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Augustine, Luther, Vatican I and the Purpose and Mission of God’s People.
Thoughts which carry me to Jesus, and to the cross:
“ And as they came down the hill-side, he warned them not to tell anybody what they had seen till “the Son of Man should have risen again from the dead”. They treasured this remark and tried to puzzle out among themselves what “rising from the dead” could mean. (Mark 9, Phillips)
Have you never read this scripture— The stone which the builders rejected, The same was made the head of the corner; This was from the Lord, And it is marvellous in our eyes?” ” (Mark 12 Phillips)
[1]Let us love him, for he made these things and he is not far off,44 for he did not make them and then go away: they are from him but also in him. You know where he is, because you know where truth tastes sweet. He is most intimately present to the human heart, but the heart has strayed from him. Return to your heart, then, you wrongdoers, and hold fast to him who made you. Stand with him and you will stand firm, rest in him and you will find peace.
Concerning the use of sacraments it is taught that the sacraments are instituted not only to be signs by which people may recognize Christians outwardly, but also as signs and testimonies of God’s will toward us in order thereby to awaken and strengthen our faith. [2] That is why they also require faith and are rightly used when received in faith for the strengthening of faith.
…so the Church, constituted by GOD the mother and teacher of all nations, knows its own office as debtor to all, and is ever ready and watchful to raise the fallen, to support those who are falling, to embrace those who return, to confirm the good and to carry them on to better things. Hence it can never forbear from witnessing to and proclaiming the truth of GOD, which heals all things, knowing the words addressed to it: “My Spirit that is in thee, and My words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, from henceforth and for ever.”*
Today is the last day of the Liturgical year. Not a big deal to some, but to me, it has some significant meaning.
It lies between the Sunday of the CHirst the King – the Sunday that celebrates His victory for us, which we know is coming, and the beginning of Advent, a season of repentant waiting for Jesus to become Immanuel, that is, God with us! (Note the exclamation point; it is there for a reason.)
Like the disciples after the transfiguration, I have questions about the cross. Not about the necessity, but the fact that Jesus volunteered for it with joy, to save you and me. We so desperately need not just a Savior, but a brother, who leads us back to the Father. It is truly a marvelous mystery to treasure, this grace that unites us to God.
We get to know this through the sacraments, those moments when God draws us near and unites us to Himself. As He originally cleanses us, cutting away our stone-hard hearts, and replacing them with His Heart, His Spirit (see Ezekiel 36:25) He then cleanses us of not only all sin, but all unrighteousness–all injustice. All the damage done to us by our sin, the sin of the world, both present and in the past. And of course, the incredible feast where Jesus feeds us with His body and blood. The Lutheran Augsburg Confession nails the purpose: not to define us to the world, but to strengthen our faith, to lay the foundation and build our lives on Jesus.
This is why Augustine talks of such an intimate relationship with God. It is of the most incredible value, so much so that He begs us to return to our heart, for that is Jesus, our Heart. He recognized, the hard way, that there is no option, no other name in which to find comfort, hope, and a relationship that heals.
This is what the world needs to know!
Vatican I sees this clearly! It is the purpose of the church, the purpose behind preaching, catechizing, teaching, and distributing the sacraments. Not just to indoctrinate people. Not to receive their tithes and offerings, and building artistic edifices. This is what ministry is! This is why we are here! This is the very thing at the heart of the Reformation (at least Luther/Melanchthon’s portion of it), and for some, the Counter-Reformation.
It is who we are, and I pray all the church, Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox, and others, return to this ministry in the next year…AMEN!
Saint Augustine. (2012). The Confessions, Part I (J. E. Rotelle, Ed.; M. Boulding, Trans.; Second Edition, Vol. 1, p. 104). New City Press.
Kolb, R., Wengert, T. J., & Arand, C. P. (2000). The Book of Concord: the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (p. 46). Fortress Press.
McNabb, V., ed. (1907). The Decrees of the Vatican Council (pp. 17–18). Benziger Brothers.
Astonished Reverence–it cannot be manufactured, therefore stop trying to force it on others
Thoughts which carry me to Jesus, and to His Cross”
“Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory—the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.” (John 1:14, NET)
“that is, the mystery that has been kept hidden from ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his saints. God wanted to make known to them the glorious riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him by instructing and teaching all people with all wisdom so that we may present every person mature in Christ.” (Colossians 1:26–28, NET)
Luther’s understanding of Christ makes the Lord’s Supper a miracle. For it is an unspeakable miracle that the inseparable union of the two natures causes the body of Christ, which is in heaven, to be present on the altar
Ratzinger’s theology of revelation emphasizes Christ, the revelation of the Father. By encountering Christ in the Scriptures, in the sacraments, and in worship, one comes to knowledge of God.
The fear of God is that “astonished reverence” of which the saintly Faber wrote. I would say that it may grade anywhere from its basic element—the terror of the guilty soul before a holy God—to the fascinated rapture of the worshiping saint.
There are few unqualified things in our lives but I believe that the reverential fear of God, mixed with love and fascination and astonishment and adoration, is the most enjoyable state and the most purifying emotion the human soul can know. A true fear of God is a beautiful thing, for it is worship, it is love, it is veneration. It is a high moral happiness because God is.
I have had the distinct displease of seeing pietism raise its ugly head in a number of places. In choice of Bible translations, in choices of worship styles, in places where people define reverence as something people bring to church. As they get dressed with physical clothes, the are supposed to come into church or a Bible study reverently. And reverence or piety is defined and demanded by observers. And if the observers demanded form of pietism isn’t achieved or met, the efficacy of God’s mercy might be or actually is questioned.
It goes across the spectrum of Christianity, and it usually spans both edges of any discussion spectrum. Some say you can’t worship with guitars, others say you don’t worship with organs. Some say you can’t dress down, others say if you don’t “come as you are, you are playing games. In my 60 years, I have seen these spectrums divide the church, and those caught in the middle are often… the greatest victims.
Reverence is not man-made. It doesn’t depend on clothing choices, or the language that you use (especially if you don’t understand it!) Tozer’s modifier, astonished, is awesome in clarifying what true reverence is. It occurs when the sinner or saint sees the Triune God revealed in their presence, something that happens because Christ is made incarnate among us. Pope Benedict XVI nails this in discussing the encounter with Christ in word and Sacrament, and Luther sees this as what makes the Lord’s Supper, each and every time celebrated–truly a miracle–for it is Christ coming into our lives, as revealed in Scripture.
Such miracles leave us astonished, a state in which revering and adoring (and being in fear of ) God is natural. For the believer, the astonishment is because this is exactly where God wants us, in His presence, sharing in the very glory of God which the apostles saw revealed in Jesus, which they came to know and reveal to people as well.
This is why reverence can’t be manufactured on order, or demanded by others. It only finds its origin in the presence of God. I
I’ve seen this in the eyes of 3 year olds, as the run to get our altar rail before their parents. Can they comprehend the gift their parents are receiving? Probably not… DO they understand the blessing I say over them, perhaps not.. they just realize they are near Jesus, and the love that impacts their parents or grandparents is significant – and it is theirs as well, and so they rejoice!
This is reverence, when the sinner doesn’t want to leave, but soak in their being cleansed. This is the presence of God, which leaves us in awe, because only because of His love can we stand before Him, and only because of that love do we have hope. Hope because of the presence of God – which is revealed every week, though He never leaves us….
We still need to hear of the love, we still need to experience it and therefore know it.
And we do….
How to Stop the Decline of the Church in Post-modern (Post-Christian?) Culture
Thoughts which carry this broken Christian to Jesus, and to the Cross:
“The teaching I gave you is the same teaching I received from the Lord: On the night when the Lord Jesus was handed over to be killed, he took bread and gave thanks for it. Then he broke the bread and said, “This is my body; it is for you. Do this to remember me.” In the same way, after they ate, Jesus took the cup. He said, “This cup is the new agreement that is sealed with the blood of my death. When you drink this, do it to remember me.” Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you are telling others about the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:23–26, NCV)
40 In Dr. Luther’s Small Catechism we read: “I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. 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.”
For the children who are here brought to Thee in holy baptism, we pray Thee, maintain them mightily in Thy covenant of grace. For their elders we pray: grant them true repentance and, by Thy grace, grant them true absolution from sin; and, cause them to receive the most holy Sacrament of the true body and blood of Christ unto the renewal of their oppressed souls, and the strengthening of their weak faith.
If the sacraments are abandoned, genuine Christian life disappears. Yet we should realize that particularly today there are many people who seem to forget about the sacraments and who even scorn this redeeming flow of Christ’s grace. It is painful to have to speak of this sore in a so-called Christian society, but we must do so for it will encourage us to approach these sources of sanctification more gratefully and more lovingly.
The decline of the church in America is a grievous fact, whether we talk about any denomination or the church as a whole. Seminaries have been in decline, though some like to rejoice that the rate of decline is descreasing. It is still in decline, which means as Boomer pastors finally retire, there won’t be enough, for there are few of us GenX pastors, and we need thousands of pastors in the future. (not to mention church musicians, youth workers, teachers, etc.
I think this is not a theological issue, nor is an issue of worship style and practice–as we consider traditional versus contemporary, liturgical versus less structured worship. I think the issue has to do with the fact we are robbing our churches of the great comfort and enlightenment found in the sacraments, especially the sacraments of Baptism, Confession and Absolution and the Eucharist (aka the Lord’s Supper/Communion)
I think I am not alone in this, as I saw in my readings this morning. Luther, Loehe’s prayer and St Josemaria all note the critical importance of these sacraments. Their reasoning is far more pragmatic than it is abstract.
Luther notes that in these gifts, the Holy Spirit enlightens His people–the whole Christian Church–as they see God at work in their lives. There is something about seeing God’s work revealed in our hearts, souls and minds that is amazing, that should be treasured. Not because of our role in a pietistic ritual, but because of God making sure His promise to us, in a tangible way that we can depend upon in the crazy broken world.
Loehe’s prayer likewise keeps a focus there, that we beg God to help us all stay in the covenant we enter in baptism. This isn’t just a thought, the statistics on who was baptized prior to 18 and still are in the church at 30 are a grievous tragedy. The same for the prayer for those of us who are older, as we need to hear we are absolved and forgiven of our sin, and we need to have our souls, so oppressed by the world, renewed. Some might declare their faith is not weak, and therefore this passage doesn’t apply. To them I ask what faith is, is it knowledge you can defend on Twitter. Faith is being sure we can depend on God for the healing of our brokenness that will find its completion when Christ returns. And that kind of faith is nourished at the altar, it is put in our hands as we eat and drink His body and His blood.
We need this enlightenment; we need this renewal (or my preferred word – healing); we need our faith empowered. St. Josemaria see this, as he grieves–almost 100 years ago–at the possibility of the sacraments being abandoned. Either removed from the service–or making them less that the sermon or the prayers, and never re-instructing people as to their use – to provide this comfort, to provide peace, to assure people that God is with them, working with great intent and diligence in their lives. To remove the sacraments, to even diminish their importance, removes one of the marks of the church, part of the means of grace, and it weakens what should be our refuge.
It is our refuge, not because the buildings were built with human hands, but because God has put His name there, for us to be able to locate Him, for us to be able to interact with Him, for us to receive His gifts and the promises He would pour out on us. So we who lead need to make sure our people realize those promises, and the presence of God who would bless us….
As people learn to treasure God and His gifts, and they realize there is no limit, then they will share them, and then others will desire to distribute them… and help people find what they need!
——
“The Formula of Concord: The Solid Declaration: Free Will or Human Powers” Tappert, Theodore G., ed. 1959. The Book of Concord, the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
Lœhe, William. 1914. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Translated by H. A. Weller. Chicago: Wartburg Publishing House.
Escrivá, Josemaría. Christ is Passing By (p. 123). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Experiences beyond words……Where Theological and Exegetical Knowledge Fail
Thoughts which drive me to Jesus, and to His cross…
3 But those who prophesy are speaking to people to give them strength, encouragement, and comfort…..5 Those who prophesy are greater than those who can only speak in different languages—unless someone is there who can explain what is said so that the whole church can be helped. 1 Co 14:3-5. NCV
19 I am teaching them to you now so that you will put your trust in the LORD. NCV Pr 22:19.
The Imitation of Christ admonishes us: “Even if you knew by heart the whole Bible and the sayings of all the philosophers, what would it profit you without the love of God and his grace?” “Everyone has a natural craving for knowledge, but of what avail is knowledge without the fear of God?” “An unlearned person who serves God is surely better than a learned one who proudly searches the heavens while neglecting himself.” “Give up your excessive desire for learning. Therein are to be found only illusion and inner emptiness.”
How a man is born again may easily be told in words. When, however, it is a matter of experience, as it was with Nicodemus, it is a hard matter to understand and it requires effort to attain the experience. To persevere in this, when it becomes a matter of experience and when we are really tested, requires pains and labor.
Nicodemus was a brilliant scholar among the Jewish leaders. Yet he had to approach Jesus by night, and then the simplest thing, the idea of being born again, befuddled him. (I like that word befuddled – I dont’ know why!) He was confused, as many were with Jesus’ simplest teachings.
There are some things in life that you do not learn with your mind, you can only experience them, and let them transform you. Paul the apostle talks about two things – God’s love and His peace in a manner that clearly states that they are beyond our ability to understand, but are easily experienced. The Holy Spirit causes us to do causes, in ways beyond words. And if we focus on trying to explain it, we lose track of the experience.
There is more to it than that, as Paul discusses above when the saints in Corinth. There is a purpose to our words that can easily get lost as we pursue any gift–the ability to use that as a tool to help people experience the love and peace of God. We are called to bring each other strength, encouragement and comfort we are called to help all those called together–all those God desires to save. And the pursuit of knowledge can distract from that.
This is why Solomon, the wisest man in history would write that the purpose of his scriptures was to help us put our trust in the Lord, not in Solomon! And Pope Benedict XVI ( aka Joseph Ratzinger) the brilliant theologian Scholar, would quote another saying the natural craving for knowledge is worthless, compared to an unlearned person in a relationship with God. Brilliant men, gifted with knowledge and wisdom, dialing it back–to know God.
Another brilliant pastor I know, had an advanced school of preaching – 5 courses…. an introduction then 4 deeper classes. the first deep class was 45 hours learning who we were in Christ – not pastors, but children of God, who God was forming. THe last class had “nothing” to do with scripture–at least directly. Instead, we were study our people, to know what they were going through. We were given ways to learn their hurts and pains, to get behind the walls they set up. to laugh and cry with them (as St. Paul advised) because then we could see the Holy Spirit using our words to reveal that comfort that only comes from experiencing God’s love, that comes as we dwell secure in His peace. I look at those two classes as being the most formative of my preaching, even though they taught me nothing about studying scripture, or Greek or Hebrew. Instead of that Schuler, made us live in the love and peace scripture revealed, and then encouraged us to understand how we would help reveal it to others.
One of my other mentors, a brilliant Hebrew scholar, is also such a man. His gift goes beyond languages. While a good preacher (except for his ubiquitous mentions of USC football), his primary ministry I will always see as how he helped his congregation experience God’s love and peace in the Lord’s Supper. It was visible to me, as I assisted him, that his people savored this moment of communion, as they experienced Christ’s Body and Blood, given and shed for them. Body’s relaxed– smiles broke out, tension faded in weary, anxious bodies, as peace settled over them–as they knew they were loved. This is what I hope I can do… far more than anything else…this is what is needed – and important!
Don’t get me wrong, study is still a discipline I need, – but what is needed more, what we need to pray for, and focus our ministry on, is that God loves us, and calls us to Himself. Everything else must serve that purpose… for then the church is a place where broken people find healing, while helping others heal.
Ratzinger, Joseph. Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. Edited by Irene Grassl, Translated by Mary Frances McCarthy and Lothar Krauth, Ignatius Press, 1992, p. 223.
Luther, Martin, and John Sander. Devotional Readings from Luther’s Works for Every Day of the Year. Augustana Book Concern, 1915, p. 247.
How Do We Apply This Bible Passage Today?
Thoughts which drive me to the cross…and therefore to Jesus!
17 Do not be unfair to a foreigner or an orphan. Don’t take a widow’s coat to make sure she pays you back. 18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD your God saved you from there. That is why I am commanding you to do this.
19 When you are gathering your harvest in the field and leave behind a bundle of grain, don’t go back and get it. Leave it there for foreigners, orphans, and widows so that the LORD your God can bless everything you do. 20 When you beat your olive trees to knock the olives off, don’t beat the trees a second time. Leave what is left for foreigners, orphans, and widows. 21 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, don’t pick the vines a second time. Leave what is left for foreigners, orphans, and widows. 22 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt; that is why I am commanding you to do this. Deut. 24:17-22 NCV
One of the great words in our language is, at the same time, one of the emptiest and most debased—the word love. One can hardly speak the word nowadays, it has become so banal, so degraded. And yet, no language can actually dispense with such a word. For if we stopped speaking about love, we would stop speaking about men. We would also stop speaking about God, about him who holds heaven and earth together. In consequence, we find ourselves in a strange situation: we have no choice but to speak of love if we are not to betray God and man, but it is almost impossible to do so because our language has already betrayed love so often. In such a situation, our help must come from without. God speaks to us of love; “Holy Scripture”, which is God’s word cast in human words, raises the word, as it were, out of the dust, purifies it, and restores it to us purified
3 With regard to the time, it is certain that most people in our churches use the sacraments, absolution and the Lord’s Supper, many times a year. Our clergy instruct the people about the worth and fruits of the sacraments in such a way as to invite them to use the sacraments often. On this subject our theologians have written many things which our opponents, if they are but honest, will undoubtedly approve and praise.
Any time I look at the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, I know I have to be careful. Simply put, while the Law of Moses is not binding on those in the New Covenant, that doesn’t mean we can simply disregard it, dismiss it, and say it doesn’t apply to us.
One of the ways to deal with it then, is to look for the “spirit of the Law” rather than just the “letter of the law.” Even then, we face the temptation to make our understanding binding on those around us. You must do this, you must do that! You can’t do this… and oh my gosh – you did that! And we move quickly from talking to a person, to labelling the person “them” and talking about “them” even when they are standing right there. We try and separate from “them” as if breaking our law is somehow worse than blasphemy.
I think a better way is to look at how they Law of Moses would have us love.
Of course, then we get into the problem Pope Benedict XVI (when he was a cardinal) wrote about, the idea that we stripped the meaning of the word love away from it, cheapening it by talking about loving a cheeseburger or an piece of fruit, or confusing it with a thousand other ways that strip from it the dedicated, the devotion, the sacrifice that all goes into loving someone, loving our family, loving our neighbor, loving God.
What Deuteronomy is describing here can be seen as a loving act. Leaving behind for those who have less our excess, heck, it might even be more than our excess–if our work wasn’t focused. But in this world, where most of us don’t farm, but work in places, how are we willing to “leave behind” for others. How do we love like this, without turning it into a law that our minds can qualify and measure?
As I struggled with the passages, and trying to figure out how to not step over the line from doing that which demonstrates love, to either legalism or apathy, I couldn’t work it out. For I believe we need to love our neighbor, and assisting those around us should be done…
As I read the 5 or 6 selections set out for me each day, I often go through these thoughts, and usually 2 or 3, sometimes even 4 all resonate with each other, and I either journal the thoughts, or walk off content. Sometimes is like today though, and I get to the last reading with no clue how it will resolve.
And today it did, as my reading from the Apology of the Augsburg Confession – a theological discourse of the finest nature, provided a simple, pastoral answer to my question of how to apply to my life the lesson from Deuteronomy, and to restore the love of God.
The answer is found in regularly experience the love of God, a love that is found in confessing sins and knowing they are forever forgiven separated from me, and as the Lord Supper, the body and blood of Jesus present in the visible bread and wine, brings me into God’s presence, and He into mine, in a way that is precious and the kind of love that this passage advises – to love without thought, without considering consequence – to just give, and provide for, to show a devotion and love that is beyond expectation.
As we experience this, as we think through it, as we, dare I say it, enjoy it–God does things to us that we don’t see, we instinctively love. as we become more and more like Jesus, as the Spirit transforms us.
This is who we are to be, to share in the glory of God, to reflect it into the world, and the law simply is a description of how we live…
Ratzinger, Joseph. 1992. Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. Edited by Irene Grassl. Translated by Mary Frances McCarthy and Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. Feb 10
“The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XII Confession”, Tappert, Theodore G., ed. 1959. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press. p.180
We Search for Happiness and Peace in All the Wrong Places
Thoughts to draw us to Jesus and find healing there.
“I will abandon my people until they have suffered enough for their sins and come looking for me. Perhaps in their suffering they will try to find me.” Hosea 5:15 (TEV)
This is the human condition—to be without the true source of happiness, which is the experience of the presence of God, and to have lost the key to happiness, which is the contemplative dimension of life.… What we experience is our desperate search for happiness where it cannot possibly be found.
In the sacraments your God, Christ himself, deals, speaks, and works with you through the priest. His are not the works and words of man. In the sacraments God himself grants you all the blessings we just mentioned in connection with Christ. God wants the sacraments to be a sign and testimony that Christ’s life has taken your death, his obedience your sin, his love your hell, upon themselves and overcome them. Moreover, through the same sacraments you are included and made one with all the saints.
Hosea’s message is brutal, or at least it seems that way.
How could a good God consign people to suffering, to the pain that is endured because of their sins. Not just the individual sins, but the sins of the community and the sins of the world. (There is another post there, that sins, and their consequences are not individual issues – but every sin is allowed, and affects the community) Back to the thought, how could a loving, compassionate God be this petty?
What God is allowing is not the suffering. Scripture tells us over and over He would prevent that suffering. He would protect us from suffering, and He will heal us from the wounds that we and society embrace.
The problem is our search for happiness, and our hunger for pleasure that we mistake for happiness. Keating is correct, we become so desperate in our search for happiness, because we look for it in places that it cannot be found! Instead, those illusions of happiness only drive us harder to find it, even as we look for it in the places that have already left us dry, wounded, broken.
Money can’t buy us the happiness we thought it could. The perfect house/home, once found and purchased, becomes empty. The perfect job doesn’t fulfill the way we thought it would. Relationships require far more work to be completely fulfilling and sex only leaves us wanting more of the moments of pleasure, or leaves us disappointed as those moments aren’t achieved. Every form of pleasure, though echoing pleasure for a moment, ends and leaves us wanting more. When they don’t provide what we want, we turn to things to distract us from the lack of happiness. Or to anesthetize the emptiness.
In 57 years of life, I have found happiness in the sacramental life. Not just at the communion rail, or in a shut-ins home sharing in prayer and the Lord’s supper. More there than anywhere else, of course, but the promise of such moments sustains me in the most brutal of weeks…. I know the moment of seeing God, of receiving all the blessings of which Luther spoke, is coming. Like heaven itself, these moments, whether forgiving or being forgiven, communing, or seeing new life begin in baptism, show the deep intimate relationship the people of God have been given.
These are the moments of revival of life, and of joy, and of peace. The hope they reveal of a day without pain and heartache brings its own happiness, and empowers us to live, until we are welcomed home by the Father.
And so God allows us to look in places where happiness isn’t, guiding us back to where it is promised. In His presence, in knowing He is here, with us.
And so letting us wander, letting us search, is allowed by God in order that we are drawn home. The power that Christ from the dead is at work, drawing us home, and cleansing us, so that we may be presented without sin, unbroken, completely healed. This is what the sacraments promise, and what they see accomplished, for God has promised this!
Lord Jesus, draw us home from our wanderings, help us hunger for what does fulfill our deepest needs, needs fulfilled by the Holy Spirit. Amen!
Thomas Keating, The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living: Excerpts from the Works of Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., Sacred Scripture, and Other Spiritual Writings, ed. S. Stephanie Iachetta (New York; London; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2009), 154
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 42: Devotional Writings I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 42 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 108..
The Peace that We Need…
Thoughts to encourage our clinging to Jesus…
Then Moses called for Mishael and Elzaphan, Aaron’s cousins, the sons of Aaron’s uncle Uzziel. He said to them, “Come forward and carry away the bodies of your relatives from in front of the sanctuary to a place outside the camp.” 5 So they came forward and picked them up by their garments and carried them out of the camp, just as Moses had commanded.
6 Then Moses said to Aaron and his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “Do not show grief by leaving your hair uncombed* or by tearing your clothes. If you do, you will die, and the LORD’s anger will strike the whole community of Israel. However, the rest of the Israelites, your relatives, may mourn because of the LORD’s fiery destruction of Nadab and Abihu. Leviticus 10:4-6 NLT
He is gnawing at his own heart,” said Luther. “I, too, often suffer from severe trials and sorrows. At such times I seek the fellowship of men, for the humblest maid has often comforted me. A man doesn’t have control of himself when he is downcast and alone, even if he is well equipped with a knowledge of the Scriptures. It is not for nothing that Christ gathers his church around the Word and the sacraments=- and is unwilling to let these be hidden in a corner. (1)
Of course, if you’re not careful you can burn yourself out in pastoral work. Sadly, thousands of pastors end up spiraling into emotional and spiritual collapse every year.
But when you take care to receive Christ’s own love and strength by means of his Spirit through his word, you have something to give to others without yourself being depleted and emptied. (2)
Any appeal to the public in the name of Christ that rises no higher than an invitation to tranquillity must be recognized as mere humanism with a few words of Jesus thrown in to make it appear Christian.…
Christ calls men to carry a cross; we call them to have fun in His name. He calls them to forsake the world; we assure them that if they but accept Jesus the world is their oyster. (3)
I have to admit, I don’t like the words Moses spoke to Aaron and his boys. Why aren’t they allowed to grieve alongside their family? Paul talks of us weeping with those who weep (and laughing with them as they laugh as wll.) So this stupid act of their cousins should bring a time of grieving and being there for the family.
Shouldn’t it?
In this case, by no means in every case, they could not be there. We have to be careful of making this scenario a case study and establishing ground rules for pastoral care. I have heard that pastors must keep their distance and be above and remote from the scenario to pastor people. Based on the Romans 12 description of weeping and laughing, I have heard the opposite.
The question is, how do we become wise enough to know the difference? And how do we deal with our own pain? How do we find our peace when we encounter such trauma as pastors or people? Where do we find the wisdom to enter into the family’s pain, or not?
Senkbeil and Luther both note the high cost of enduring such trials. Trials that lead to the “gnawing at your own heart,” not being able to “have control of himself,” and “emotional and spiritual collapse” that most pastors deal with regularly. They will both find the same solution, which I will get to in a moment after I deal with Tozer – his words help clarify the discernment needed.
The idea that our message is only an invitation to peace and tranquility is the danger of trying to multi-task as a mourner and spiritual care provider. I am not saying God cannot work in these situations, but it taxes us too significantly and will lead to a message that doesn’t tie our peace to the cross. Establish enough of these trials, one after another, and the pain will break anyone. And when we fail, our words become something less, a placebo, no longer connected to the peace that is genuinely needed in a time like these.
Tozer calls the believer to carry the cross first…to forsake the world because focused on Christ whom we meet at the cross, we can be relieved of burdens and find the peace we need. This is why Senkbeil talks of letting the Spirit work through Word and Sacrament to receive Christ’s love and strength within us. It is why Luther talks of the fellowship
and the humblest maid comforting him, even as Jesus gathers His church around the Word and Sacraments. It is only connected to God’s grace that our words can do more than be a placebo. Only then is there something to give something beyond all understanding… the peace of Jesus!
Aaron and his boys were responsible for the Old Covenant sacrifices, those activities that pointed to God’s promise of peace. They weren’t forbidden to weep because God was uncaring. Rather, I think they needed to have the strength
of the promise that would enable the community to find grace and peace at the moment. They needed to remind people that God was still with them and that God was sustaining them, and even as God was ministering to them through the community, Their comfort and peace came from God, and they needed to lead people there. For us that means embracing the cross, accepting its suffering, realizing that there we meet Jesus. That is where we find life and hope, and rest. THat is why baptism, absolution and the Lord’s Supper take us there.. to Jesus… at the cross.
When I was a hospice chaplain, I watched nurses put aside their grief to care for the patients who passed away. We would weep together later – apart from those we had gone to care for, the patient and their family. Like Aaron and his
boys, we were the hands and voice of God for those hurting and grieving. I think that is what Moses was working from with these words. He directed them to not show grief at that moment because if they lost their way in despair, not
only would they drown, so would the community. As they focused on God… and His mercy…then they would be comforted and be able to offer the same.
This isn’t easy; this idea of keeping our eyes on Jesus in the middle of the pain. To be bluntly honest, I needed to be reminded of it presently… but it is there, at the altar with others.. that God’s peace is found, where the burdens
are lifted.
After the years of 2020 and 2021… that is where we need to be found… and when we are… we can minister to so many who need to know the peace of Jesus.
(1) Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 54: Table Talk, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 54 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 268.
(2) Harold L. Senkbeil, The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 7.
(3) A. W. Tozer, Tozer for the Christian Leader (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2015).
So Longed for…the Sacraments and the Return of Jesus!
Devotional Thought of the Day
23 I will show how holy my great name is—the name on which you brought shame among the nations. And when I reveal my holiness through you before their very eyes, says the Sovereign LORD, then the nations will know that I am the LORD. 24 For I will gather you up from all the nations and bring you home again to your land. 25 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.
Ezekiel 36:23-27 (NLT2)
23 For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread 24 and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me.” 25 In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this to remember me as often as you drink it.” 26 For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (NLT2)
16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. . James 5:16 (NLT2)
Sacraments are “powers that comes forth” from the Body of Christ,33 which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church.
18 A sacrament is a ceremony or act in which God offers us the content of the promise joined to the ceremony; thus Baptism is not an act which we offer to God but one in which God baptizes us through a minister functioning in his place. Here God offers and presents the forgiveness of sins according to the promise (Mark 16:16), “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” By way of contrast, a sacrifice is a ceremony or act which we render to God to honor him.
I saw a friend share part of the Ezekiel reading the other day, and my mind flashed back to a baptism 5 years ago this week,
A pastor I know and admire posted about baptizing someone yesterday in their front yard with family looking on from an appropriate distance.
I’ve talked to pastor and priest friends, who all agonize over not being able to provide the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper to those whose faith is so challenged in these days.
Sacraments are not some magical incantation, the words accompany the promise, and the means God promised real to those whom HE blesses in that moment.
That water, because God promised, because He is pour/sprinkling/immersing people with it, give what He promised – the cleansing of our sin, the change of heart (and mind) that we need, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
That bread that we place in their hands, it is the Body of Christ – given and shed so those people can realize GOd’s love, His mercy, His presence in their lives.
The words of forgiveness, which ring out, not because the pastor likes you, but because God wants you to hear them – YOU ARE FORGIVEN!
This isn’t about us doing the work, about our obedience, about our religious acts. It is about God coming into our lives, about God doing His work.
Those who are ordained to make sure these gifts are delivered are crushed, because we hear the need across phone lines, through texts and messages, and in the posts on social media. We can and are responding to some of those cries in person, but it is another thing to celebrate it all in person.
We look forward to the days when services and masses are the gatherings they should be. But this time helps a little I think. For we begin to understand a little more clearly what it means to cry out for Christ to return, for the great gathering that will happen, when He welcomes us home.
I think we take heaven for granted at times, as we might the Lord’s Supper or our baptism, or that moment when you hear your shepherd tell you that you are forgiven because Jesus said so. One has seemed so far away – a lifetime. The others, the sacraments have always been there, they always should be. Their removal, and the threat of death, combine to help us think of the biggest reunion.
We learn to yearn for the future, because of the absence of the present. We learn to look to eternal life, as we are reminded that this life is easily threatened. We long to have Jesus return to us in the sacrament, even as we are learning to yearn for His second coming!
Let me say it again, for it is worth saying! I long for the day when the people I pastor can re-gather, and celebrate Christ’s feast together. But even more, I am understanding why I should long for the feast to come when all of God’s people are welcomed home…and the celebration begins.
May God’s peace, poured out on you in Christ, nourished through word and sacraments, sustain you until the re-gatherings. This will happen, for He has promised, and He is faithful! AMEN!
Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 289.
Theodore G. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959), 252.
Working on the Core, Spiritually
Devotional Thought of the Day
8 “How can I give you up, Israel? How can I abandon you? Could I ever destroy you as I did Admah, or treat you as I did Zeboiim? My heart will not let me do it! My love for you is too strong. 9 I will not punish you in my anger; I will not destroy Israel again. For I am God and not a mere human being. I, the Holy One, am with you. I will not come to you in anger. Hosea 11:8-9 (TEV)
386 Don’t forget, my son, that for you there is but one evil on earth: sin. You must fear it and avoid it with the grace of God.
I recently started taking my son ot the gym. His first day, the trainer started working with him and talked about working on his core – and if he takes care of that (unlike Dad has) everything else he does would benefit him far more.
The thought was in the back of my mind as I wrote a paper last week on the Biblical theological foundations of worship. There had to be a core thought that threaded through scripture. FOr while the form may change a little from Adam’s sons times, through Abraham and Moses, through the Kingdom and into the New Testament, the core doesn’t change.
It cannot change.
That core is our struggle with sin, and more importantly, the ability to know God’s heart, and instead of fearing wrath, responding in confession, and the desire to be forgiven and healed.
A theologian would talk of this as the primacy of the Doctrine of Justification. I think, pastorally, we should talk of it as our core. Not core doctrine – but core as the place where our strength health comes from, the place that if it is swell exercised and strengthened, the rest of our spiritual nature will follow. If it is breaking down, if it is ignored, then the rest of our spiritual formation will crumble, and we will struggle, and even let our faith be minimalized and maybe disappear.
If however, we remember God’s heart, His determination and His unwillingness to give up on His people, that trust grows. If we understand the strength and power of His love, the love that raised Jesus from the dead, then we begin to trust Him, and trust Him with our brokenness.
There are exercises in the gym to strengthen our physical core. Crunches, working on certain machines, doing certain stretches. Spiritually there are exercises as well, all of them based on interacting with the love and mercy of God. Bible Study can be, as can prayer. But those things can often be focused on something other and our relationship with God, and our relationship with others. The sacraments are great core practices, as they cause us to encounter this heart of God.
Specifically, I want to address Confession and Absolution. For there we encounter God’s command to those serving you, and the power in hearing the words, “Your sins are forgiven”
You need to hear that. I do as well. We need to desire to hear that as well, so that when we do sin, we run to God, knowing how He won’t give up on us, and how He is there to heal and forgive, even to strength against temptation.
This is our core, this relationship where broken sinners can trust God enough to let Him deal with their brokenness.
So come, confess your sins. Hear you are forgiven, and strengthen your ability to depend on the God who loves you…
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 976-977). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
This Band of Brothers…
Devotional Thought of the Day:
Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. 18 All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also. 19 Our message is that God was making all human beings his friends through Christ.d God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.
20 Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends! 21 Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God.
6 In our work together with God, then, we beg you who have received God’s grace not to let it be wasted. 2† Hear what God says:
“When the time came for me to show you favor,
I heard you;
when the day arrived for me to save you,
I helped you.”
Listen! This is the hour to receive God’s favor; today is the day to be saved! 2 Cor. 5:17-6:2 GNT
13 Don’t hesitate to discipline children. A good spanking won’t kill them. 14 As a matter of fact, it may save their lives. Pr. 23:13-14 GNT
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
William Shakespeare
As I read the words from St Paul that are the first quote above, the words of Shakespeare’s Henry 5th came to mind. From readings about Sir Horatio Nelson, who had his band of brothers who stood by him, and later in the annals of the Star Trek: The Next Generation, as a Frenchman mouthed those words to an American #1, a Klingon Security officer, a Blind engineering officer and.. an Android named Data.
.
While I am not sure of the romanticized brotherhood of Henry V, or of Nelson, and certainly Picard’s is fictional, I have seen sch brotherhood in action. In the Marines I have known when I served near 29 Palms, in the Sherriff’s Deputies who I have had the blessing to stand beside while they pick up the pieces after a suicide, or a officer involved shooting. I have been there as our hospice team took the time to finally grieve, having set it aside to deal with others facing death. All of these groups share in a
There is one other group, the men who serve as pastors and priests and deacons, especially those in sacramental brotherhoods. It is not that we are holier than the rest, far from it. But we have faced the challenge of being “there”. In the moments where life just really… sucks. In the moments where eternity hangs in the balance, and when spiritual warfare is overwhelming. Rarely do we stand in the same “there”, yet we’ve all been there. Been there to see the spilled blood of Christ cover sins. Been there as mercy conquers the sin which so ravages our people and our land. We’ve been there, and some have given so much, and battled so often, sacrificing their lives to serve..
Over the weekend, I attended three churches, two Roman Catholic and one Lutheran. Two priests, one pastor, and a deacon. Two other deacons cared for my people back home and I thought of them, not running into each other, but sharing God’s love. I think of others I have been mentored by, and mentored. Each a little different, each a little… well wacky… each bearing the scars of ministry, of having to discipline children, and the blessing of seeing them come home. Each one hoping that this week, some will receive God’s favor, that some will be saved…
We band of brothers.. not holier, not more special or talented, often far more scarred…but we’ve been there. So hear us, as we don’t tell tales of our heroism, but rather His. And if we have to discipline you… please know the goal is to help you see that God would befriend you through Jesus, transforming you from a sinner/enemy, to the beloved saint and friend.
We just get to be there.. and see the glory in the work of the Holy Spirit.
