Somebody call the Health Department!

Remind me not to eat any kebobs or meat pies from Russian kiosks…

HT: Drudge

The Bears didn’t play today !

Huzzah!

Sermon for Trinity 23

Matthew 22:15-22
Trinity 23
November 15, 2009

Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

There have been worse tyrants than Adolph Hitler. Possibly the greatest of all time was Mao Zedong, whose seventy million victims dwarf Hitler’s eleven or twelve million. Stalin actually comes in second, with something like thirty million. But somehow, when we go looking for people or regimes to serve as the archetype of human evil and tyranny, Hitler and Nazi Germany are generally the examples that get picked.

About a year ago, Dave and Kathy Leonard and I saw Valkyrie, the Tom Cruise movie about the plot to kill Hitler. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wasn’t portrayed in it, though Carl Goerdeler- the prominent Lutheran layman who would have become chancellor of Germany if the plot had succeeded- was. The movie was a reminder of the fact that German Lutherans- who are often portrayed as politically subservient to authority- were moved by Hitler’s crimes to attempt tyrannicide and revolution.

Were they right, or were they wrong? Paul tells us in Romans 13 that the government is God’s servant, and that whoever resists the government resists God and incurs His judgment. And the government Paul was talking about was that of Nero, who may not have killed nearly as many people as Mao or Stalin or Hitler, but whose persecution of the Church surely earned him a place among the great tyrants of history.

Two hundred thirty-three years ago last July, a group of English colonists in Philadelphia declared themselves in revolt against the legitimate government of British North America, the regime of King George III. The Declaration of Independence attributes all manner of failures and crimes to the King and his government. But the fact of the matter is that King George’s “tyranny” was nothing like that of Mao or Stalin or Hitler or Nero. In fact, probably as many citizens of the Thirteen Colonies remained loyal to the Crown as sided with Washington and the Continental Congress. However sympathetic we may be to our own Founding Fathers, you will find no Scriptural support for the notion that when a government fails to secure the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to the people it rules, it is in any sense the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

Bonhoeffer finally decided that in view of the enormity of Hitler’s crimes, he would follow Luther’s advice and “sin boldly (while trusting) in God more boldly still.” But the rhetoric of some in our present age to the contrary, it’s doubtful that a great many of our Founding Fathers particularly worried about Romans 13.

When the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus by putting Him in the position of choosing between one’s duty to God and one’s duty to the government God has installed as His servant, our Lord refused to take the bait. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” He said, “and to God the things that are God’s.” It was a good answer, and it put the Pharisees in their place. But the question still remains: just what is Caesar’s, and what is God’s?

Taxes are Caesar’s. He also has a claim on our obedience in all things that do not violate God’s Law. The Fourth Commandment is binding even in matters in which we do not like the government’s policies and actions. If Paul could call Nero God’s servant, how much more do we owe obedience to a government elected by popular vote, which permits us freedom of worship and- despite standing by and allowing the slaughter of the innocent unborn and others who are too weak to defend themselves- certainly does not engage in mass murder on religious or racial or ethnic grounds!

Government is a gift of God. It exists for some of the same reasons that God gives parents to children. It protects us from those who would harm us. It defends us from terrorists and foreign enemies, as well as from murderers and thieves and muggers. If our house catches fire, it puts the fire out. It ensures that it’s safe to drive the streets, and minimizes the chance of our being broadsided by some maniac driving too fast or under the influence of alcohol. It provides us with services which bridge the gap between what our resources are able to provide in various situations, and what the necessities of life require. It defends the weak from the strong, and makes it possible for us to live quiet and peaceable lives.

The government, as Paul reminds us, is God’s servant. In any circumstance in which it does not require disobedience to God Hiimself, to defy it or to disobey it is to defy and to disobey God.

But our duty to obey the government ends at the point where it forgets that it is only God’s servant, and not God Himself! If it orders us to serve in a manifestly unjust war, it is our duty to refuse. If it tells us to betray the weak or the persecuted, then to obey it is to sin against God. And if it attempts to interfere with the operation of God’s grace or its administration, we have the absolute obligation to follow the example of Peter before the Sandhedrin and insist that we must serve God rather than men- even when those men are the government!

Were Christians like Goerdeler and Dietrich and Klaus Bonhoeffer and Dietrich’s brothers-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi and Rüdiger Schleicher right in conspiring to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime? Paul seems to say “no.” But whatever answer we give to the question of tyrannicide and rebellion, they were certainly right to disobey.

When the Aryan Laws ordered the German church to discriminate against Jewish Christians- to ban those of Jewish descent from the ministry and teaching positions and other positions of leadership and even denied them baptism and membership in the Church and finally even the right to attend the Divine Service- Bonhoeffer and the others were not only justified in telling the Nazis where to get off, but fulfilling their absolute obligation. And incidentally, if you ever hear someone trying to blame the Holocaust on a Lutheran refusal to stand up to the powers that be, you might remind that person that Bonhoeffer and the Lutherans refused to sign the Barmen Declaration- the anti-Nazi confession of faith- in large measure because it did not include a condemnation of the Aryan Decrees and of Hitler’s persecution of the Jews!

God exercises His authority in this world in two ways. Lutheran theology refers to these as God’s two “kingdoms.” Contrary to what you sometimes hear, they are not the church and the state. The Kingdom of the Left Hand- the kingdom of Law, of coercion, of force, and of compulsion- includes congregational meetings and church council meetings and district and synodical conventions and church government just as much as it includes the doings of Caesar. Here God ensures that things are done decently and in order. Here God protects the weak from the strong, and the minority from the majority. Here God graciously sees to our physical and corporate well-being.

But God also has another kingdom- the Kingdom of the Right Hand. In one sense,this shouldn’t be confused with the Church as such; as we’ve seen, the government of the visible Church belongs to the Kingdom of the Left. The Kingdom of the Right has to do with the invisible Church. It is the realm of grace, of forgiveness, and of love. There is no room here for law or coercion, and neither is there any need for them.

Christians are citizens of both kingdoms. But unbelievers are citizens only of the Kingdom of the Left. Conversely, only believers, by definition, can be citizens of the Kingdom of the Right. Caesar’s job is to preserve order, to maintain the peace, and to protect the weak from the strong. But when it comes to God’s grace, and to the forgiveness of sins, Caesar has nothing to say.

To be sure, church discipline belongs to the Kingdom of the Left. The Binding Key has to do with Law, with compulsion, and with demand. But the Loosing Key is pure Gospel- and it belongs strictly to the Kingdom of the Right.

All Christians are citizens of both Kingdoms. Insofar as we are the Old Adam, we are citizens of the Kingdom of the Left, just like everyone else. But insofar as we are the New Self- and only insofar as we are the New Self- we are citizens of the Kingdom of the Right. Here, there is no need of compulsion. Here, there is no need of Law. Here, there is no need of either rules or their enforcement. Here there is only love- and here, love is all that is needed.

There is a great deal of nonsense spoken in American churches about the implications of our text. At least one decision of the Supreme Court has declared the United States- the First Amendment to the contrary- a “Christian nation,” whatever that might be. But nations are a function of the Kingdom of the Left Hand. Insofar as we are the New Self we have no need of divisions between political groups, any more than we have need of anything political. We are citizens of the Kingdom of God. We give Him our loyalty and our love. We give our fellow believer or friendship and our love. We do not ask where he was born, or what passport he holds. Neither do we care.

Incidentally, Saint Mary is one of the few Lutheran churches I know of that does not have an American flag in the chancel. Good. Christians who come from other countries are generally surprised and often offended to see a symbol of national loyalty in a place where only our common loyalty to the Kingdom of God ought to matter.

Should civil law reflect God’s Law? Sure- in the sense that it should be just and serve to fulfill God’s intentions for civil law: the maintenance of peace and good order, and the protection of the weak from the strong. And certainly it’s the duty of Christians, as citizens of the Kingdom of the Left Hand, to advocate for justice in the civil law. But Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and even atheists and agnostics can be just, too. Contrary to what a great many American Christians, influenced by Calvinism, believe, God does not require that the civil government be in any sense “Christian.” He requires merely that it be just. That’s why our advocacy for justice needs to be presented in terms that are accessible and congenial to those Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and atheists and agnostics who are in favor of justice, too. We are not called upon to create the Kingdom of the Right Hand on earth- or, to paraphrase the words of that favorite English hymn, “…to build Jerusalem/In Iowa’s green and pleasant land.” We are called, rather, to be faithful subjects of God in both His Kingdom of the Left and His Kingdom of the Right, without confusing the two.

The Psalm is right when it says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” But we confuse the Two Kingdoms and, in Luther’s phrase, “brew them into one another” when we forget that there has been only one nation that God has ever chosen and one nation who as a nation has ever had the Lord as its God, and that it wasn’t the United States.

No, what God asks of us as citizens of the Kingdom of the Left is that we be good neighbors, and both to obey the government He has placed over us for our welfare and for our neighbor’s welfare insofar as we can do so without disobeying Him. What He requires of us as citizens of the Kingdom of the Left is that we raise our voices- and yes, our votes- on behalf of the weak who are imperiled by the strong, and in favor of fairness and justice for all, that all- Christian and unbeliever alike- may live quiet and peaceable lives in the various vocations to which God has called them.

Were Bonhoeffer and the others right or wrong to raise their voices on behalf of justice as citizens of the Kingdom of the Left Hand? In that, they were absolutely right. In fact, they were acting in accordance with their duty as citizens of the Kingdom of the Left to come to the defense of the Jews and the others persecuted by the Nazis, quite apart from the issue of tyrannicide and actual rebellion.

But even more so, they were right to stand- even at the cost of their freedom and their lives- for the right of souls for whom Christ died to be ushered into His Kingdom in baptism, to be sustained with the Word and with the Holy Supper, to join together with their brothers and sisters in the Divine Service and in the life of the New Self.

There is no end, Luther wrote, of the evil that comes when the devil manages to brew the Two Kingdoms into one another, and prevent us from distinguishing between what is Caesar’s, and what is God’s. Religious persecutions, religious terrorism, and the religious sanctioning of evil are what can be expected when we confuse the two. On one hand we have inquisitions and religious persecutions and jihads. On the other, we have religious sanction given the enslavement of people of another color, and the treating of our fellow human beings as somehow less than human. Where the attempt is made to govern fallen human society through love, the innocent suffer, justice is rampant, and the work of the Kingdom of the Left remains undone. But even worse, when attempts are made to make the Kingdom of the Left do the work of the Kingdom of the Right, consciences suffer violence, piety is coerced, the Gospel of God’s grace is turned into an ideology,and souls for which Christ died perish, deprived of the Means of Grace by a church pursuing power rather than proclaiming grace.

Yes, it was a clever answer our Lord gave the Pharisees. It put them in their place, and deprived them of the opportunity to put Him in a negative light with either the Romans or with the Jewish people. But beyond that, it put us and the Church of all the ages on notice that we must always remain vigilant against those who try to get the Kingdom of the Left to do the work of the Kingdom of the Right, or vice versa.

God loves His creatures- believer and unbeliever alike- too much to be content that they suffer injustice through well-intentioned attempts to love psychopaths into line. And He loves His creatures- believer and unbeliever alike- too much to be content that the means by which He makes unbelievers into believers, sustains them in the faith, and at last brings them to eternal salvation be undercut by human efforts to coerce or legislate what only the Holy Spirit can do through the Means of Grace.

What, then, is Caesar’s- and what is God’s? Everything is God’s. Everything exists to serve His purposes. Government- civil government, church government, or any other kind- exists to maintain order and promote peace. He enlists the efforts of human beings to accomplish these things, and works through them to promote His goals.

He proclaims His Word and administers His Sacraments through human means, too. But administering them is all human hands can do. “The kingdom of God comes indeed without our help, of itself.” And while human beings- operating with the natural knowledge of the Law written on the human heart, if with no other resource- are able with dedication and perseverance and a refusal to accept less to achieve a more or less just and equitable social order, only God can save a soul.

Human government, operating as God’s agent, can restrain rebels against God. But only God Himself can turn a rebel into a child. Human government, operating as God’s agent, can create a more or less decent society. But only God can build that Kingdom which will last forever, in which love and grace and faith rule, and in which there is neither need nor place for force and coercion. Human government can limit and to some extent repair the damage done by human sin, but only God can make all things new.

In the Kingdom of the Left, God keeps us from killing one another- and that’s important. But in the Kingdom of the Right, He does something even more important: He loves us, and causes us to love Him and each other, because He first loved us. And as important as it is to refrain from frustrating His efforts to preserve peace and harmony in this life by trying to love the serial killer into line, it’s far more important not to impede by our own impatience or obscure by our well-intentioned zeal His final and most wonderful plan for us: to turn us into creatures who love Him and our neighbor not because He or the government are gonna get us if we don’t, because He first loved us, and gave Himself for us, that through faith in His Name no matter what we have done or failed to do, or have been or have failed to be, we might be continually forgiven and renewed and restored, and transformed into an entirely new creation that some day will not need to be restrained or compelled except by love itself.

In the Kingdom of the Left Hand, God stops us from killing one another- and that’s surely a blessing. But in the Kingdom of the Right Hand- and there alone- God offers us something much more wonderful; so wonderful, in fact, that we dare not confuse the two, lest we be deprived of it.

In the Kingdom of the Right Hand, God offers us life itself, through the death of His Son.

May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Uh-oh. Hendry may be about to do it again.

Cubs’ GM Jim Hendry, who almost single-handedly ruined last season and turned a two-time defending division champion into an also-ran (he did have some help from Cub regulars who inexplicably forgot how to hit during the NLDS a year ago, and still haven’t remembered), may be about to ruin the next ten or twelve seasons at a single swoop.

Hendry is reported to be aggressively pursuing Detroit center fielder Curtis Granderson.

Fair enough. Granderson would help the Cubs in several important ways. But talk is that he’ll be offering a “prospect-heavy” deal- and if it includes either shortstop Starlin Castro or third baseman Josh Vitters, who should be the left side of the Cubs’ infield for the next decade, I’m done with them.

Castro and Vitters are two of the top prospects in all of baseball, and as much as I’d love to see them land Granderson, he simply isn’t worth either one of them. And if either one of them goes to Detroit for Granderson or anybody else, my disgust quotient will simply blow the top off the meter.

And after fifty-two years as a Cub fan, my capacity for disgust is obviously rather high. Perhaps too high. Perhaps all of us have put up with too much for  too long.

Better Texas’s Marlon Byrd, who is also available, in center field and both Castro and Vitters still Cub property than two such key prospects gone even for someone who can help the Cubs in as many ways as Granderson might.

And now, some culture

The Wrath of Khan.

As an opera.

HT: Daniel A. Hinton. And Robot Chicken, of course.

The Bears dig their grave a little deeper

When the Bears lose to the 49ers, you know it’s not their year.

Cutler’s pass for what would have been the winning touchdown was intercepted in the end zone as time expired. It was his fifth interception of the night.

All-Pro, huh. Franchise quarterback. Well, at least I’m happy for Mike Singletary, who will probably be coaching the Bears sooner than any of us imagined.

Final score: San Francisco 10, Bears 6. Ironically, the much-maligned defense played pretty well. It was the offense that lost it for the Ursines.

Thank you

Lt. Cmdr. Robert Haines (Ret.), a former U.S. Navy chaplain, offers these thoughts on what Veteran’s Day is all about.

Thank you to all of those- past and present- who have placed their lives on the line during military service to the United States and its allies that freedom might live.

HT: Real Clear Politics

The Bears’ season is over.

No way they make the playoffs now.

The Bears need a defense- especially another cornerback- and an offensive line. And Lovie Smith needs some passion.

So do the players.

Sermon for Trinity 22

490 Strikes, and You’re Still Not Out!
Matthew 18:21-35

On the way home on Wednesday night, I got bitten by a dog. He and another dog were both on leashes, being led south on Sixth Avenue by the women who owned them as I was heading north. They seemed to have some rottweiler and maybe some bulldog and maybe some boxer in them. They were both big and fierce-looking.

“Oh, you’re all right,” the woman holding the leash of the closer dog assured me as we approached each other just the other side of the school. I wasn’t so sure. I went out of my way to stay out of the dog’s way- but not quite far enough. He walked over sniffed my hand- and bit.

My jacket got most of the bite . In fact, I didn’t think he’d actually gotten me at all. There was no pain, and not even the sensation of my hand coming into contact with the dog’s mouth. “Well, I never saw that before!,” his told me. “Don’t worry about it,” I told her, and we went our seperate ways.

But as I got to the Brethren church down there at the corner, I glanced at my hand. It was bleeding. I was so surprised that I didn’t turn around and follow the dogs and their owners. Besides, I wasn’t too anxious to deal with that dog again. But I should have been. Without knowing that the dog had had his shots, I would have to get shots myself- rabies shots.

The next two nights I hung around that spot on sixth. The two women and the dogs didn’t come again. Fortunately, rabies shots are no big deal nowadays. The worst is over already, and only four more relatively painless shots in the arm remain.

The whole incident filled me with mixed feelings. Obviously, a biting dog has to be controlled. But part of me sees a bright side in that particular dog not being collared, so to speak. I’m not quite sure how the law reads here in Iowa, but I’m pretty sure that here, like most places, a dog that bites a certain number of times has to be destroyed. Frankly, I’m too fond of dogs to want to see that happen even to the dog that bit me.

We treat people like dogs sometimes. Several states have “three strikes and you’re out” laws, whereby three felonies mean that a person is automatically sentenced to prison for life. And if the truth be told, we tend to operate the same way when it comes to our fellow human beings. Let a person do us dirt once, and perhaps we might be magnanimous enough to find it in our hearts to forgive them, especially if there were extenuating circumstances of some kind. But let that same person maliciously harm us a second time, and forgiveness doesn’t come very readily. As a practical matter, we have to have a great deal invested in a relationship to even allow most people three strikes before they’re out as far as we’re concerned.

Peter wanted to know how often he had to forgive a brother or a sister who sinned against him. Seven seemed a logical number. Seven, after all, is the number of completeness in Jewish numerology. It would have been as natural for Peter to have thought in terms of a person being called ‘out’ after seven ’strikes’ as it is for a baseball fan to think of a person being ‘out’ after three.

But Peter’s question missed the point. Whether it’s the City of Des Moines or Polk County deciding at what point a dog is too much of a menace to have around, or a state deciding at what point a serial offender just can’t be trusted to ever be free again, that sort of thinking presupposes that a person is in a position to stand in judgment on the dog or the criminal in question. Only the righteous get to sit in judgment, and only those who sit in judgment get to decide how many strikes mean that you’re out.

Counties and cities and states get to do that sort of thing. In fact, whether or not one agrees with the specifics of how they undertake their God-given task of protecting the rest of us from harm at the hands- or mouths- of others, it’s their job to do that sort of thing. In the Kingdom of the Left Hand- the realm of rules and laws- the rights of the rest of us have to be protected, and those who are in danger need to be kept out of danger. That’s why God has given us governments and legislatures and policemen and judges.

But there, such matters end. And thank God that they do! Can you imagine what it would be like to go through life fearing that the next sin you commit might be the “strike” that puts you irrevocably beyond the reach of God’s grace? I work with people who- however irrationally – do believe that, and live in constant fear of it. It’s hard to imagine a greater horror.

But that’s not the way God has chosen to deal with those who sin against Him. Instead, He chose to come to earth and to become a human being just like they are- just like we are- and to bear their guilt in order to satisfy His own justice, and enable Him to declare an amnesty for sinners. God doesn’t deal with those who sin against Him the way society quite correctly deals with lawbreakers, or even in the way that our own fallen natures want to deal with those who sin against us.

God doesn’t count the strikes. He Himself has already satisfied the demands of His own justice for every sin human beings will ever commit against Him. And He still forgives as lavishly and as completely after a googleplex of sins as He does after the first.

I’ve mentioned before a rule we had in our household when I was growing up: that we kids would not be punished for anything we did- provided my parents heard about it first from us. But in practice, that didn’t mean that we got off easily. Taking a licking was sometimes easier than going to Mom and Dad and ‘fessing up. The look of disappointment on their faces sometimes hurt more than a spanking would have. But in all the years I was growing up, they never once broke that rule.

And so it is that we have a difficult time imagining that God is as forgiving as He is. We have a hard time lifting up our own eyes, so to speak, to look into His. In our shame, the first reaction we sinners tend to have to the knowledge that we have sinned is to do what Adam and Eve did, and try to hide from God.

But when He finds us, we discover that what we have such a difficult time bringing ourselves to believe is true: for Jesus’ sake, God forgives totally and lavishly no matter how serious the sin, and no matter how we may have abused His grace in the past. A broken and a contrite heart, as David writes, God simply will not despise. No one who comes to Jesus will He ever cast out. No one. As I point out in The Scrupe Group, in Greek that statement is even stronger than it is in English. In English, the rules of algebra apply, and a double negative is a positive. But in Greek, a doubled negative is an intensified negative. And the inspired text has Jesus using a double negative in that statement. It’s as if He had said, “Whoever comes to me, no way will I ever cast out!”

It’s an entirely different set of rules we live with, we who live in God’s Kingdom of the Right Hand- His Kingdom of grace and mercy. Here, our sins cannot accuse us. Here, even the malicious and hateful things we have intentionally done are not allowed to stand between us and God- or between us, and one another.

And that is the point of the parable Jesus tells in our text. We are all of us citizens of God’s Kingdom of the Left. All of us- believer and unbeliever alike- live in a reality in which justice has its claim- a claim which will not be denied. In such a world, there can be such things as “three strike” laws. In such a world, the proper response to injustice is retribution.

But if we are also citizens of God’s Kingdom of the Right Hand- as only Christians are- then while others may uphold the laws of the Kingdom of the Left on our behalf- policemen, for example, and judges, and soldiers- we ourselves dare not try. In the Kingdom of the Right hand, sinners are not punished, but forgiven; Christ Himeself has already borne their punishment. In the Kingdom of the Right Hand, sins are not allowed to separate the sinner from the sinned-against, because the Kingdom of the Right Hand is a community of forgiven sinners.

We who are citizens of God’s Kingdom confess our citizenship in that Kingdom by living under its own, peculiar laws, which differ from those of the Kingdom of the Left Hand. We confess our citizenship in the Kingdom of Grace by refusing to despise a broken and a contrite heart, and to never- no, never- turn away even the one who has done us dirt when he or she comes to us in repentant sorrow.

But it gets even worse. What about those who are not sorry? What about those who who don’t want to be reconciled to us? Forgiving those who sin against us can be a lifelong struggle, even when they do repent. But when they refuse- when they persist in their malice- it can be all but impossible. In fact, only through God, with Whom all things are possible, can such a thing often be done.

But even here, we are called to live by the rules of the Kingdom of the Right Hand, and to live like its King, who does not desire the death of the wicked, but that they should turn from their ways, and live.

I have friends to whom things have been done so horrible that to ask them to forgive seems almost inhuman. You may know such people, too. But forgiveness is not so much an achievement as a decision. It may take a lifetime to impliment that decision. But if so, citizens of the Kingdom of the Right Hand spend their lives the struggle to impliment it.

We are saved by God’s refusal to let His own righteous anger have the last word. In this life, the struggle to impliment the decision to forgive- the struggle against the Old Adam, that wants vengence and justice and wants no part of reconciliation- is a lifelong struggle. But in those who are citizens of the Kingdom of the Right Hand, the struggle continues. They know that they, who do not deserve it, live by forgiveness. And knowing that, they, too, strive to forgive. And if the process is painful and long and hard, they do not struggle alone. God struggles by their side, and lends His strength to theirs, and works within them in the fullness of time what they could never have imagined, and what they could never have worked in themselves.

Forgiveness does that. Forgiveness cleanses. Forgiveness frees. Forgiveness liberates- sometimes the one who forgives, as much as the one who is forgiven. And we who belong to Jesus Christ are not given the option of not forgiving. Like the Unjust Steward, we live with the constant knowledge that we have been forgiven far more than we will ever be asked to forgive.

Jesus does not ask that we not be angry when we are sinned against. He expressed anger more than once against the Pharisees and against the money changes in the Temple and against the teachers of the Law who burdened men and women with loads too heavy for them to bear. His death was required to satisfy the anger of a righteous God against sin, and His satisfaction of that anger on the cross is the presupposition of God’s forgiveness of us. Jesus does not demand that we call what is evil good, or to act as if it had never happened.

But He does require that we respond when others injure us the same way He responded when our own sins nailed Him to that cross, and He said of us as much as of the Roman soldiers, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He requires that not hold onto our anger, and let the forgiveness won for us on the cross pour out from our hearts to cover the sins others commit against us- as it always will overflow the heart of anyone who realizes just how much he or she has been forgiven.

But never think that it’s a question of earning or meriting forgiveness for ourselves by the good work of forgiving others. Rather, it’s a matter of the presence or the absence of justifying faith.There are those who do not forgive those who sin against them. And by their refusal to forgive, they show that they either do not realize how much they need to be forgiven, or do not believe that they have received the forgiveness they need. What condemns them is their unbelief.

When all is said and done, it’s really very simple: no one who lives by forgiveness himself, and knows it, can do other than forgive those who stand in need of his own forgiveness. He who forgives is, in the last analysis, very simply he who believes.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Don’t look now, but…

Northwestern 17, Iowa 10

Dog bites man

As I walked home from the church on Wednesday night, I encountered two ladies walking two large dogs of indeterminate ethnicity, but who seemed to have something of the boxer/bulldog about them. Maybe a little rotweiller, too. They didn’t exactly resemble pit bulls, but they looked… well,  formidable.

I began to give them a wide berth. Not quite wide enough, as it turns out. “You’re ok,” one of the ladies informed me as one of the dogs- a brown one (the other was light in color) came over and gave my hand a sniff. I expected a lick to follow.

He bit instead. My jacket absorbed most of it- all of it, I thought at the time. “Well, I’ve never seen THAT before,” the lady who had spoken to me exclaimed. “Don’t worry about it,” I said, not realizing that the dog had indeed caught my left hand with one of his teeth. They went their way, and I went mine.

I’d gone a couple of blocks when I happened to look down, and saw that my hand was bleeding. I have no idea why I didn’t chase the ladies and their dogs. Instead, I went home, washed the wound with antibacterial soap, put some antibiotic gel on it- and resolved to meet them when they walked their dogs the next night.

I waited there for an hour last night. They didn’t show. This afternoon I went to the hospital and- on medical advice- received a tetanus shot and my first six rabies shots- two in the back of my left hand (leaving a large bubble), one in the arm, and three somewhere north of my gluteus maxiumus.

I’m waiting for the animal control officer now at the church. I’ll look for the dogs and their people again tonight, but I’m not optimistic about meeting them.

Hopefully I’ll manage to verify that the dog has had his shots, and I won’t have to have the other four shots in the series. Not that it’s really that awful. I remember the horror stories from when I was small (I was bitten by a dog I was encouraging to follow me home when I was seven, but who turned out to be OK) and wasn’t sure what to expect. But frankly, the modern rabies protocol is a piece of cake- except for being treated like a pin cushion and having a bubble on the back of your hand for several hours.

Hopefully the dog is OK. More at this point for his sake than for mine. Dogs are among my favorite people, and I hold no ill will toward this one.

"A small white guy hiding in the bushes" at my alma mater

At Concordia Teacher’s College College University River Forest Chicago,  from whence I obtained my bachelor’s degree, small things can cause a great deal of excitement.

It should be explained that CUC is located in a very upscale suburb of Chicago, with nary a farm for miles and miles. Nevertheless, its mascot, the cougar, seems to have a rival this semester.

ADDENDUM:

Meanwhile, in the Chapel…

With apologies to Edmund Burke

All that is required for the triumph of evil is for the Phillies’ hitters to go into a group slump.

The whack jobs are out in force

This is being advertised on Drudge.

 For sheer, paranoid lunacy and ugly, repulsive malice, it rivals the very worst the Left came up with during George W. Bush’s two terms. And ironically, it’s President Obama who is the ultimate beneficiary

Nut cases like these need to be marginalized and disavowed. It’s conservatives who have to do this. All tolerating this kind of garbage does is to allow Obama and the Left to paint everyone to their Right as being just as crazy and paranoid as those responsible for this nonsense.

The elephant redux

Looks like a good night for the GOP for a change.Bob McDonnell been elected governor in Virginia, and Chris Christie has done the same in New Jersey.

Chick is sick

Though Halloween is over, I thought I’d pass on this excellent article on one of the greatest embarrassments to Christianity around: cartoonist Jack Chick, whose horrific, religiously bigoted and factually inaccurate tracts make it into the Trick or Treat bags of countless unsuspecting kids year after year.

Parents need to examine their children’s haul at the end of each Halloween evening for this kind of poison as thoroughly as they check for razor blades in apples or tampered-with candy.

HT: Cranach

How do you combine a vow of silence with corporate worship?

Dueling Luthers

Several of the brethren have posted the first You Tube presentation below of Luther’s “Here I Stand” speech at Worms- the one from the 2003 Joseph Fiennes version- on their blogs or on Facebook in honor of yesterday’s observance of Reformation Day. I’ve included it here. But below that is the same scene from the classic 1953 movie starring Nial McGinnis- the one all of us at Grace Lutheran School (and Lutheran parochial schools all over America) sat through year after year after year every October.

At times McGinnis’s acting is a bit over the top. But on the whole, I think he captures the personality of Luther better. I remember the older movie with fondness, despite the number of times I was compelled to sit through it. In some ways, it was better than the newer version.

Jonathan Pryce- Juan Peron to Madonna’s Evita- also played Luther in a 1983 TV film called Martin Luther: Heretic. Unfortunately, his portrayal of the Great Reformer doesn’t seem to be on You Tube anywhere. His is a somewhat Fiennes- style Luther that would have been nice to include simply for comparison.

Anyway, here they stand:

ADDENDUM: I’ve always thought that somebody ought to make a movie about the older Luther, if only to provide an opportunity for Brian Blessed to play the role.

Bears 30, Browns 6

Big deal.

Despite the fact that they scored thirty points, the Bears’ offense was distinctly unimpressive. Nor is beating Cleveland all that great an accomplishment.

If they beat Arizona next week, I’ll be impressed. And surprised.

I’ll save the fight song until then.

Sermon for the Feast of All Saints

Overflow Space
The Feast of All Saints
Revelation 7:9-17
November 1, 2009

Dear friends in Christ: Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Despite his theology, one of my more liberal seminary professors preached one of the best ordination sermons I have ever heard.

He spoke of the angelic hosts gathered to watch the evening’s events, and the saints and martyrs met to ratify what was done in the Wartburg Seminary Chapel. He spoke of the smoke and the incense surrounding the throne of God, and its wafting and swirling and reaching from the heights of heaven down to the little congregation in the chapel. He spoke of angels waiting on tiptoe to behold the wondrous event of a servant of the eternal Word being commissioned to carry the Gospel into the world, and the apostles and martyrs gathered together to give their blessing to their successor. He evoked Augustine and Ambrose, Polycarp and Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom and Justin Martyr, Luther and Melanchthon and all the great theologians of history, all gathered together with us to join in on the sending of Don to proclaim the same message they had proclaimed, and to impart the same truths they had imparted.

He painted the scene so skillfully that we could imagine the heavens opened, and all those he named looking down upon us, and upon Don, and the very universe holding its breath as God sent His servant to bear His Word into the world. And at the very height of his rhetoric, he paused.

“But wait a minute,” he said. “It’s just Don!”

Yes, it was just Don- the guy we’d had classes with, and eaten our meals with, and socialized with, and seen unshaved more times than we could mention as he stumbled out of bed to grab breakfast before the refectory closed. It was just Don- just plain, ordinary Don- a nice enough guy, to be sure, but no august personage or dazzling celebrity. Just Don, our friend and classmate.  Just everyday, ordinary Don.

And yet, the professor pointed out, all of the other things were also true. This was an occasion every bit as momentous as he had implied, and the saints in light did indeed join their voices to ours in praising God for sending another witness into the world.

Today is the day when the Church celebrates the saints. To be sure, Augustine and Ambrose and Polycarp and Ignatius and Perpetua and Luther and Chemnitz and Gerhard and all the other heroes of Church history are among them. So are the Apostles. So are the Prophets. But wait a minute! So are Grandpa and Grandma, and Mom and Dad. So is that Sunday School teacher who taught you all those Bible stories, and perhaps the pastor who confirmed you. So are the every-day, unglamorous, unremarkable and- if the truth be told- imperfect saints whom God has sent into your life to set your feet upon the path of grace.

Yes, all those glorious heroes of the Faith are among those we commemorate today. But not a single one of them earned their place in the heavenly chorus by their profound theology or compelling witness, by their personal virtues, or even by the shedding of their blood. The source of the holiness of all the Holy Ones is the same and His Name is Jesus.

It is not merely the great saints of history the Church remembers today, Nor is it even the unsung heroes of our own spiritual lives. It’s also you and me- all of those who, baptized into Christ and living their baptism in daily contrition and repentance, nourished by the body and blood of Christ received in the Sacrament and sustained by Holy Absolution and the support of their fellow saints, have Jesus within them, living His life and doing His work, making them holy by the imputation of His own holiness by grace, received by faith.

There are many who down through the years have claimed a place among the high and mighty host who join their voices to ours this and every Sunday in the praise of that grace and in giving glory to the Lord Who loved us and gave Himself for us on the basis of their own wisdom, their own struggles, there own moral discipline, their own holy lives, and their own remarkable qualities. But they are absent from that Host on high. No, on the contrary, those who belong to the heavenly chorus that joins its praises to ours this morning are the poor in spirit, not those who put themselves forward; those who do not glory, but rather mourn- and so receive the comfort which can only come from the One Who bore in His own body the sins and sorrows of the world; not the bold and assertive, but the meek; not those who are full of themselves, but those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They are those who have loved mercy, and who have single-mindedly sought not their own glory or their own agenda, but God’s Kingdom and God’s will. They are those who have been hurt, and who have every reason to strike back, but instead turn the other cheek, and seek not revenge or even justice, but peace. They are the insulted and the mocked and the spoken against and the despised and the persecuted. They are people remarkable for how unremarkable they are, and imposing precisely in their insignificance, as the world measures such things.

But they shine like the stars, imbued with the righteousness of Another, the holiness of Another, the power of Another, the glory of Another. They are those who, like their Master, have humbled themselves, and walked the path of the cross.

And now, as the glory of the world turns to riches and the achievements and boasts of those who cut a figure in his world turn into dust, it is their turn to shine. It is their turn to rejoice, and to dazzle the universe with a light that is no less brilliant for its being reflected from the One Who is the source of their joy and their glory, just as He is the source of their righteousness and their holiness. Today, the ordinary, the everyday, the insignificant, the expendable, and the unremarkable who forever bask in the glory of the Son of God- and reflect it, too- are in a very real sense here with us this morning.

That’s one of the neat things about belonging to one of the liturgical churches. As I pointed out last Wednesday night during Confirmation class, the liturgy with which we worship had its origins in the Catacombs during the earliest days of the Church. The language may be different, and the surroundings may be different, but when we chant or recite the words of the liturgy we are using the very same words the martyrs used to worship God. Justin Martyr not only used these very words, but wrote down one of the earliest accounts of their use. Athanasius and Augustine and Ambrose and Luther all used these very words- and so did Grandma and Grandpa, and that Sunday School teacher, and that pastor.

In my previous parishes, it has been my custom to either decorate the pulpit and the font and other convenient spots in the church with small and very crude banners I’ve made, or with much more attractive ones more artistically talented members of the congregation have made, commemorating members of the congregation who have transferred to the Church Triumphant the previous year. Each of them has borne the title “Saint,” their first name, and the day of what has been traditionally treated as a saint’s real birthday, the date of their entrance into eternal life. Each banner has also borne some appropriate symbol of their vocation or their life.

Part of the idea has been to celebrate their presence among the saints in reflected Light, shining, no matter how ordinary and familiar they may have been, with the holiness and glory of Christ, and sharing in His joy to all eternity. But there’s also another purpose those banners have served. They also have served as a visible reminder that those very people, though absent from our eyes, are nonetheless with us in the Divine Service.

There has been talk of cutting a hole in the wall and using the space next store as “overflow space.” But there is plenty of overflow space here this morning, as small as this building is. And it’s no less real for being unseen.

It’s an amazing and comforting thought: when we lift our voices in worship on this and every other Lord’s Day, those who occupy that unseen “overflow space” join their voices to ours. Grandpa and Grandma are among them, and Mom and Dad, and beloved aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and Sunday School teachers and pastors.

The Apostles are there, too- and Augustine and Athanasius and Polycarp and Ignatius and Luther and Walther. We who worship in the same words the Western Church has used down through the ages have special reason to bear in mind that it is no empty conceit that every Sunday the pastor prays in the Preface, “Therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Thy glorious Name.”

The mystery we celebrate today- the mystery of the Communion of Saints- tells us that simple, ordinary, unprepossessing people like the ones who have nurtured our bodies and souls and been our companions on our pilgrimage here on earth are none other than the very saints of God, who shine with the reflected glory of the One Who has made His righteousness theirs by grace, through faith- and they shine with a splendor for which words cannot be found. But more than that, it tells us that even though we continue to struggle and to suffer in this veil of tears, for all our mourning and our poverty of spirit, for all that people laugh at us and take advantage of us and look down upon us and treat us badly, we, too, are among that company. In our weakness and our daily struggle with sin, we nonetheless share in Christ’s righteous and Christ’s holiness. Through the Word, through the Sacraments, through Holy Absolution and through the mutual conversation and consolation of our fellow saints, Christ is being formed in us just as He was formed in them- and some day, if we remain faithful, we will shine just as they do.

Scripture does not tell us that they are aware personally aware of the events of our lives, and even hints that they are not. Far less does it teach us to pray to them. Yet they are with us even so, these saints who have gone before us. They join their voices to ours in worship and praise, across the ages and across the great divide between heaven and earth. And one day we will fully share their joy, and faith will give way to sight, and reunited to our loved ones who have gone before us we will sing the praises of God and the Lamb throughout eternity.

But the mystery of the Communion of Saints has another comfort for us: the knowledge that even as we continue to walk our dreary path thorough this sad and sorry world, their voices are already joined to ours in praise and worship, and the righteousness and glory with which they shine are ours, too, through our common faith in the One Who has included us all in His one Church, and through the everlasting life of the One Who binds us together even when time and death itself seem to separate us.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

The wrong question, and the right question

Today is the Festival of the Reformation. On this day in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, beginning the restoration of the apostolic Gospel to center stage in the life of the Church after a long exile to the periphery. On that day, the Church began to remember that the Faith is about Jesus, and not about us; that His activity, and not ours, is decisive.

Those who ask, “What Would Jesus Do?” miss the point of this day- and of that apostolic Gospel. The point is not what Jesus would do if He were in our shoes. The point is what He has already done for the ones who are already in our shoes- us.

Those who seek to make their lives “purpose driven” miss the point that it is God Who accomplishes His purposes in our lives, not by our own striving but by His almighty power in hearts which look, not to their own preparations or efforts, but to the One Who lives His life in and through those whose faith is not in their own activity, but in His finished work.

Those whose eyes contemplate their own spiritual navels are many in today’s “Protestantism.” It would be well for them to read the 95 Theses, and contemplate Luther’s observation that it is repentance, and not achievement, which is the warp and woof of the Christian life, and the central truth of our Faith: that we are not only justified but sanctified by grace alone, through faith alone, for Christ’s sake alone.

No, “What Would Jesus Do?” is not the question. The question is “What Has Jesus Done?” He who apprehends the answer to that question, and trusts it, need not wonder what Jesus would do in his shoes, because Jesus lives in Him- and is already doing it.

Meet the Ricketts family

As Rick Morrissey points out, the Cubs are finally owned by Cub fans. Perhaps that will make a difference.

In any case, the Ricketts family seem not only to be nice people with whom Cub fans like me can identify, but fellow sufferers from the incurable illness of loyalty  to a team whose management has not always through the years always seemed to put nearly as high a priority on the club’s success as we did. Whether P.K. Wrigley, a fine gentleman who unfortunately was clueless where baseball was concerned, or the Chicago Tribune, a corporate entity for whom the bottom line was measured in dollars and cents rather than wins and losses- the management of the team has seldom seemed to be on the same page as the most dedicated fandom in all of sports, for whom a world championship would be not merely a notch on a corporate gunhandle or a nice thing for the city, but an event right up there with birth, marriage and death as a life event.

One gets the feeling that Tom Ricketts would greet a World Series victory for the Cubs the same way, and that’s an awful nice feeling to get from a Cubs owner for a change.

Finally!

The sale of the Cubs is now complete. Tom Ricketts now owns the team, And like any new administration, his deserves our support until and unless he shows that he doesn’t deserve it.

Maybe things will change now, and we’ll finally get to grab the brass ring sometime soon.

Gotta root for the Phillies.

The World Series this year isn’t exactly good versus evil. But it’s something versus evil.

Philadelphia versus evil, perhaps.

So much for the Bears

The Bengals are a good team, but that doesn’t matter. After yesterday’s embarrassment, any illusion that my Bears are a playoff team- or even a particularly good one- are dashed, Cutler or not.

We need an O-line and a defense before anything like the hope that we Bear fans had going into this season will be justified. And that, I fear, will take a while to arrange, even if the front office resolutely sets about that task this very day in a focused and determined fashion.

Hah.

RIP, Atvar

Atvar, aka “Big Guy,” my ornate uromastyx (he’s the hatchling on the left), has apparently crossed the Rainbow Bridge at the age of seven.

I’ll miss him a lot.

Sermon for Reformation Sunday

THE TRUTH IS A PERSON

Reformation Sunday
October 25, 2009
John 8:31-3

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.

Dear friends in Christ: Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Ever since the ELCA convention last month, it’s been even more fashionable than usual for more Lutheran Lutherans than they to bash the ELCA for not abiding in the Word.

I have absolutely no doubt that sometimes we’ve been more vehement than we needed to be, and maybe even a little nasty. More than that, I have absolutely no doubt that there have been times when I have personally let my frustration spill over into rhetoric which was less than helpful.

Part of the problem is the Pharisee in us- the part that thanks God that we are not as the ELCA is. But part of it, too, is the recognition that we are surrounded by professing Christians who feel no particular obligation to continue in Christ’s Word. They’re perfectly willing to tell us that, though seldom in those precise words. And it’s hardly just the “liberals” among whom that tendency prevails.

We hear from our fellow conservative Christians that we confessional Lutherans need to “lighten up” about the Real Presence and baptismal regeneration and the other issues which divide us from Protestant Evangelicalism. Some argue that only matters which directly affect the salvation of individual souls ought to be church divisive. Others suggest that there’s a sort of Great Consensus among those of us who want to be biblical Christians, and that whatever we disagree about beyond that consensus can’t really be important- or at least as important as making a united witness to the world.

I well remember the afternoon over at Faith Lutheran on University in West Des Moines when Bishop Hougen and the clergy of the ELCA’s Southeastern Iowa Synod gathered to discuss our view of truth. We were presented with three possible attitudes toward the truth which some in the Church hold. One was the traditional notion that truth is, at least to some extent, knowable. The second was Modernism- the idea that while there is indeed such a thing as truth, it’s finally unknowable. And finally, there was Post-Modernism- the idea that there really is no such thing as “truth.”

The presenter asked for a show of hands. Exactly two hands went up when he asked how many of us believed that truth was knowable- mine, and, interestingly, Bishop Hougen’s. The overwhelming majority of the pastors present declared their belief in Modernism- in the notion that truth was unknowable. It still seems incredible to me, but there was even a substantial number whose confession was that there simply is no such thing as truth.

How can you not be frustrated in the face of that? These men- and women- had sworn at their ordination to conform their teaching to the Scriptures and the Confessions, and most of all to the Truth in its ultimate form: the Word made flesh, the Truth become a human being named Jesus, Who lived in a definite place and time and spoke certain definite words and made certain specific claims about- yes- truth. But more than that, Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be the Truth- and the Way, and the Life, too, and the only way by which human beings can come to the Father.

There are those who deny that Jesus ever lived- despite the fact that His life is far better attested than that of, say, Socrates. To question that He lived isn’t really intellectually respectable, but people do it anyway. Others want to pretend that He was a Great Religious Teacher, on a par with the Buddah or Confucius or Mohammed. C.S. Lewis pointed out that a man who made the claims that He made, and made them falsely, could either be the greatest fraud the world has ever known or a lunatic on a par with the man who believes himself to be a poached egg, but never a great religious teacher or even merely an ethical man.

But in this Oprahfied and intellectually nihilistic world, even those who claim to be His followers deny that there is such a thing as truth. That being the case, it can hardly surprise us when the clear and consistent testimony of Scripture with regard to human sexuality is set aside by some of those very people.

But that it shouldn’t surprise us doesn’t make it less frustrating. How can a person confess the One Who claims to be the Truth with one side of his mouth, and deny that there is such a thing as truth with the other? How can a person claim to be His disciple, and yet disregard what He has to say about the binding nature of the Moral Law?

I don’t know. How can we?

Because we do, you know- and just as blatantly as those in the ELCA we like to point our fingers at. It’s certainly both puzzling and disturbing that some can have such compassion for the poor and for discriminated against minorities, and so little for the unborn. But is it not just as great a contradiction to be filled with compassion for the unborn, and to fail to have the same compassion for the poor and for the other victims of social injustice?

We accuse others of picking and choosing what they accept in the teachings of Jesus and what they reject. And so they do. But so do we. Sectarianism is as much a sin as syncretism. A failure to confess what unity we have with other Christians, and to combine our confession of the truth when they err with charity and a due regard for the Eighth Commandment is as much a denial of the Truth Himself as a willingness to be accomplices in the trivialization or denial of what He taught us.

All too often we judge not only doctrine and behavior, but people. The Truth made flesh forbids that. And in our daily interaction with our fellow human beings both inside and outside the household of Faith, we are often so certain of our own rectitude and insistent upon our own rights that we forget that Jesus came to call, not the righteous, but sinners- and that to assign ourselves a place with the righteous is to define ourselves outside of those for whom He came. All to often we forget that the Truth bids us empty ourselves as He did, and humble ourselves, and be willing to take the role of the transgressor and to suffer all that it entails even when we do not deserve it, for the sake of the other.

A pastor I know remarked in a sermon on this text a few years ago that all of the problems the Church faces finally boil down to a failure to continue in Christ’s Word. But I think it goes beyond that. I do not say that our lives would be filled with nonstop ease and joy if only we continued in His Word. To say that would be a lie. His way is the way of the cross. His way is a way of suffering. His way is a path of self-renunciation and self-denial. The cross is the greatest of all truths. To be a follower of Jesus is to share His Cross. “When Christ calls a man,” as Bonhoeffer once wrote, “He bids him come and die.”

But our failure to be who Christ calls us to be, and thus to ultimately share in the joy that only those who bear the cross with Him can know, always comes finally from our failure to continue in His Word. If we are in slavery to sin and to bad habits and even to pride and self-righteousness, it’s not because we don’t try hard enough or haven’t managed to summon up the willpower. It’s because we refuse to die.

But die we must. To continue in Jesus’s Word is to die daily to sin and self-righteousness, and to the temptation to thank God that we are not like those who do not continue in His Word. To continue in Jesus’ Word is to accept its accusation, and its condemnation, in all its sternness and gravity.

But it is also to rise daily, just as He rose. Yes, the cross hurts. And yes, the cross is central to what it means to continue in Christ’s word. Yet it was through the cross that He bought our pardon for our failure to be what He is, and to continue in His Word. It was through the cross that Christ came to rise again, as He bids us rise, living in the forgiveness and righteousness that He purchased for us on the cross, living in the freedom that can only come when all that is selfish and self-centered and proud and willful in us is crucified with Christ, and we live as what His word proclaims us to be: righteous, not with a righteousness of our own, but with His, and living a life that is His, having laid down our own at the foot of the cross.

And that, you see, is finally what continuing in His Word is all about: living as what that Word declares us to be. His Word declares we who are by nature slaves of sin to be free, to be sons and not slaves; for His sake to be beloved and accepted where for our own sake we deserve only to be judged and to be condemned.

We are surely right to insist on the Real Presence, and that the New Birth takes place just as Jesus says it does, by water and the Spirit. Those are important truths for those of us who daily lay down our own lives in our baptism, to rise again living His, and who receive His forgiveness and His very life in His very body and blood in the Supper. But to continue in Christ’s word- to be free- is more than having our doctrine straight. It is to recognize our need for mercy, and to trust in the mercy offered us in Christ. And it is to live as people who daily die to any claim to know the truth apart from the One Who both died and rose to justify ungodly folk such as we confess ourselves- apart from Him- to be.

To lay down our lives and any claim to be in the right, and to live instead as forgiven sinners whose only righteousness is Jesus, is to continue in His word. To do that is to know the One Who is alone the Truth, and Who alone can set us free.

May the peace of God, that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

The first eight minutes of ‘V’

This one got good reviews.

Premieres Nov. 3 on ABC.

Happy birthday, universe

According to the calculations of 17th Century Irish Bishop James Ussher, the Six Days of Creation began on October 23, 4004 B.C.

Of course, the presuppositions which led him to that conclusion- which included a duration for the universe of exactly 6000 years- meant that the world should have ended in 2004. We’re apparently living on borrowed time.

Actually, whether one accepts Bishop Ussher’s thesis or not, as I look around me I can’t escape the conclusion that he was at least right about that much.

Poor Jesse!

First Barack Obama gets elected president- and deprives him of any claim to be the leader of black America.

And now this:

As the author of the blog where I found this points out, however, of one thing we can be certain: he is somebody..

HT: Iowa’s Newz Liter

I love the Blackhawks’ ads this year!

The team they’re playing has by far the lamest name this side of the Iowa Chops. But still…

HT: @ChiBlackhawks

Just as good a question

Somebody at Facebook has a poll going asking whether Fox News is a news source or not, thus abetting the Administration line. I thought it only fair, therefore, to post one asking whether the media whose bias runs in the opposite direction- say, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and ABC- are news sources.

However people answer these questions, it will be interesting to see how many have both the perspective and the integrity to answer them the same way.

ADDENDUM: There’s also a poll about whether Fox should fire Glenn Beck. I’ve responded with one of my own asking whether MSNBC should fire Olbermann. My answer in both cases is no; I’m not in favor of silencing people just because I disagree with them- even when I find them reprehensible, as I do Olbermann.

The Isle of Inisfree

Watching The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara used to be as much a part of our St. Patrick’s Day ritual in the Waters household as the corned beef and cabbage dinner and the green we wore to school.

Orla Fallon of Celtic Woman sings a song featured prominently in the score of that movie, and one I’ve always loved.

My father’s namesake

My father, Robert McKinley Waters, was named after the good Republican president who held office when he was born. His older brother, my Uncle Johnny, was John William Gladstone Waters, named after Queen Victoria’s Liberal prime minister. Grandpa, an immigrant from Belfast, was a great one for naming his kids after political figures he admired. Dad’s own heroes included both Robert Taft and Walter Reuther. We in our family have never allowed our own political philosophies to unduly affect our feelings about figures from history or politics we’ve found admirable for one reason or another.

President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgoz at the World’s Fair in Buffalo, N.Y. some four months after Dad was born. I found it interesting when visiting the Antietam battlefield a few years ago that there’s a monument not far from Burnside Bridge on the spot where, as a young noncom, McKinley served coffee to the Union soldiers who were involved in the fighting.

Anyway, I came across the slide show of the campaign, assassination, and funeral of Dad’s namesake on You Tube, and I thought I’d share it.

Here’s a brief documentary on the assassination (the electric chair scene at the end is, of course, a re-enactment- done, as it happens, under the supervision of Thomas Edison).

The great heart of a great man

The skillful animation of an actual photo of Lincoln, combined with an authentic Kentucky/Southern Illinois accent and actual quotations from the president who couldn’t justify “shooting the whole man just because his legs (were) cowardly,” give us a wonderful glimpse at the great heart of our greatest president.

The lies of Michael Moore

The pattern of dishonesty in Michael Moore’s “documentaries” isn’t nearly as well known as should be. It’s amazing, for example, how few people realize that the wonderful health care system he attempted to pass off as available to everyday Cubans in Sicko is in fact available only to foreigners and members of the Cuban Communist party.

Dan Gifford provides an opportunity for you to educate yourself regarding Moore’s habit of fictionalizing the truth.

Time is running out for Obama and his media posse

Steve Huntley of the Chicago Sun-Times has figured out that the Obama administration and its acolytes in the media can only blame George W. Bush for its own shortcomings for so long- and that the excuses are already wearing thin.

Rich Lowry of the National Review makes pretty much the same point.

HT: Drudge,
Real Clear Politics

Jews not allowed at Comen breast cancer conference in Egypt

The Susan G. Comen Breast Cancer organization is holding a conference in Alexandria, Egypt.

Jews are not allowed. Israeli participants- including Nobel prize winners- have had their registrations canceled at short notice.

Apparently the religious bigotry of local authorities is to blame. The Comen organization, which is headquartered in the United States, shouldn’t put up with this.

HT: All in Faber

Jews banned from Comen Breast Cancer Conference

The Susan G. Comen Breast Cancer Conference is about to convene in Alexandria, Egypt.

No Jews are allowed.

Israeli doctors were told on short notice that their registrations had been canceled.

Cancer is a terrible disease. So is religious bigotry. The Comen Foundation- an American group- should insist that the restriction be removed, or else cancel the conference.

HT: Flo Johnson

Britt Hume chimes in

Krauthammer strikes back

Charles Krauthammer answers the Administration’s attacks on Fox News- and White House Communications Director Anita Dunn’s statement that she was joking when she called Mao one of her favorite political philosophers.

Hmmmm, Mr. Axelrod?

Fox’s John Gibson asks what, if- as the White House suggests- Fox News is not a real news organization, MSNBC is.

Good question:

Maybe this lady should just shut up

White House Media Director Anita Dunn- who boasts that Mao Tse Tung, the greatest mass murderer in history, is one of her “two favorite political philosophers-” herein admits that rarely if ever during the 2008 campaign did the media get to cover any Obama story that the campaign didn’t “control.”

HT: Drudge

Fie.

The Bears should have won 35-21 last night.

You can’t turn the ball over three times in the red zone and beat a team as good as the Falcons. And yes, the Falcons are a good team.

Last year, the Bears lost to Atlanta  because of an incomprehensible decision by Lovie to kick short after Robbie Gould knocked through what should have been the game-winning field goal. The decision gave Matt Ryan the field position to set up what really was the game winning field goal with a single completed pass.

This year, it was Jay Cutler throwing the ball to people wearing the wrong color jersey at the worst possible times, the usually sure handed Matt Forte being unable to hang on to said ball at the most critical possible moment, and Orlando Pace picking exactly the wrong point in the game- seconds to go, deep in Atlanta territory, and fourth and one- to jump early and make it fourth and six instead.

I’m not giving up yet. With all respect to Pastor Esget, I fully expect Brett Favre to self-destruct as usual late in the season. But the Bears are now two games back. I think they can beat Minnesota once. I don’t think they can beat them twice.

Right now, I’m looking at 10-6 and a possible wild card. Next week they play the 4-1 Bengals, who are, as their record indicates, no longer pushovers. A loss against Cincinnati would be disastrous.

You have to to better than this, guys. You are better than this.

One more thought: when opposing QB’s have a quarterback rating of only 40 on one side of the field, and of over 100 on the other side, it’s time to get a new cornerback. Fast.

A tale ot two statements

One of them, Rush Limbaugh never actually made- not even close- but it’s been shouted from the housetops that he did. It even cost him an ownership share in the St. Louis Rams.

The second, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn- the critic of Fox News- certainly did make. Nobody has heard about it, though.

They should.

Joe Biden is one heartbeat from the presidency.

And that’s scary.

HT: Real Clear Politics

The last thing the world wants is to "believe in America again"

One wonders how long it will take before Bono and other Europeans, Leftists, Hollywood types, and other such individuals will realize how yesterday talk about the world “wanting to believe in America again” really is.

Barack Obama has been for nearly a year, and has wimped out over and over again all over the globe. He has yielded, and conciliated, and generally played the patsy at nearly every opportunity. Other than getting him the Nobel Prize, it hasn’t really accomplished much. The world may love him, but it respects the country he supposedly leads the less for his alleged leadership.

The world still hates us- and precisely because it wants to. We are a convenient scapegoat. Too much satisfaction is there to be derived from the tough times America is facing economically for the jealousy of decades to simply be forgotten. There is too much reveling to be done in the perceived decline of American power in the world.

No, Bono. The world doesn’t want to believe in America again. That’s the last thing it wants. Hating America is just too satisfying. And now that the second Jimmy Carter is in the White House, if the world really wanted to love us, it would.

It doesn’t- though it does love Barack Obama. In George Will’s telling phrase, it “adores him- and ignores him.”

HT: Real Clear Politics

St. Luke, Evangelist

Marching Orders
Luke 10:1-9
St. Luke, Evangelist
October 18, 2009

Today is the feast day of the only writer of any book of either Testament who was a Gentile.

Luke was a Greek doctor and sometime companion of Paul on his missionary journeys. He was the author both of the Gospel which bears his name, and of the Acts of the Apostles- the New Testament’s record of the spread of Christianity through the ministry of Paul and Luke and Barnabas and Silas and John Mark and the others who were involved in the Church’s first, explosive growth. That being the case, it’s especially appropriate that the reading from his Gospel, which is appointed for his feast day, is about being sent by Jesus into the world to proclaim the Good News to those who haven’t heard it.

The actual context is the sending of the Seventy-Two, a group of those beyond the Twelve Apostles who followed Jesus. They were, in effect, to act as His “advance team,” visiting the places where Jesus Himself would go later. Our Lord’s instructions are remarkably brief. They involve no elaborate preparations. As church growth programs go, this set of directions is remarkably simple and to the point.

The first thing Jesus tells the Seventy-Two to do is to pray that God would send laborers into the harvest. “The harvest is plentiful,” He tells them, “but the laborers are few.” That hardly seems to be the case! Any of us who have ever been involved in evangelism know just what a discouraging task it can be.

There was an area of central and western New York State, which the heretic Charles Finney- who believed that evangelism was simply a matter of salesmanship, involving nothing whatever of a supernatural character- called “the burned-over district.” So much evangelizing had been done there that Finney complained that there was no “fuel” left to re-kindle the fire. People had seemingly become immune to evangelism. Mention Jesus to people in that area, and their eyes would glaze over. Knock on their doors, and they would immediately tell their wives, “Oh, no. Another evangelist. Get rid of him, Martha!”

There’s a sense in which all of America is a kind of burned-over district. Just about everybody has heard about Jesus. That doesn’t mean, of course, that what they’ve heard is accurate- it’s probably not- nor does it mean that they can see what relevance He has to their lives. Unfortunately, Finney’s spiritual descendants- those who look upon evangelism as a sales job- have predominated among those who have taken it upon themselves to spread what they believe to be the Gospel in this country, and it’s often been a mixture of legalism and jargon which has distorted the Message and obscured the Good News. That’s what always happens when mere humans usurp God’s job of making Christians, instead of being content to be His humble instruments.

But Jesus didn’t send the Seventy-Two do be salesmen. Nor did He send Paul andv Luke and their companions to be salesmen. And He doesn’t send us to be salesmen, either. He didn’t tell the Seventy Two to advertise for harvesters, or to recruit harvesters. He told them to pray that laborers be sent into the harvest. From the beginning, He wanted to be sure that they understood that- Finney to the contrary- God is the One Who is in charge when the Gospel is shared. The Holy Spirit, Who operates through the Word, is the only “soul winner.” Our job is to speak the word.

We are not, the Church Growth people to the contrary, told to succeed in filling the pews, and the only way to fail in our mission is to fail to do the one thing we’re commanded to do: to speak the Word. It does not return to Him empty. It either converts, or it plants a seed, or it judges. But it never fails. Never.

But first, we are told to pray that God would send laborers into the harvest- because whether we can see it or not, the harvest is plentiful. There are multitudes who are carrying burdens too heavy for them to bear, and who think that what we have to offer is a greater burden still. But the yoke of Jesus is easy, and His burden is light. He sends us, not to add to their burdens, but to be the means by which He lifts them.

He calls us to be, in the words a D.T. Niles, “one beggar telling another where to find bread.” He offers the Seventy Two no courses in evangelism. The procedure He lays before them involves a notable lack of premeditation. He tells the Seventy-Two not to bother with a moneybag, a knapsack, or even with shoes. He tells them not to waste time saying “hi” to that neighbor they pass on the road. The task is too urgent. The job is too big.

There is a scene in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in which the resurrected Aslan, accompanied by Edmond and Lucy, recruits his army for the coming battle by breathing on those the Witch has turned into stone, and bringing them to life again. Aslan, of course, is Jesus, Who breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Pneuma in Greek means “spirit.” But it also means “breath-“ just as the Old Testament Hebrew equivalent- ru’ach, what God breathed into Adam so that Adam became a living creature- means both “breath” and “spirit.”

The task is not to sell. The task is not to debate. The task is to share the breath of God, the Spirit of God, Who alone can give spiritual life and Who alone can win souls- and who does so through the Word about Jesus.

Jesus sent the Seventy-Two out as sheep among wolves. He sends us out that way, too. Despite the size of the harvest, our perception is right about one thing: we live in the midst of a culture that is profoundly hostile to the Word.

But the world of the First Century was that way, too. We may be rejected when we speak of the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life through Jesus. But we will not be made into pariahs for our faith. We will not be boiled in oil, or skinned alive, or beheaded, or crucified upside down, as tradition says the Apostles were. We will not be exiled, as was John- the only one of the Apostles to die a natural death. But Jesus does not promise us that the fruit our witness bears will always be visible, or that it will always lead to acceptance. Sometimes the Word judges rather than converts. And sometimes even when it converts, it bears fruit years later.

But we are not asked for results. We are simply sent out as the Seventy-Two were, to bear witness to the coming of the Kingdom of God.

The Word that we are called upon to speak does sometimes judge, even if we ourselves are commanded not to. People don’t like to hear that Word of judgment. But here’s a point, which the latter-day Finneys forget, but which is of the very essence: we are sent, not as sheriff’s deputies bearing a writ of condemnation, but as liberators, bearing a word of pardon. The Word of judgment- where the Word does judge- does so only in order to prepare the way for the Word of healing. The Law always prepares the way for the Gospel. We are sent, in the words of the pastor from Giertz’s The Hammer of God, as a visitor to the cell of the condemned bearing a letter of pardon in his pocket.

We are sent, not to indict, but to deliver God’s pardon. Our task is to represent, as the gang-bangers put it; to show the colors, to be whom God the Holy Spirit has, through baptism and the Word, has made us.

And what is it that baptism and he Word have made us? Forgiven. Healed. Pardoned. Strengthened. We are sent out as exactly what the people we encounter are: ordinary, fallible people no better and no worse than they, but whose failings are washed clean every day by the water of our baptism, and by the blood of Jesus.

We are sent out as people who are often confused and bewildered and at a loss, just like those to whom we are sent- but who by God’s grace trust that God has our times in His hands, and will bring us through our stumbling journey through all the detours our own willfulness and lack of trust take us on and all the disasters life can dish out to an eternal home.

We are sent as people who make mistakes, who drop the ball- and who, worse, act and speak selfishly and sometimes hurtfully to others, but who in Christ have both forgiveness for our sin and the means of healing for the relationships that it bends and sometimes breaks. We are sent as people who screw up.

We are sent out, not as people who have arrived, but as people who know where we are going; not as people who succeed, but as people whose shortcomings are forgiven and, at length, healed; as people in need, but whose need has been met- and continues to be met every day.

We are sent out as people in the same boat as others, as so many beggars telling other beggars where bread can be found. Some will listen; others may not. That is not our concern. We are not called to bring people to Christ. We are not called to prosper, to fill the pews, or to grow as a congregation.

We are called to be nothing more or less than what our baptism has made us: unworthy people made worthy by the merits of Jesus; sinners forgiven by a grace God wants to share with all human beings; people drowning in a sea of our own unworthiness, made worthy and kept alive by a life preserver in the shape of a cross, able to keep any number of the drowning people we encounter afloat as surely as it has rescued us.

We are called to finally do nothing more or less than to invite the drowning people all around us to grab hold, and live. Or rather, to give them the opportunity to be grasped through the Word by the One Who has rescued us, and who is able to bring them to safety as surely as we.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

Slandering Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh has been forced out of a group seeking to purchase the St. Louis Rams on the basis of certain racist statements attributed to him by Leftists- but which, in fact, he never made.

The Wall Street Journal opines.

This is a truly bad idea

This post is about a product that would be inappropriate if it commemorated any president. That it commemorates our first African-American president adds an element of apparent racism to what otherwise would be mere disrespect and bad taste.

I saw the commercial below the other night. At first, I was certain that I’d dozed off, and was dreaming. But it’s apparently real. And it is so incredibly disrespectful not only of the president but of the office he occupies that I can hardly find the words.

Walgreen’s has pulled this product from their shelves. Good. Perhaps its originator, Joseph Pedott, had only good intentions. But he should have known better- and given the fact that I saw the ad only the other night, apparently this thing is still being sold.