—and I will change your lot; I will gather you together from all the nations and all the places to which I have banished you—oracle of the LORD—and bring you back to the place from which I have exiled you. NABRE Jeremiah 29:11-14
386 You lack faith… and you lack love. Were it not so you would go immediately and much more often to Jesus, asking for this thing and that. Don’t delay any further; call out to him and you will hear Christ speaking to you: “What do you want me to do for you?” Just as when he stopped for that poor blind man by the roadside who continued to insist, without giving up. (1)
Verse 11 of Jeremiah 29 is well known. You see it placed on coffee cups and t-shirts, on various memes and on cards that are sent to people going through tough times. It is used by pastors and priests to bring comfort, and yes hope to people going through challenges and enduring hardships.
We’ll memorize it, but do we always remember the context?
It is in the middle of a call to repentance, in the middle of Jeremiah’s prophecies about the pain and suffering Israel would endure, because their people followed their own desires. Because they listened to prophets who gave them false hope. Who told them what they wanted to hear, and so they placed their hope in these men.
Sort of like those today, who maintain that all will be right, that we will be restored to greatness, if only this candidate or that wins an election. Or if only this or that is done, or only if…only if…
But don’t touch OUR sin. Don’t challenge us to repent. Don’t bring up the fact that we need to love our enemies and pray for those who oppress us.
You see, when you finish with the promise of verse 11, you see verse 12, and a cry to come and deliver us. A cry and another promise, God will listen, He will hear your cry! He will change things, heal that is wounded, restore that which is broken. He will create in you a new creation, a creation with a future and a hope.
When the people of God seek God their Father, they will find Him (for it is to believers this is written) He won’t reject us, He won’t crush us because we sinned and rebelled.
This passage offering a future and a hope is far more powerful a promise, far more a comfort than we think. For it brings a hope, a blessed expectation, not just to those who are innocent victims of circumstance, not just to those oppressed and poor. Surely they hope, but this is written to those broken apart, crushed by their own sin. It is written to those of us who do not deserve a future and a hope, but God promises us a future and hope as well.
That is why this passage is far more powerful than we usually think it is.It applies to those who are struggling with their own sin, who don’t believe God could ever care. To the addict, or the prostitute, to the mobster and the gang-banger, to the politician and to you and I.
It’s time to claim the promise, to let God reconcile you and I to Him. It’s time to cry our,and keep crying out, depending on a God who came to bring us home.
He is listening, He is with you!
My friend, He has promised this as well, that His peace, which goes beyond our ability to comprehend is your, and that He will keep your heart and mind safe in that peace.
AMEN!
(1) Escriva, Josemaria. The Forge (Kindle Locations 1511-1515). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Lord, You Want Me To Preach on What?
Devotional Thought fo the Day:
7 You seduced me,* LORD, and I let myself be seduced; you were too strong for me, and you prevailed. All day long I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me. 8 Whenever I speak, I must cry out, violence and outrage I proclaim; The word of the LORD has brought me reproach and derision all day long. 9 I say I will not mention him, I will no longer speak in his name. But then it is as if fire is burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding back, I cannot! Jeremiah 20:7-9 NAB-RE
If vocation comes first, if the star shines ahead to start us along the path of God’s love, it is illogical that we should begin to doubt if it chances to disappear from view. It might happen at certain moments in our interior life—and we are nearly always to blame—that the star disappears, just as it did to the wise kings on their journey. We have already realized the divine splendor of our vocation, and we are convinced about its definitive character, but perhaps the dust we stir up as we walk—our miseries—forms an opaque cloud that cuts off the light from above.
In the passage I am preaching on this week, there is what is called a gospel imperative. In other words, a command of God that only can be realized and heard within the fullness of the gospel. It has to be heard in a life of prayer, a life which realizes we stand on Holy ground.
“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good” Galatians 6:9
The first quote, from scripture above, is one of my ten favorite passages in scripture. It probably could be described as my life verse, at least it is one I experience a lot. For working in God’s kingdom is as wearing as building stone walls, or managing a university bookstore in the first weeks of class. It is worse, physically tiring, mentally exhausting and spiritually draining.
If a pastor neglects God, if he is too busy for time in prayer, if he is too busy for devotional time (as well as the business of studying scripture to preach and teach it) he will reach Jeremiah’s position quickly. We can reach the point that St Josemaria describes, where the dust we stir up in our journey distorts and even eclipses our view of Christ, our understanding of His love for us.
Of course, this isn’t just about pastors, for we are not the only ones who do good. It is true for every believer, for every perosn who trusts and depends on Christ. For that is what the faith is, need to cling to Christ (Jeremiah describes it as our being as clingy as underwear!) because He is our source of life, and of serenity and joy.
The answer to burnout, the answer to not seeing Christ is to know Him, to know the fire of the Holy Spirit that burns within us. TO depend on that rather than what we see and observe. It is what saints and mystics call the interior life, This is why St John of the Cross advises staying where we are at, making no dramatic change. We are to keep praying, to keep receiving the sacraments even when the storms of life blind us, when Satan assails us. We need to be patient and seek God, remembering that He is our refuge, our fortress, our sanctuary.
It is from this place that we can find His strength, where we find the dynamo that is the Holy Spirit indwelling in us. For dwelling in Christ we can keep on doing good, we can keep on loving the unlovable, we can be patient with those struggling, and guide them into the very presence of God.
For we know where He is… we know where Holy Ground is. We know where He has put His Name… fo we have met Him at the cross and been united to Him there.
AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. Christ is Passing By (Kindle Locations 1146-1151). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Prayer: The Required Grace…?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
11 Just as [under] shorts fit tightly around the waist, so I intended all the people of Israel and Judah to hold tightly to me. I did this so that they would be my people and would bring praise and honor to my name; but they would not obey me.” Jeremiah 13:11 (TEV)
To pray, as the Second Commandment teaches, is to call upon God in every need. This God requires of us; he has not left it to our choice. It is our duty and obligation to pray if we want to be Christians, just as it is our duty and obligation to obey our fathers and mothers and the civil authorities. By invocation and prayer the name of God is glorified and used to good purpose. This you should note above all so that you may silence and repel any thoughts that would prevent or deter us from praying. (1)
For those familiar with Luther, and the Lutheran understanding of Law and Gospel, the words in blue may sound strange and confusing. This sounds like a harsh use of the law, something that would lead to condemnation, something that is so demanding that all it can lead to is guilt and shame.
For many do not pray as they should! It is overlooked, dismissed as activities that are based in pietism. And if these words were not in Luther’s Large catechism they would be dismissed. Instead, I think they are simply ignored.
There is a part of us, the part that doubts God is listening, that doubt God cares, that finds prayer, whether prayers laying burdens down or hearing from God as we listening in prayer, as we meditate on His word, as burdensome and boring. We see them as something that saints might do, but by no means required beyond the prayers that are read at church.
Luther realized the necessity (so did Melanchthon – see his comments in Article XIII of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession! ) of prayer. But that necessity isn’t borne just of pleasing God. God didn’t commission us to use His name just so He would be glorified. The glory comes when we respond to His hearing, to His answering the prayer. Praise issues from our lips when we realize the comfort and peace the world cannot give, the comfort and peace that is possible only as we realize the merciful serenity that can be experienced in the presence of almighty God.
It is the answer to the cry of our heart that brings us to worship. This is why prayer is a requirement – because we need this means of grace, we desperately need what it delivers.
It is serendipitous (always wanted to use that word) that on the day I encounter Luther’s words, I encounter the words of the prophet Jeremiah. For indeed God wants us to know how close to us He is, how close to Him we are! This is the life of prayer – to cling to God like we are his underwear, as bizarre as that metaphor sounds! (and oh the comments that could be made…)
We need to be that close, we have to, in order to survive mentally, spiritually, even physically. For our life begins to spiral out of control as we separate ourselves from our Lord who is our life. We replace knowing God with knowing about Him, then we replace that knowledge with our own speculation and desires, as we make an idol in our image.
Cling to God, stalk Him, be persistent, wrestle with Him.
For He is our God, our Father.
And a great place to begin is with this little prayer of St Josemaria…..
383 Dear Jesus, I do want to correspond to your Love, but I am so feeble. With your grace, I will know how to! (2)
AMEN!
(1) Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 421). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
(2) Escriva, Josemaria. The Forge (Kindle Locations 1501-1503). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
When Justification Isn’t Enough
Devotional/Discussion Thought fo the Day:
7 I am writing to all of you in Rome who are loved by God and are called to be his own holy people. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
Romans 1:7 (NLT)
7 I am writing to all of you in Rome who are loved by God and are called to be his own holy people. May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
Romans 1:7 (NLT)
1 This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy. I am writing to God’s church in Corinth and to all of his holy people throughout Greece.
2 Corinthians 1:1 (NLT)
1 This letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. 2 God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. May God give you more and more grace and peace.
1 Peter 1:1-2 (NLT)
356 The first Apostles, when Our Lord called them, were by the side of an old boat busy mending the torn nets. Our Lord told them to follow him and statim—immediately—relictis omnibus—they left everything—everything! And followed him… And it does happen sometimes that we, who wish to imitate them, don’t quite leave everything, and there remains some attachment in our heart, something wrong in our life which we’re not willing to break with and offer up to God. Won’t you examine your heart in depth? Nothing should remain there except what is his. If not, we aren’t really loving him, neither you nor I. (1)
In Lutheran Theology, the Article of Justification has a primary place. Indeed, some call it the chief article of the faith. But that doesn’t mean that it is the only article of the faith
It is a genesis point, a point of beginning, and God’s declaration of our righteousness is something that continues in our life. It is hearing this declaration that enabled the disciples to walk away from family and work, and follow Jesus. His call to them, even as He calls us. But even in Luther’s explanation of the Creed we see that it is a beginning point, that God works something more in us.
But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. (2)
It is work, the enlightenment, the sanctification and preservation that brings Paul and Peter to describe the people of God as holy, as saints (the same thing in Greek) Were they perfect from our perspective? No, but God was sanctifying them, and creating in them a perfection that no one can deny.
While we don’t make ourselves holy, there is the nature of self-examination that helps us realizing that the Holy Spirit is at work. As the Spirit confronts us, illuminates those things which our heart could easily turn into our idols. It might not be something that people would normally think of as an idol, but what do we trust in, what can we not live without. Where does our hope balance upon, and if that is threatened, we react strongly, even vehemently, to protect it. Do we believe something may make a difference, that only it can make a difference? Then we have made a god and idol and given it a place in our heart that need be reserved for God.
And it is as we examine our conscience, as we look for that which is not set apart from God, that we can cry out like the blind man, “Lord have mercy!”, “Lord, Son of David, Heal me!”
Faith is the confidence it takes to ask God to remove it, to remove that which mars the holiness He has declared to be true. Faith means we depend on the Holy Spirit to create in us the repentant spirit that is part and parcel of our being declared righteous, being declared justified. Faith realizes that we’ve been united, that we are in communion with Jesus. That his incredible union, our baptismal gift from God, is strengthened as we spend sacred time, participating in the sacrament of the Eucharist, hearing we are absolved of our sin, reading and hearing scriptures and meditating on all these things.
This is our life saints… to cry out for mercy, and to trust God as He purifies our lives, a work that is brought to completion in the day of Christ.
Justification is primary, yes, as in the beginning. It is not all the work of God in our lives, just that which begins and makes the rest possible including the amazing fact that we can love God, and He would know that love. For this purpose we have been created… to love our God, and to know His love for us, His people.
AMEN!
(1) Escriva, Josemaria. The Forge (Kindle Locations 1406-1412). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
(2) Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 345). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
A Very Needed Lesson in Church Leadership..
Discussion Thought of the Day:
12 After Jesus had washed their feet, he put his outer garment back on and returned to his place at the table. “Do you understand what I have just done to you?” he asked. 13 “You call me Teacher and Lord, and it is right that you do so, because that is what I am. 14 I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you. 16 I am telling you the truth: no slaves are greater than their master, and no messengers are greater than the one who sent them. 17 Now that you know this truth, how happy you will be if you put it into practice! John 13:12-17 (TEV)
12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?” 13 Jesus replied, “Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, 14 so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.” 15 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Explain to us the parable that says people aren’t defiled by what they eat.” 16 “Don’t you understand yet?” Jesus asked. 17 “Anything you eat passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. 18 But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. 19 For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. 20 These are what defile you. Eating with unwashed hands will never defile you.”
Matthew 15:12-20 (NLT)
“Today how can anyone deny the fact that some men of the church are in a state of moral ruin? The careerism and the temptation to worldliness that the successor of which Peter speaks so often are very real evils. Some people imagine that they are products of the pope’s imagination. Alas , clerical narcissism is not just a literary theme. The sickness can be deep-seated.
In order to turn the tide, we must first reform our interior life. The church depends on the purity of our souls.” (1)
The quote in blue comes from a book, basically an enhanced interview with a Roman Catholic Cardinal from Africa. His story is a remarkable blend of suffering and hope, of wisdom born from times of real persecution, and a desire to see Christ. This is the story of a man who came from a village in the middle of nowhere, became a priest and bishop in a place where his predecessors were jailed and murdered. His dependence on God was tried in a way we can’t quite imagine, here safe and comfortable in the USA.
His critique of leadership in his church is accurate, and perhaps even more accurate in the Protestant church, and in my comparatively little corner of the church universal known as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. His presentation of where hope is found? It is also I believe accurate.
If the church is spoken of as being immoral, most would assume we are talking about either sexual immorality or fiscal impropriety. I am not naive enough to deny that exists, but the Cardinal speaks of something just as devastating. A sense of careerism, and a sense of clerical narcissism pervades the church today.
We see the results in the church, as parishes are closing, and others in steep decline. Where men are not entering programs that lead to ordination. Some will blame these things on finances, others on the decline of births among sections of the population. Some will say the decline is because they don’t appear to have the right sense of mission, or the appearance of the church, how it looks and sounds is not up to an ideal.
This is a sickness, and it is not imaginary. These attempts to fix it are attempts to clean up the appearance, to clean up the exterior, while the defiled nature is left intact. That is why a pastor or priest can easily fall into the sin of careerism, can quickly abandon the basin and towel and find the office and title, far away from the parish so appealing. (though we might on occasion return to give somone else a break)
So where is the hope? Cardinal Sarah pointed out these challenges given St Francis of Assisi and Pope Francis, and their focus on the interior life. To realize that the church does depend on the purity of souls. Not pure by their own work, but by a interior life that is simply depending on Christ Jesus.
There in meditating on His work as we are united to Him in Baptism,; it begins the cleaning fo the inside. There as we kneel and are given the body and blood in the Eucharist, we find ourselves being cleansed still. There as we deal with our brokenness and confess it, as we hear God absolving us, we find that the old nature has been nailed to the cross. That the old Adam was drowned in those baptismal waters, that we are free and able to die to self, to give our bodies over as living sacrifices.
This is where the church finds it hope. Not in men who are pure by the sweat of their own brow, but by men who are broken, yet, who find themselves at the cross. Who are drawn to Jesus who is lifted up, and find themselves being healed, who realize that healing is needed by those around them. The purity found in walking with Christ, in meditating on that which He has promised and accomplished.
The interior life is not something of our own making or sustained by our internal strength. It is the work of poiema found in Eph. 210, the work of art created in our lives by Christ. That is where the church finds its hope, for in shepherds who are so broken, who are the chief of sinners, if in them we see God at work, then the church has hope. As in their own healing they begin to wash others feet, as in their healing they bring healing to others the hope is magnified. The church then hears hope, It comes to know and share that hope with those who are around them.
Our church needs to be defibrillated, but that can only happen as hearts stone hearts are broken and removed, and hearts of flesh, filled with the Holy Sprit as God promised He would.
It is knowing the promise of God, the love and mercy we find as Christ is revealed, and depending on it, that we will find the hope for the church. May its shepherds learn to cry out what they teach others to.cry out. LORD HAVE MERCY!
(1) God or Nothing Robert Cardinal Sarah, Ignatius Press 2015 pg.100
WWJD Seems Impossible…yet…
Devotional Thought of the Day:
4 Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed. 6 We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; But the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all. 7 Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth. 8 Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, and who would have thought any more of his destiny? When he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of his people, 9 A grave was assigned him among the wicked and a burial place with evildoers, Though he had done no wrong nor spoken any falsehood. 10 (But the LORD was pleased to crush him in infirmity.) If he gives his life as an offering for sin, he shall see his descendants in a long life, and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him. 11 Because of his affliction he shall see the light in fullness of days; Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.
Isaiah 53:4-11 (NAB)
343 If you are aware of God’s presence, high above the deafening storm, the sun will always be shining on you; and deep below the roaring and destructive waves, peace and calm will reign in your soul.
I’ve seen some versions of a post that not only mocks the concept of WWJD, but also mocks Jesus, and His call to love our neighbors. They says that if we are going to consider What Would Jesus Do, it is in the realm of possibility that it would include beating people with whips and knocking over tables.
But too often, our zeal is not for the alien and foreigner to find a place to pray, to know God’s comfort and peace. That place where Jesus did that was for the outsider, the unbeliever, the skeptic and the seeker who would pray, who would benefit from seeing the love and mercy of God pour out into their lives.
We aren’t that zealous about that… though we should be.
WWJD comes from a book by Charles Sheldon, who tells the story of a pastor and a movement who has to deal with someone dying in front of them, a stranger who asked for help, and received too little. The guilt drives them to the cross for forgiveness, and then to seek out how to live differently. To imitate those who imitated Christ, like St Stephen and St. Paul. It is not an impossible thing, it is not a touchy, feel good thing. It is the hardest of challenges, and therefore requires a superhuman effort and motivation.
Motivation not from guilt, but from receiving mercy, a motivation that comes from the presence of God in our lives healing.
Without that, the idea of living like Christ, of sacrificing self so that others could be reconciled and know forgiveness doesn’t make sense. Without Christ’s presence, we don’t desire reconciliation; we desire revenge. Without dwelling in His peace, we don’t desire to lay our lives down in service to others; we desire to protect our lives, our way of living. That sense of self-preservation will tell us that WWJD is wrong, it will justify it because we are sinners, and it will tell us that striving for this, isn’t necessary.
Without the presence of Christ, Isaiah 53 is simply a prophecy. In His presence, this prophecy saves us, and becomes our joy and our way of life. And our deepest desire is to see our enemies receive healing, to know mercy, to walk with God. Our deepest regret is when someone dies without that comfort, when someone lives without that peace. We don’t look at WWJD as law, but as the way of life, we are given. And when we fail, we run back to the hope of the one which
St Josemaria is correct, if we are in His presence, if we realize His comfort and peace, if we know mercy, it changes everything. We simply live in the Kingdom of God, and the storms and struggles are what they are.
Escriva, Josemaria. The Forge (Kindle Locations 1353-1355). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
