The tasks of the laity

 

              There’s a joke. Two Pastors get together and start describing the congregations they serve. At the end of the description the one pastor says to the other, “It’s a great church, if it wasn’t for the people.”

              And if you’ve been reading my recent blog posts about the church you might think I’m saying the same thing. After all, you might notice I’ve defined church and have taken a few stabs at the Pastoral task, but not the task of the ordinary Christian.

              In my pastoral reflection I did intimate that I see a difference between my ordained vocation and my baptismal vocation. Particularly I named prayer and intentional sacred reading as actions I take as a lay person, not as part of my “job” as Pastor. Well, let’s fill that out a little bit.

 

              Perhaps we start with our baptismal promises, we are to: “...live among God’s faithful people; hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s Supper; proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed; serve all people following the example of Jesus; and strive for justice and peace in all the earth.” That’s a pretty good list: Community, Word and Sacrament, Witness, Service, and Justice Work.

Here is another attempt at it, using the Seven Central Things as a starting point. The work of layfolk is to live what they practice in worship: Gathering, Baptism, Confession and Forgiveness, Word, Thanksgiving, Meal, and Sending. It is in those actions that we are aware of God’s work in the world. We are practicing seeing God, like Moses being aware enough that he can turn and see and be transformed.

 

To put those two lists together, a suitable description of the lay Christian life might be as follows:

Gather in community around Word and Sacraments.

Cultivate hearts of forgiveness, thanksgiving, and generosity.

Go out in Christ’s name to witness, do justice, and serve your neighbor.

A brief follow up to "What is Church? How should we reconstitute it?"

 

I just wanted to put all the pieces I'd gather in this post together in a simple definition of Church. I'll unpack the terms in a follow up post.

The Church is a body of diverse and fallible people who are stewards of God’s grace.

That grace is found most completely in the person of Jesus Christ, who is crucified Lord, revealed by the Holy Spirit.

Our acts of stewardship of this gift consist of proclaiming the good news of Jesus as both crucified and Lord in word and deed, and worshipping together in ways that allow us to continue to trust in Jesus.

Being a Pastor: 12 years on

The 12^th anniversary of my ordination and my 40^th birthday are both coming up next month. I served in two different contexts through a pandemic, I’m heading into the 3^rd year at my second call, and am also finishing up a 14-month Vice Pastorship. 

With all that, I am feeling a bit reflective regarding ministry these days. I recently remembered a post I wrote two years into my first call, back when I thought I had it all figured out. It was titled: To Do: A barebones list of the pastor’s task as I understand it and it is quite good, well worth a read. I thought, with an extra decade of experience, I might offer a similar post. This post looks at the pastoral task with a wider scope, less a week-to-week list and more long-term themes of ministry. Less about doing and more about being.

Name the core of your ministry, at least for yourself:

                  This job is weird; you are writing up a report for the council one minute, sitting with someone who is dying the next, choosing between two or three seemingly identical copiers, interpreting a 2000-year-old document in a way that is faithful to its original meaning and relevant to today, and then pushing carts full of food to people’s cars at the food pantry. I think of this experience as Ministerial Whiplash. On top of experiencing the variety of ministerial tasks, there is perception of these tasks. There are literally hundreds of people (both in the congregation and outside it) who have assumptions and definitions of what your job as pastor is and ideas about how you ought to do your job. Because this job can be so multifaceted, almost all of their definitions are at least a little true. 

Even the standard definition of Ordained Ministry in my denomination—Word, Sacrament, and Other Duties as Assigned, falls apart when it comes to that third part. Duty is broad and the question of who is doing the assigning is awkward, to say the least.

                  So, every 3 to 6 months, take stock of what you understand faithful ministry to be, and keep that definition close at hand, perhaps review it once a week. For example, the current iteration of what I understand ministry to be is: Receive God’s Grace, Share Agape, Spread the Gospel. That might sound too simple to be useful, but it is the lens I try to look at all the ministry tasks that come across my desk. It keeps me grounded when the weight of ministry starts to grind me down or blow me off course.

Be clear about time use:

                  This is a two-fold task. 

On one hand, have a system in place to process all the things you need to get done in a week. I use an eclectic hybrid of Getting Things Done, How to Squeeze Blood from a Turnip, and Sunday Comes Every Week. 

Additionally, I create a weekly chart with each day cut into thirds. I prioritize by day all my known tasks for the week and order the week for myself in a way that I have a third of a day that isn’t work each day, and one day off a week.

For example:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Morning	X	X		X	X		X
Afternoon	X		X	X	X		X
Evening		X	X

If you don’t control the parts of ministry that are in your power, you have no chance of riding the unexpected parts of ministry to a faithful place.

                  On the other hand, it is important to define what is and isn’t work for you—so define what you understand to be your pastoral vocation. For example, for me, morning prayer, edifying Christian reading (even when it leans in a continuing education or bible study preparation direction), and evening devotional bible reading are not work, not part of my vocation as an ordained person. Instead, they are part of my vocation as a baptized Child of God.

This division might seem pedantic, but one of the dangers of the ministry is to simply be a “professional Christian” instead of a Christian called out of community to administer Word and Sacrament. This danger is two-fold: 1. the laity of the community can never measure up to your “expert Christian” doings and 2. you can become so professional that you cease to be Christian, the ordination rite supersedes the Baptismal sacrament—The road to hell is paved with the bones of bishops and the skulls of priests.

Protect the vulnerable:

                  This is a hard one to write about. Without saying too much, there are abusers and predators out there, both ordained and lay, who see the Church as a place to misuse power and its ministries as existing for their personal gratification. You will encounter theft and graft, physical, mental, and sexual abuse, power plays and hurt people hurting people.

You are the fluffy sheepdog among the flock who puts the wolves on notice. Your job is to be the “bad guy” who asks the right questions, notifies the right authorities, and stands between the predator and the victim.

I say that you’re the “bad guy,” because doing the right thing often means conflict and consequences, and most people really don’t like either of those things.

The cavalry isn’t coming, but colleagues care:

                  One of my naivetés early on in ministry was an assumption that a Presiding Bishop or a Seminary Professor figure would swoop in and save me if things got really bad. It took me a frightening ER visit with chest pains that turned out to “just” be a panic attack to realize that, as a solo Pastor, no one else will take care of you. There are no training wheels; this is a live fire exercise. The buck stops with you, especially when it comes to your own health and safety.

                  There is a saying attributed to Luther, “The Pastor is the Bishop of their congregation.” Now some folk cling to this quote because they think that makes them the answer person in their congregation, or it allows them to boss people around, or what have you. But this quote is getting at the buck-stops-here-ness of being a Pastor. You are the most responsible person in your ministry context. 

                  That said, there are colleagues out there who will have your back. Go to Synod things, be active in your cluster/district/whatever they call a grouping smaller than a Synod where you are, do what you can keep those connections fresh; relationships take practice. Ministry done alone is just asking for the devil to swoop in and poison all you’ve done.

Partner with everyone, as long as they play nice:

                  There has always been a Pentecost sort of ideal in the Christian faith, that diverse communities sharing their unique gifts with one another as partners is good and holy. Sadly, for most of Christian history denominations and congregations were too well off to live into that ideal—this period of self-sufficiency and relying on a variety of props rather than the Gospel and the Spirit, is often called Christendom. Well, as Christendom is rightly humiliated for its sins, Christianity may now be in a place where we HAVE to live into that ideal.

As such, connecting with communities and organizations around you who do parallel good works is paramount. Be interested in what ecumenical partners are up to and consider how you can be faithful together. Consider too the ways secular organizations might be doing Gospel work unaware and see if you can join them in it!

That said, the humiliation of Christendom doesn’t always goad congregations to the Christian ideal of healthy partnership, and secular organizations don’t always get the church. Sometimes potential partners are unhealthy or even predatory. Secular organizations can see your membership roll as a donor list. Unhealthy congregations can see another congregation as a thing to be cannibalize for spare parts, offers of Christian partnership can be taken as a thing to be consumed in the hopes of returning to the ill-gotten riches of Christendom.

So, as with most things in ministry, be open, but also trust and verify. Discernment is key. 

Summary:

                  Between my initial more granular take on ministry and my current crop, there are 15 bits of advice. Some overlap and some contradict. The earlier seem a little more optimistic and surer, the latter more tentative and cautious. I’m writing them down as an exercise for myself—externalizing my ruminations, but maybe some of them will be helpful for other people in ministry as well.

I can’t wait to see where I am at in defining my pastoral task in another decade’s time! What wisdom will more years of ministry and more grey hair in my beard lend to me?

Silence

 

Silence
-Uncomfortable and restorative. 
-Maddening and reflective. 
-The Devil’s workshop and the presence of God.

-

         Elijah took an incredible journey to get to Horeb.

         Elijah confronted the prophets of Ba’al, 
ran at an impossible super-hero pace, 
was fed by angels under a broom tree, 
and then hides himself in a cave at Mount Horeb… 
more commonly known as Mt. Sinai, 
where Moses too encountered God.

         And God is kind of confused by Elijah’s presence there. 
“What are you doing here, Elijah?” God asks.

         And Elijah gets defensive, “I’m being super zealous, on your behalf.” 
“I alone am still faithful.”

 

         Elijah is understandably overwhelmed by the loud and devastating power of his King and Queen, 
the whole jangling royal court 
are arrayed against him.

         But God needs Elijah to know that he is not alone
—always God is with him…

         And more than that, while Lord and King, 
Not to mention words like Almighty and All-powerful 
–might be ways to talk about God, 
they do not get at God’s essence
—these descriptors and experiences, are not God.

         Elijah encounters God, 
but God is not in the tattered flapping and harsh tearing, 
of a terrible wind.

         Elijah encounters God, 
but God is not in the calamitous clangor and world spinning shaking of the earthquake.

 

         Elijah encounters God, 

but God is not in the roaring lapping of flame and fire
—you’ve seen Hawaii burning this week
—while insurance companies might call that an act of God
—that is not how God acts… 
God is not in the flame!

         Elijah encounters God in 
a still small voice, 
sheer silence, 
the sound of fine silence.

         The God who is the God of Sinai, 
the God of the Prophets, 
the God of Wisdom, 
the God who we can honestly call God… 
is encountered in tender quiet. 

 

         That is the God who asks a second time, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

         “I alone am left.”

         But you aren’t alone Elijah, 
there are the 7,000, 
and other prophets, 
and even other kings both foreign and domestic… 
You see one, but there are 7,000.

 

         Now I can appreciate how Elijah is feeling
—this week I helped 42 people as Pastor of Spruce Run…
I say that not to brag, 
but instead to remind myself!
when I fixate on the 2 people I was unable to help this week.

         The noise of those two failures is loud enough to drown out those 42 successes.

         The noise of 1 prophet escaped from death, 
can drown out 7,000 faithful colleagues and friends.

         In the silence of this cave in Horeb
—where the commands of God were received by Moses, 
Elijah encounters God as God is, 
and is sent out to find fellowship among the other faithful.

 

Silence

-

         Jesus has been seeking silence, 
a quiet place to be in prayer, 
communion with his father and our Father. 
He’s been going nonstop since his cousin, John, was killed.

         He tried to escape to a deserted place, and instead fed 5,000.

         He finally takes a moment, praying until evening
—a little time away.

 

         It’s worth repeating what I just said. 
Jesus, 
God’s beloved Son, Our Lord, 
took time to rest and pray, 
to mourn for John,
to be by himself, 
so that he is with the LORD.

         If rest is good enough for Jesus… 
it is certainly good enough for us
Be gentle with yourself, as the Lord was gentle with himself.

 

Silence

-

         Then there is Peter
—always doing the faith two step
—forward and back, 
all in followed by “Hey! Wait a minute!”

         Peter's faith is shaken by a strong wind.

         Shaken by the terror of it.

         Shaken because walking on water isn’t a natural kind of thing.

 

         So, if your faith is shaken. 
If you find yourself sinking or scared, 

The weight of the world is heavy on your shoulders
life has given you plenty of body blows and it is too much,
know that you’re in good company…
Peter, the Rock of the Faithful, the Apostle par excellence 

Can do nothing other than shout, “Lord, save me!”
         Peter’s grand devotion
“command me to walk on water!”
Shrinks to a manageable, 
“Lord! ‘elp me!”

 

         And that’s enough, 
enough for him 
and enough for us.

         After all, we’re in Matthew’s Gospel
—the Mustard Seed Gospel
—the Gospel that can’t let go of that parable of Jesus
—the Gospel that rides the image of that small weed welcoming a flock of birds into a farmer’s field 
Rides that parable, for all 28 chapters!
–that parable is fused into Matthew’s DNA.

 

         If a small faith is all that you can muster
—and for most of us it is… 
that’s enough!

         God doesn’t ask us to walk on water or save the world.

         No, that’s Jesus’ job. 
He’s here with us in the storm.

Dragging us into the boat like we’re drowned kittens, 
still wet from baptism.

Drags us into the silence of a storm ceased…

         Our Lord is present with us.

 

         Present with us, 
and presenting us with a promise—the Gospel!

         You see, Matthew has done something clever with his account of Jesus walking on water. 
He’s retold the Gospel
—Death and Resurrection. 
         -Jesus prays alone on the mountain—like Calvary.
         -Jesus disappears at evening, leaving the Disciples fending for themselves, afraid.
         -Early the next morning, he comes among them—like Emmaus or the Sea Shore.
         -They think him a ghost, but then their fears are silenced and they call him Lord, and worship him.

 

Silence

-

         The God of the Still Small Voice, always reminding us we’re not alone.

         The God who embraces us in our mourning and is rest for our weary bones.

         The God of a mustard seed and resurrection from the dead.

         That God is present with us and:
-the little, are mighty, 
-there is faith, in the midst of doubt,
-Save me, Lord! becomes a confession,
-The Sinking, are uplifted,
-The lonely faithful, find a multitude.

Amen.

Tidbits from USA v. DJT

 

I thought, due to the historic nature of the document, it was worth reading the 45-page indictment of the former President for myself. A lot of it is stuff I already knew from Impeachment trial and from reading Vice President Pence’s book and Bob Woodward’s book on the subject. That said, there were some things that struck me:

The fraudulent electors were tricked into participating based on the understanding that their votes would be used only if the Trump Campaign lawsuits determined that Donald Trump won their state. Instead, the Trump Campaign used their false certifications of Trump’s election in malicious and illegal ways. In other words, these folk put their name on official documents and their reputations on the line, with the understanding that they were doing so to fast-track recertification in case some of the 32 court cases filed went for Trump, but those documents were instead used to spread confusion.

The Trump Whitehouse sent official letters to various state officials telling them the Justice Department had found issues that had impacted the election outcome in their state, after the Justice Department had reported the exact opposite to the President and his staff.

There were at least 7 officials who informed the president that the election was not stolen, most of whom were trusted by the president and stood to gain by agreeing with the president that the 2020 election was stolen, including: his Vice President, his Attorney, the Director of National Intelligence, campaign staff, and various courts.

Even his co-conspirators knew they were grasping at straws. Their refrain was “we don’t have evidence, but we have lots of theories.”

The co-conspirators were referred to inside the Trump Campaign as “Our Elite Strike Force Legal Team” and their theories were called, pardon the language in the quote: “conspiracy sh*t beamed down from the mothership.”

There were at least 4 regular citizens whose lives, and the lives of their families, were threatened because of statements the President made about them.

The President told the Georgia Secretary of State and his Lawyer that if they didn’t find 11,780 votes for him, they would be put at risk and committing a crime.

The stated goal of fraudulent electors (at least the ones from Arizona) was to get congress to fight about which slate ought to be counted. Again, going against what they’d told the actual electors.

One of the co-conspirators threatened to take over the Attorney General’s job if he didn’t do what the conspiracy wanted.

On multiple occasions there were conversations about how this conspiracy would directly lead to violence. The responses were consistently cavalier. For example, Mike Pence warned that this would cause “elections to be decided in the streets.” Violence was seen as preferable and “necessary.”

After the Vice President explicitly told the President he would not obstruct the certification of the 2020 election because it wasn’t within his constitutional power, the President responded by issuing a public statement that read, “The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.”

There were other things I underlined in the indictment, but that gives you a sense of the allegations that the four-count case makes against the former President.

Jacob Jebeks at the Jabbok

 Jacob Jebeks

         I love Genesis... 
it’s weird
—it’s spooky. 
God is unchained and unpredictable, 
as are the people God encounters.

         Genesis can be a little scary… and a little playful too… a strange mix. 
For example, Jacob wrestles… struggles… at the Jabbok river… or in Hebrew:
Jacob Jebeks at the Jabbok…

 

         He struggles from nightfall to the dawn with this… 
man… angel… God…

         Who exactly is wrestling with Jacob, 
is purposefully and masterfully ambiguous… 
Genesis is good at that… 
like Keyser Soze is The Usual Suspects, 
or Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, 
or The Stranger who falls from the sky in the latest J.R.R. Tolkien adaption “The Rings of Power”

         The identity of this man is as clear as mud 
and as bright as a moonless, starless, night.

Yes, he is wrestling with God,
But Jacob is also wrestling with his brother, Esau, 
And with himself as well
—Jacob wrestling with Jacob.

         Jacob wrestling with God, Kin, and Self.

 

Let us pray

         Jacob Jebeks… he wrestles… with himself.
and his reputation
with the choices he’s made, 
from childhood on,
choices that have ultimately stranded him there 
alone in the dark,
on the other side of the river.

         He wrestles with his nature
What it means to be Jacob
Jacob, a trickster who 
struggles and wrestles 
and always has to come out on top
come out ahead
Always… 
especially… 
at the expense of someone else.

         Jacob wrestles with his choices,
his inclination toward control and domination,
shrewdness that falls into unkindness, injustice, and even outright theft.

 

         Jacob wrestles with himself… do we do the same?

         Do we take ourselves seriously enough to lose sleep over who we are and who we have become?

         Do we reflect upon the consequences of our actions 
and mull over the intentions of our hearts?

         Jacob wrestles with himself… do we?

 

         Jacob Jebeks… he wrestles… with his brother Esau…
as he has done from his mother’s womb onward.

         Jacob knows that when the sun rises in the east, 
he will have to face his long-estranged brother,
face the long-avoided consequences of the confrontation that has blown up well beyond mere sibling rivalry, between him and Esau.

         Esau who he grappled with even in his mother’s womb,
grasping Esau’s heel 
to pull him back 
and win the earliest of races… birth.
         Esau whom he cheaply cheated out of his birthright, 
and whose blessing Jacob took by trickery.
         Esau who he continually antagonized up to that 
tense time in their family history,
when Jacob had to go,
leave home… 
or else.
         Esau of whom Jacob is terrified
so afraid that 
he sends his fortune 
barreling toward his brother 
on the other side of the river 
as a sign of either intimidation or appeasement…

         Jacob, so scared that 
he sends his own family 
out ahead of him,
across the river to the other side as human shields,
as one last trick
decoys sent so Jacob can slip away 
while Esau is 
otherwise engaged 
with Jacob’s treasure 
and wives 
and children.

         He wrestles there 
at the Jabbok river 
all night wrestles 
with Esau, his kin
because he knows that 
at first light 
he too has to cross over 
and come face to face with Esau,
his brother;
tomorrow will either be a day of reconciliation or destruction.

 

         Jacob wrestles with his kin… do we?

         Do we struggle with the task of reconciliation? 
Do we concern ourselves with the hard and necessary task of confession and forgiveness?

         Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who ran 
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the fall of Apart-heid, 
had seen what it means to really forgive someone, 
more deeply than most mortals ever get to, and, 
reflecting on that experience, 
he broke down the process of reconciliation into four concrete tasks:
1. Admitting the wrong. 
2. Listening to the Story 
3. Asking for Forgiveness. 
4. Renewing or Releasing the relationship.

         Yes… 
righting a wrong takes more than a band aid, 
more than a surface “I’m sorry.”

 

         Jacob Jebeked… he wrestled… with God.

This is the plainest reading of the story
—he sees God face to face… 
there at the Jabbok River…

         There by the river, 
a crossing point from one plane of existence into another
One reality and another…

         He meets the stranger 
who is God 
and fights, 
wrestles, with that stranger 
down by the river.

         And to be plain about what’s going on here…

         This is where you’d expect such an encounter.
Where you might meet a god,
Think of trolls under bridges
Dryads peering into their pools…

         In the ancient imagination, watery places are thin places.

         The river is a razor thin barrier between 
divine things 
and human things…

The border between 
heaven and earth 
can be easily forded, 
down by the river.

         Jacob is pulled through that thin space, 
brought face to face with God, 
as he wrestles on 
the slippery bank 
of the Jabbok river

 

         Jacob wrestles with God… do we?

         Do we? 
Do we take our faith outside these Church walls 
and into all our moments?

         Do we probe and strain 
to discern God’s will and meaning for us?

         Do we follow Jesus? 
Are we his disciples?

         Do we take the time to wrestle with our God questions until the question marks are bent into exclamation points?

         Do we at least experience the solace that comes from wrestling with those questions… because sometimes the wrestling is the most important part.

 

         When we join Jacob 
and Jebek at the Jabbok…
take ourselves seriously,
do the hard work of reconciliation,
reconfirm our faith again and again in watery, 
baptism-like, questions…

We are ultimately wrestling with Love.

         What do I mean by that?

         Think carefully about Christ’s only command…
the great Commandment…
Love God
and love your neighbor
as yourself.

         Love.

         Love God… trust God’s promises in such a way that they become a light unto your feet and a light unto your path.

         Love Neighbor… relationships take work, trust takes time and consistency, and righting wrongs doesn’t happen in a day.

         Love self… before you can love another, you need to be grounded in a certain level of dignity and self-worth, it is the well from which other relationships can flow.

 

         Jacob wrestled… as do we… 
with Christs’ gracious command
—it can be a struggle, 
at times a battle even… 
yet it is a struggle worth dedicating our lives to, 
worth the wrestling and the dark nights, the thin places, missteps, and limps, the striving and the dreaded-blessed-glorious dawn.

         Jacob wrestled, and so shall we. Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Joseph Story: A Skit

 

Act 1:

Scene 1

Brother: Oh look, the sleepy headed dreamer finally is awake!

Joseph: (Yawn) Hey everyone. I had a wild dream! I was a stalk of corn… and you all were too… 

Brother: Is that so?

Joseph: Yeah. And you all bowed down to me like I was your king… Wouldn’t that be wild if that happened?

Brothers: Yeah… wild…

 

Scene 2

Sign—The Next Day

Brother: Oh. Hi Joseph. Want some coffee?

Joseph: Coffee? I’m so energized by my dream last night, why would I need coffee?

Brother: What was it this time?

Joseph: You were all stars, even mom and dad.

Brother: Wow! I’d love to be a star!

Joseph: And I was the sun! The center of it all. I just know my dream will come true!

Brother (to other brothers): We can’t let that happen! Even if it means killing him!

 

Act 2:

Scene 1

Joseph (disguised): They’re here! They’re really here! After all these years, my brothers…

(turn to audience, take off disguise) It’s me, Joseph. (put disguise back on).

My brothers chucked me in a well and left me for dead. I was enslaved in Egypt. Was noticed by Pharaoh. Now I’m his right-hand man! Oh. Here they come!

Scene 2

Brother: Nothing has gone right, since we threw Joseph in the well. It broke dad, he’s just always so sad. 

Then there is the famine—there isn’t enough food to eat anywhere… except here in Egypt… but to feed my people… to keep everyone alive… we need to get food from this guy—Pharaoh’s right hand man, or that’s the end of all of us. We hear he’s a tough one. I really hope we can make this work.

 

Scene 3

Joseph (disguised): Come in.

Brother (bowing): Lord.

Joseph: Get up.

Brother: Yes Lord.

Joseph (looking around): Except for these Hebrews, clear the room. I need to talk with these people, alone.

Brother: eep!

Joseph: Don’t call me Lord.

Brother (looking up): What?

Joseph (removing disguise): Call me brother.

Brother: Jo… joseph?

Joseph: Yes. Its me.

Brother: We… we left you for dead.

Joseph: And somehow, through all that mess, God put me here, in Egypt with plenty of food during a famine. As Pharaoh’s right hand man, I can save people.

Brother: Thank God!

Joseph: God took that evil thing you did, and made something good out of it. If God can do that, how can I not forgive you! My brothers.

Brother (weeping): You’d really do that?

Joseph: I forgive you. 

(Brothers embrace.)

What is Church? How should we reconstitute it?

 

Perhaps as prologue to considering how we ought to reconstitute the ELCA, we ought to pause and consider what is the Church? Now, I’ve done an educational series on this question at both congregations I’ve served as pastor. Here are a few things from that series worth considering:

 

The Church is what happens on a congregational level, and that varies greatly by congregation. Congregations define themselves by:
-who they are not (for example, the congregation was founded by people dissatisfied by the other Lutheran congregation in town)
-what they do (for example, “we’re the congregation who feeds people” “we’re the congregation that holds the craft fair in November”)
-by their history (“we’re a Muhlenberg congregation founded before the country” or “we found our identity as a congregation when tons of WWII refugees moved into the neighborhood in 1951”)
-ethnic heritage (we’re a German congregation, we’re a congregation of “Squareheads”, etc).
              As such any definition of Church, and any restructuring of church, has to take into account a certain amount of diversity.

 

The Church is defined in particular ways by Lutherans.

The third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, creates and keeps the Church. (Luther’s Small Catechism)

This creation of the Holy Spirit is people gathered around scripture and sacrament. That’s it, other things are fine, but are of human origin. (The Augsburg Confession, 7^th article)

This gathering will include saints and sinners, true believers and false Christians, righteous people and hypocrites. Bad and wrong folk don’t render the Church null and void. (The Augsburg Confession, 8^th article)

So, in reconstituting the ELCA we need to remember: that we’re always stewards of what God has first done, not to elevate or fixate on non-essential things, and make organizational decisions knowing they’ll be administered by humans not angels.

 

The Church has been defined in the ELCA’s constitution. There is some really thoughtful stuff already present in how we do church, and I hope we don’t jettison it. For example:

Jesus Centered: To quote directly from the constitution, “All power belongs to Jesus, our actions carry out the will of Jesus Christ.”

Humble Ecumenism: We recognize we’re not the entire expression of the Church, as such we describe the ELCA as “This Church” not “The Church” which we understand to be much wider than the ELCA.

Mutuality: At our best we’re three expressions of This Church, the local Congregation, the regional Synod, and the national Churchwide. We are accountable to one another.

Worshipful: Every major decision in our denomination is made by a group of people in worship. Congregational Meetings are made by people assembled for Sunday worship, Synod Assemblies are a worship gathering of people from every congregation where the business of the Synod is discussed, and Churchwide Assembly is a multi-day worship event that also involves major decisions for the life of this Church.

              I pray the reconstitution of the ELCA is worshipful, gathers consent from all the expressions of This Church, takes into account our commitments to other Christian bodies, especially those who we are in full communion with, and most importantly, the changes are done in order to more fully carry out the will of Jesus Christ.

 

              Another way to come at the nature of the Church is to name “What Christianity is Not” as Douglas John Hall does in his book of the same name. According to this book, Christianity is not:

Culture: It is not tied to a country, or subculture or people or ethnicity. St. Paul struggled with defining the bounds of the faith in ethnic/cultural/religious divisions. St. Augustine did the same vis a vis Rome and Kierkegaard vis a vis Denmark.

Religion: As stated above the Church isn’t a method for humans to reach heaven, but a gift of the Holy Spirit.

A book: The Reformation slogan “Word Alone” isn’t the same as Bibliolatry, but the experience of encountering the God pointed to in the Scriptures.

Doctrine or even Truth: Ultimately faith isn’t a matter of cognitive affirmation to particular points of view, but trust in the God found in Jesus. Being found by God.

Morality: As said above, the Church will by its very nature be filled with both saints and sinners, often found within the same person.

The Church: The whole of the book of Acts is the church catching up to what the Spirit has already done.

              So, after going through all these things that Christianity is not Hall defines Christianity as “When Jesus is proclaimed and experienced as Crucified, yet Lord and Prophet.”

              How might this help the reconstitution of the ELCA? It names six important aspects of Christianity that are so important that we have a tendency to think they are the ultimate concern of the faith, when they are in fact penultimate. For example, a cultural or moral concern could scuttle a reconstitution discussion, but with the above in mind can be relativized in the light of the most important thing, our Crucified Lord. Also, I pray that the folk involved in these conversations always keep open for experiences of Jesus as Crucified Lord. 

 

              So, at the end of my congregational educational series, how did the group I was leading mash up these ideas into a working definition of Church? “A community who trusts in Jesus Christ, gathers around word and sacrament, and proclaims the Gospel to our neighbors.”

              I pray that the Reformed ELCA, whatever its ultimate shape, will proclaim Gospel to the world, worship together well, and trust Jesus Christ.