Will Things Ever Be the Same?

I have been seeing lots of articles asking how the Church will look after this pandemic is over. Will it be the same? Will it ever? Or will some things never be the same as they were?

Let me answer that question: We will be the same.

During this time we have adapted, we have adjusted, and we have in some ways expanded. What we have not done is change. Before, during, and after this pandemic, the Church is all about Christ and His gifts. Before, during, and after this pandemic, same Christ, same gifts, same Gospel. As it was before the pandemic, so it is now, and so it will be after.

Perhaps there are some churches which have lost their focus and for which being church meant something else. For them, maybe things will not be the same - and that would be a good thing! A return to a focus - or a re-focus - on Christ and what really matters. And maybe we have learned (or re-learned) this, too. And that’s a good thing.

But as far as delivering the gifts - nothing will change. We will still gather as God’s people. We will still sing. We will still confess and receive the absolution. We will still proclaim Christ and him crucified. We will still have baptisms. We will still give the Lord’s Supper - including using the chalice. We have not stopped, and we will not. For all this is the life of Christ given to us. And there is nothing more important.

So when this is all over, or at least restrictions are eased, and you come back to church, you know what you will find? The same church. You might sit farther apart for a while, maybe some of you will wear masks for a while. But those things aren’t what the church IS. What the church IS will not change. You’ll recognize it. You’ll hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. And you’ll rejoice in His goodness and mercy, that has brought us through this time - and all times - until He brings us home to Him.

Thanks be to God!

Ashes To Go? No!

You may have heard of it or seen it - a new fad for Ash Wednesday called "Ashes to go." A pastor or priest goes to a coffee shop, Metro Station, or some other public place and imposes ashes onto the foreheads of any who come and desire them. I think this is a really bad idea. Why?

Well, aside from the fact that I think it is feeding our society's appetite to be "spiritual but not religious" (aka the "I don't have to go to church" movement), this is the real, big problem with it: It gives the Law without the Gospel. Dust you are and to dust you will return, but then no forgiveness in Christ! No resurrection from the death of sin! The person leaves with a sign of sin and death imposed upon them, and the rest is up to them.

Yes, yes, if they are Christians perhaps they know the Gospel. But don't we proclaim it every Sunday because we need to hear it over and over again? Because our world catechizes us with the anti-Gospel? That's why we give it in the Lord's Supper, too!

As a theologian once said: The Gospel assumed is the Gospel denied. Let's stop this fad and instead proclaim the Gospel. Ashes are no good if Jesus doesn't wash them off of us.

Storm Damage

Last night during the storms that blew through our area a tree came down onto the church building that we rent for use. So the building will be unusable for a time. Hopefully we will be able to get in today and move what we need out of our closet there. Please keep us in your prayers.

One BIG Weekend!

This weekend we got one of our seminarians both ordained and married! Not sure I would advise that for others, but it made for both a busy and joyous weekend. Some pictures . . .

Me and my former seminarian!

A good group of pastors present. A great big THANKS! to Pastor Esget and the folks of Immanuel for allowing us to use their church for this day.

The happy couple with the pastors who participated in the service.

So as I said after the service . . . I have now catechized, baptized, ordained, and married George. There's only one thing left! Let's hope I do not have to do that one.  :-)

Our Weekend Guest

We were privileged to have Pastor Martin Orende of the Lutheran Church of Kenya with us this weekend. He is in St. Louis studying for his STM. Since I preached at one of his congregations when I was in Kenya, I invited him to come and preach at my congregation here. Perhaps we'll be able to have him back next year as well. Here are a few pictures from the weekend . . .

At the foot of the Washington monument.

In front of the White House.

At the Smithsonian Air and Space museum.

In front of the US Capitol.

Presenting an icon of St. Athanasius after the Divine Service.

Preach the Word . . . In Season and Out of Season

Due to the weather, Saint Athanasius will not have Divine Service in Vienna tomorrow. The likelihood is that even if we could get to the church building, neither the driveway nor the parking lot will be plowed, and there may or may not be power.

HOWEVER, there WILL be preaching! We will have a brief and adapted order of Matins online at our regular time, 10:15 am. Click here to go to our web site and get instructions for how to log in and join us.

The Lord bless and keep you, especially safe as we await the end of the snowfall and begin digging out.

Pastor Appreciation, Part 2

One of the best gifts I received on Sunday was not meant to be a "Pastor Appreciation" gift at all, but it was. One man, leaving the church after the service, told me something like this (I don't remember the actual words, but this was the gist):

"Pastor, 167 hours a week, it's chaos and trouble. One hour a week, it's right and peace."

How very, very cool is that?  :-)

The Sunday Transformation

I will post a final Higher Things post soon, maybe tomorrow. For today, just wanted to show you our sanctuary from this morning. The Adventists from whom we rent space for church have their Vacation Bible School this week, starting tonight. They always decorate quite heavily for this, as many churches do. But for them it includes the sanctuary, which is the space we also need. So, each year there is one Sunday (at least) where we have lots of less-than-worshipful-and-sacred things in the church. This year, it is Mt. Kilimanjaro! Here are the before and after pictures:

Here is the chancel when I arrived.

Here is the "Lutheranized" chancel!

We hung curtains in front of all their decorations and placed our altar, pulpit, and candles in from of the curtains. Nothing we could do about the things on the side walls, but at least our view forward wasn't bad. :-)

The Adventists are usually pretty good at taking their stuff down after their VBS is over, so hopefully next Sunday it will all be back to normal. 

For Mother's Day

Mother's Day is greatly emphasized in our world today, but it is not a day of joy for everyone. I have become more and more aware that importing civil holidays into the church can cause great pain to some. Mother's Day and motherhood is a complex thing. Consider the following:

+To those who gave birth this year to their first child—we celebrate with you.

+To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you.

+To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you.

+To those who experienced loss this year through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away—we mourn with you.

+To those who walk the hard path of infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment – we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this harder than it is.

+To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms – we need you.

+To those who have warm and close relationships with your children – we celebrate with you.

+To those who have disappointment, heart ache, and distance with your children – we both lament and hope with you.

+To those who lost their mothers this year – we grieve with you.

+To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother – we pray with you for healing.

+To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood – we are better for having you in our midst.

+To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you.

+And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising –we anticipate with you.

This Mother’s Day, we walk with all of you. Together rejoicing in the joys of this life, sorrowing in the trials, trusting in the mercy of Christ, and hoping in the resurrection to come upon His return.

(Note: I did not write this, but do not remember where I got it from. Please forgive the lack of attribution.)

Easter Hymns

I came across a bulletin for the Third Sunday of Easter recently (April 19) and in this particular church, they did not sing any Easter hymns on this Sunday! Really? We sing Easter hymns all through the Easter season - all seven Sundays. That's why Easter lasts a full 50 days - to celebrate it! And there are so many good Easter hymns; too many not to keep singing and rejoicing in the resurrection.

So my question to any of my brothers out there who may stumble upon this blog: Do you sing Easter hymns all through the Easter season? And if not, why not?

Ash Wednesday

Return to the Lord, your God,

for He is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

Do you live a double life? Think about it. You do. If you cannot figure out how, come to church tonight and I'll fill you in. Then we'll look at the One who didn't, and how He's the answer to ours.

Update: Sermon posted here.

No Favorites

I received a very good piece of advice from the recently retired Kantor Resch when I was at seminary. He said, "do not talk about or take into account favorites." Favorite hymns, favorite liturgies, favorite anything. Do everything in the Church based on the Word and the Word alone.

This avoids a lot of potential problems. Whenever anyone asks "why don't we sing my favorite hymn?" I simply respond: I do not pick hymns because of likes or dislikes, but because of the Word. The hymns that best fit the readings and theme of the day is what we sing. (Note: Sometimes there are hymns that fit well and sometimes not, but that is the goal! To have all that is spoken and sung unite in a common confession of the Word that day.)

This is also true for our liturgy. I have some folks whose favorite liturgy is Divine Service 3, some like Divine Service 4, and my organists absolutely hate Divine Service 2! (They tell me it is the most difficult to play.) Fine. We do them all over the course of a year, rotating seasonally. Why? Well, I recognize there is benefit in using only one liturgy and getting to know it well, but I also want my people exposed to as much of the hymnal and liturgies as possible. That way, when they travel or move to another place and attend another church, they will feel at home with whatever liturgy the church is using that day. They've done it and know it. That is a great benefit.

Do I have favorite hymns? Sure I do! But I won't tell you what they are. (I have too many anyway!) But I do not pick my favorites, or anyone else's, just because they are favorites. All in service of the Word and the Word alone.

Christ Is Risen!

Christ is risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

I pray you all had a good Holy Week and a wonderful celebration of the resurrection of our Lord today. My week was very good. As I said in a previous post, it was a week spent in God's Word, meditation, and prayer, writing many meditations and sermons. The services gave the the truth - both the truth of our sin but even more, the truth of our forgiveness in Christ's death and resurrection. And the culmination today with our Festival Divine Service. A very good week.

I usually manage to strain my voice by the end of the Easter service, but this year we have a new wireless microphone (thanks Dave!) and I love it! I can speak normally and be heard! What a great thing.  :-)

My wonderful wife made my Easter lamb for dinner tonight! I look forward to this every year.

Tomorrow I travel up to my father's house where my brother and sister and I will begin boxing and cleaning out the items still there. I usually try to play golf the Monday after Easter to take a day off and rest my head, but this will be a good break as well. And it will be good to spend a few days with my brother and sister. So a good nights sleep and then off to Philly in the morning.

Children's Choir

Yesterday our Sunday School children sang in our Divine Service. They have been learning the hymn The Gifts Christ Freely Gives (LSB #602). It's a great hymn for kids to learn and to teach them our theology. They have the first three verses learned so far, so yesterday, as we sang it for the office hymn, they sang verse 2 alone. They did great! And no, we did not line them up in the front of the church for show - they sang from the back. Hopefully we can continue to teach them hymns to keep singing in church. And learning them as children, they learn to love and cherish them, and they stay a part of them. So good job kids!

Bishop Omolo

We were very privileged to have Bishop Joseph Ochola Omolo from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya and his wife Ruth as our guests this weekend. Bishop Omolo has been in the United States about 5 weeks, thanking supporters, attending the International Lutheran Theological Conference in Atlanta, and gathering support for the church in Kenya, and especially Matongo Lutheran Seminary (of which he is the president) and his work with widows and orphans. We had a nice day walking around Washington, DC on Saturday so that he and Ruth could see the Capitol and the White House (though it was pretty windy and cold!) and then we were blessed to listen to him preach the Word of God for us as we celebrated All Saints Day. [Go here to listen to the sermon.] I looked forward to perhaps going back to Kenya to teach with Joseph again, should God so will. We will also soon have links, information, and opportunities for you to help the church in Kenya on our web site. Watch for updates!

Twelve

I'm at the Higher Things Conference in North Carolina with two of my children and another young lady from the parish. Today was the first day. So far we've had the opening Divine Service, the first plenary session, and the first breakout session. I think all were impressed with the Divine Service - how many were here and the gusto of the singing of the liturgy and hymns. They were also please that they know all the liturgies we will be doing and most of the hymns. I have trained them well! Much more to come tomorrow. I do the first of my presentations on Private Absolution tomorrow afternoon, and then again on Thursday morning - then I'm done. I've never presented here before, so I'm not sure how much to prepare or how it will go. I probably have too much. I went to one of the breakout sessions tonight, which I would say was just alright. I've also seen lots of pastor friends here. I am looking forward to an opportunity to talk and catch up with them. I'll write more tomorrow, if there is time. But it's getting late and we'll have Compline soon, so I'll sign off for now.

Good Weekend

What a good weekend we had as Dr. Dean Wenthe from our Ft. Wayne seminary was with us for our annual Good Shepherd Seminar. Click here to go to our web page where the audio has been posted. This is always a most enjoyable weekend for me as I get a chance to sit back and be fed - first at the seminar and then in the Divine Service as I get to sit and listen to the sermon. What a treat. The weekend always flies by so fast, though! Now to begin the thought process for who to invite next year . . .

Preaching Challenges, Part Deux

To follow up on my post of yesterday, about the struggles that I seem to have every year to preach on Good Shepherd Sunday . . . it seems like this should be an easy Sunday to preach on, but for me it's not. I think this is so because I am conscious of how easy it is to preach an unchristian message this day. What do I mean by that? A sermon where the forgiveness of sins is not central. The picture of the Good Shepherd is one of feeding and care and rest - God is taking care of you, providing for you, and protecting you. That's all true, of course, but is it the Gospel? Is that not a sermon you could also hear in many other religions that are not Christian? Indeed, it is. So there must be more to the sermon than that. There must be the theology of the cross.

So the challenge I face each year is to take a true, but incomplete, picture of the Good Shepherd and expand it in the minds of my people, so that they think of the true care we receive from Christ in His death and resurrection and in the forgiveness of their sins. And I think that is where I have been a bit clumsy or challenged. This year I took the approach that we have a Good Shepherd, but He may not always seem good, because we don't always know what good is. Like when parents force their children to eat their vegetables - the child thinks that's horrible, but the parents know this is good. It is at those times when we think our Shepherd isn't being good that we are tempted to wander and look for greener pastures (Law). But even then, our Good Shepherd is good, leaving the 99 to go after the one and bring us back in forgiveness (Gospel).

So far, so good, I think. But notice - the cross still isn't there. Oh, yes, it's implicit in the forgiveness of sins, but it needs to be explicit. I could just add it - forgiveness earned and won for us on the cross, but that seems forced and artificial. Better, I think, to try here to use the analogy given in the Gospel of the satanic wolf and that Jesus stood between us and the wolf to save us from him; to save us from death. That works, but now notice that the cross still isn't linked to the atonement, but to rescuing us from death and satan. Again, true enough, and there's an implicit connection there . . . but can you see how I am having trouble tying the whole bundle together?

Anyway, I wonder if other pastors have similar problems on this or other weeks? The challenge isn't bad - it forces me to think and study and pray to proclaim the Word better, and that's all good. And as I said yesterday, it is a great comfort to know that the Spirit works through my meager and often clumsy proclamation. That's not an excuse for bad sermons! But it is a comfort. The harvest is His, and He will work. He promised.

Preaching Challenges

Well, it happened again. I was not pleased with my sermon yesterday. I say again because it seems like I have trouble every year with Good Shepherd Sunday. Which seems strange to me. You'd think this would be an easy week, but for some reason, I don't ever feel comfortable or satisfied with my sermons on this week. There are other weeks in the year when it seems I am consistently happy with my sermons - the First Sunday in Lent and the temptation of Jesus comes to mind. But there are other weeks that I often seem to struggle with. Maybe it's like that for other pastors too. I know that God will bless the Word that was preached and proclaimed, not just in the sermon but also in the readings, liturgy, and hymns. It is a great blessing to know that and rely on it. Still, I pray the Lord help me get better every week in my proclamation of His Word. And as I have often said, one of the good things about preaching every week (though I get this coming Sunday off because Dr. Wenthe from the seminary will be preaching for me!) is that you never get to obsess about how good or bad you think your sermon was - you have to move on to the next week and the next sermon. That's good. It helps me to rely more on God and His Word and Spirit and promise to work through even a sinner and a pastor who often falls short, like me.

Maybe I'll write tomorrow about some of the challenges I think come with preaching on Good Shepherd Sunday . . .

A Great Day

A great day yesterday . . . the Feast of Pentecost with a full Divine Service with processions and incense . . . a narrative sermon which I think turned out pretty well (if I do say so myself!) . . . some visitors that added to our joy . . . welcoming back Grace, who interned in our area last summer and now has a full time job here . . . the wedding of Elizabeth and Rich in the afternoon - not even the severe thunderstorm at the end of the service could remove the smiles from faces . . . and then a wonderful reception with a wonderful family. It made for a long day (which I wouldn't want to do every week!), but a great day. What blessings God continues to show upon us!