Absurdity Between God and Evil

[This appeared first at The Jagged Word on October 19.]

After I watched Troubled Water last week, one of Amazon’s recommendations was Adam’s Apples (2005, streaming on Amazon Prime), about a naive pastor in Denmark, Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen), who welcomes in a neo-Nazi in hopes of (I think) rehabilitating him. Add that neo-Nazi to a Saudi immigrant who robs gas stations and an alcoholic Dane, and it’s a weirdly religious, absurd black comedy.

In spite of the weird aspect ratio thing that Amazon was doing, I was slowly drawn into the story. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but funny in its absurdity. The pastor is not only naive, but indefensibly and, apparently, invincibly so. Nothing that Adam does can shake Ivan’s optimism and “faith,” including a picture of Hitler on the wall and beating him viciously. Ivan says that Gunnar’s alcoholism is cured, though he doesn’t hide the many bottles and Ivan even offers to pick up some “medicine” for him when he goes out. And Ivan is convinced Khalid is done with robbery, though there is a balaclava and a large wad of cash in his jacket, not to mention the gun he easily produces to get rid of the crows in the apple tree.

Further, Ivan refuses to admit that his son is completely disabled and that his wife committed suicide. He views it all as an attack from Satan that he is to withstand. All of it: the crime, the alcoholism, his wife’s death, a neo-Nazi beating him up, the crows and worms in the apple tree. It is all a Satanic attack, and Ivan believes that he is simply called to bear up under it with an undying optimism.

Guilt and Grief, and Relief

[This appeared first at The Jagged Word on October 12.]

Troubled Water (2008, streaming on Amazon Prime) is really a brilliantly made film. You know the whole thing is going to collapse and fall apart between Thomas and Agnes, but you don’t know when. That tension builds and builds, even when there is nothing tense happening in a given moment. And the way the story is put together brings even seemingly unimportant events to their true significance.

It’s not that the shift in perspective in the middle of the film is unique, but perhaps it surprised me because (not having heard of the movie before) I simply didn’t expect it. Even though it’s over two hours, the two couples are so entwined and paralleled, focused on Thomas and Agnes, that I never felt the length. One has seemingly overcome her grief; one has seemingly overcome his guilt; but both have been deprived (or deprived themselves) of the opportunity to face head-on the event that connects them.

Until that happens, you can feel the troubled waters begin to stir beneath the surface. The central moment is highlighted by the caretaker asking Thomas to play “some real church music” for children on a field trip—led by Agnes—and he plays “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (!).

Exhortation to Communion

Dear Friends: The Lord hath instituted His Holy Supper to be desired and received by His disciples. Therefore, also, the Church was formerly obedient to Him, and celebrated the Communion ever Lord’s day. Not only one or two individuals would then receive, but the whole congregation; even the sick always communed, the elements being carried from the altar to their homes. In our day, however, many of our members cannot be persuaded to come frequently to the Table of the Lord, nevertheless it should not often occur that the Communion is altogether omitted from the Morning Service; and much less should any refuse to come after the gracious invitation has been given, as has recently happened among us. The command of our Lord Jesus Christ: “This do, as oft as ye do it, in remembrance of me,” the heed of your souls while in this troublesome world, and the precious promise of the forgiveness of sins, should move all of us to desire this Bread and this Cup. But now we say, We are rich, and increased with goods, and we have need of nothing [Rev. 3:17]; therefore we do not receive what He offers, nor come when He invites. Hence it is not surprising that we are wretched, poor, blind and naked [Rev. 3:17], full of sin, burdened with an evil conscience, and without desire to do good. And the longer you delay, the worse your condition becomes, so that we must all exceedingly fear God’s wrath. I therefore exhort and beseech you, dearly beloved brethren, that you be more circumspect in the future, consider more earnestly the things that belong to your peace [Luke 19:42], and receive grace from the fullness of Christ. For He is rich toward all who seek Him, and those who come to His Table shall be satisfied with the abundance of His House. Nor ought any one to say that the frequent celebration serves to bring the Sacrament into contempt, for those who are rightly prepared will always hunger for this Bread and thirst for this Drink; and the more frequently they commune, the firmer becomes the persuasion that all of the earthly life is only a preparation for the celebration of the great Supper on high. “Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house, they shall still be praising Thee; Selah [Psalm 84:4].” God be merciful to you, and supplant your lukewarmness with heavenly earnestness. Amen.

Exhortation to the Sacrament, to be given especially on Sundays when the Lord’s Supper is not received, or when Communion had been announced the previous Sunday and none or very few come to receive it.  From Wilhelm Loehe’s “Liturgy for Lutheran Congregations.”

Timotheos

Walther and Luther on Open Altars

“[The itinerant (e.g., Methodist) preacher] uses the holy Supper as bait, as a means of luring the people into the net of his fanaticism and sectarianism. But do not many so-called ‘Lutheran’ preachers follow a similar practice! We have sadly experienced that not a few of the preachers who call themselves Lutherans, when they have prepared the holy table for the Sacrament, invite to this means of grace anyone who wants to come and admit them without any examination of their faith and life (in the opinion that this is truly evangelical). It is to be feared that many act this way for impure reasons, to be considered really ‘nice, broad-minded’ men and to be praised… There is hardly anything in all pastoral care [lit. “care of souls”] that gives a faithful minister of the church more trouble than if he wants to act conscientiously in admitting people to the holy Supper. If an orthodox Lutheran pastor takes over a new congregation and wants to admit no member to the Lord’s Table until he has spoken to each individual and learned from his mouth that he knows what the holy Supper is; that he acknowledges that he is a miserable sinner; that he in his heart believes in God’s Word; that he desires grace and the forgiveness of sins in Christ’s Blood; also that he earnestly intends to follow Christ in a holy life, unspotted by the world, and the like; what harsh resistance he usually meets right away! How many enemies he usually makes right away! How seldom it proceeds without divisions arising! How often he sees himself required to travel on right away and to hear it said that he wanted to lord it over the congregation” (Walther, Pastoral Theology, transl. John M. Drickamer [New Haven, Missouri: Lutheran News, Inc., 1995]), 108.

“Christendom should remain united, should have the same faith and doctrine. To assure this unity among Christians, these must not only congregate for the preaching service—in which they hear the same Word, whereby they are called to the same faith and all together adhere to the same Head—but they must also congregate at one table and eat and drink with one another. It may well happen that someone who is listening to my sermon is nevertheless my enemy at heart. Therefore although also the Gospel holds Christians together, the Lord’s Supper does so still more. By attending it every Christian confesses publicly and for himself what he believes. There those who have a different faith part ways, and those meet who have the same faith, whose hope and heart toward the Lord are one.

“This is also the reason why the Sacrament has been called Communio in Latin, a communion. And those who do not want to be of the same faith, doctrine, and life, as other Christians are, are called excommunicatis, people who are dissimilar in doctrine, words, understanding, and life. Therefore these should not be tolerated in the group that has the same understanding; they would divide it and split it up. The Holy Sacrament, then, serves as a means whereby Christ holds His little flock together” (What Luther Says 812:2521).

“It terrifies me to hear that in one and the same church or at one and the same altar both parties are to find and to receive one and the same Sacrament and one party is to believe that it receives nothing but bread and wine, while the other is to believe that it receives the true body and blood of Christ. And I often wonder whether it is credible that preacher or shepherd of souls can be so hardened and malicious as to say nothing about this and to let both parties go on in this way, receive one and the same Sacrament, everyone according to his own faith, etc. If such a person exists, he must have a heart harder than any stone, steel or adamant; he must, in fact, be an apostle of wrath….Whoever, therefore, has such preachers or suspects them to be such, let him be warned against them as against the devil incarnate himself” (WLS 813:2522).

Advent 1

“Rejoice, daughter of Zion!  Behold, thy King cometh unto thee!”  Again we hear the glad Advent-message and read how the King of mercy and of truth, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, fulfils the age-old prophecy with His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and how the rejoicing multitudes welcome HIm as their King with loud acclaim.  “Hosanna,” they cry, that is, “Save now, O Lord!  Send now prosperity!”  And the Lord God did send prosperity.  David’s Son, yet greater Lord, finishes victoriously His divine work of redemption and forever sets His captive and mourning people free from their cruel enemies–Satan, sin, and death.  Now at His saving name every knee must bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  We have also vowed allegiance to Him, our only King and Savior, in life, in death, through all eternity.  But, alas, we must all confess with deep contrition that we have been most neglectful in our homage ever so often.  We need pardon for our sin, more faith, more love, more hope, more devotion in His sacred service.  And now the glad Advent-message tells us that “He comes the broken heart to bind, The bleeding soul to cure, And with the treasures of His grace To enrich the humble poor.”  Should we not sing our glad hosannas to such a faithful and unwearied Savior?”  [F.W. Herzberger, Family Altar, December 1]

[Timotheos]

For All the Saints (and Fathers)

Hermann Sasse on “Fathers of the Church”:

Patriarchs of sacred story
And the prophets there are found;
The apostles, too, in glory
On twelve seats are there enthroned
All the saints that have ascended
Age on age, through time extended,
There in blissful concert sing
Hallelujahs to their King.

Thus the old funeral hymn of our church speaks of the church of all the perfected in heaven (cf. Heb. 12:22-23).  And this thought of the fathers of the church who have preceded us into heaven rings through the centuries down to Wilhelm Loehe’s hymn on the Sacrament, where it says of heaven: “There the angel host stands inflamed in Your light, and my fathers gaze upon Your sight.”  All the saints from the beginning of the world who have died believing in the Redeemer, whether he was yet to come or had come in the flesh, all members of the people of God of all times to the present day–in this sense, all are fathers of the church.  Whether Christians have found themselves in the loneliness of a Siberian prison camp or the isolation of the diaspora or suffering inner alienation within the great secularized “churches” of our century, it has become ever more the consolation of those who have suffered for the sake of the church and whom God has led on a “lonely path” to know that they are not alone in the one church of God.  They who have been removed from every error and sin of the earthly church stand with us in the seamless fellowship of the body of Christ.  No one can understand the “comforting and highly necessary” article of faith regarding the church, as the Apology calls it, who does not know that the fellowship of the church is a fellowship with the saints of all the millennia.  There is not only a spatial but also a temporal catholicity of the church.  The Lutheran confession speaks of this everywhere it confesses the faith and the doctrine of the church of the fathers, the faith of the apostolic church and the doctrinal decisions of the ancient councils.  This consensus of the church not only binds together the living, but also the living generation with those who have believed and confessed before us. …

Bishops as such or pastors as such are not “fathers in Christ” unless they proclaim the pure Gospel. …

It is always a sign of a deep spiritual sickness when a church forgets its fathers.  It may criticize them.  It must measure their teaching by the Word of God and reject whatever errors they have made as fallible men.  But it must not forget them. …  It is always a certain sign of the decline of a church when it reviles the fathers and wants only to be a “young church.”  And it is, according to Luther, a sign of the true church and the real fathers when they must bear the cross. …

We sincerely rejoice over every sign of a new awakening of Lutheran theology, where ever it may be…  But there is one thing we long for from those who call themselves Lutheran.  We demand that they take the confession of our church just as seriously as it was taken by the fathers at the time of the Reformation, and by the fathers of the nineteenth century.  Where one departs from it, let it be demonstrated that it is not scriptural, that its interpretation of Scripture is false.  We will be the first to give up whatever does not accord with the Word of God.  But we cannot confess the church’s confession with our mouths and deny it with our deeds.  We have learned this from the fathers of our church.

[Hermann Sasse, “Fathers of the Church,” The Lonely Way, 2:223-236.]

Oh, blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.

And when the fight is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors cometh rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blest.

But, lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day:
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of Glory passes on His Way.  (LSB 677:4-7)

I think I’ll have the people at my funeral sing this hymn twice (and then Lord, Thee I Love With All My Heart twice).  My favorite day in the Church calendar, after the Vigil of Easter, and this hymn has the clearest confession of the Resurrection of any in our hymnal.  There are very few hymns that go beyond “paradise the blest” to the “yet more glorious day.”  Whoever William How was, he had a better sense of the true hope of the Christian Faith than most American Christians today.  For all the saints, and for all the fathers, thanks be to God.

Timotheos

Come To A Common Decision About These External Matters

Now even though external rites and orders—such as masses, singing, reading, baptizing—add nothing to salvation, yet it is un-Christian to quarrel over such things and thereby to confuse the common people. We should consider the edification of the lay folk more important than our own ideas and opinions. Therefore, I pray all of you, my dear sirs, let each one surrender his own opinions and get together in a friendly way and come to a common decision about these external matters, so that there will be one uniform practice throughout your district instead of disorder—one thing being done here and another there—lest the common people get confused and discouraged.

For even though from the viewpoint of faith, the external orders are free and can without scruples be changed by anyone at any time, yet from the viewpoint of love, you are not free to use this liberty, but bound to consider the edification of the common people, as St. Paul says, I Corinthians 14 [:40], “All things should be done to edify,” and I Corinthians 6 [:12], “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful,” and I Corinthians 8 [:1], “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Think also of what he says there about those who have a knowledge of faith and of freedom, but who do not know how to use it; for they use it not for the edification of the people but for their own vainglory.

Now when your people are confused and offended by your lack of uniform order, you cannot plead, “Externals are free. Here in my own place I am going to do as I please.” But you are bound to consider the effect of your attitude on others. By faith be free in your conscience toward God, but by love be bound to serve your neighbor’s edification, as also St. Paul says, Romans 14 [15:2], “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him.” For we should not please ourselves, since Christ also pleased not himself, but us all.

But at the same time a preacher must watch and diligently instruct the people lest they take such uniform practices as divinely appointed and absolutely binding laws. He must explain that this is done for their own good so that the unity of Christian people may also find expression in externals which in themselves are irrelevant. Since the ceremonies or rites are not needed for the conscience or for salvation and yet are useful and necessary to govern the people externally, one must not enforce or have them accepted for any other reason except to maintain peace and unity between men. For between God and men it is faith that procures peace and unity.

This I said to the preachers so that they may consider love and their obligation toward the people, dealing with the people not in faith’s freedom but in love’s submission and service, preserving the freedom of faith before God. Therefore, when you hold mass, sing and read uniformly, according to a common order—the same in one place as in another—because you see that the people want and need it and you wish to edify rather than confuse them. For you are there for their edification, as St. Paul says, “We have received authority not to destroy but to build up” [II Cor. 10:8]. If for yourselves you have no need of such uniformity, thank God. But the people need it. And what are you but servants of the people, as St. Paul says, II Corinthians 2 [1:24], “We are not lords over your faith, but rather your servants for the sake of Jesus Christ.” [Luther, “A Christian Exhortation to the Livonians,” LW (AE) 53:47-48

[Timotheos]

Luther on Frequency of Eucharist

To the prudent and wise Lazarus Spengler at Nürnberg, etc. my friend and lord, who is so favorably inclined toward me

Grace and peace in Christ! Prudent, dear Lord and Friend! I received your letter, together with the document concerning the mass, and studied it diligently. Although I arrived at the conclusion that you do not need my counsel since God himself has provided you with such people in Nürnberg [who can advise you on this matter], yet at your request I shall willingly also add my voice.

First of all, it is proper and prudent not to compel anyone to come to or abstain from the sacrament, or to appoint particular times or places for it, thus trapping the consciences. Since St. Paul teaches, however, [in] I Corinthians 14 [:40, that] among Christians all things should be done in an orderly fashion, it seems good to me that the Provosts and ministers should get together and decide on a common and free procedure for this matter. The honorable city council should then see to it that this procedure is used, and thus preserve unity and uniformity. If I were asked for advice regarding such a procedure, I would suggest the following:

First, that all masses without communicants should be completely abolished; it is only right that they should be abolished, as their brief itself announces.

Second, that one or two masses should be celebrated on Sundays or on the days of the saints in the two parish churches, depending on whether there is a great or small number of communicants. If there were a need for it, or if it were considered desirable, the same could be done at the Spital.

Third, during the week mass could be celebrated on whatever day there is a need for it, that is, if there are some communicants present who ask for it and desire it. In this way no one would be forced to come to the sacrament, and yet everyone would be served [with the sacrament] in an orderly and sufficient way.

If the ministers complain about this, however, alleging that they are thus forced [to celebrate the Lord’s Supper], or lamenting that they are unworthy [to celebrate the Lord’s Supper], I would tell them that no one compels them except God himself through his call. For since they have the office, they are already obliged and compelled (on the basis of their calling and office) to administer the sacrament when it is requested of them; thus their excuses are void. This is the same as their obligation to preach, comfort, absolve, help the poor, and visit the sick, as often as these services are needed and demanded.

It also does not matter that someone may pretend to be unworthy because of his weak faith, shortcomings in his life, or coldness in devotion. He ought to look at his vocation and office, or even [better], at the Word of God which has called him. He may be impure and unworthy, yet the office and the call, or the Word, is sufficiently pure and worthy. And if he really believes he has been called, then he himself is, through this faith, worthy enough. For whoever believes he is called to the office of the church definitely also believes that his office and his work, and he himself in such an office, are acceptable and just before God; if he does not believe this, then it is also certain that he does not believe that his vocation and office are entrusted to him by God. …

Such an innovation may cause quite some commotion among the common people, but this is a risk which must be taken and put into the hands of God. But one must do everything to quiet any such commotion. This could be done in the following way: The undertaking of the visitation provides a good opportunity to admonish [the people] from the pulpit and to impress upon them that, as they themselves and the whole world well know, there have been many abuses in the worship, which we intend to correct.

Therefore they should be calm and not so outraged when some things are changed. Also in things which are of concern to all, no one should consider his own opinion to be the best. Rather all should devoutly help [and] pray to God, who does not wish anything in his church done according to man’s opinion, work, or word, but according to God’s Word and work (as St. Peter teaches), so that through His Spirit all things may be arranged in a blessed and good way. …

August 15, 1528

LW 49:205-210.

Notice that Luther assumes that the Sacrament will be celebrated at least weekly.

Timotheos

What is Clericalism?

It seems the ugly Stephanite beast has reared its head in The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.  From all the letters, blog posts, and Facebook comments in the past six months, you’d think that a cabal of clergy in cope and chasuble had stormed the International Center, thrown out every layperson, abolished voters’ assemblies, and made it a crime for non-clergy to talk about Jesus or even be in His presence.  But now a popular rebellion has arisen from the very roots of the grass [led, oops, by a bunch of clergy] to tear down the clerical elite with their bishops and Article XIVs.

The latest salvo aimed at priestcraft in all its forms comes from a former president (down with bishops!) of the LCMS (which, technically, makes him more bureaucrat than clergy).  Since the moderator is a little slow to approve comments, I post my response here:

President Kieschnick, with all due respect, I think this ought to be retracted. It is unproductive and divisive, especially following a convention that was perhaps the most unified we’ve seen in decades. You smear, by implication, every pastor who wears a clerical collar as wanting to dominate and be served, rather than to serve. I confess that my old sinful flesh would rather be served, but I doubt that temptation comes more easily to one in a collar than it does to one who wears a suit and tie, or jeans and a t-shirt.

Did you speak to any of those pastors in clerical collars? Do you know them? Or are you assuming the worst of them, because this is an easy card to play?

I have seen this “clergy-focused” canard thrown around recently, but I have yet to see any real evidence of it. The fact that seven of the ten Concordias have clergy as presidents doesn’t really tell us anything, nor does the fact that our president and vice-presidents are clergy. What about Boards of Regents? The laity are always represented, according to our bylaws. Voters at Synod conventions are equally divided between clergy and lay, and voters at district conventions are equal, as well (despite recent attempts to increase lay voters at conventions).

But those things are really beside the point, since the one standing out front is, as you say, to be a servant, rather than to lord it over those in his care. Therefore, if you have evidence that those in leadership positions have been lording it over those whom they ought to be serving, you should speak to them, rather than making vague accusations on a blog.

Further, the idea that we might somehow return to a sort of “Herr Pastor” culture in the Missouri Synod is laughable. If, after Stephan, such an LCMS existed, it certainly does not exist now. In what congregation of the Synod could a pastor, abusing his authority in the Gospel, ram his opinions and his way down the throats of his congregation, and not be run out of town on the slickest rail? Pastors don’t even have the authority to implement evangelical, Scriptural practices such as communion every Lord’s day without the fiercest opposition.

For every example of clergy attempting to exercise an unbiblical and unevangelical power, I could give you two of unbiblical and unevangelical lay domineering. But what does that prove, except that we’re all a bunch of damned sinners, pastors and lay alike?

Please don’t increase the unnecessary strife between pastors and people; each member of the Body has his or her own vocation, and it does not help to tear down the pastoral vocation in order to elevate the vocations of the laity.

I went searching for actual examples of clergy dominance, and the Facebook had this to say:  

I don’t know how the first person counts, but from this page, it looks to me like there are 35 lay people to 34 pastors (LCMS career missionaries).  Of the 1-2 year and other short-term missionaries, I highly doubt that they are even primarily clergy.  And if lay people have been removed from serving as missionaries, where is the evidence that it was because they weren’t pastors?  The above are not concrete examples; they are vague insinuations that require hard evidence.  Without such evidence, they just serve to stir up division and distrust between pastors and people.  And where is a degree needed for deacon or lay minister?  The LCMS doesn’t even have uniform language for these positions, let alone required degrees.

Further, cops who don’t wear uniforms don’t want people to know they’re cops.  I doubt that’s what the commenter wanted to say about pastors not wearing collars.  And I categorically deny that there is a special class of person called “theologian.”  Everyone who talks about God is a theologian, whether informed or uninformed, good or bad.  To preserve a class of theologian, above and apart from every Christian, is to denigrate lay people who study the Scriptures and give articulate and well-formed witness to Christ.  Not only that, but I find it hard to understand how a shepherd is supposed to shepherd the flock of God if he is not a theologian.

I don’t know about anyone else, but what I, as a pastor, want more than anything else is a theologically well-educated laity.  No, I don’t mean a seminary education.  I mean knowing the Scriptures and the Confessions, in order that they might do exactly what the above commenters want: to present the Gospel clearly and succinctly to their unbelieving family, friends, and neighbors within their vocations.  I want that.  And guess what?  They don’t have to be pastors to do it!  The cry of “clericalism!” (besides coming, strangely, from clergy) often comes from those who are, in practice, the most hyper-clerical of all.  Because they seem to think that lay people who are living out their vocations as Christians in the world are somehow not enough.  Instead of bearing witness within the places where God has put them, these anti-anti-clericalists want lay people to be “ministers.”  We’ve had this modernization of medieval monasticism feuchted on us for long enough.  (That is, unless you’re engaged in “ministry,” you’re not doing “Christian” work.)  If everyone is a minister, no one is.  And I wonder if that’s not what the end goal is.  There are more than a few people in the LCMS who think that the role/goal of pastors is to “work themselves out of a job.”  In other words, from a false translation of Ephesians 4 (see here, here, and here [as well as another essay by Hamann: “Church and Ministry: An Exegesis of Ephesians 4:1-16,” Lutheran Theological Journal 16:3 (December 1982)] for the technical evidence) has come a false idea of what a pastor is and is for.

A pastor is indeed given to the Church for the equipment of Christ’s saints, but not for the purpose of making them into little ministers.  He equips them for their life in the world (to do what they’ve been given to do) by doing what he’s been given to do: preach, teach, baptize, absolve, and give them Jesus’ Body and Blood.  This has nothing to do with pride, arrogance, or lording it over the flock of God which the pastor has been put there to serve; nor is it even about ability or education (but why would any congregation want a pastor who does not have the aptitude to teach and who can go no further in the Scriptures than the latest English translation combined with his feelings?).  This is simply about an Office, which–Lutherans confess–Jesus Himself has established, for the giving out of the forgiveness of sins.  Can lay people forgive sins?  Absolutely: within their vocations.  Can lay people preach the Gospel (as they clearly do in Acts 8:4)?  Absolutely: within their vocations.  Can lay people baptize?  Absolutely: within their vocations, as emergencies arise.

The whole “clergy-focused” argument is a denial of vocation and a return to what Luther vociferously opposed: the elevating of a certain vocation above all others.  It says to pastors: don’t do your vocation, we want to do it.  It says to lay people: don’t do your vocations, do the pastor’s.  When I as a pastor insist on doing my own vocation, it is exactly the opposite of clericalism: it is the upholding of every vocation as holy in Christ, including the pastor’s.

Is it clericalism to insist that the correct interpretation of the Scriptural Office of the Ministry is found in Articles V and XIV (as well as XXVIII) of the Augsburg Confession?  Then every single pastor in the LCMS and every single congregation of the LCMS is “clergy-focused,” because it is exactly these articles pastors vow to uphold in their ordinations and which congregations uphold in their constitutions.

Is it clericalism to want, as far as possible, the best trained pastors for every congregation in the Synod?  Then what is it to insist on giving congregations (who could otherwise have a fully trained pastor) pastors who don’t know the Biblical languages?

Is it clericalism to ask that our congregations abide by the Confessions they claim to, well, confess, and for them to put lay people who are publicly preaching and administering the Sacraments into the Office which was created by God for that purpose?  How would this deprive them of anything?  In fact, it would assure them that the man who is giving out the gifts of God in Christ is indeed put there to do exactly that.  No further degree necessary (although, again, is learning the Scriptures more deeply a bad thing?), no further cost.  Simply prayer and the laying on of hands to signify that this man is put into the one Office by God.  Instead of making up new terms, such as “licensing,” why not simply do what the Church has always done, and ordain them?  (And what is ordination, but a “license” to preach and teach according to AC XIV?  What’s with the neologisms?)

Is it clericalism to ask that churches that are planted have a man in the Office to do the AC V things?  How does this limit the missionary activity of lay people?

Vocation, vocation, vocation!  If we could get this straight, the struggles over and between pastors and lay people would essentially dry up (except, of course, for the peccator that remains in every pastor and every lay person!).  Pastors, you have a vocation partially outlined by your ordination vows and your Diploma of Vocation(!).  Do it.  If you don’t want to do it, don’t be a pastor.  Laymen, you have a vocation outlined by your relationships and what various people require from you.  Do it.  If you want to be a pastor, go through the process and be put into the Office.  Live your vocation.  It’s holy in Christ.  You don’t have to be a “professional church worker,” or even a non-professional church worker.  God has put the Body together in the way He wants it, and all the parts work together.  Let’s stop tearing down certain parts of the Body to elevate others, and let’s stop implying that certain members of the Body are less important because they’re not “doing ministry.”

Timotheos 

On Synod Conventions

From the first president of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod:

Here in America, we also use the arrangement of a synod [or council] to carry on the business of the Church; God forbid that we ever get to the point where we merely put on a big show and then have a convention in which we discuss all sorts of peripheral piffle about ceremonies, rules, and insignificant trifles.  Instead of that, may we always concentrate on the study of doctrine. …

To be sure, many synods have tried to imitate us in this practice….But how do they go about it?  One particular synod presented more than a hundred theses for discussion! … You see, whenever they got to the point where the synod had to make a decision, they repeatedly postponed a decision until the next year.  The only proper procedure is that you do not rest until you have achieved a clear and complete agreement.  When you then go home, you go your separate ways only in a physical sense, but spiritually you remain totally unified so that the devil cannot stir up any divisions. …

Therefore a synod’s primary purposes are 1) unity of confession and 2) integrity of practices.

Thank God, there is hardly a single primary doctrine that we have not thoroughly discussed in our Synod during the past thirty years.  And that is what we must continue to do.  That this is so important is evident from, among other things, the fact that more laypeople attend our doctrinal discussions than attend our business sessions[!].  It is our doctrine that makes our Synod so dear to their hearts. …

If the study of doctrine is not the number one priority at synodical conventions, then one of two things will happen: Either the convention will be manufacturing laws, or even worse, it will degenerate into an affair of mutual praise, love, assurance, and life insurance.

(C.F.W Walther, “Duties of an Evangelical Lutheran Synod,” At Home In The House of My Fathers, 299, 300, 301.)

May God preserve an Evangelical Lutheran Synod this week, and keep the convention from being “an affair of mutual praise, love, assurance, and life insurance”!

Timotheos