This Week’s IRS Ruling

 

The Recent IRS Decision

                In response to lawsuits brought by a bunch of Baptist and non-denominational congregations in Texas, as well as the National Religious Broadcasters, the IRS has shifted their reading of the Johnson Amendment, which bars non-profits from political campaigning. The IRS will no longer apply that to political speech during religious services. Now the IRS will understand pastors endorsing politicians from the pulpit as, “Nothing more than a family discussion concerning candidates.”

                While a small number of Americans are rejoicing over this, 76% of Americans, 70% of Christians by the way, do not believe clergy should endorse candidates from the pulpit. In fact, a perception that Churches are the praying arm of partisan causes is one of the reasons my generation and those younger than me won’t darken the doors of a church. We’re dying not because we don’t have enough political and civic power, but because we keep grabbing at it and it isn’t a good look and it isn’t what God has called us to do. Younger folks might like our Jesus, but they are a little worried we’re using him as a mascot for politics that they abhor.

 

An Endorsement

                In light of my newfound ability to endorse candidates from the pulpit, I endorse Fredrick Muhlenberg for any and all political positions in our government. Yes, Fredrick Muhlenberg, the son of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, founder of American Lutheranism. Yes, Fredrick Muhlenberg, the first Speaker of the House! Vote Muhlenberg, why not!

 

Two Kingdoms (I write this section having reflected on this article)

                In all seriousness, there is a reason I won’t ever endorse someone from the pulpit, even my amazing cousin Harley who has held and ran for elected offices in Minnesota. I won’t do this because it goes against my conscience and the teachings of this Church.

                You see we Lutherans are people of paradox and tension. We believe scripture works on us as both Law and Gospel; we believe humans are simultaneously justified and sinners; we believe that God’s kingdom is both already here and not yet here.

And most relevant today, we also believe that God is ambidextrous—can use both hands—working through both civil authorities and the church, and that Christian actions flow from both grace and vocation.

The Lutheran affirmation that God is ambidextrous, more conventionally called “Two Kingdoms Theory,” or “Two Kingdoms Doctrine” sometimes is cited as a historical convenience; the religious folk, the Roman Catholic Church of Luther’s time, was trying to hunt down and kill Luther, so he turned to secular authorities for help… and therefore we embrace a healthy wall of separation between church and state, simply as an ongoing thank you to “Luther’s Princes.”

No dice there! Two Kingdoms Theory isn’t an invention of Luther. That said, Luther’s situation is informative for our present question about eradicating the dividing wall between partisanship and the pulpit. Think about it, a church using secular means to enforce doctrine, yikes! The State did not have a monopoly on violence in the medieval era, and I think most of us Moderns and Post-Moderns see that as a bad thing. We wouldn’t want to give any Denomination the go ahead to hunt heretics, even if they do so by means of a political party.

Two Kingdoms theory, however, is not a new thing. For the Apostle Paul there are two kingdoms, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this World; they are filled with children of Adam and children of Christ. The Christian has an obligation to no one, yet adopts a great many obligations of her society for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel. The Kingdom is already here, and has not yet come—and until it does the whole creation yearns for the consummation of the righting of the whole world. There are flickers of it, but all has not been reborn. As such, Christians find ourselves in the ambiguous place of being in a culture but not of it, a good citizen, but citizenship is not their highest good, the wild tug of war between the start of Romans 12 and the start of Romans 13. “Be transformed and renewed” and at the same time “place yourself under the authority of the government.”

One of the most famous interpreters of Paul was Augustine. His City of God/City of Man framing is a grand untangling of being a Citizen of the Roman Empire and being part of the Body of Christ. If Rome could be sacked, does that mean heaven is in danger of the same? If there is no distinction between the two yes, otherwise no.

It was from these wellsprings that Luther says, “God uses two hands!” Just as scripture acts as Law and Gospel, God does the same through Church and State. God rules through civil authorities in a Law-like way, using them to condemn and restrain evil via a wide variety of secular offices. And at the same time, God rules through the Church in a Gospel-like way, proclaiming God’s unending love through the offices of Word, Sacrament, and Service.

Now, just like the distinction between Law and Gospel, a separation between these things needs to occur. After all, when Gospel tries to be Law, it ceases to be Gospel, and when Law tries to be Gospel, it ceases to be Law. So too, when the Church tries to be the State, it ceases to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and when the State tries to be the Church, it spews out a muddle that neither loves nor protects, or as Luther writes:

“To try to rule a country, or the world, by the Gospel would be like putting wolves, lions, eagles, and sheep all together in the fold and saying to them, ‘Now graze, and live a godly and peaceful life together. The door is open, and there is pasture enough, and no watchdog you need fear.’ The sheep would keep the peace, sure enough, but they would not live long.”

                Instead of trying to create a Churchy State or a Statey Church, we Lutherans offer a different course. Harkening back to Paul, Luther affirms in his pamphlet On Christian Freedom “we are slaves to none, yet servants of all.” We are saved by grace, which then moves us to works of love for our neighbors. We live out the Gospel through a myriad of vocations—callings—our Roles, Relationships, and Responsibilities ought to sing forth, “This one is baptized!” This one is inhabiting an office for the sake of the neighbor. We Lutherans fulfill roles in the secular world, knowing that doing so is a holy calling. Luther even goes so far (to my ears too far) as to say (I’m paraphrasing from memory), “Does no one want to be a hangman in your town? Perhaps it is your Christian calling to fulfill that role, so that good order is maintained and evil is eschewed.”

                In a world where we are all simultaneously saint and sinner, and where the Kingdom is here and not yet, claiming too much for ourselves and our particular ideologies, baptizing partisanship, or claiming prophetic mandates for politicians because the IRS won’t smack you on your nose for it, will have consequences we can only imagine.

Perhaps, dear preachers, superPACs will pump money into your church, and it will cause you to claim more than you are sure of, and when your candidate doesn’t come through, it slaughters the souls of your congregants, or at least cause them not to trust you as a faithful preacher of the Gospel. Perhaps congregations do get to be power players, accrue enough political power that they can point the police after people who don’t fit into the Mosaic laws: Shrimpeaters, people with mold in their homes, or divorcees. Perhaps a political party will get their hooks into your congregation so tightly that there will be no distinction between a political rally and a worship service.

All that to say, God has two hands, so let’s not try to tie His pinkies together, no good will come from that. There is enough holiness in living out our vocations for our neighbors, let’s not add to that. Such bald politicking turns people away from the Church. Don’t ride the tiger, you are just a little treat.

35 Fiction Books for Men

                 As of late there have been a spat of articles and think pieces bemoaning men not reading or writing, but especially not reading fiction! Reading fiction encourages empathy and expands conversational skills; it gives folk time and space to dream beyond their experience, and in general is really fun. So, I thought I’d offer, in no particular order, 35 fictional books that I’ve really appreciated. So, without further ado, 18 good standalone books and 17 good series. So, guys, read some of these, they’re pretty good!

One off books:

1.      Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin—This is the first book to ever make me feel nostalgia!

2.      Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford—An alternative history detective novel!

3.      Erasure by Percival Everett—By the same guy who brought us James.

4.      The Plot Against America by Philip Roth—An alternative history told from below.

5.      The River Why by David James Duncan—A thoughtful book about fly fishing that is about a lot more than fly fishing.

6.      The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen—A Historical fiction about the Spanish Flu.

7.      Julian Comstock: A Story of 22^nd Century America by Robert Charles Wilson—A fun sci-fi adventure where the world has fallen into a dark ages and America has fallen much like Rome.

8.      11/22/63 by Stephen King—This is a fun time travel/horror read. If you’ve read other works by King, he brings us back to Derry.

9.      The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller—This is a really good re-telling of the Trojan War. It does center around a gay relationship (you know how the Ancient Greeks are) so if that’s not your cup of tea, maybe it isn’t the book for you.

10.  Fives and Twenty-Fives by Michael Pitre—Even though the Iraq War ended 14 years ago, it is still in the room with us. Pitre does an excellent job reminding us that it still here with us.

11.  Silicon Soul by Chris Halverson—This is my sci-fi book from back in 2015 where I warned everyone that AI, social media demagoguery, angry men, and hyperactive nationalistic capitalism are dangerous. Thank God it was just fiction.

12.  This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone—Romantic letters between two time traveling rivals working to shape the future in polar opposite ideological directions.

13.  The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber—I was in a weird place while reading this one. This book freaked me out in a really good way!

14.  Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir—This one was a little more hard sci-fi that I usually like, but there is also a surprise relationship that makes it worth reading.

15.  The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams—This book is all about how reading fiction can do all those positive things I said at the start of this post.

16.  The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley—Another time travel story with a romantic subplot… do I have a type? The fascinating hook for me was the experience of being dislocated from your time, the toll being a time refugee takes on the soul!

17.  Starter Villian by John Scalzi—This is the first book by Scalzi I’ve read. It was fluff, but fun fluff; what if you inherit a supervillain’s acroama?

18.  The Children of Men by P. D. James—A dystopia about a world where every aspect of life is shaped by mass infertility.

Series/Groupings of books:

19.  The Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons—My best friend in high school recommended it to me, and once I started reading it I knew it was one of those series that needs to be read at different parts of one’s life. A sprawling space opera beyond description.

20.  The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe—This series is working on a bunch of different levels, not all of them I’ve caught. I intend to re-read it when I’m 45 to see if I get it better then. Brilliant, but also opaque.

21.  Steppenwolf/Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse—Technically these two should probably each by a stand alone book in the other section, but they work well together read back to back.

22.  The Mistborn Saga by Brandon Sanderson—Sanderson writes solid stuff, and you won’t ever have to worry about not having something new to write, because he is a bit of a perpetual writing machine.

23.  The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordon/Brandon Sanderson—This is the amazing series that Amazon recently tried to adapt, but lacked the courage to finish.

24.  The Gilead series by Marilynne Robinson—Four slow-burn books centered on the town of Gilead Iowa, the first told from the perspective of an old Pastor who knows he’s dying of his heart condition.

25.  The Wolf Hall series by Hilary Mantel—A series chronicling the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell.

26.  The Magicians Series by Lev Grossman—A gritty college take on the Magical School genre.

27.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Series by Stieg Larsson—An unfinished Swedish detective/spy/thriller series.

28.  The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey—A rollicking good sci-fi series about a universe where humanity is divided into three factions: Earth Mars, and “Belters.” What start off as a book about a geopolitical… solarpolitical… competition shifts once alien technology is found that changes the balance of everything!

29.  The Remembrance of Earth’s Past series by Liu Cixin—An extensive telling of the remainder of human history.

30.  The Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers—This was my first foray into solar-punk/joyful sci-fi. I highly recommend it!

31.  The Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman—I was surprised how much I enjoyed this series. Old folk in a swanky nursing home solving murders in Jolly Old England! What fun!

32.  A Declaration of Rights of Magicians H.G. Parry—The Shadow Histories series was another surprise for me. It asks the simple question, what if magic was real during the French Revolution and English debates about slavery? The book takes place in Haiti, England, and France. Amazing!

33.  The Strain series by Chuck Hogan/Guillermo del Toro—This is Vampires done different. It starts off as a sort of mystery, switches to a science drama, and ends in the mystical. Not for the faint of heart.

34.  Diskworld series by Terry Pratchett—A satirical fantasy take on anything that Pratchett puts his eyes on. It is a little too rambunctious for me at times, but still they’re much better than a whole lot of books I’ve read.

35.  The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher—Fantasy Noire, I’m reading through it to think about how to write a sustained world over multiple books. It feels a little too much like some of the scenarios are Butcher’s wish fulfillment, but it does seem to get better as the main character grows up, which is maybe the point.

God works through common things

 

I recently read that the average human body is composed of 8 and a half dollars’ worth of oxygen, 8 dollars’ worth of carbon, 7 dollars’ worth of hydrogen, and 36 cents worth of nitrogen… when the other elements are added to the calculation, our market value ends up being around 28 and a half dollars. Of course, with inflation being what it is, we might be talking real money…

Likewise, if you may remember all the back and forth that went on surrounding the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund—where you were and what you did when you died, shaped what the government considered you to be worth.

                Now… on some level, we’re just a cheap sack of molecules (Luther would occasionally refer to himself as a maggot sack… in fact that was our Seminary Flag Football Team’s name one year) … yet our faith tells us that God works through common things!

 

Prayer

                Imagine how the story of Naaman and Elijah would have gone bad, if an attitude of disparaging common things were to have prevailed…

                Namaan, embarrassed by his ailment—how it indicated that he too was as vulnerable as all the rest—he would have never told anyone of his disease, and thus never been healed. He would have seen an enslaved foreigner as so low that she was not to be listened to. Perhaps the King of Israel would have surmised rightly—Namaan WAS picking a quarrel—driving Aram towards war, after all life is cheap and our words are cheaper still. Again, perhaps Namaan would not have trusted his lowly, worth less, servant and “washed and become clean.” Likewise, perhaps a show—waving hands and theatrics, instead of healing would have been more precious.

 

                What I’m saying is woe to those who seek only the rare, the favor of the mighty, the uncommon and difficult.

                Blessed, however, the common things, the common people… was it not so when God came among us, to a lowly family—Joseph the carpenter and Mary who calls herself “a low servant” who could only afford the most basic of sacrifice—a pair of turtle doves—to honor their son’s birth, in the flesh, God one of us in sandals and made up of 20 some dollars’ worth of molecules.

                Woe too, to those who want a show. “Come, stand, call, wave” those hands around, or I will pout and rage.

                Blessed are those who show up. Who heal and cleanse, who help even when the odds increase, who ground their actions in real needs, who ask, “What can I do? Where can I be useful?” Those who take steps to care for another, even when the other is the enemy.

 

                Imagine too how the sending of the 70 would have gone if a scarcity mindset, a boil the body down to its trace elements worldview had won.

                Perhaps there would have been many laborers, but no harvest. Perhaps, out of self-preservation, the 70 would have gone out as wolves among lambs, bringing everything but peace. Perhaps instead of staying in a singular place where they were sent, they would have circled around the community like predators, scamming the whole town. No one would have known the nearness of the Kingdom of God, for the 70 would have sought triumph and dismissed faithfulness.

                Woe to the airport evangelists and parashooting do gooders—those who make no effort at care or community, and wait until they’ve got someone captured and vulnerable, and only then name the name of Jesus or point to the Kingdom, and only do so from a point of power, a box to tick off, a point to brag upon, ever having to consider that person again.

                Blessed are those who come in open weakness and stay among neighbors. The local ones who trust in the kindness of strangers—who know they are guests, that they share the same baseness, the same vulnerability, as those to whom they minister. Sent with peace, and nothing more.

                Woe to the self-serving stuffed with triumph, who like Namaan are caught on the grandness of the mission, not the message itself, the miracles not the Kingdom come.

                Blessed, finally, are those who rejoice for they have been named and claimed by God. Those who have the Spirit of Peace sealed upon their soul and their sending showed it. Those for whom the Kingdom of God—the reign, the rule, the righting of this world by God, has come near.

 

                As I talked about at Pub Theology and wrote an article about in our upcoming Newsletter, echoing Luther’s refrain in the Small and Large Catechism, “Was ist das?” we’re having a “So What?” summer here at Spruce Run.

                We are indeed made of common stuff, yet God works through common things… so what?

-So, the things we do every week in worship—community, washing and word, a hospitable meal of grace and thanksgiving, called and sent into the world that needs us—all of that is God mediated by common stuff—Kingdom and cleansing, peace and healing—present with us, even in this very moment!

-So, being the body of Christ together, the nearness of God, has been named as faithfulness. Even when it doesn’t feel like it, there is a spiritual import to the peace we receive and the peace and extend to others.

-So, the faithful way to minister to this world—even if it isn’t cool or hip or anything like that—is about vulnerability and being present with our local community. Being neighbors here in the Lebanon Township area, is ministry.  

-So, in a world that pulls us 10,000 different directions and encourages separation and disengagement, where we are drawn to being consumers and enemies, passive and disempowered… it has to be said, even as torturously shallow as it might sound: Showing up subdues the evils of this world!

Amen?

Useful Cuttings from My Time of Discernment

 

Since discerning that it is not my calling to be the Bishop of New Jersey, the Synod went through a three-day time of discernment that led to the calling of a new Bishop, Christa Compton. Thanks be to God!

As I recalibrate from that year long time of discernment, there are still some irritants, clutter that is keeping me from being fully present. In the spirit of “better out than in” here are pieces of my discernment I think are worth lifting up for the sake of the wider Church one last time. They might even be useful for folk discerning what’s next at the coming Churchwide Assembly.

Closures:

                A bunch of congregations are going to close, and that will affect the life of the congregations that remain. This includes the scramble to integrate as many members of the closing congregation into surrounding congregations and helping them process their grief. It also includes navigating the fight or flight “I don’t want to be the last person who turns out the lights of our congregation” reactions of leaders in remaining congregations. For local Pastors it means something like 6 extra funerals a year, and these will be “anonymous Lutheran” funerals—funerals for people with whom you have no prior relationship, but will expect the pastoral attention of their now non-existent home pastor.

For all those reasons, I think a “local tithe” from closing congregations to the Cluster or District the congregation was in ought to be considered as an informal closure policy. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve benefited from the EMU program, which was funded by a closed congregation, and our camp ministries certainly use money from closed congregations faithfully. It just feels like moving a bunch of money from the peripheries to the center can create painful tensions that don’t need to be there.

Retirements:

                From my observation, one of the hardest things a pastor can do is retire. The ways in which we grow to love our people, and sometimes get enmeshed with them, the weird routine of being a pastor, the amount of self we offer up to this vocation, the rush of capturing people’s attention for 20 minutes on a Sunday with the act of confession of our faith, and the evaporation of our name and its replacement with a title, “Pastor”—can make us, to quote the Shawshank Redemption, “Institutionalized”; it’s hard to be on the outside, hard to be a “civilian”, a lay person. And as such there is a propensity to get squirrely.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say half the retired pastors I know are actively plotting to make changes in the congregation they no longer serve or are hyper-functioning in a negative way at the congregation in which they worship. That’s not to say I’ve had solely bad experiences with retired pastors—in fact, some of the wisest mentors I’ve met are retired ministers who were able to take off the collar and throw themselves into a new adventure, or have found ways to be useful to the wider church in their retirement.

                What do you do with a problem like Maria… or rather retired pastors?

On one hand, there is some personal responsibility involved in all this that should be cultivated before retirement—an ongoing returning to the font—baptism not ordination is your primary identity. Personally, I try to have at least one meaningful life project going on that has nothing to do with my ministry, and my wife is a sort of accountability partner in that, nudging me when I veer toward “institutionalized” behavior.

On the other hand, retired pastors need to be listened to. I think regularly running a retiring pastor listening panel (maybe a “Last Call Theological Education” event) based on the Wisdom books, so a slightly shifted version of my “Wisdom From” Bible Study, could be a healthy thing for the church writ large. It would compile generational snap shots of retired pastors’ wisdom, and also be a sort of circuit breaker for potential bad behavior.

And finally… The 4Ds

                It is my conviction that the Church’s job is to engage with the world as it is, in order to share the Gospel believably. A solid conceptual framework for understanding what’s right in front of our nose is the 3Ds—Decentralization, Demographic Shift, and Disestablished. A good description of a believable gospel in this 3D world is the 4^th D, we are Disenchanted—our habits are wholly secular so the holy is unbelievable—believing the Gospel in a 3D world will look like Re-enchantment.

                In a Decentralized world, we must be Nimble. Imagine a roving Church—imagine the wider church decamping in a congregation’s backyard for a week, a good old fashioned Lutheran Revival! A Church where Dinner Church and other forms of public ministry are common, and local congregations are healthy and empowered.

                In a Demographically Shifted world, we must embrace Authentic Diversity. No more the day when Lutheran automatically means Lake Wobegon, and also no more beating ourselves up with a wet noodle because we minister in a less than diverse context, instead of recognizing the kinds of diversity that ARE there and trying to reflect it.

                In a Disestablished world, we need to intentionally make Partners. The old web of connection—boy scouts, toast masters, ethnic clubs, is broken and not coming back, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t groups and organizations that have cropped up who would be amenable to working alongside the Church. One place where this sort of work is being done is Philadelphia, where Partners for Sacred Places is leading the way.

                Finally, in a Disenchanted world, we ought to be Re-enchanters. We ought to be a people who practice holy habits, so we can still point to God—our confessions are not abstract, but grounded in God’s good works revealed to us. We are a people of prayer and friendship, beauty and gratitude, rest and passion!

 

                And there you have it, my view of things, the Church is dealing with making endings healthy and holy, as well as chasing the Spirit to practices and places that allow the Gospel to be received as trustworthy and true.

Sunday's sermon today: Freed from Demons, Stuck with Neighbors

 

            No more had Jesus set foot on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, than he was confronted by this man…
naked, unhoused, at home in the wild and among the tombs.
A man guarded and bound…
all kinds of things done to try to keep him under control…
all of them failed…

            Possessed—(from Garasa, a village destroyed by Rome, named as “Legion”—a 5,000 person cohort of Roman Soldiers—thrown into swine—the mascot of Rome’s Syrian Legion.)

            And Jesus throws the Legion out of this man,
and they stampede through the swine over a cliff,
to the pigs’ doom.

            Then the hog farmers
—the villagers
—the man’s neighbors
—come to see the commotion.
Transformed—the man is clothed and in his right mind…

            Now that’s frightening! Who is this man without his demons… who is he if he’s not the guy we used to chain up? Guarded… was it all worth the trouble? Is his stability worth losing many times his weight in bacon and profit?

            “Get out of here, Jesus!”

            “Take me with you, Jesus!”

            “Stay with them, your neighbors, the hog farmers, the folk who used to tie you up and no longer recognize you now that you are you again!”

            God! I feel for this man…
he’s freed from his demons, and now he’s stuck with his neighbors!

Let us pray

 

            You might remember three years ago when I last preached on Galatians—the continued refrain of that letter is an equation: “Jesus + anything is less than Jesus Alone.” (J+<J)

            Paul says, “watch out, we were once captured and tutored by the Law”
—by this he means something more than just the Jewish Torah
—but in fact any rules based on Antimonies
—pairs of things that make up the whole…
dominating by using dualistic, either/or categories.
“The whole world is Free people… or Slaves”
“You’re either a Greek… or a Barbarian.”
“You got men… and you got ladies.”

            In short, Paul is saying, “don’t get Jailed by your categories.”
Don’t let their usefulness for order, order you around;
don’t let a system become a stumbling block for you and your faith.
If the Law is your schoolmaster or Nanny,
you’re an immature and retched pupil…
but you’re not!
You are a Child of God!
You’re an heir of the Promise!

            Fastening any of those categories onto Baptism
—forcing people to put on a cultural, religious, economic or gendered garb,
before baptism and membership into the family of God
—before putting on Christ
Or advantaging one type over another,
one identity or category
—misses the mark and the point!

 

That’s small ball kind of stuff
—this faith, this community, this baptism
—it destroys the world and all of its categories, its laws and its hierarchies.

When you put on Christ you are putting on:
-God’s invasion of this world
-God’s emancipation and adoption
-the righting of the whole world!

You are joined to Christ
—you are a New Creation!
You are a member of God’s family on account of Jesus, and Jesus alone!

That alone is the meaningful category!
That alone pulls together all these jangling pieces—like a magnet
—like a mother hen… all of us gathered together, in our baptism, under loving wings!

We are one, without homogeneity,
we find dignity in difference because of our oneness in Christ,
united in diversity,
heirs of the promise—all of us!
Freed, and now stuck together!

 

            Think about the man from Garasa.
While he was physically hard to control—categorizing him as the Demoniac made it easy to control… literally demonize… There are people possessed by demons and then there is us.

            Having a bad guy is comfortable,
The hard work of growth and change when you’re faced with the man as he is—faced with the way you abused and devalued him—that’s where the Spirit breaks in!

            For that matter, the transformation of this man isn’t inconsequential—encountering Christ is an invasion—not business as usual—an unburdening and emancipation from the power of the Devil!

            He is Freed from Demons, Stuck with Neighbors, or to quote Luther’s understanding of Christian freedom, he is now, “Slave to none, and servant to all.”

 

(As I said last week, the season after Pentecost is a “So What” sort of season… don’t just tell the story but tell me the why and the so what of things!)

            Well, our congregation was one of 100s who took part in the Harford Study
—the first major study of how the Pandemic affected the faith life of Parishioners
—there’ve been tons of studies on the Clergy
—we’re not alright
—but this was the first to measure what’s happening in the pews—what the people attending virtually are up to.

-The study told us that 95% of parishioners are satisfied with online worship.

-Virtual worshippers multitask—but do pray, read, and sing along.

-Counting each person who watches at 1.5 people is about right.

            It also had a lot to say about people who have joined a church in the last 5 years.
8% have never been to church before, and are looking for mentors—this is a significantly higher number than pre-Covid.
22% of joiners were returners—they’d stopped regularly attending pre-Covid and came back because they were looking for connection—a place to volunteer and belong.

Then finally, the bulk of people joining a congregation—70% left another congregation to join one that more closely aligned with their ideology. Blue churches for blue people and Red churches for red people—a parallel to the sorting we see in wider society—you have blue neighborhoods and red neighborhoods, blue news and red news. They left, according to this study, because it made them happy and comfortable.

The thing about that is… there are higher values than happiness. Is a community life giving, not comfortable? Are you transformed? Filled with joy? Do you find peace and growth—does the community open you to hear the Spirit?

In Luther’s table talk about marriage he says that it knocks off the rough edges—in general relationships, community, is like sandpaper, it smooths out our jagged coarseness.

-Jews and Gentiles worshipping together meant we had to have the Council of Jerusalem.
-Freed and Slave gathered as one body—led to Paul to call Onesimus son and insist that his owner Philemon cease to call him slave!
-Man and woman—Luke’s whole Gospel & and the Acts of the Apostles attests to the Spirit at work in that admixture!

What I’m saying is—seeking conflict free happiness in a homogeneous congregation might not be our highest goal as Christians.

Faithfulness means we’re Freed from Demons, Stuck with Neighbors, God help us!

 

            So X, Y—joining us, you need to know a couple things…
-This isn’t a hobby church—but folks in a struggle of life from death, the Spirit birthing a new creation in us!

-This isn’t an ideological silo—we’re not any political party at prayer—even when we want to be, we’re awful at it, our Theology doesn’t allow it. Just as Jesus’ disciples included Roman Collaborator Tax Collectors and anti-Roman Zealots—we too hold antimonies together in our baptism.
-The way Lutherans understand preaching is that it’s an act of confession, my confession of faith in a way that ought to speak to the whole congregation…
that’s why ELCA clergy can be removed for using  other people’s sermons without citation
—that wouldn’t be a genuine confession of faith…
that’s also why you will hear the Gospel in the tenor of Halverson, the key of Chris
—and that means I’m more likely to disappoint you or say something you disagree with
—that’s part of the package when the preacher is not a parrot or entertainer, but is a confessor.

            Welcome to this community, freed from Sin, Death, and the Devil, and bound to one another in our Baptism.

Amen.

East Coast centric Lutheran Historical Timeline

 1748—The Ministerium of Pennsylvania founded by Henry Muhlenberg

1789—Frederick Muhlenberg (Henry and Anna’s son) elected first Speaker of the House

1817—Norwegian Pietists, led by Hans Neilson Hauge, elevate Sara Oust as lay preacher

1820—The General Synod founded

1826—The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg founded

1832—Jehu Jones, an enslaved man who purchased his own freedom, was ordained as the first African American Lutheran Pastor

1839—The Franchean Synod formed in support of the abolition of slavery

1847—Die Deutsche Evangelisch-Lutherische Synode von Missouri, Ohio und andern Staaten founded. Eventually becomes the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod

1861—Spruce Run Lutheran hosts the first convention of the Ministerium of New Jersey/New Jersey Synod

1862—The General Synod condemns slavery and supports the Union.

1862—The General Synod of the Evangelical Lutehran Church in the Confederate States of America formed.

June of 1863—Spruce Run Lutheran imprisons Pastor F. A. Strobel and attempts to try him for treason. The Synod intervenes.

1865—Students and faculty leave Gettysburg seminary to found the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia

1888—The Common Service Book published

1892—Lutherans begin missionary work in Japan

1904—Slocum Ferry catches fire with a good portion of Lutherans living on the Lower East Side in attendance; over 1,000 people died that day.

1918—The United Lutheran Church formed, bridging divisions from the Civil War

1922—Lutherans and Anglicans first enter into eucharistic fellowship

1925—Lutherans organize the Universal Christian Confence on Life and Work which leads to the World Council of Churches

1929—Jantine Auguste Haumersen ordained in the Netherlands, the first woman ordained in a Lutheran Church.

1934—Confessing Church formed in opposition to the Nazi seizure of the German Church.

1945—Dietrich Bonhoeffer martyred by Adolf Hitler

1847—The Founding of the Lutheran World Federation

1958—Service Book and Hymnal Published

1960—The American Lutheran Church formed

1962—The Lutheran Church in America formed

1970—Barbara Andrews and Elizabeth Platz became first American Lutheran women ordained.

1974—The LCMS suspends the Seminary President of Concordia, which leads to a walk out by students. Eventually 200 LCMS churches leave and form the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches.

1977—Lutherans declares resisting apartheid a matter of status confessionis

1978—The Lutheran Book of Worship published

1978—Herluf M. Jensen elected Bishop of the New Jersey Synod

1988—ELCA founded as a merger of the LCA, ALC, and AELC

1989—Roy Riley elected Bishop of the New Jersey Synod

1989—100s of Lutherans gather at St. Nicholas in Leipzig for prayer, they are beaten by police. 70,000 people return a month later, 120,000 the next week, 320,000 the next week. The head of East German resigns the next week, the berlin wall falls

1999—Lutherans and Catholics sign the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification

2006—Evangelical Lutheran Worship published

2013—Tracie Bartholomew elected Bishop of the New Jersey Synod

2017—500^th Anniversary of Luther posting the 95 theses

2017—Gettysburg and Philadelphia Seminaries merge, United Lutheran Seminary founded

2020—All Creation Sings published

2025—Christa Compton elected Bishop of the New Jersey Synod

The parallel between Pentecost and Babel

Sermon: Maranatha!

 

B, do you remember what was sitting on the lounge table during first communion instruction?
Little Jesus, along with the bread and cup…
and that summarizes everything I’m about to tell you
—Jesus shows up!

            Today when we read the very end of the Book of Revelation there is a refrain
—Come Lord Jesus
—the Early Church adopted a phrase in Jesus’ own language—Aramaic—to say this, “Maranatha!”

            And the good news is that Jesus does indeed show up,
he is present for us!

            That’s what sacraments are all about
—that’s what Baptism is all about,
that’s what the Eucharist—Holy Communion—is all about!
Jesus shows up!

Prayer

 

            What is a sacrament?

-Sacraments are a means of grace—that is, a place where God is fully present with us
—Jesus shows up!
Jesus responds to our “Maranatha!” with, “Here I am.”

-Sacraments are commanded by Christ,
“Do this in remembrance of me,”
“Go and Baptize!”

-Sacraments are a promise, attached to a physical thing
—Water, Bread & Wine…

The physicality of it all is so very important…
there are enough things in this world that threaten suffering and hate and fear
—it is an excellent thing that God offers us something equally concrete as a sign of his love!

Just look at all those things that happened to Paul and Silas
-capture and being roughed up,
-rods and earthquakes,
-self-harm and imprisonment (heck of a day for them)
thank God there are things just as physical that remind us of God’s love! Thank God for the Sacraments.

 

            S your Baptism is a sacrament!

            Jesus shows up in your “Maranatha!”
You are united with him in his Baptism!
You are part of his body, the whole church, in your Baptism!

            He gives you a promise!
S you are known and beloved,
S you belong and are sent out into the world to be his disciple,
witnessing, pointing, to this love into which you are enwrapped!

            In the water of baptism, you are washed in the Water of Life!
Like that jailer and his whole household who we read about,
you are surrounded by belief and baptized,
adopted into God’s family!

 

            B this Holy Communion is a sacrament!

            “Maranatha!” And here he is! Jesus shows up for you!

Jesus shows up in memory
—remember his last meal!
The one where he said “this is my body, this is my blood!”

Jesus shows up in anticipation
—that great heavenly banquet when all the saints meet face to face
and all is made right!

Jesus is present as the Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End
—and also present with us today,
“Given for you!”
“Shed for you!”

            God is of course present everywhere,
but promises uniquely to be here in the meal
—Jesus’ body and blood for you!
B, for you!
And that assurance, here he is, in bread and wine,
opens our eyes and we see the world differently!
No longer a blasé “Sure God is everywhere.”
Instead “Wow!
God is EVERYWHERE!”

            This meal slakes the thirst of our soul and fills the hunger of our spirit
—a meal of mercy uniting us with Christ and to one another.
It is a meal that holds us fast and allows us to become what Jesus prayed,
“completely one, so that the world may know Christ and his love!”

 

            In bread and wine,
in baptismal water
—all accompanied by God’s promises,
Jesus enters into our “Maranatha!”
Today, S and B,
In Baptism and in First Communion,
Jesus shows up for you! Amen!

Sermon: God is Reconciling

 

There once was a king who had everything, he piled it all up in a corner behind a fence and invited his subjects to try to take something from the pile, and if they could, they got to be the next king.

Now a little boy, the son of a farmer who had a field on the other side of the fence…
so the boy came to the gate, and the guards frisked him, and then let him in to harvest his father’s turnips.
He came out with a wagon full of turnips.
The guards carefully looked through the turnips,
and did not find anything the king owned hidden there.

The next day the boy came again, was frisked, and came out with a wagon full of carrots.
The guards dug through the pile of carrots and found nothing amiss.

The third day, it was much the same
—frisking, a wagon full of potatoes, a search, and the boy headed home.

The boy became the next king…
because he had 3 of the king’s wagons.
The wagon was absent each time the boy entered into the gate…

 

Just as the guards needed to pay attention to what was absent
—so do we, when we read the book of Revelation, when we consider the City of God.
There is no Temple & no Night,
No closed gate,
and no curse found therein.

Each of these things points us to a different type of reconciliation found there:
In the City there is reconciliation with God,
In the City there is reconciliation among humans,
and In the City there is reconciliation of all creation!

 

Let us pray

                Look, there is no Temple & no Night! Instead, the Almighty and the Lamb dwell in the Holy City; they shine forth, despoiling forever the need for celestial light.

                No temple
—that space where God is said to dwell
—that building with a whole priestly and civil structure set up to preserve its Holiness
—an assumption of holiness emanating out of it,
excluding many for the well-meant good of preserving and honoring the dignity and otherness of God, present within.
Sacred rules, to make distinction between Holy and Profane, Pure and Impure.

                The Glory and Presence of God, so often associated with light
—from pillars of fire in Exodus
to Ezekiel’s wheel of flame and lightening and sparking coal, leaving the Temple.

                No more the dangerous approach to God in the Holy of Holies,
no more the blinding associated with direct encounter with the Divine.

                I’ve been reading Steven Paulson’s 3-part work: “Luther’s Outlaw God” in which he makes a distinction between the Preached and Unpreached God
—the latter, the Unpreached God, always involves separation
—grasping, peering for a glimpse—and always left aghast
—aghast at the awful holiness of God.

                But Look! No more of that!
Now the Almighty and the Lamb, they dwell here!

                But Look! No more of that!
Now the Glory of God is a light to our path and a lamp unto or feet!

                I’ve told you before, a new word had to enter the English language when William Tyndale translated Scripture into the vernacular—Atonement—At-One-Ment. In the City we have reconciliation with God!

                God abides with us!
Every place, a place of prayer!
See the Spirit, the Advocate is among us!
No Temple, No Night!

               

                Look, the gate shall never close, for there is no night. Instead, the light of God’s glory is a beacon for ALL people! They are drawn into the City of God!
They see the Tree of Life:
the 12 fruits feed the Nation,
and the leaves heal the Nations, plural.

                No shut gates—Nation and Nations overlapping and coming together,
isn’t that what we talked about last week, the Council of Jerusalem considering Cornelius
—the story of Peter’s preaching and the Spirit’s work going beyond the bounds of religious and ethnic decency
—working even among an enemy
—a Roman Centurian
—an occupier, overcome by God’s goodness…
Peter too overcome,
overcome by God’s wide and wild welcome! “Call no person impure!”

                There are so many things that divide—all kinds of isms, from Sexism to Classism.
So many breaks that need binding, both large and small,
between peoples and in relationships,
and even within individual human hearts
so many people crying out like the Macedonian in Paul’s vision “help us!”
and so many who choose not to cross over to Philippi, and find God at work there too!

                But Look! No more of that!
Now all those written in the Lamb’s book bring glory and honor into the City of God!
Find healing and offer worship!
In the City there is reconciliation among humans! The gates are never closed!

               

                Look, there is nothing accursed found there!
Lies and hateful practices and all those things that ruin this good world, they shall not… they shall not be in the City.

                Nothing accursed! This here, the Book of Revelation, is the end of the Bible,
but back at the start—In the Beginning, to coin a phrase—there is a story of a curse:
one built upon distrust and hubris,
becoming curved in upon oneself and hiding and wallowing in shame,
one ultimately about finger pointing and blame,
“Not me, but the woman,
not me, but the snake,
not me but the ground I crawl upon!”
A story that becomes one long
“I am not my brother’s keeper”
and “Surely not I, Lord.”
A story of alienation from nature and work and love and neighbor.
All of creation yearning—aching—for redemption,
for blessing not curse, good not loss.

                But look! No more of that!
John reveals to us a prophetic re-purposing of creation
—the beginning foreshadows the end,
the goal of reconciliation!
—Walking with God in the Garden again,
a time before the need of a temple,
a time before the evening and morning of the second day,
before lights set in the dome,
before seasons and times,
before God spangled the sky with starlight.

                John takes all that and says, “no more accursed!”
In the Lamb there is blessing!
Follow the stream to the Tree of Life—where all receive openly from it!
Receive Peace—not as the world gives, but as is present with the Lamb and the Almighty!
In the City there is reconciliation of all creation! Nothing accursed!

 

Don’t miss the wagons! Pay attention to absence
—no Temple, night, gate, or curse!

In the City of God there is much reconciliation
—Atonement, Healing, Blessing.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

A Reflection on EMU

                 In 2011, I graduated from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and accepted a call to St. Stephen Lutheran. I moved into the parsonage with a cat, a pile of books, and $80,000 worth of Seminary Debt.

                While I was making more money than I’d ever made in my life, I was still in for an economic shock. The first shock came at tax time when I found out I am considered an independent employee for tax purposes, and owed both sides of my Social Security. The second shock was more gradual, a growing realization that, despite living like a monk, money was tight. After paying on student loans, taxes, and tithing to my congregation, only 31% of my paycheck remained. The bank that held my student loans was getting 6% more of my money each month than I was!

                This was a common phenomenon for new clergy at the time, and the Lilly Foundation stepped in to help! They provided a grant to a bunch of “middle judicatories” (in Lutheran lingo Synods) to tackle this crisis. The New Jersey Synod, in partnership with the South West Minnesota Synod, created the Excellence in Ministry Unleashed (EMU) Program to see to the financial wellbeing of clergy on our territory.

Not only did the program pay down a bunch of my debt, but it also offered financial literacy retreats, grants during Covid, and most recently a retirement seminar. I even got to make videos about generosity along with our Emu Lilly (voiced by our own Jim Krombholz) as well as sermon helps for the Gospel of Luke, a gospel that doesn’t shy away from talking about debt and money, poverty and wealth, and what it means to have enough.

                It’s now 2025, I’m in my second call, am married, have two cats, shelves for my books, and am debt free.

The time I spent reflecting on Luke’s Gospel turned into a book. While budget time isn’t without its anxieties, I am now an active participant in our Finance and Stewardship teams, have a keen sense of how congregational choices will impact our family budget, and can talk about generosity and sufficiency in a faithful manner. Thank you EMU!