The Steward of Unrighteousness

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God the Father and Christ Jesus, our Lord.

The text for our message today is from the Holy Gospel, Luke 16:1-8.
Today we will look at the parable of the "steward of unrighteousness" in our Gospel lesson in light of Luke 9:51-56:
Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem,

and sent messengers before His face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?" But He turned and rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. "For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." (Luke 9:51-56, NKJ)

Some twelve weeks ago, in the middle of the summer as we were just getting into this season of the church year we call the Sundays after Pentecost, that part of the year that focuses on the life of the church, we encountered the Gospel lesson from the ninth chapter of Luke that I just read to you. The reason I bring it up again this day is because it is invaluable in helping us understand this most difficult parable Jesus sets before us in the Gospel appointed for today.

On the face of it, this parable commends a hired hand for acting dishonestly to save his own hide. Unless we understand what is going on around this parable we walk away from it thinking it is a lesson on dealing with our finances and investments in this world in order to win friends and influence people, because in doing so we somehow are feathering a heavenly retirement nest. But, as always in reading the Scripture and hearing the Word of God, if all we get out of it is what we have to do to gain access to our heavenly home, we leave ourselves on the outside of the window looking in.

As Jesus, the teller of this tale himself warns the Pharisees on another occasion, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.

But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. (John 5:39-40 NKJ)

Jesus has turned from addressing the Pharisees and is speaking to His disciples as he tells the tale of the parable of the "steward of unrighteousness" in today’s Gospel lesson. However, we also must remember that the Pharisees are still present, listening in as Jesus teaches, catechizes His disciples. This is where the text from Luke 9 is so helpful to us. It reminds us of the journey that Jesus has undertaken and the purpose for calling His disciples:

Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His face.... to prepare for Him. "For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them."

So, here we have Jesus catechizing His disciples, preparing them for His death on the cross and His subsequent departure which will leave them in charge of proclaiming and spreading the message of the kingdom of heaven. This He does with a parable so that hearing, the Pharisees will not understand, because they do not recognize Him as the Christ, who by His crucifixion is THE key to understanding all of Scripture, and therefore also this parable.

Now that we have an idea of what is going on here, let us take a closer look at the story Jesus tells. For today, rather than getting all caught up in the details in the middle, I’d like us to focus on the beginning and the end of the story. It is at the beginning and the end that we see what is truly happening and why.

The parable begins: "There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods...."

The word "accusation" is very important here for two reasons.
1. Nowhere in the parable does the accusation become a fact born out by evidence.
2. The person or persons doing the accusing are never revealed.

The Greek word here is "diabollo," the same word from which we get the devil’s name. Satan is our accuser

and the Pharisees were tools of the devil and Christ’s accusers. Keep this thought in mind, we will come back to it shortly.

But now, let us take a quick look at how Jesus closes the parable: "So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly.
Here the Greek word so often translated "shrewdly" is perhaps better understood as "prudently" or even "wisely."

What was so prudent and wise about the stewards actions toward the debtors? It could only be the forgiving of their debts. Here is the nugget of the story that prepares the disciples for what is to come -- that journey to Jerusalem to which Jesus had steadfastly set His face that He might be received up on the cross to forgive the debts of a sinful world that owes the Master, the Lord God, their very lives. It is the same nugget that leaves the Pharisees shaking their heads and leads to their being the agents for Christ’s death.

These Pharisees were continually trying to trap Jesus, accusing Him of sinning against the Scriptures and blaspheming God and His name. Eventually they succeeded in making their accusations stick – at least in the realm of this unrighteous world. The result was that the only righteous one among us was slain on a cursed tree to bear the unrighteousness of those He came to serve. Jesus, the very Son of God who knew no sin and was falsely accused, became sin for us so that He could pay the price and wipe out all our debt before His Father, the rich man and Lord of Heaven to whom we all owe our very lives and all that we have.

On the cross Jesus the Christ, the steward of unrighteousness, that is, the one who managed our sin and bore its consequences for us, begged His Father, the master of the estate, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

He paid our debts, delivering us from sin and bondage to the accuser. Having done so, He is received up into heaven where He has prepared a place for us to live with Him forever. And having completed His task of clearing away the slate of our debt, He sends us forth as His forgiven people to deliver that forgiveness to others that they may know all the accusations the evil one brings against them have been wiped clean as well.

In a great reversal Jesus, the steward of our unrighteousness, makes us stewards of His righteousness. What a great Gospel lesson and parable on this day that we will be holding a Voters’ Assembly largely to address our own stewardship issues.

So often we look at stewardship as what we do with our money, our stuff, our time, our skills. Thus the meetings become forums to ask, "Where will we get the money?" "How are we going to get more people into our church to help us make the budget?" "How can we spend less to preserve our resources?"

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, these are the wrong questions to ask! Just as the steward of unrighteousness has nothing that has not been given first by the master, that is, the Father in heaven, we have nothing that truly belongs to us that has not been given us by God to manage for the sake of our neighbor – i.e. parents, spouse, children, relatives, friends, co-workers, fellow church members, and the people in the communities in which we live.

Stewardship is not a matter of our raising funds, our luring more people into the pews, or how frugal we can be with our resources. As another of Jesus’ parables, the parable of the talents shows, stewardship is about taking all that has been given and entrusted to us – some more, some less – and using it for the sake of others without fear of running out or worry about what we will return to the Lord. For the One who has given us all things has all thing to give and has promised to supply us with whatever we need for this life and the next.

So we should never think of stewardship as what we sacrifice for God. For, other than our own sin, we have nothing to give – whether treasures of this world or the kingdom of heaven – that has not first been given to us.

This is what Jesus has in mind when He exhorts us to, "... go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Matthew 9:13

All of us baptized children of God are, first of all, His stewards of righteousness. In God’s mercy we have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and are sent out to bring more people into the kingdom and house of our Lord. We are first of all stewards of the means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments, for the forgiveness of sins that bestows the mercy of God on all who hear and believe. Then, second of all, we are stewards of unrighteous mammon, the riches of this world by which we are given to ensure the means of grace have a home, a person to administer them, and the means to take them out into the world.

That we may be faithful stewards and set our faces to the cross with Jesus, the disciples, the prophets, and all the saints, our Lord catechizes us to be disciples as well.

We pray in The Fifth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer as taken from Matthew 6:12: And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. What does this mean? We pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would not look at our sins, or deny our prayer because of them. We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that he would give them all to us by grace, for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment. So we too will sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against us.

And that because we have been forgiven first – for he sake of the steward of our unrighteous sin and debt, Jesus the Christ our Savior and Lord, who has given us the name we bear upon ourselves and into the world ...
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Laugh!

Headline in Ogden Utah's "Standard Examiner":

"Ogden Lutheran church welcomes a new 'pastor'"
"'Pastor' DanaLee Simon was just officially installed as pastor this month"

Bullets [Simon says]:

• "A newlywed living in Salt Lake City, ... Simon's husband ... is a Catholic.... The two met on an airplane. He was coming home to Salt Lake City and she was headed to the area on a layover. 'It's definitely been a fun story to tell,' Simon said."
  [I'll bet! Gotta love those layovers.]


• "The two had both a Catholic priest and a Lutheran minister presiding at their wedding. 'Catholics and Lutherans are pretty close,' Simon said."
  [Especially on a layover.]


• "When she became engaged, she knew she wanted to live in the area. It was soon after that when she found the job opening at Elim. 'It just fell into place pretty organically,' she said. 'Elim was ready to have a pastor just dedicated to them.'"
  [And I was just, like, totally tubular, man.]


• "Two successes Simon reported were the church''s vacation Bible school and an **energy efficiency project.**"
  [Ah, the sweet success of sharing body heat with those Catholics.]"


• "'We're also addressing a lot of talk about global warming.'"
  [Of course, those layovers generate a lot of heat.]


• "Simon said she appreciates [Elim's] tradition of prayer 'It's something the members do better than at any other church I've been to,' she said. 'Prayer is a great starting point. We ask God to be with us in everything we do.'"
  [And we juswanna pray you cease calling yourselves Lutheran.]

http://activepaper.olivesoftware.com/daily/Skins/StandardEx/navigator.asp?skin=StandardEx&BP=OK

Where God Is to Be Found

How many times, especially from those who rarely if ever attend church services, have we heard something like: "It doesn't matter where I worship, or how I worship. God is everywhere, isn’t He? So all that really matters is that I have Jesus in my heart."

Martin Luther faced this same attitude and here was how he responded to it:

God through Moses had issued a most rigorous prohibition against the impudence of inventing new forms of worship, as when He says: “You shall not offer in every place but at the place which the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put His name and make His habitation there; thither you shall go, and thither you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices” (cf. Deut. 12:4––6). At that time the place appointed for worship was the temple at Jerusalem. The ark of the covenant was there, and God had promised that He would speak from the mercy seat to draw the people away from the diversity of idols to a united worship of God, to which He wanted to gather all together, if not in bodily presence and external works, at least in heart and prayer, if any were too far away from this place.

But the false prophets used to fight against this viewpoint and say: “God is everywhere; therefore He can be adored and worshiped in every place, both in Bethel as well as on any other mountain.” They did not have regard for the commandment of God. For when God fixes a certain manner and designates a certain place for His worship, it must not be said: “Wherever I will worship God, it will be pleasing to Him if only I do it in a godly and devoted manner,” or, “I shall make offerings to Him wherever it pleases me.” Isaiah, for example, censures this madness very severely, saying (Is. 57:5): “You burn with lust …… under every green tree.”

The Turks and Jews are accustomed to speak in this manner today, claiming that they are able to serve God outside of the unity of faith and the church of Christ. Mohammed claims that anyone is saved in his own religion if he prays, if he gives alms, if he does other good works. It is not necessary for him to be a Christian or that he should be in the unity of Christ and the church. In the papacy also all corners were occupied with chapels, convents, and idolatry of every kind. Therefore Hosea cries: “This example of Jacob by no means confirms your idolatry. He did, indeed, struggle with the angel, but you should have remembered that the Lord God of hosts led Israel out of Egypt through the prophet. But where is this God to be found? Where has He made a memorial for His name? Where is this memorial? Where the ark of the covenant is” (cf. Ex. 20:24).

This is true, indeed, that God is not bound, neither to Jerusalem nor to any other place, and that He is able to save also elsewhere. No one will deny this. But try it and see what you will get! If you invent forms of worship according to your own judgment, you will be in danger of God’s wrath. By His almighty power God could save the human race without Christ, without Baptism, and without the Word of the Gospel. He could have illuminated men’s hearts inwardly through the Holy Spirit and forgiven their sins without the ministry of the Word and of ministers. But it was not His will to do so. And God very strictly prohibited all erring forms of devotion and worship.

When hypocrites say: “Whatever is done with good intention is pleasing to God,” those self-chosen devotions are to be condemned, and men should be reminded that they should direct their eyes where God has revealed Himself. We must not say: “Paul preached at Rome, therefore Christ is there. James is buried at Compostela in Spain, therefore God should be worshiped there by the invocation of Saint James.” By no means! Yet [are not] many miracles are performed there?

My reply is that God abominates and condemns all erring thoughts outside the one and only revelation made in the Word and sacraments, to which He wished to gather us and in which He wished to include us. For this reason Christ sent His disciples with this command: “Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19––20), and “He who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16).

He wants us to be gathered in connection with the Word and Baptism as by a sure and infallible sign because He wants to save us and help us, just as He promised He would listen at the mercy seat among the people of Israel.

If you want to be absolved from your sins in this manner, go to your pastor, or to your brother and neighbor if your pastor cannot hear you; he has the command to absolve you and comfort you. Do not invent a special absolution for yourself. If you want to receive the Lord’s Supper, go to the assembly of the church and the public congregation and receive it there.

Do not devise a special administration and use of the sacraments. For God does not want us to go astray in our own self-chosen works or speculations, and so He gathers us together and encloses us within the limits of the Word so that we are not tossed about by every kind of doctrine (cf. Eph. 4:14). This happened to us under the papacy when we despised Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the remission of sins and made pilgrimages meanwhile to Saint James, Borne, and Jerusalem, as though God were not present in all the churches and congregations which have His Word and sacraments. Finally, there was an infinite variety of sects and orders, each of which had its peculiar, segregated ritual in distinction from the ritual and ordinance of God. Nor could those innumerable forms of fornication, as Holy Scripture calls them, be prevented except by casting off our own works. So God wants all these things to be removed, and He sets forth His Word, which says: “Here you shall adore, worship, and make offerings. In the Word, in the Lord’s Supper, and in Baptism you have the remission of sins. With these you will have to be satisfied if you wish to be saved.”

Martin Luther, vol. 6, Luther's Works, Vol. 6 : Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 31-37, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 6:127 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1970).

A God at Hand: One God, near and Far

Dear people of God,

I come to you with a confession this morning.

I have no special vison for you, this congregation, or our LC-MS.

I do not come to you with a message from my heart.

I do not come to tell you that now that you believe and are baptized that your life is going to be filled with nothing but peace, and joy, and success.

No, dear baptized, I come to you today with the prophecy given to Jeremiah. I come to you with a message of warning from the mouth of God to the people He dearly loves and wants to protect. I come to tell you that any one -- whether pastor, high church official, friend or family member – who comes to you with such special visions seen in, or messages spoken from, their own hearts; anyone who comes to tell you "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me," or "don’t worry, be happy, the Lord would never let anything bad happen to you and wants to do nothing but grant you success in your every endeavor."

Anyone who come with such messages does not speak for God, but for the Father of lies. This does not mean that they necessarily do so purposefully, or maliciously. But remember, even if they do so unknowingly, or with all good intent, accidents kill people just as certain, and just as dead, as do wanton acts of terror.

Therefore, in our Old Testament lesson, the prophet Jeremiah is inspired to write without error:
Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the LORD. They continually say to those who despise Me, 'The LORD has said, "You shall have peace" ';and to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, 'No evil shall come upon you.'" For who has stood in the counsel of the LORD, and has perceived and heard His word? Who has marked His word and heard it? Behold, a whirlwind of the LORD has gone forth in fury__ a violent whirlwind! It will fall violently on the head of the wicked. The anger of the LORD will not turn back until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.

"I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in My counsel, and had caused My people to hear My words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.

"Am I a God near at hand," says the LORD, "And not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?" says the LORD; "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" says the LORD.

"I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My name, saying, 'I have dreamed, I have dreamed!' How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, who try to make My people forget My name by their dreams which everyone tells his neighbor, as their fathers forgot My name for Baal. The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?" says the LORD. Is not My word like a fire?" says the LORD, "And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" Jeremiah 23:16-29

Now lest you think this is a message for those people of the Old Testament that no longer applies, hear again the Word of our Lord & Savior, Jesus the Christ, from our Gospel lesson:
"I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished! Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother_in_law against her daughter_in_law and daughter_in_law against her mother_in_law." Luke 12:49-53

This another one of those passages that causes us to say, this is the Gospel, the Good News, of our Lord?

But we must remember that ...

"... the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two_edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Hebrews 4:12

"The LORD kills and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and brings up." 1 Samuel 2:6

In other words, the Law of God’s Word condemns and kills the sinner, while the Gospel of that same Word, forgives and gives life to the righteous. That is what happened once for all in Christ, and what happens once for each individual at the font of Baptism.

Our God is a god of opposites, things that seem incompatible to us, but that are nevertheless both true at the same time, as we have just heard.

Let me use an example from our Old Testament lesson to help you understand:
"Am I a God near at hand," says the LORD, "And not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?" says the LORD; "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" says the LORD. Jeremiah 23:23-24

Now here God is not saying that He is one or the other, but both and – He is near and far at the same time.

I am reminded here of the Sesame Street character, Grover. He would introduce himself and say he was here to tell you about the difference between "near" and "far." He would stick his Muppet face up to the camera and say with his silly, simple voice rising, "Now I am near." Leaving his voice hanging, he would then run "clop, clop, clop" away to a spot maybe a whole three or four feet from the camera, act as if he had traveled a great distance, and in a descendo say, "now I am far." He would repeat this several times. Step, step, step, "Now I am near. Step, step, step,"Nnow I am far." it was quite cute and a quite funny. Children would learn the difference between the two words and concepts. They would also learn that Grover could not be in two places at the same time, yet, no matter near or far, in either place Grover is still Grover.
But God is different isn’t He? We say He is omnipresent, which is a fancy way of saying He is both near and far at the same time. The God who is at a distance from sin and in control of the universe, is at the same time near to hand to forgive sin and give His kingdom to those who believe.
This also helps us understand what God means by idolatry – we are to worship Him where and how He tells us to worship Him, not where and how our hearts desire to worship Him.

That is how the pagans worship, according to where they think God is, where they want Him to be, or where they build a structure for Him to occupy when they call upon Him. Now witness the golden calf as imitating the idolatry of the world – putting God in a box in which He has not put Himself.

Oddly enough, this in turn helps us understand such goodly worship aids as a crucifix that are visual presentations of the Word, and sacraments that are means in which God presents Himself to His people. It is not given to us to put God anywhere of our choosing, but God has chosen to put Himself in certain places according to His command. And that we might know where these places are, He gives us His Word, which promises He will be in those places.

Another Old Testament example is helpful here:
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live." Numbers 21:8

So it is true that we are not to fashion graven images according to our own imagination and worship them, but God does condescend to use earthly images and means that He designates in order to deliver His blessings to His people. And only His people of faith know the difference, because they believe His Word that speaks of those things.

Now that Jesus, the Christ has suffered, died, risen, and ascended to fulfill the Scriptures, God’s people of faith are to know, with the apostle Paul, nothing but Christ and Him crucified for our sins and raised for our justification before the Father. [1 Corinthians 2:2]
Yet, like the prophets against whom Jeremiah was sent by God to speak a dire warning, the false prophets speak a tempting message from their own hearts and dreams, rather than from the mouth of God.

The water of Baptism and the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the ones with special vision and messages from their own hearts say, are just symbolic representations. They would offer what God gave privately to them in the place of what God publicly offered for all. They explain away the greater gifts of God with human wisdom that explains logically: "The finite, created things of this world cannot possibly contain the infinite, spiritual things of God." But all the while what they forget is that

• the infinite One is also infinitely powerful,
• that infinity does not only stretch out into the vastness of space and in numbers too large to count, but that same infinity penetrates into the minuteness of sub atomic particles and in fractions for which there is always a smaller fraction

...therefore, if the infinite and all powerful God wills and causes it to be so, He most certainly can allow Himself to be contained in those things he has designated.

That we might know and believe in Him by those very things He has designated, He gives us the Word of the prophets and apostles who speak with one voice of these things and the grace they deliver. The infinite One, who is God the Lord, is at the same time both near and far; both Creator of and larger than the universe, and the Savior who enfleshed His Son in the atoms of a fetus 2000 years ago, and in the molecules of bread and wine today.

Yes, our God is a God of opposites, all of which are reconciled and only make sense to us in Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. Hebrews 12:2-3

The Baptism that seems so far away in time, is still at work today. The water lasted but a moment in time, but the Word that comes with it is for a lifetime. So we have a God that is ever far away unto the ends of the earth. Yet from His place far away at the right hand of the Father He wields His power to work ALL things everywhere for the good of His baptized children. And for His baptized children of faith, He is always a God near at hand to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth even as He forgives us all of our sins – in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Laugh

Thanks to one of my dear brothers for the needed levity of this one. No explanation needed, but if you care to submit a caption via comments, feel free. Perhaps I can present some kind of Laughing Martin award for the best caption. An Izzy statuette perhaps?

Special Convention Tied in Blue Ribbon

Aside from questioning the urgency of changing a synodical structure that has served us well for some 150 years, and the spending of millions of dollars in financially uncertain times that could be better used in the mission of the church and the training of men to serve that mission, the problem with the proposed Special Convention of Synod, as I understand it, is that it’s predetermined agenda has been limited to address the restructuring of Synod based upon the Blue Ribbon Task Force Study on Synodical Structure and Governance. The reason this is a problem and not a solution is that Synodical structure is an adiaphora that, if it carries Christ and His Gospel is meet, right and salutary. If said structure, and/or restructure, proceeds from the passion, efforts, and love of men, and serves to place them at the center as those things by which the church and her mission will rise or fall, it is no longer carrying the Gospel but displacing it – and thus no longer adiaphora at all, but that which has indeed been forbidden by God and His Holy Word.

The Reformation in general, and Luther in particular, were not about restructuring the church by the creative, innovative practices of men -- however pious, educated, respected, or well-intentioned they may have been. Quite the contrary, they were about purging the church catholic of those innovations and getting back to the orthodox teaching and practice of every article of faith. The Pope and his priestly caste had taken the place of Christ as the mediator between God and man, and become the source of good works for the mollification of the Father’s wrath and remission of the common man’s sin. In an ill-conceived reaction to the hierarchy of Roman Catholicism and unfortunate misunderstanding of the Lutheran reformers, the "Protestants" restructured by replacing the works of the Pope and the priestly caste with the works of the priesthood of all believers.

The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) stumbles upon the truth -- much like modern day screenwriters for movies and television shows like The Simpsons do when they pillory the hypocritical, self righteousness nature of so-called fundamentalist, evangelical, born again Christians -- when he opines:
"The Reformation was one of the most colossal failures in history; it threw overboard what makes the Church tolerable and even gracious; namely, its aesthetic appeal; but kept its barbarous theology."

Not that the Reformation of the Lutheran confessors was a colossal failure. But Whitehead hits the nail on the head in saying that the Reformation was about throwing overboard from the ship that is Church all those things that were based upon aesthetic appeal rather than theology, that is, the Word of God. And sadly, both the "Protestant" and ABLAZE! movements with their restructuring of the human authorities within the church on earth, seem to buy into Whitehead’s premise that the graciousness of the Church resides in its aesthetics rather than its theology. This mistaken notion is the product of a secular, ungodly culture and should not be embraced by any who consider themselves to be members of the body of Christ, lest they give the impression that theology is indeed barbarous.

I continue to be amazed and dismayed by how closely the events in our synod seem to mirror the culture, and how content and even desirous synodical leadership seems to do so, rather than to be the light and the narrow highway of our God that transforms that culture.

Here we would do well to consider this thought from a certain Congregational minister: "Contemporary servant leaders ... lead by holding aloft moist fingers to sense the changes in the wind. In all this they show themselves to be different indeed from the One who embodied what servanthood was intended to be and who never once tailored his teaching to what he judged the popular reception of it would be--unless he was an exceedingly poor judge of what the crowds and religious leaders had in mind when they heard him." [David F. Wells, No Place for Truth, or, Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1993), 215.]

Instead of looking at our culture with its business and political models for the "solutions" to our supposedly unacceptable growth pattern, as the ABLAZE! movement and its handmaiden special convention proposal tend to do, perhaps we ought to look at it to inform us as to the emptiness and futility of adopting its methods and mores. Even apart from the theological flaws underlying the current synodical mind set

• that bigger is better (the church has always been a remnant);
• that the great commission is predicated on our missionary zeal (the mission is dependent on Christ being with us to the ends of the earth in the baptizing and teaching of everything He has commanded);
• and that we must somehow make the Gospel more alluring to the world (we are not to conform to the desires of the world for flowery words and miraculous signs, but to bring the transforming power of Christ crucified even in our own weakness) –

a look at what our culture has wrought should be enough in and of itself to give us pause in pursuing its methods.

I couldn’t help but see these items from a recent Patriot Post, http://webmaila.netzero.net/webmail/new/5?count=1187020204, as relevant to the current sitzenleben of the LCMS. The first, by radio talk show host Dennis Prager, is something of a diagnosis and treatment regimen. The second is an observation from WorldNetDaily columnist Henry Lamb about our secular government that is also descriptive of our synod. And finally, a prescription from the pen of novelest and playwrite Honore De Balzac as brief and pointed as any written on a doctor’s pad.

The malady presented by Prager is this: "Today’s young people have the ability to experience excitement more than any generation in history. Outside of school, excitement is available almost 24/7. MTV is exciting (MTV has done far more damage to this generation than has the tobacco industry); video games are exciting... The list of exciting things many children experience is as long as there are hours in the day. But all this excitement is actually inhibiting our children’’s ability to enjoy life and therefore be happy. All this excitement renders young people jaded, not happy... All this excitement in their lives bodes poorly for the future happiness of millions of American children. Real life, let alone daily life, will seem so boring to them that they will not be able to enjoy it. And more than a few of them will opt for lives of constant excitement, often in ways destructive to themselves and others."

And he goes on to say: "The solutions are as simple to offer as they may be difficult to enforce. Limit the amount of excitement in your children’’s lives: the amount of video games, the amount of non-serious television, the amount of music whose only aim is to excite. If they are bored, they will have to remedy that boredom by playing with friends, finding a hobby, talking to a family member, walking the dog, doing chores, reading a book or magazine, learning a musical instrument or foreign language, memorizing state capitals, writing a story or just their thoughts, exercising or playing a sport, or just thinking. The younger the age from which children are deprived of superficial excitement, the longer they will remain innocent——i.e., not jaded——and capable of real happiness."

Broaden Prager’s point to speak to our whole culture rather than just children, including a philosophy of education (seemingly adopted by our "mission" minded synodical leadership) that is largely based upon entertaining/exciting/luring people to learn, and substitute the idea of faithfulness for happiness and innocence. Now what does this say about the incessant preoccupation with being ABLAZE!?

We would be wise as a synod to learn from Lamb’s observation about elected officials: "Society has been successfully engineered to believe that the goal is no longer freedom, but the control of government, which means the control of society, to fit the agenda of the controlling party. The idea of entering public service as an elected official in order to limit the power of government, and maximize the freedom of individual citizens, is an obsolete concept."

The Blue Ribbon Task Force’s Study Document, after offering a litany of "basic theological principles," presents a summary and conclusion that has virtually nothing to do with those principles other than to draw on our Christian liberty to do as we see fit for the sake of carrying out an undefined mission. Its Hypothetical Case Studies, and Exploratory Questions have nothing to do with theology, and everything to do with suggesting a shift of earthly power:

• away from the local congregation in calling a pastor;
• away from a representative form of government that balances the unique assets and needs of smaller, single pastor congregations with those of larger, multi-staff congregations;
• away from the checks and balances of having equal delegations from the ranks of trained and ordained to service in the church, as well as of vocations that place the priesthood of all believers out in the world;
• away from being an advisory body that relies on the free will offerings of its members.

My understanding is that our walking together as Synod was never meant to be a lockstep obedience to a hierarchy or its humanly devised, felt needs programs for fund raisers and membership drives. It was established in order to ensure that God’s people

• would always be able to practice the orthodox faith free from those who insisted on deviating from it;
• would have a pool of pastors trained in everything God has commanded from which they could call a man, by the grace of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to rightly preach the Word and administer the Sacraments in all their purity and efficacy whether in the congregation or the mission field
• would have an organization by which they could be accountable to and responsible for one another in maintaining good order and discipline among congregations, as well as assisting congregations in need, so that wherever one worshiped one could be sure to find a Divine Service that rightly proclaimed the Word and administered the Sacrament in the truth and purity of the Lutheran Confessions.

Our District and Synodical officials are well on the way to usurping the autonomy of the local congregation and its authority as holding the office of the keys – witness the current dispute resolution process, the new covenant congregation program that establishes a synod within a synod, and the Strategic Ministry church growth program tied to the distribution of monetary assistance. Furthermore, as soon as a congregation is required to pay a minimum membership fee (as per trial balloon #1 on p. 23 of the Blue Ribbon Document), or if they fail to comply, face users fees for the privilege of having insurance programs and other resources for which they already pay the full and substantial cost -- synod will no longer be advisory and it will have made the freedom of individual congregations obsolete.

The solution to what ails Missouri is not forced compliance, whether by hierarchical governance or revenue taxation. What is true in the secular realm, according to De Balzac, is most certainly true in the churchly realm:
"To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals——that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him."

If only Missouri would once again

• corporately recognize the centrality, and agree to live in the presence of Christ that is conveyed in our liturgical, sacramental structure;
• submit to be led by the permanent ideals as expressed in our Confessions;
• and recommit to proudly proclaiming and practicing them in front and in the midst of the world instead of apologizing for and hiding from them --

then perhaps we can once again be a church that is content to rely on God’s ways and not man’s ways and thus provide a patient, calm, and unspoiled port in the storm of a world ablaze with their own lusts and passions for self gratification and enhanced size.

Unless a Special Convention targets such a theological reformation, rather than the political restructuring proposed, I urge you to vote "no" when the CoP meets to determine whether a Special Convention is to be called.

Abominations 'R Us

In the most recent addition to the Laughing Martin Hall of Shame, aka, "Reasons for Closed Communion,"
a "Lutheran" Church body permits the office of the keys to be held by practicing homosexuals:


Lutherans to allow pastors in gay relationships
Sat Aug 11, 2:00 PM ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Homosexual Lutheran clergy who are in sexual relationships will be able to serve as pastors, the largest U.S. Lutheran body said on Saturday. . . . [http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070811/us_nm/religion_lutherans_dc]
To which, Laughing Martin replies:
There is nothing Christian, let alone Lutheran, about such an abomination. The Word of God says:

• homosexual relations are wicked and have no place in the kingdom of God [1 Corinthians 6:9-10;


• a bishop must be the man of one woman [1 Timothy 3:2b; ]


• when you see the abomination that causes desolaton in the very sanctuary of God you should flee from it without turning back or trying to salvage anything [Mark 13:14-16]