Pr. Gallas Is Up to His Old Habits

Let It Be

This-n-That from the District Convention

Well, it's all over for another three years. Some of the more important highlights:

* SID overwhelming re-elected our beloved District President, Herbert Mueller. First vice-president is Pr. Timothy Scharr; second vice-president is Pr. George Gude (our constitutional expert and Synod historian in residence).
* SID rejected a resolution that would have had our District participate in Fan into Flame Initiative and adopted a substitute resolution built on the idea that we could be better stewards of the Lord's money by funding mission project through our District with near zero overhead (as we have done before; and as we resolved to continue to do) and without thus underwriting some of the goofiness that this campaign has produced (such as the Jefferson Hill's Church Sucks billboards that disgraced Lutherans in St. Louis or the Sex Series during Lent up in Michigan).
* SID petitioned the Synod in convention to finally FIX our straying from AC XIV and make sure that only those who are publicly placed into the office of the ministry are to be doing Word and Sacrament ministry.
* SID renewed her mission commitments to the Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (we were blessed to have Bishop Tswaede and a layman from his church present); to Unity Lutheran Mission School; to Prison Ministry (SID runs the biggest ministry to prisoners in the LCMS, I believe); to the Ex-offenders Re-entry Program called "Freed in Christ"; to the recent mission start in Saline County.
* SID sent numerous resolutions onto Synod in response to the Blue Ribbon task force, mostly asking that they leave things as they are (one pastor, one lay vote per circuit; circuit counsellors chosen by the churches; no redrawing of District boundaries, and so on).
* SID encouraged all member congregations (and their members) to examine the Blue Ribbon task force's report on the Synod Website and provide respectful feedback.
* SID voted overwhelmingly to send a resolution to the Board of Directors of Synod asking them cease and desist from the opposition to Pr. Wilken and Jeff being given the trademark "Issues, Etc." The President told the convention the day before that Synod had never threatened to sue them. He's technically correct; it was the Synod's legal counsel that threatened that. But we wanted to go on record as a District that such was a ridiculous waste of money and energy; they need to stop opposing the registration of the TM and be done with it.
* SID resent to the Synod two resolutions that it ignored at the last convention: one dealing with closed communion and the other with rejection of unionism and syncretism of every description.
* SID was blessed to hear a FANTASTIC presentation by Pr. Matthew Harrison on Our One Sure Hope. When he finished some of us wanted to stand up and chant: "Yes, we can!" :) Many, many of us hope that he will be our next Synodical President. The contrast between him and President Kieschnick was marked and many folks commented on it.

I *think* that's about a wrap. I'm sure if I forgot anything of great import someone will mention it in the comments. Overall, a very fine convention, as they go. But as Pastor Scharr reminded us in the closing homily the future of the Church is NOT in conventions, resolutions, votes and elections. The future of the Church is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, received in repentance, lived out in faith. HE is our One Certain Hope; He and none other.

District Convention

Began tonight with the Divine Service and will run through tomorrow and noon Saturday. Blogging will be scarce to non-existent, but I do covet your prayers for the pastors and parishes of the Southern Illinois District of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod as we meet together.

Homily upon Quinquagesima (2009)

[Isaiah 35:3-7 / 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 / Luke 18:31-43]

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” To this prophesy of our Lord about His impending Passion and Resurrection, St. Luke records of the twelve: “They understood none of these things. The saying was hidden from them. They did not grasp what was said.”

There were, if you will, living in Isaiah 35 - rejoicing in the eyes of the blind being opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame running a deer, and the tongue of the mute singing for joy. They got Isaiah 35. What they didn’t get was the inversion of the numbers. Not 35, but 53. Isaiah 53 they were not understanding: the Servant of the Lord, led as a sheep to the slaughter, the sins of all laid upon him, the chastisement that makes us whole falling on his back, and His certain vindication, seeing the light of life after the suffering of His soul.

We, too, enjoy living in the world of Isaiah 35 where all the wrongs of this world are set right by the presence of the Son of Man. Healings like that of the blind man in today’s Gospel are always causes for joy and celebration. But our Lord Jesus reminds us that life isn’t all about such moments. “We are going up to Jerusalem.” We all have our Jerusalem to face. The moments of mistreatment. The challenges posed by hatred and violence and vindictiveness. The betrayal of a friend. The scorn of our faith. The final horror of death. “We” says our Lord “are going up to Jerusalem.” Not just “I” but “we.”

Ah, but what joy in the “we.” We do not go up to our Jerusalem alone. We go with our Savior. We face the horrors that this world and our life in it can bring with the One who faced them all too - and who came out alive - alive forevermore.

But have you ever pondered WHY it is that our Lord has a life that no death can take from Him ever again? The key is in today’s epistle, where love is not a verb, but a noun. To have everything else, but this love, St. Paul teaches, is to have nothing in the end. But to have this love is to have everything. “Love is patient and kind; Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

And this Love has a name: our Lord Jesus. HE is this love. And He remained this love even while His own people betrayed and handed Him over to the Gentiles. He remained this love when the soldiers mocked Him, beat on Him, and spit on Him. He remained this love when they flogged Him and took off the skin of His back. He remained this love when they condemned Him to die and He was forced to stumble under the weight of His own cross. He remained this love when they lifted the hammer and pounded in the nails through His holy flesh, crying out “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He remained this love when they hoisted Him up on the gallows tree and His blood ran down upon the earth, the blood of God washing away the sin of the world. He was there because He loved. He loved and wanted even those (and we) who so misused Him and treated Him vilely to receive divine pardon, to have their sins covered over in His blood, to be freed from the bondage and the guilt of sin’s dead-end, to live with Him in love forever.

Love isn’t just about Isaiah 35 - the healing of the blind and the deaf and the mute and the lame. Love is about Isaiah 53, about how the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all for our full, final, ultimate healing.

But “we” are going up to Jerusalem. And it is in union with Him, with your Lord whose love no hatred could destroy; whose love proved stronger than all the darkness of the enemy; whose love led Him not only to the Cross for the forgiveness of your sins, but to the glories of Easter morning for the destruction of your death - in union with Him, He calls you to face your Jerusalems as He faced His. With love.

Love that prays for those who persecute you. Love that blesses those who use you. Love that doesn’t know a stranger, but welcomes all - and embraces them, accepts them, without legitimizing or accepting their sin. Love that acts the way St. Paul described at the end of Romans 12: “do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Love that can walk into the darkness of death confident that it will never be able to triumph.

Lent is almost upon us. Ash Wednesday and the Wednesdays following, we’ll be pondering again the miracle of a wounded Savior for a wounded world. Like the blind man with our eyes wide open, we will follow the Lord up the road to Jerusalem, giving glory to God. And all who make that pilgrimage with Him are changed, transformed. All that He has done for us leads us to sing His praises. And as we go up to His Jerusalem with Him, we know that when the time comes for us to go up to our Jerusalem He goes up with us too. That the end is resurrection and life everlasting.

Today in the Eucharist, Love Incarnate, Love Crucified, Love risen in glory, Love reigning in triumph comes to you. He who went up to Jerusalem for you, now would enter you, to be in you love unending. He comes to bring you all the fruits of His self-oblation. He comes into you to fill you with His divine and unending life. No more saying, then, “I can’t” when the call is to love. Inside of you will be Him whose love no hatred, no suffering, no mockery, no scorn could ever destroy; the light no darkness can overcome.

And so to Him be glory with His unoriginate Father and all-holy good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages! Amen.

That time again...

Sometime today this blog slipped over the 400,000 visits (at least since I posted the site meter - which was after a year or more of blogging). I am honored indeed to have you all visit! Whenever the meter crosses a significant new number I invite the various readers of the blog to introduce themselves. It seems quite unfair that you guys know all about me, but I know so little about you! :) So please, you might tell us your first name, your general location, your jurisdiction in the Church and anything else you might want to share. Let's hear it, who are you?

Patristic Quote of the Day

For the Apostle says, With the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For this is the Creed which you are to rehearse and to repeat in answer. These words which you have heard are in the Divine Scriptures scattered up and down: but thence gathered and reduced into one, that the memory of slow persons might not be distressed; that every person may be able to say, able to hold, what he believes. -- St. Augustine, *A Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed*

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

In maintaining the teaching that salvation is all of grace, and that man is forgiven his sins and admitted into everlasting life solely because of what Christ has done for him, we must be careful not to exclude the most clear and emphatic teaching of Holy Scripture, that there are rewards, both in this life and in the life to come, promised to good works. -- H.E. Jacobs, *Elements of Religion* p. 196

Last Compline until Easter

Tonight we sang together Compline for the last time till after Easter. Wednesday nights will comprise Vespers and then refreshments (rather than Eucharist, Bible Study, Compline) during Lent, except that next Wednesday - Ash Wednesday - the Divine Service will be celebrated in the evening instead of Vespers. It feels downright weird to "give up" Compline for Lent, but I AM looking forward to the Passion Vespers. Still, I'll be eagerly waiting until we sing: "Guide us waking, O Lord..." once again.

For Jason

Jason asked for a collection of 10 "must reads." I've restricted myself to Lutheran theological and devotional literature. If I were to expand this to include other confessions, then Schmemann and Pope Benedict XVI would be listed too.

Jacob's Elements of Religion (note: weak on the Supper; only fault I see in the book - well, aside from its horrible title. A patristically informed setting forth of a complete overview of Lutheran theology)

Krauth's Conservative Reformation (note: DENSE writing, but worthwhile. Any reader of this blog knows he's my favorite)

Gerhard's Sacred Meditations (The Lutheran classic devotional writing for all time; great way to spend Lent!)

Piepkorn's The Church (I wouldn't be a Lutheran today without Piepkorn's work - I'm very grateful for this collection of his essays)

Piepkorn's The Sacred Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions (Ditto)

Sasse's We Confess Series (This is an essential collection; wonderfully translated by Dr. Nagel)

Sasse's Here We Stand (You'll never confuse Lutheran and Reformed again after reading this work)

Sasse's This is My Body (The definitive volume on Luther's contention for the Real Presence of our Savior's body and blood in the Eucharist)

Chemnitz' Ministry, Word, and Sacrament: An Enchiridion (In the Reformation, this and Rhegius were bound together to provide pastors a sort of workbook for doctrine and for preaching)

Rhegius' Preaching the Reformation (THIS is what they should be using to teach preaching at the seminaries!)

That's my list for the moment. If any others have "must reads," by all means, tell us about them in the comments.

If I Were Teaching Seminary...

...aside from Krauth, of course, I'd make sure that each and every student had read and digested the presentation of the faith laid out in Jacob's Elements of Religion. I'd put that book near the top for introducing dogmatics. I can't encourage folks strongly enough to read it. You can get it from Repristination Press (God bless them for bringing so many of these gems BACK to use for us). Here's a snippet:

Sin is to be otherwise than God means us to be, and to do otherwise than God means us to do. It presupposes freedom. For whatever be God's will with respect to angels and men, He does not will that, against their own will, they shall comply with His will. The holiness of the creature consists alone in the harmonizing of his will with that of God. Sin has its root and nature in the determination of the free will away from God. If angels or men ultimately attain a stage of perfection, in which they are removed from the possibility of doing otherwise, or being otherwise than God desires, such impeccability is not an original endowment, but is the fruit and reward of effort and struggle. The holiness in which men and angels were created was an undeveloped holiness, viz., a potential, but not an absolute impeccability. (p. 54)

Patristic Quote of the Day

For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it. As to all other writings, in reading them, however great the superiority of the authors to myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them; but only because they have succeeded in convincing my judgment of its truth either by means of these canonical writings themselves, or by arguments addressed to my reason. -- Letter of St. Augustine to St. Jerome, Letter 82, Par. 3

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

[A fitting reminder upon the Commemoration of Martin Luther, for there are too many who think that because Luther wrote or taught something, that is the position of the Lutheran Church. On the contrary, the distinction between the Church's dogma and theological opinion is to be carefully preserved:]

The private opinions of individuals, however influential, can in no sense establish or remove one word of the Creed of the Church. Any man who, on any pretence, gives ecclesiastical authority to private opinions, is robbing the Church of her freedom. She is to be held responsible for no doctrines which she has not officially declared to be her own. -- Krauth, *Conservative Reformation* p. 265

Commemoration of Martin Luther, Doctor and Confessor

Today, upon the date of his death, our Synod commemorates and gives thanks to God for Blessed Martin Luther. From the Treasury and Synod's Website:

Martin Luther, born on November 10, 1483, in Eisleben, Germany, initially began studies leading toward a degree in law. However, after a close encounter with death, he switched to the study of theology, entered an Augustinian monastery, was ordained a priest in 1505, and received a doctorate in theology in 1512. As a professor at the newly-established University of Wittenberg, his scriptural studies led him to question many of the church's teachings and practices, especially the selling of indulgences. His refusal to back down from his convictions resulted in his excommunication in 1521. Following a period of seclusion at the Wartburg castle, Luther returned to Wittenberg, where he spent the rest of his life preaching and teaching, translating the Scriptures, and writing hymns and numerous theological treatises. He is remembered and honored for his lifelong emphasis on the biblical truth that for Christ's sake God declares us righteous by grace through faith alone. He died on February 18, 1546, while visiting the town of his birth.

He was in that town, by the way, as a peace-maker, seeking to settle a squabble among the nobles.

I was talking with my friend, Paul McCain the other day about the way Luther wrote. He drops these jewels along the way in the midst of rather mediocre stuff, and it's for hunting and collecting the gems that we delight to read him. Here's one of my favorite gems from him, a relatively early work, but accurately reflects his teaching until death:

This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness;
  not health, but healing;
  not being, but becoming;
  not rest, but exercise.
  We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way;
  the process is not yet finished, but it has begun;
  this is not the goal, but it is road;
  at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being
  purified.
    - Martin Luther, A Defense and Explanation of All Articles (AE 32:24)

The collect for the day: O God, our refuge and our strength, You raised up Your servant Martin Luther to reform and renew Your Church in the light of your living Word, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Defend and purify the Church in our own day, and grant that we may boldly proclaim Christ's faithfulness unto death and His vindicating resurrection, which You made known to Your servant Martin, through Jesus Christ, our Lord... (Treasury, p. 1219)

Static Heaven?

I remember once hearing a fellow explain that Lutherans and Western Christians in general have a static view of heaven. I disagreed. I thought immediately of the passage in the Larger Catechism (second petition) where Luther speaks of daily grow here and in heaven! None has explicated this more beautifully than the great Lutheran theologian (and hymn-writer) Henry Eyster Jacobs in his *Elements of Religion.* He there writes:

"The eternal world is not one of simple attainment, without the prospect of progress. When the Children of God are said to 'rest from their labors,' it is the toil and trouble of this life that are referred to, and not the cessation of works of love or of constant progress in ever new enjoyments of Life Everlasting. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, 2 Cor. 5:8, and to be with Christ in Paradise, Luke 23:43, and in this presence, to be holy and unspeakably happy. But the state into which man is then ushered is one of expectancy of still greater blessings.... With man's constantly expanding capacity to know and love and admire, there will be incessant revelations of what Christ, and of what God in Christ is; and with every new revelation, there will be the development within man of new capacities for knowing and loving and admiring. Thus, while the negative side of holiness, freedom from sin, is complete with his entrance into another world, its positive side, or the ever-increasing growth of capacities for new bestowals of grace, ever advances." (Elements, p. 199, 200)

Heaven is not static. Not static at all. There will always be room for growth in love and in perception of God's love and so growth in His praises. When the Church on pilgrimage intercedes for the Church "at rest", she asks for this ongoing growth in the love of God, which is bliss itself. And when the Church "at rest" prays for the Church on pilgrimage, they ask that we might join them in their ever-growing joy, peace, and love, streaming from the Lamb.

Lectio Divina

The tail end of today's second reading (John 6:16ff.) Our Lord walking on water. I don't think this was so much a manifestation of His true divinity as He, the new Adam, revealing what glory and mastery of the creation true Man was intended to enjoy. His presence upon the water at first caused fear, but it melted to joy when He spoke: "It is I; do not be afraid."

For fallen man lives in fear. Fear of things beyond his control - the fear of being in a wee boat upon a fast sea with the storm winds rising. Fear of the inexplicable - like men walking on water. But with Him, with our Lord, the fear is driven away by His speaking, His presence, His being with us. He shows us what life is like without fear; for His is a life of complete trust and surrender to His Father. In such trust He triumphs over all nature; He shows us what our future will be.

On Preparation for Receiving the Holy Eucharist

The other Wednesday I had opportunity before the spoken Divine Service to spend some extended time in prayer before the liturgy commenced. I did something I'd not done before. I turned in my LSB to the Communion Hymns and simply began praying them, one after the other. What a wonderful preparation for the Sacrament! LSB contains no less than 26 hymns (617-643) that provide a richly rounded preparation for receiving the Holy Gifts.

Word made flesh, the bread He taketh
By His word His flesh to be;
Wine His sacred blood He maketh
Though the senses fail to see;
Faith alone the true heart waketh
To behold the mystery.
LSB 630:4

Some of the Gems

contained in LSB are recent hymns singing the ancient faith. One of these that I've come to particularly treasure fits the Lenten call of God for us to come home. It's by Pr. Stephen Starke:

As rebels, Lord, who foolishly have wandered
Far from Your love - unfed, unclean, unclothed -
Dare we recall Your wealth so rashly squandered,
Dare hope to glean that bounty which we loathed?

Still we return, our contrite words rehearsing,
Speech, that within Your warm embrace soon dies;
All of our guilt, our shame, our pain reversing
As tears of joy and welcome fill Your eyes.

A feast of love for us You are preparing;
We who were lost, You give an honored place!
"Come, eat; come, drink, and be no more despairing -
Here taste again the treasures of My grace."
LSB 612

Isn't that exactly Lent unto Easter? With the prodigal, it's time for us to say: "Enough. Enough of the old way. Enough of the indulgence of self. Home to the Father!" In the warmth of His embrace, in His divine forgiveness, in the Holy Eucharist, we taste a grace so rich and full that His tears are matched by our own.

Patristic Quote of the Day

Before he comes to the door, Thou dost open it for him. Before he falls at Thy feet, Thou dost stretch out Thine hand to him. Before he sheds tears, Thou bestowest upon him Thy compassion. Before he confesses his debt, Thou grantest him forgiveness. -- St. Ephraim the Syrian, *A Spiritual Psalter* #70

Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

We are surrounded [in America] by the children of those Churches, which claim an origin in the Reformation. We sincerely respect and love them; we fervently pray that they may be increased in every labor of love, and may be won more and more to add to that precious truth, which they set forth with such power, those no less precious doctrines which, in the midst of so wide an abandonment of the faith once delivered to the saints, God has, in our Confession, preserved to us.

But how shall we make ourselves worthy of their respect, and lift ourselves out of the sphere of that pitiful little sectarianism which is crawling continually over all that is churchly and stable? We must begin by knowing ourselves, and being true to that knowledge. Let us not, with our rich coffers, play the part of beggars, and ask favors where we have every ability to impart them. No Church can maintain her self-respect or inspire respect in others, which is afraid or ashamed of her own history, and which rears a dubious fabric on the ignorance of her ministry and of her members. Whatever flickerings of success may play around her, she will yet sink to rise no more, and worse than this, no honest man will lament her fall; for however such a moral dishonesty may be smoothed over, every reflecting man sees that such a Church is an organized lie, with ministry, congregations, churches, and societies united to sustain a lie. -- Krauth, *Conservative Reformation* p. 208, 209

David's Latest

A self-portrait he had to do for one of his art classes. He informs me that this is in a "Rembrandt" style (not that I've got the first clue what that means!). But I liked it and thought I'd share: