... forbidden to evaluate myself on the basis of my own feelings ...

"Through faith in God's Word I say that if sin is present, it does not matter to me. 

I have been forbidden to evaluate either myself on the basis of my own feelings, or the church on the basis of external appearance. 

I have been commanded to judge by the Word of promise. 

The gospel says and teaches something different from my senses. It says that there is One who 'committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth' (1Pt 2:22).

In Himself He has conquered death, the world, and sin. He has said: 'Take heart; I have overcome the world."' (Jn 16:33); 'Sin will have no dominion over you' (Rm 6:14); and similar statements in Holy Scripture. 

Him alone I know, and this I know, too, that He has been appointed the Bridegroom and has conveyed to His bride, the church, [ and thus to me] all that He has. 

I am a part of His church. 

For I have sure signs and pledges, namely: baptism, the gospel, the Lord’s Supper, that witness to the fact that I am a member of Christ.

"This comfort and knowledge is so great that it cannot be understood so quickly as I wish it could be. 

If we could grasp it completely, we would never be stirred by any sense of death or sin. 

Our failure to understand this fully makes our conscience vex us, dangers disturb us, the remembrance of death and afflictions frighten us. 

This failure lies in our comprehension; it does not lie in Christ. 

It is like a man who has fallen into the middle of a stream. He catches the branch of a tree somehow to support himself above the water and be saved. 

So in the midst of sins, death, and anxieties we, too, lay hold on Christ with a weak faith. 

Yet this faith, tiny though it may be, still preserves us and rules over death and treads the devil and everything under foot."

Martin Luther

Lecture on Psalm 45, 9

O Lord, have taken ... what is mine and given me ... what is yours.

Therefore, my dear friend, learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to praise him and, despairing of yourself, say, “Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, just as I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and have given to me what is yours. You have taken upon yourself what you were not and have given to me what I was not.”⁶

Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to be looked upon as a sinner, or to be one.⁷ For Christ dwells only in sinners. On this account he descended from heaven, where he dwelt among the righteous, to dwell among sinners. Meditate on this love of his and you will see his sweet consolation.

Accordingly you will find peace only in him and only when you despair of yourself and your own works. Besides, you will learn from him that just as he has received you, so he has made your sins his own and has made his righteousness yours.

If you firmly believe this as you ought (and he is damned who does not believe it), receive your untaught and hitherto erring brothers, patiently help them, make their sins yours, and, if you have any goodness, let it be theirs.

Thus the Apostle teaches, “Receive one another as Christ also received you to the glory of God.”⁸

And again, “Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, [did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped], but emptied himself,” etc.⁹

Even so, if you seem to yourself to be better than they are, do not count it as booty, as if it were yours alone, but humble yourself, forget what you are and be as one of them in order that you may help them.

Cursed is the righteousness of the man who is unwilling to assist others on the ground that they are worse than he is, and who thinks of fleeing from and forsaking those whom he ought now to be helping with patience, prayer, and example. This would be burying the Lord’s talent and not paying what is due.¹⁰

If you are a lily and a rose of Christ, therefore, know that you will live among thorns. Only see to it that you will not become a thorn as a result of impatience, rash judgment, or secret pride.

The rule of Christ is in the midst of his enemies, as the Psalm puts it.¹¹ Why, then, do you imagine that you are among friends? Pray, therefore, for whatever you lack, kneeling before the face of the Lord Jesus. He will teach you all things.

Only keep your eyes fixed on what Christ has done for you and for all men in order that you may learn what you should do for others. If Christ had desired to live only among good people and to die only for his friends, for whom, I ask you, would he have died or with whom would he ever have lived?

Martin Luther, LW, Vol. 48: Letters I.

---

⁶ This is one of the main ways Luther tried to express the mystery of salvation. In his First Lectures on the Psalms (see p. 18, n. 3) he made the following statement: through faith Christ and the sinner are, so to speak, initiated into a marriage. The sinner is described as the prostitute who had been cleansed and rehabilitated through this marriage; see WA 4, 130 f.; WA 3, 141. Later Luther developed this idea; in the 1520 treatise, The Freedom of a Christian (see p. 180, n. 2), he gave this understanding of faith its finest formulation; see WA 7, 22 ff., 49 ff.; LW 31, 343 ff. See also WA 2, 742 ff.; LW 35, 49 ff.

⁷ For a similar statement, see p. 282.

⁸ Rom. 15:7 (Vulgate).

⁹ Phil. 2:5–7.

¹⁰ Matt. 25:18; 18:28.

¹¹ Ps. 110:2. See also p. 252, n. 12.

Preserve in wave and tempest ...

A hymn prayer based on TLH 264:5,6) that I modified slightly to speak out both the struggle and faith within me. I hope it speaks the desire of your faith in the midst of the raging of the old Adam within and Satan without. 

Preserve Thy Word and preaching,
The truth that makes me whole,
The mirror of Thy glory,
The power that saves my soul. 
Oh, may this living water,
This dew of heavenly grace, 
Sustain me while here living
Until I see Thy face!

Preserve in wave and tempest
Thy storm-tossed little sheep;
Assailed by wind and weather;
May I endure each shock.
Take Thou the helm, O Pilot,
And set the course aright;
Thus I shall reach the harbor
In Thine eternal light. Amen.

pmwl 

A SIMPLE, YET FULL CONFESSION OF SIN

Lord God, merciful Father,

I acknowledge, own and confess before You,

That I am a miserable sinner in the greatest of poverty.

I was conceived in sin and was born in unrighteousness.

I have violated the commandments of Your true, just, and holy Law.

I have done what You have forbidden,

and I have left undone what You have commanded.

I have grievously offended Your most Holy Spirit,

Not just by my outward and actual sins,

but also by my inward sins of heart and mind.

I have sinned not only in ignorance and infirmity,

but I have sinned knowingly and presumptuously against the light of Your Word.

I have sinned against the checks of my own conscience,

and the faithful strivings of Your Holy Spirit.

In all this, I have no cover, no cloak, no shield against my sins, my own most grievous sins.

Yet in love, You bid me to come to you,

to walk in the light as Your Son is in the light,

so that I may be cleansed of all my unrighteousness.

I come Lord, before Your throne of grace,

Clinging to Your promise of mercy and grace for me in my time of need.

I plead the all-sufficient sacrifice of Your Son, Jesus Christ, offered for me on the Cross.

I seek the blessings of His unceasing intercession for me at Your right hand.

And I humble ask You that for His sake, You grant me the full and free forgiveness of all my sin and sinfulness. Amen.  

- pmwl

What happened to God's Agenda ...

An excellent devotion from Dr. Scott Murray's Memorial Moment for July 19, 2013

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Memorial-Moment--What-Happened-to-God-s-Agenda-.html?soid=1101459756774&aid=b_01ePxaLpA

Some years ago, there was a mania in theology in which some theologians argued that the church needed to let the world set the agenda for the church. The church was to be oriented radically for and to the world. There is a certain truth to this turning of the church toward the world. Has not Christ told us that God has loved the world (Jn 3:16)?

The church's mission is to proclaim Christ and His salvation for the sake of those who are not yet saved. What is that but to turn toward the world? But like all truths it can be bent by overemphasis. At the time that this thinking emerged in public  theological discourse, many theologians warned that this emphasis would begin to bend the church into the world. If the world sets the church's agenda, then the agenda will no longer be Christ's. In the heady days of the 1950s and 1960s this
 sounded like Chicken Little's warning. The church seemed to be growing and getting with the world's agenda all at the same time.

The idea that the world should set the church's agenda had legs, despite all the warnings. Although the theological sources of this movement are now passé, their ideas seemed to have crept into the churches' practice like a virus that infects a host. Now the churches no longer preach sin and grace, law and gospel. The churches now preach good advice about life in this world. Not long ago, a well-known pastor,
not known for his theological depth, declined to say that Christ was the only way to heaven on national television for fear of offending his viewers. Everything must be "user-friendly;" however that might be defined. The churches no longer accuse us of sin, even though this is the divine mission (Jn 16:8).

Sin is just something to be passed over or ignored for fear of hurting "market share." The church's life must remain centered not in our wants or desires but in God's mission for the world. Therefore we must not let worldly standards judge the church's proclamation, or her blessings and gifts. For the world's standards must be inimical to Christ's.

His kingdom is not of this world (Jn 18:36) and therefore this world will never support, encourage, or agree with His mission. The world is blind and will never see the glory of Christ in His suffering and death. The world will never recognize the gifts of Christ or His glory in the weakness of the church because it does not have the tools to understand these great spiritual things (1Co 2:14).

If the church hands over its agenda to the world, it will be betraying God's Son  anew and inheriting in His place a mess of pottage. Neither the church nor the world will be better off, the church having betrayed her Lord and King and the world being deprived of the message of salvation.

This is not a matter of keeping the nasty old world out of our churches either. For the world dwells in the heart of every fallen human in the world, that is, in me dwells no good thing (Rm 7:18).

Battling the flesh is not a matter of keeping "them" out. Every one of us will have to keep up the war against our flesh until God dissolves our flesh at death. What does this mean for the church's agenda? It means that the world's agenda lives in every Christian and can creep into our churches through our own fleshly mouths.

Every word that proceeds from our mouth therefore, must be judged according to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Mt 4:4).

John Chrysostom

"As having nothing, yet possessing everything."  (2Co 6:10).

And how can this be? Indeed rather, how can the opposite be? For he that possesses many things has nothing; and he that has nothing possesses the goods of all. And  not here only, but also in the other points, in which opposites were to have all things (2Co 6:8-10), bring forth this man himself into the midst, who commanded the world and was lord not only of their substance, but even of their very eyes. Paul says, "For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me" (Gal 4:15).

Now these things Paul says, to instruct us not to be disturbed by the opinions of the many, though they call us deceivers, though they know us not, though they count us condemned, and appointed unto death, to be in sorrow, to be in poverty, to have nothing, to be (us, who are cheerful!) despondent. The sun even is not clear to the blind, nor the pleasure of the sane intelligible to the mad. For the faithful only are fit judges of these matters, and are not pleased and pained at the same  things as other people. For if anyone who knew nothing of the games were to see a boxer, having wounds upon him and wearing a crown; he would think him in pain on account of the wounds, not understanding the pleasure the crown would give him.

Therefore, since unbelievers know what we suffer but do not know why we suffer them, they naturally suspect that there is nothing other than sufferings; for they see indeed the wrestling and the dangers, but not the prizes and the crowns and the subject of the contest.

Let us therefore, when we suffer anything for Christ's sake, not merely bear it nobly but also rejoice. If we fast, let us leap for joy as if enjoying luxury. If we are insulted, let us dance as if praised. If we spend, let us feel as if gaining.

If we bestow gifts on the poor, let us count ourselves as receiving; for he that does not give this way will not give readily. So when you decide to scatter largess, look not at this only in alms-giving, but also in every kind of virtue, consider not only the severity of the toils, but also the sweetness of the prizes; and above all the subject of this wrestling, our Lord Jesus; and you will readily enter upon the contest, and will live the whole time in pleasure. For nothing is more able to cause pleasure as a good conscience.

John Chrysostom, Homilies on 2 Corinthians, 12.4-5

Top Ten Reasons Why We Use the Liturgy · Higher Things

Top Ten Reasons Why We Use the Liturgy · Higher Things

TOP TEN REASONS WHY WE USE THE LITURGY

By The Rev. William Cwirla  (posted at Higher Things)

Why the Liturgy? First a definition and a disclaimer. By “liturgy” I mean the western catholic mass form as it has been handed down by way of the Lutheran Reformation consisting of the five fixed canticles – Kyrie, Gloria in Excelsis, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Pardon the Greek and Latin, but it sounds cool and we still use ‘em. “Liturgy” also includes the assigned Scripture texts for the Sundays, feast days, and seasons. Most of what I will say about the liturgy of the Divine Service will pertain to “liturgical worship” in general.

Now, why do we worship according to the western, catholic liturgy?

IT SHOWS OUR HISTORIC ROOTS. Some parts of the liturgy go back to the apostolic period. Even the apostolic church did not start with a blank liturgical slate but adapted and reformed the liturgies of the synagogue and the Sabbath. The western mass shows our western catholic roots, of which we as Lutherans are not ashamed. (I’d rather be confused with a Roman Catholic than anything else.) We’re not the first Christians to walk the face of the planet, nor, should Jesus tarry, will we be the last. The race of faith is a relay race, one generation handing on (“traditioning”) to the next the faith once delivered to the saints. The historic liturgy underscores and highlights this fact. It is also “traditionable,” that is, it can be handed on.

IT SERVES AS A DISTINGUISHING MARK. The liturgy distinguishes us from those who do not believe, teach, and confess the same as we do. What we believe determines how we worship, and how we worship confesses what we believe.

IT IS BOTH THEOCENTRIC AND CHRISTOCENTRIC. From the invocation of the Triune Name in remembrance of Baptism to the three-fold benediction at the end, the liturgy is focused on the activity of the Triune God centered in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. Worship is not primarily about “me” or “we” but about God in Christ reconciling the world to HImself and my baptismal inclusion in His saving work.

IT TEACHES. The liturgy teaches the whole counsel of God – creation, redemption, sanctification, Christ’s incarnation, passion, resurrection, and reign, the Spirit’s outpouring and the new life of faith. Every liturgical year cycles through these themes so that the hearer receives the “whole counsel of God” on a regular basis.

IT IS TRANSCULTURAL. One of the greatest experiences of my worship life was to be in the Divine Service in Siberia with the Siberian Lutheran Church. Though I spoke only a smattering of Russian, I knew enough to recognize the liturgy, know what was being said (except for the sermon, which was translated for us), and be able to participate knowledgeably across language and cultural barriers. I have the same experience with our Chinese mission congregation.

IT IS REPETITIVE IN A GOOD WAY. Repetition is, after all, the mother of learning. Fixed texts and annual cycles of readings lend to deep learning. Obviously, mindless repetition does not accomplish anything; nor does endless variety.

IT IS CORPORATE. Worship is a corporate activity. “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”The liturgy draws us out of ourselves into Christ by faith and the neighbor by love. We are all in this together. Worship is not simply about what “I get out of it,” but I am there also for my fellow worshippers to receive the gifts of Christ that bind us together and to encourage each other to love and good works (Heb 10:25). We are drawn into the dialogue of confession and absolution, hearing and confessing, corporate song and prayer. To borrow a phrase from a favored teacher of mine, in church we are “worded, bodied, and bloodied” all together as one.

IT RESCUES US FROM THE TYRANNY OF THE “HERE AND NOW.” When the Roman world was going to hell in a hand basket, the church was debating the two natures of Christ. In the liturgy, the Word sets the agenda, defining our needs and shaping our questions. The temptation is for us to turn stones into bread to satisfy an immediate hunger and scratch a nagging spiritual itch, but the liturgy teaches us to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

IT IS EXTERNAL AND OBJECTIVE. The liturgical goal is not that everyone feel as certain way or have an identical “spiritual” experience. Feelings vary even as they come and go. The liturgy supplies a concrete, external, objective anchor in the death and resurrection of Jesus through Word, bread, and wine. Faith comes by hearing the objective, external Word of Christ.

IT IS THE WORD OF GOD. This is often overlooked by critics of liturgical worship. Most of the sentences and songs of the liturgy are direct quotations or allusions from Scripture or summaries, such as the Creed. In other words, the liturgy is itself the Word of God, not simply a packaging for the Word. Many times the liturgy will rescue a bad sermon and deliver what the preacher has failed to deliver. I know; I’ve been there.

Ten is one of those good numbers in the Bible signifying completeness, so I’ll stop at ten. I’m sure there are more.

The Problem of Suffering by Gregory Schulz

The following article is by Dr. Richard C. Eyer from Concordia University Wisconsin on Dr. Gregory Schulz's presentation on SUFFERING. This was used as discussion starter and intro a Bible study our church has started having at a local restaurant/coffee house, Herman's Boy. 

Gregory Schulz, author of "The Problem of Suffering" (Northwestern Pub.), was first speaker of a three part series sponsored by The Christian Center for Culture, Morality, and Bioethics at Concordia University Wisconsin in October.  Several in attendance testified to giving much attention to his words in the days following.

Greg posed three truths, all of which must be affirmed if we are to remain faithful to the Word of God. They are: 

1. God is good.  

2. God is omnipotent.  

3. There is indeed suffering in the world.  

Attempts on the part of Christians to address why there is suffering in the world tend to deny one or more of these truths.

For example, there are those who say there can be no God if there is suffering in the world (the atheist). Or, there are those (Kushner) who say God exists but is impotent in dealing with suffering.  And, there are those who say that what we call suffering is just happenstance (perspectivalism). But for the Christian it is clear that God is good, that he is omnipotent, and that the suffering Christians experience neither contradicts the goodness nor the omnipotence of God. The fact is that God is the giver of suffering to Christians.  The Book of Job testifies to this theology.

Christians might be tempted to blame suffering on sinful human nature as the disciples did when they asked Jesus, concerning the blind man, "who sinned, this man or his parents?" And yet, Jesus answered that sin was not relevant to this situation.  

Christians might make a distinction between God sending suffering and merely allowing it. But whether we say God sends or merely allows suffering makes little difference since the will of God is the same in either case.  

So what are we to make of the suffering God brings on us?  

The answer lies in Jesus' suffering and death on the cross.  Jesus suffered for us and for our salvation. Because we have become one with him through our baptism, our suffering has become his and his has become ours. It is as Paul says, "I rejoice in my sufferings . . .I complete what is lacking in Christ's suffering . . . " This suffering we bear adds nothing to our salvation. We do not suffer to earn heaven. Rather, our suffering has become Christ's suffering in us as he attaches himself to us through our baptism.  

It is no comfort to a suffering Christian to say that sin is the cause of his suffering.

It is hopeful, however, to say that our suffering is from God for then we know to whom we must turn who is good and omnipotent and will turn our tears into joy in heaven.

This is the theology of the cross. 

Christ, Culture and Coffee

TOPIC:  SUFFERING

 Outreach Conversation - Monday, June 10, 2013

St. Peter’s Lutheran Church,

310 E. Division, Rockford, MI 

The Love of Christ - Spontaneous or Measured?

“Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.” Lk 14:25-32 (ESV)

You know, every time I think I have God, or life, pretty well figured out and I start rummaging through the Bible, then-ZAP! Some new shaft of light shatters my neat little God-package or life-package. My cozy figuring out is undercut or deflated, and I've got to take a fresh look at the whole business again.

Of course if this didn't happen the Bible would have no authority for us. It would not convey a word from the beyond at all; it would simply be a dull, commonplace book, handy to have around to confirm me in my prejudices and partial understandings. Inasmuch as the Bible is the Word of God, then by its very nature it has to startle, confuse, mess-with, surprise and shake us up.

The Word of God refuses to let me spell me, my life, or God, with the letters of my alphabet.

A case in point are the two little parables in the fourteenth chapter of Luke about a man building a tower and a king planning warfare.  So what's so surprising about all that? Isn't this just ordinary folk wisdom, hard business sense, sound military strategy? The boardroom of a big corporation, with sound business heads deciding on expansion on the basis of costs, earning capacity, and the state of the economy? Or the high strategy session in the Pentagon, with colonels and generals figuring out every deployment, the state of the military budget, and probable body-count? Or a family sitting down to decide whether they can manage the mortgage payments on a new house? No, there's nothing very surprising here; it's just plain horse sense to count up the cost before making a venture.

What is surprising is what it does to a totally different approach to discipleship, to the expression of love, in so much of the New Testament where the emphasis is just the opposite of this prudent, cautious, cost-counting approach. It's the mystery, the wonder of love offered spontaneously, freely, with abandon.

How many times shall I forgive – seven times? No, seventy times seven.

If a man forces you to go one mile, go with him two.

If he strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the left, and if he wants your corduroy jacket, offer him your topcoat too.

If you love those who respond to you in friendship and love, so what? Love your enemies where you can count on nothing in return. If the wine at the wedding feast runs low, I'll drown them in more wine than they can possibly drink.

And who ends up in outer darkness? The one-talent man who was precisely the cautious, prudent, counting-the-cost kind of guy.

So Jesus lived, apparently, with an abandon of love, scattering His seed over all kinds of ground, not counting the cost of scattering seed on beaten paths, on rocks, or among weeds.

So Jesus went about offering His unconditional love to every Tom, Dick, and Harry: prostitutes, call girls, racketeers, blind beggars, and God knows what all! The spontaneity of it, the uncalculating spirit, the generosity of it – this is what makes it a mystery and gives it wonder, and draws us to Him.

It's the spontaneous, uncalculating expression of love, of care for others, which seems closest to the spirit of Christ and gives life much of its wonder, mystery, and joy. It is perhaps the one quality above all others that has come to dominate the definition of Christian love and Christian mission.

Such is how I thought I had it all figured out. That it is precisely this delightful spontaneity, this not counting the cost, which is of the essence of Christian love, of the way God would have it happen among us, and approach the work of His Church.

So what gives with Jesus suddenly talking about calculating the cost? The ridicule heaped on the tower builder who had not counted the cost and wasn't able to finish? Or the king waging warfare who was commended because he was willing to compromise when he found he was outmanned by the opposition?

Good God, isn't it better to venture love even if we can't carry through on it?

Isn't it better to fight for love and justice in our world even if we know that the opposition will probably shoot us down?

At least this is the quality which draws us to make heroes isn’t it?

So what goes on here? Well, for one thing, in the context of His words, Jesus’ words suggest that the spontaneous offers of love, service, sacrifice and even mission work, may well be no more than an emotional kick, an expression of feelings, our feelings, rather than a consideration of the effect that those feelings may have on others, especially the one so emotionally moved.

You recall that incident along the road where a woman, all carried away with her emotions, blurted out to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” (Lk 11:27). To which Jesus replied tartly, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!" (Lk 11:28). He was not about to let that woman get away with an outburst of feelings without counting the cost of what it did mean for Mary to have such a son, with the sword piercing her soul down through the years.

What Jesus is saying in these two little parables is that there is something demonic about love that does not count the cost and, having counted the cost, carry through on it.  

No doubt this is why Luke places these two illustrations immediately after bluntly stating: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Lk 14:26-27)

To say Jesus is indicating that love for the neighbor immediately establishes priorities is not to water down his word one bit: those priorities can be devastating to our normal way of living!

Paul Monka in his delightful little book Meditations in Universe, provides what is perhaps the most erroneous, and yet the most appealed to justification when spontaneity wears off: "All's well that means well." Nothing could be farther from the truth and what our Lord is getting at here.

The world is full of grief and loneliness and tragedy because of people like you and me who meant well, but didn't count the cost. The tragedy that seems to unfortunately define the African-American community in our country results not alone from the arrant racists, prejudiced and bigoted, as found in the popular spin, but from a hundred plus years of people on both sides of the issue, people like you and me who meant well.

What is the tragedy? Seldom has anyone really faced up to, and owned the cost of it all!

God help the neighbor if our love for him begins and ends simply with our feelings for him. Why is it most mission leaders and organizations are lost as to how to do missions? If you look behind the charts, demographics and into the toolboxes they’ve made for themselves, they cannot find any easy, quick, micro-wave type way of loving the lost cheaply. The faithfulness, the ongoing, the enduring path of missions isn’t an option because it cost too much, we can’t get it to be self-sustaining. How ironic that we, who cannot live a moment without the Lord’s love, expect those we love to get to a point that they can live without our love and all that it supplies. How shall we ever get to loving our enemies and doing good to those who persecute us.

Beyond that, these little parables suggest that love had better take sharp stock of the nature, quality, and size of the opposition. We'd better know what we're up against, and what we're up against is the monumental tragedy in human life, as well as human perversity, evil, and sin. All in all, that is awesome opposition. Which is why the basic ingredient in the Biblical understanding of love, whether divine or human, is not the feeling of love, but faithfulness. It is God's faithful love which is asserted over and over again in the Old Testament. And when Job and others questioned the love of God for them, it was the faithfulness of that love in times of suffering and death which was in question. And in the New Testament it is the faithfulness of love even unto death which is central.

In how many marriage ceremonies has what is pledged been changed from a pledge to be faithful, to a pledge to love? As God instituted it, marriage is not first and foremost about pledging our feelings of love, but the pledging of our faithfulness in sickness and in health, for better or worse.

And as for friendship, you know from your own experience it is the faithful ones, those who stick by you no matter what, who are the treasured ones. Others may be more fun to be with, more charming, but, by God, when the chips are down it's the faithful ones we are grateful for, even if they happen to be pretty dull customers.

Rollo May points out the need for faithfulness in love by contrasting it with the hippie movement back in the 60’s and 70’s.

Hippie love emphasizes immediacy, spontaneity, and the emotional honesty of the temporary moment.... The immediacy, spontaneity, and honesty of the relationship experienced in the vital now are sound. . . . But love also requires enduringness. Love grows in depth by virtue of the lovers experiencing encounter with each other, conflict and growth, all over a period of time. These cannot be omitted from any lasting and viable experience of love.

While this movement reminds us of the wonder and mystery of love's spontaneity, it still does so without love’s enduringness or faithfulness, so that it droops and fades.

This can best be summed up in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who points out that God defines love; love does not define God. And as God defines love, it is both spontaneous, free, uncalculating, given with abandon and at the same time prudent, cautious, aware of the cost and the opposition.

The old, old story of the Good Samaritan still tells it best: There was the spontaneous and immediate seizure of the moment, the now, in response to the poor guy in the ditch beside the road. But that was not all. He counted the cost, picked him up, set him on his donkey, took him to the inn, and saw to it that he was cared for. He saw it through. Both spontaneity and faithfulness.

If we have to sacrifice one for the other, faithfulness is more to be desired than spontaneity. Love without spontaneity can of course, as many today complain, be dull and drab, boring, lacking the flash that generates not faithfulness of love, but its feelings. But love without faithfulness is chaotic, if not demonic.

It isn’t by mistake that much of the mission work within the church has long been dominated by spontaneity rather than faithfulness. How much of our mission effort is driven by the fact that we can count the number of flashes of mission that catch and wow the eyes of all, but faithfulness, how can we count that in anything but cost?

Any attempt in fulfilling the great commission must live according to the mysterious, wondrous love that is faithful and steadfast. For this is the very way God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit set upon both the creation and salvation of the entire world.

Perhaps the reason this way of doing both Church and mission has been abandoned by so many is because when both are held together –the instant feeling of compassion, the warmth, the spontaneity, plus the counting the cost of faithfulness – then we are defining love as God defines it, not spelling it by the letters of our own alphabet.

By Edmund Steimle, God the Stranger

Revised and edited by Pastor Mark W. Love.

A PRAYER FOR THOSE DEVASTATED IN OKLAHOMA

For all those suffering in the wake of the tornadoes in Oklahoma we pray:

Christ, be with each of them.

Christ, before each of them.

Christ, behind each of them.

Christ be on their right and their left.

Christ be where they lie, where they sit and where they rise.

Christ be in the heart of everyone with them and for them.

Christ be in the mouth of everyone who speaks with them and for them.

Christ be in the eyes of all who look upon and after them.

Christ be in the ears of all who hear and listen to them.

Their salvation is of the Lord.

Their salvation is of the Lord alone.

Their salvation is of the Lord Jesus Christ.

May Your salvation, O Lord, be ever with them all.

Christ be the answer to this prayer. Amen.

I redraft/edited St. Patrick’s prayer for those suffering so.

-pmwl 

Chemo For Life

A most excellent piece by Dr. Scott Murray of Memorial Lutheran Church in Houston, TX.

-pmwl

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10  not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13 God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” FIRST CORINTHIANS 5:7-13 (ESV)

People suffering from cancer often undergo chemotherapy. Because of its toxicity a person undergoing "chemo" usually becomes quite sick. A deadly chemical is being introduced into the body in carefully controlled amounts in an attempt to kill the cancer cells, without killing the person. Chemotherapy is the struggle to kill one part of the body, while keeping the rest of the body alive. The therapy often takes weeks, sometimes months, because it would be deadly if administered all at once. Chemotherapy is really poison introduced to purge the body of that which threatens its health.

Our Lord is purging our bodies of the cancer of death, but He does so by killing us (Job 13:15). Yes, slowly and in small doses, but killing us all the same. This killing begins in baptism in which the therapy is administered. We Christians will live with doses of dying in repentance through the daily use of baptism. All sins and evil desires are killed every day that the "new man might daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever" (SC 4.4). The dying goes on daily, because God causes the dying of baptism to become a way of life. Death, then, is a way of life. It is a way of life because the dying is caused by what God sends in the sacrament of baptism. Baptism is a means of grace not just at its administration, but baptism continually functions as a way of death to life.

Dying comes gradually to us through these sacramental gifts. The sacramental blessings are all ours at once by grace. Whatever the Word promises is ours fully and completely. However, we often do not feel the life given by the Word. Instead, we feel the weight of death within us through the killing power of the Word. The burdens of our body and this life in the flesh are full enough of trial and trouble. This is real, not imagined as in Scientology. The reality of our weakness and suffering, however, does not make less real the verdict that God holds us now to be deathless and that the purging process will one day be complete when our corpse is put six feet under. Our feeling does not change the verdict spoken and though we feel death and are dying every day, yet life is ours, even to the full (Jn 10:10). Christ's promise to us in baptism will come to its fulfillment when we die. The Lord is purging our sin from us through the therapy of baptism. It kills to make alive. 

Martin Luther

"Poison and pestilence are a death which does not kill suddenly and immediately; but it kills nevertheless. It gradually makes its way through the whole body until it reaches the heart. That is the way God also treats us. He does not want to carry out the victory over death and the devil all of a sudden, but He has this proclaimed for a while for the sake of the elect who are yet to be born. So He begins to mix and prepare the potion to be a purgatioor a medication for us, to refresh and to invigorate us but to be poison and death for the devil. This is comparable to a potion prescribed by a physician. This is conducive to a patient's health, but it is poison to a fever. Thus He could well call His medicine or antidote a poison or a pestilence. Here, too, it is true that one poison expels another, that one pestilence kills the other.

"This also applies to Christendom now, when Word, baptism, and the sacrament are administered and nothing is proclaimed but that Christ died and rose again. That is the only prescription or purgatio for our sin and death. That we must take daily and let it work, in order to drive the poison from our heart and take us from death and hell to eternal life. He promised us that; and He commanded us to proclaim it and to believe it. Thereby He brings it about in us daily that it penetrates like a leaven, as Christ says in Mt 13:33. Then the heart grows and grows in faith and learns to despise and overcome this life and its hardships.

"That is the victory by which death is to be swallowed up, so that we need fear death no longer or remain in it. For the heart is already saturated by the gospel, which shall be poison and pestilence to death. It weakens death from day to day and deprives death of his strength, until he is submerged entirely and disappears. For although he is not yet entirely swallowed up in us, the victory gained by Christ is already present, and through gospel, baptism, and faith it has become our victory. On the Last Day, when we have taken off the old, earthly, perishable garment and put on a new celestial one, we can destroy him completely with this victory. Then we will remain in life forever; then we will behold and perceive life as we now behold and feel the reverse, namely, that death is in us and that we are stuck in death. The victory appears to be his alone, as he as the lord of the world devours and consumes one person after another up to the Last Day. But nevertheless we know from Scripture that victory was wrested from him by Christ, who began to swallow him up in Himself. And through Him we, too, are spiritually victorious over him. Later we will bury death also physically and do away with him entirely, so that nothing will be seen or known of him any longer. Instead, we will have nothing but life and bliss."

Martin Luther,  Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15, 54-55

Rev. Dr. Scott R. Murray
MEMORIAL MOMENT – May 7, 2013

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Memorial-Moment--Chemo-For-Life.html?soid=1101459756774&aid=XPgwfTVKre4

For the National Day of Prayer

For the National Day of Prayer

from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod  http://www.lcms.org/letuspray

2 May 2013

People loved by God, the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures instructs us to pray for everyone, and especially for those who govern. Let us offer our thanksgivings and petitions on this National Day of Prayer to the Father of all mercy.

Brief Silence

Heavenly Father, we give thanks for this country, for its rich resources, its heritage of freedom, and the charity of its citizens in times of need. Help us to use those resources wisely, to nurture and further that heritage of freedom, and to find ways to be a blessing to others nations of the earth. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Ruler of all, remember in Your kindness our President, all who serve in his cabinet, our legislators, our judges, and all who hold positions of public trust in our land. Preserve them in health, and grant them to serve faithfully, wisely, and courageously. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Lord of Sabaoth, to Your gracious care we commend all who serve in the armed forces. May Your protecting hand rest upon them. We ask that You would strengthen and uphold them in every good deed. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Lord of life, we confess that our public life has in many ways deviated from Your holy will. Forgive us, Lord. Have mercy upon us. Give us the grace of repentance. Help us cherish every human life from conception to natural death as a priceless gift to be nurtured and preserved. Help us to uphold, protect and strengthen holy marriage as the life long union between a man and a woman. Grant healing and restoration to all who have been hurt through the evils of abortion, divorce, or sexual sin. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Creator of the human race, You have made us all of one blood, and yet we have fostered divisions among ourselves. Destroy in us all hatred and prejudice. Help us to see in every human life a unique being, created by God, redeemed by Christ, and intended for Your kingdom. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Bountiful Giver of every good, remember those who have been disinherited in our nation, those who are trapped in cycles of poverty and debt, those forced to live in unwholesome environments. Help us all to share these burdens and find ways to transform impoverished neighborhoods so that all may join in blessing You for Your rich bounty in this good land. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Lover of the human race, remember all in our country who struggle with mental illness, disease and all who face death. Give to them Your comfort, and help them to find final healing in Your Son’s hands. Strengthen the work of all who serve in health care, and bless their service to all in need. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Father of the Risen Lord, we pray most of all today for all who have no right knowledge of You in our country, for all who live outside the life of Your Church. Send forth Your powerful Word to call them home, that we may welcome them with joy as sisters and brothers of Christ in the Kingdom of forgiveness. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Lord of the future, we know not what tomorrow will bring, but we know that You will meet us there. Take all fear from Your people in this land, and grant us to walk forward with joy and confidence in Your unfailing love. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

These things and whatever else You know that we need, grant us, we pray, for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to speak to You in these words: Our Father...

The prayer may close by all joining in singing this hymn (LSB 965):

God bless our native land;  Firm may she ever stand

Through storm and night.  When the wild tempests rave,

Ruler of wind and wave,  Do Thou our country save

By Thy great might. 

So shall our prayers arise  To God above the skies; 

On Him we wait;  Thou who art ever nigh, 

guarding with watchful eye,  To Thee aloud we cry: 

God save the state!

For the National Day of Prayer copyright 2013 by The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. This work may be reproduced for congregational use only. Commercial reproduction, or reproduction for sale of this work or any portion thereof is prohibited without written consent from the copyright holder.

When liturgies forgets that all worship is waiting for the Lord, then we begin to worship our worship

A timely sermon by Martin Franzmann for our age of church charioteers who ride rough-shod through church in the name of leadership and missions, cracking their whips of worldly wisdom in an all out attempt to drive the flock of Christ so as to make the flock become more of a flock than the Good Shepherd saved, saves and continues to gather us to be. 
- pmwl

THE WAITING BRIDE OF CHRIST   (Whitsunday)

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hearer!: say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

REVELATION 22:17

I believe in the Holy Spirit . . . . And I believe one holy Christian and apostolic church.... And I look for ... the life of the world to come.

These three belong together: the Holy Spirit, the church, and the hope of the world to come - one Spirit, one body, one hope of your calling.

The church, the waiting bride of Christ, is a fit subject for our contemplation on Pentecost, the Feast of the Holy Spirit.

Her song, "Come" is a fit subject for our singing.

Oh, come,

Thou Son of Man, who walkest amid the candle­sticks,

Whose eye is on the church,

O Thou, girt in splendor and robed in magnificent mercy,

Come!

O Thou Lamb of God that wast slain,

Thou that openest the seals of Thy Father's book,

Thou Lord of all happenings on earth -

Let the last riders of destruction ride their dreadful last -

Oh, come!

O Thou Rider upon the white horse,

Thou Over-comer of all opposing hosts,

O Thou Lord of lords and King of kings,

Oh, come, take up Thy power and reign!

Send out Thine angel armies into every highway, road, and lane,

Out into every hot and steaming pavement and all the stinking alleys of our world,

And make them cool and sweet and pleasant pathways for Thy feet.

Send out Thy re-creating angels, and let them shout for joy and take up the song of the primeval "Very Good!" once more.

Send Thy cleansing couriers out through every field and wood, and put the first morning's dew on every branch and leaf again.

Set free the groaning creation, set all free –

Till every little bird twitches his tail in ecstasy,

A living metronome for the angelic and unending

Alleluias of the world to come. Oh, come!

Such meditation and such song would he altogether seemly, altogether comely, in this Whitsuntide.

But we are being interrupted.

Here comes Freiherr (Baron) von (of) Aktivismus (Activism) with his company.

Here are Messrs (masters).

Here and Now (both muttering, "Let us have no eschatological non-sense, please!");

Here are Mr, Research and Mr. Statistics,

Mr. Graphs and Mr. Charts,

Mr. Extrapolation,

Mr. Civic Consciousness –

and to give the proceedings the benefit of her patrician air, Her Grace, the Countess of Misericordia (Merciful) Cum (when) Lacrimis (tears) Effusis (are flowing).

They have an indictment against the waiting bride, and they will make short shrift with her.

The trial will be a mere formality.

They have a branding iron hot and ready to impress upon her clear and innocent brow.

They will brand her with a capital Q, for she is guilty of quietism!

Who will save the waiting bride?

Who will appear in defense of her song?

Let St. Paul appear for the defense;

he is an apostle and knows a thing or two about the apostolic church.

"When my Lord sent me out into the cities of the Gentiles to raise up churches for His glory there,"

St. Paul says, "He bid me build into their lives a triple movement, a triple beat.

I bade men turn from idols;

serve the true and living God;

wait for His Son from heaven :..

even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thess. 1:9, 10)

Let no one dare to change this triple beat;

let no one presume to shorten it to two - all three are necessary to the life and health of the church, all are indispensable.

I could tell you a sad story of what happened in Corinth when the church no longer said, "Come!"

What harlotries men practiced with their bodies when they forgot that these bodies were to be resurrected bodies.

"Moreover, Freiherr von Aktivismus (Baron of Activism), if you had not been so wrapped up with your graphs and your statistics, so ready and so eager with your capital Q, you might have considered who is singing, `Come.'

This is the Spirit singing.

If you want activity, have a look at Him.

He has been active since creation, active in history, rousing up a Gideon, for instance, more potent than the men and horses of Egypt;

He spake by the prophets - it was one of these men of the Spirit who was moved by Him to say, `I will have mercy and not sacrifice.'

Men full of the Spirit and wisdom looked after the widows and the fatherless in the Jerusalem church.

"It is the bride of Christ who sings, bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, willing His will, the will of Him who said, `My Father has been working hitherto, and I work.'

"You might have considered also, Freiherr (Baron), to whom they are saying, `Come!

They are crying to Christ, who says, “Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

They are invoking Judgment Day with their song.

"You might have noted also, all you capital Q gentry, how the inspired bride says, 'Come!'

She is inviting all men to join in the cry:

`Let him that hears say, Come!

And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.'

If you had not been so proud of your tears, Countess Misericordia (Merciful), you might have noted: She is not wallowing in her hope; she lives by it.

She who is ready to share the water of life will give more mundane waters too.

This dainty bride, this single-hearted and high-hearted girl, will have washed a dozen dirty babies and have kissed them too while you, Freiherr (Baron), are gathering statistics on the incidence of babies that need washing.

While you, countess, weep hot salt tears, she will have given fresh water and cool to thirsty travelers."

So far St. Paul.

"Travelers" - we cannot forget, if we live in the rhythm of St. Paul's triple beat, that our charity to travelers: drink to travelers on their way to Canaan, in the wilderness; food to travelers in the wilderness; tents for travelers in the wilderness, tents that they can strike and travel on again.

If we stop singing, "Come," our well-intentioned charity will trap men in the wilderness.

We shall build air-conditioned housing units in the wilderness, built to last a thousand years. Look at them - who would ever want to leave them? -each unit with a balcony looking toward Egypt affording a fine view of the fleshpots.

When the church no longer cries, "Come!"

when the church no longer looks to the end,

then means become ends;

that is, they become idols from which we can no longer turn to serve the living God.

Take this fine thing with the ominous name,

the church's "image";

the church that has forgotten her coming Lord

will worship her own "image" instead of her Lord.

Or let us move in close to home, to our theology.

What happens to exegesis,

when exegesis no longer says, "Maranatha!" (Our Lord comes)?

Exegesis can become an autonomous Wissenschaft (pursuit of scholarship), 

a cerebral vanity,

Fair complete with merry-go-rounds of exegetical fads,

with cunningly constructed mazes of conjectures and hypotheses,

with contending calliopes (loud music) that fill the air and intoxicate the senses,

but do not say, He comes, He comes to judge the earth,"

and do not shout, "Lift up your hearts!"

When liturgies forgets that all worship is waiting for the Lord,

then we begin to worship our worship

and to adore our adorations;

then we begin to genuflect before encrusted chasubles

and play the harlot under every green tree with esthetically selected traditions.

But where the Spirit is, there is liberty.

He sets us free, free from idols,

free to serve the living God.

He gives us a high hope that sets us free from ourselves, from grim introspection and fruitless preoccupation with our own religious psychology.

He sets us free, not least, for praise.

So let us forget that hot and searing capital Q.

Let us sing a little and live - and serve - a lot. Amen.

Martin H. Franzmann

Pgs 71-76 Ha! Ha! Among the Tempest.  

CPH 1994 

Thanks to my dear brother Rev. David Fleming for sharing this sermon with me.