The Lutheran Review

I'm Listening

I’m Listening

I intended to write something on the psalm for Sunday, Psalm 85, particularly verse 8, “will listen to what the Lord God is saying.” However this morning Becky took a misstep while walking Boomer. A trip to an urgent care center confirmed that she had broken her fifth metatarsal, that’s the bone that goes to the little toe. So she’s hobble ling around.

While I was putting dishes in the dish washer I reached down to catch the bottom tray which was rolling out and jabbed a knife point into my hand. Well, it’s not as serious as I thought at first and can now type with both hands.

But I’m listening Lord. Is this a harbinger of future things to come?

I have left out the end of verse 8. “For you speak peace to your faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to you.” So it’s not true as daughter Sarah said, that we got our injuries because last night I buried in the back of her backyard two possum or raccoons that had drowned in one of her garbage cans a few days ago. And some people think that a preachers life is all wine and roses. Could have used some of both last night. Took me back to my days growing up on the farm.

I found a prayer attached to this Psalm 85 in the LBW Ministers Desk Edition.

“God of love and faithfulness, you so loved the world that you gave your only Son to be our Savior. Help us to receive him as both Lord and brother and freely celebrate him as our gracious Redeemer now and forever.” Amen.

Ah, its not about a broken metatarsal or a punctured hand. Its about God’s love and faithfulness in giving Jesus to be our Savior. That’s the peace the psalmist was writing about.

So I guess I’ve written about Psalm 85:8 after all.

More Prophets Needed

More Prophets Needed

In Numbers 11 the Lord tells Moses to select 70 men and bring them to the tent of meeting where He will take some of the Spirit that is on Moses and give it to the 70 elders. They are to help Moses bear the burden of the people. However, two men, Eldad and Medad stay in the camp and miss out. Nevertheless, they begin prophesying when a young man tattles on them Joshua wants to Moses put a stop to it. Moses answers, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets…”

During July and August when pastors go on vacation or take calls to other congregations, one might wish that all the Lord’s people were preachers. OT prophets were the preachers of the day.

Since I accepted the request to begin as vacancy pastor at Pinckneyville/Conant, IL., a vacancy at Festus, Mo has opened up. Furthermore, today I have had telephone calls from Cuba, Mo. and Hannibal asking if I could fill in for a Sunday in August.

As for myself, I will be at my home congregation on July 19^; I needed someone to fill in at Pinckneyville/Conant. I was about to give up when I found someone. Only then did I get two calls from pastors who were willing to take that date. So I used the opportunity to schedule one for the end of August when I will be out for at least one week.

This is a long way getting around to encouraging men to consider studying for the pastoral ministry. When I asked the elder from Hannibal if he had more names on his list, he said he did, but most of them had died.

Nobody is going to get rich as a pastor. But we have job security until we gain our ultimate security in the arms of our risen and living Savior. Most of us are joyful failures at retirement.

Jan Hus

Jan Hus was a Bohemian priest who spoke out against the abuses in the church of hi8s day.  A century later, Luther found a kinship with Hus.  Luther writes that, he had read “the very sensible, noble, Christian booklet (of Hus), the like of which has not been written inn four hundred years.

Hus spoke against withholding the cup in Holy Communion which led to his excommunication, not for heresy but for insubordination toward his archbishop.  He preached against the selling of indulgences; particularly in the light that two rival claimants to the papacy were using the sale of indulgences to raise money for war against one another. 
After being granted a guarantee of safe travel he attended the Council of Contance3 in 1415, where he was convicted and burned at the stake.
His followers became known as the Czech Brethren and later became the Moravian Church.

Transitions

This coming Sunday is a time of transitions.  Not only am I making a transition but so are two other pastor types and two congregations.

As we moved toward the ordination and installation of Charles Schultz as pastor at St. Paul’s in Otto, Mo. I was making some plans for July and August.  My home church, Christ, Pipe Lake, Wisconsin is celebrating its 125th anniversary on July 19.  Our son and his two sons are coming up for a few days in July.  Becky and I would like to get out to Maryland to see our second oldest and his family.  I also have a bit of surgery that needs to done.   

Then a couple of weeks ago Herb Mueller, president of the Southern Illinois Dist., called to ask if I could do the vacancy at Pinckneyville and Conant.  I had been vacancy pastor for them in 2003. Their pastor, Jon Smithley, will be installed as a chaplain in the Air Force. The fact that I’m not through at Otto until after July 5 was no hindrance.  The vacancy won’t start until the 12th.  So I was over in Illinois on Wednesday evening meeting with the folks from that parish together with the Dist. Pres. and Circuit Counselor.

Pres. Mueller asked if I would be at the installation service at Pinckneyville. No, I couldn’t be attend since I will be having the liturgy for the installation at Otto.  If only I were more schizophrenic perhaps I could be present at both places at once.  However, the Lord seems to have kept that capability for himself.

So while many will celebrating the transition of our country from a colony to an independent nation this weekend,  Others of us will be celebrating transitions in the kingdom of God where Christ has won us independence from sin and death.

Doubting Thomas?

About the only time we give much consideration to the apostle Thomas is in the time after Easter Sunday.
We sing in “O Sons and Daughters of the King,”
    When Thomas first the tidings heard
    That they had seen the risen Lord,
    He doubted the disciples word
    Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Why do we sing alleluias after that verse.  What is there to alleluia about?  Shouldn’t we sing, “Boo, Hiss?”

After the Lord shows Thomas his hands and side,
     No longer Thomas then denied;
    “You are my Lord and God!” he cried,
    Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Now we’ve got some alleluias to sing.
However, booing and hissing Thomas’ doubts is like pointing a finger at someone only to discover that three are pointed back at yourself.

LSB 472 st. 4 offers this prayer to God,
    May we, O God, by grace believe
    And thus the risen Christ receive,
    Whose raw imprinted palms reached out
    And beckoned Thomas from his doubt.

According to ancient tradition Thomas did missionary work in India.  When Christian missionary arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they found that Christian communities had been flourishing for a thousand years.

Hymn Translators

Besides being Canada Day, July 1 is a day to remember two of the leading hymn translators.  The LSB contains 46 hymns translated from the German by Catherine Winkworth (1829-1878)     She was born in London and lived her early life in Manchester.  Besides her work in hymnology she tranlate3d biographies of Germans who had founded societies for the advancement of women’s rights. 
Her translations of German hymns are the most widely used of any German translation.
Its her translation of Nun Danket Alles Gott, Now Thank WE All Our god that we will sing when Charles Schultz is ordained and installed as pastor at St. Paul’s, Otto on July 5th.  In Advent we anticipate the coming of our King as we sing “Lift Up Your heads, ye mighty Gates.”  Another of her translators helps us sing “baptized into your name most holy.

The other translator is John Mason Neale an English priest who lived from 1818-1866.  He concentrated on translating hymns from the Latin and Greek.  He had a strong classical language education.  W. G. Polack writes in his Handbook of the Lutheran Hymnal,  “Neale did not graduate with more than ordinary degrees, for he had the greatest antipathy to mathematics.  (A man after my own mathematically challenged brain.)

One of his twenty two translations in LSB is a favorite Advent hymn of mine, “Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”  On Palm Sunday we usually process into the sanctuary singing “All glory, Laud and honor.”  On the second Sunday of Easter we sing of the account of Thomas doubting the Lord’s resurrection in “O sons and daughters of the King.”

St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles

St. Peter and St. Paul each have their own day of commemoration.  However, remembering the ministry of these two great figures one the same day is one of the oldest of the saints’ days, having been observed at least since 258.  Some tradition trace this day back to a remembrance of their being executed on the same day.  Paul, according to tradition, was beheaded.  Peter, again, according to tradition was crucified upside down.  Their deaths are thought to have occurred during the time of Nero in about 64.  However, scripture leaves off with Paul in Rome.  There has always been a strong belief that he traveled to Spain after being released from house arrest and then  returned to Rome.

The importance of Peter and Paul for us is that their witness would lead us to seek ways we might faithfully proclaim the gospel in our time and in our world.

Prayer of the Day: Almighty Father, you gave the apostles Peter and Paul the strength to lay down their lives for the sake of your Son.  Give us the same strength, to be ready at any time to lay down our lives for the one who gave his life for us, your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Cyril of Alexandria

One brief biography of Cyril (376-444) remembers him “as an outstanding theologian as
well as a contentious personality.  He strenuously defended the faith against Nestorious.  Nestorious taught that Christ human and divine natures were entirely distinct and therefore Mary could not be called the Mother of God.  This caused a huge split in the church, not only because of the doctrinal differences, but also because of rivalry between Constantinople and Alexandria.  Other leaders in Rome, Antioch and Jerusalem and the emperor also became involved.  Finally, Cyril’s interpretation, that Christ’s person included both divine and human natures was affirmed at the Council of Ephesus in 431.

Cyril wrote, “I am amazed that there are some who ere extremely doubtful whether the holy Virgin should be called the Mother of God or no.  For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, then surely the holy Virgin who gave him birth must be God’s mother”

Cyril compares it to a mother giving birth to an ordinary person.  A mother carries in her womb the flesh of the gradually developing human according to the natural laws of generation and the secret operation of “until it reaches perfection and attains the form of a human being.” God also “endows this living creature with spirit.  Although those mothers are only mothers of bodies belonging to this world, still they are said to give birth, not to a part of a man but to the whole man, consisting of soul and body…I anyone maintained that anyone’s mother was ‘mother of flesh’ and not ‘mother of soul’ he would be talking nonsense.  For what she has produced is one living being, composite to two dissimilar elements, but a single human being, with each element retaining its nature.”

Cyril’s writings about Christ were an important source Lutheran confessional writings.

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons

One thing that I have noted in my reading; including several novels, is the popularity of the lead character doubting the value of the Scriptures of the Bible.  They are more inclined to give credence to the numerous writings that are not in the Bible and to regard the canonical scriptures as being the result of church politics. 

The church in the time of Irenaeus (130-170) had not quite settled on what scripture was and what wasn’t.  There were numerous writings floating about.  However, we get a hint of how the writings that are in our scriptures came to be there through a letter that Irenaeus wrote to his friend Florinus.  Irenaeus reminded Florinus that when they were children, they had both heard Polycarp.  I wrote of Polycarp back on February 23rd.   Polycarp had known the apostle John.  Thus Polycarp was the link in the chain which through John bound Ienaeus and his friend to Christ.

Irenaeus writes, “I can describe the place where blessed Polycarp sat and talked, his goings and comings in, the character of his life…I remember how he spoke of his intercourse with John and with the others who had seen the Lord; how he repeated their words from memory, and how the things that he had heard them say about the Lord, his miracles and his teachings, things that he had heard direct from the eye-witnesses of the Word of life, were proclaimed by Polycarp in complete harmony with scripture.  To these things I listened eagerly at that time, by the mercy of God shown to me, not committing them to writing but learning them by heart.  By God’s grace, I constantly and conscientiously ruminate on them, and I can bear witness before God that if any suggestion had come to the ears of that blessed apostolic presbyter he would have cried out and stopped his ears.”

Thus when Irenaeus came into contact with the various writings that arose in the second century, he compared them to what he had heard and learned from a disciple of the apostle John.  On that basis he accepted only the four gospels we now have in our bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and no more.  He also recognized Paul’s letters, the first letter of Peter, Acts, Revelation and John’s three epistles.  On the other hand there was still hesitation on such works as Jude, Revelation, and II Peter,

He was also one of the first to use the term, “catholic”, by which he meant that congregations did not exist by themselves but were linked to one another in the whole church.  Furthermore, the message of the church is one that has been passed down from the apostles to him and through him to the next generation.

Celebrating the Augsburg Confession

On June 25th 1530 the Lutherans presented the Augsburg confession to Emperor Charles of the Holy Roman Empire.  Written by Philip Melancthon and endorsed by Martin Luther, the confession is a brief summary of points in which the reformers saw their teaching as either agreeing with the ancient teachings of the church or differing from that of the Roman Catholic Church of the time.

While writing the history of Holy Cross, Collinsville, I found a description of the celebration of the 350th anniversary of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession.

“On Sunday, June 27, 1880, the day before the celebration in St. Louis, Holy Cross, Pleasant Ridge (Maryville) and Troy gathered for a festival at Collinsville Park, formerly Becker’s Grove.  A regular worship service was held in the morning followed by a children’s program in the afternoon.”

An account in the St. Louis times (CHIQ Vol. 3, 1930 pp33-40) describes the events of the next day when all the churches met in St. Louis.  The headline read, “Miles of Men - Procession five miles long from (Soulard, where Old Trinity, the original LCMS church in St. Louis is located) to the Fairgrounds.”  (The fairgrounds were located in what is now north St. Louis)
A unit of mounted .police cleared the way.  They were followed by the Arsenal band. “Following the marshals came the visitors.  More than 600 visitors participated, including seminary students and the St. Louis Young Men’s Association.  These were followed by another band (in those days each congregation had a band) and the St. Louis Orchestra.  Next came the men of the St. Louis congregations. Fifty one wagons filled with school children followed the men and the bands.  Each wagon was decorated with evergreens and flags.  Banners on the wagons contained mottoes such as “Das Wort Sie Sollen Lassen Stahn,” The Word they still shall let remain.  Behind the children came the seminary .professors and pastors likely riding in carriages.  Then 276 carriages carrying young lades, almost all dressed in white, as well as their mothers and other relatives.  The procession was completed by a two-mile train of wagons with members from area congregations.  The parade started at 8:30 a.m. and the ended at 1:30 p.m.

After two hours of rest, the program began.  It consisted mainly of singing led by a 1,000 voice choir and 200 musicians.  Speeches were few and brief.  The paper commented the next day, “The Germans as a class are not a speechmaking people…Had the celebration been an Irish or an American one, there would have been at least two hours of speeches, to which no one would care to listen.”

Given all that was done in 1880, how did you celebrate the presentation of the Augsburg Confession?