When You Can't Come to Church

It's been an, uh, interesting Birth Week thanks to this coronavirus. At Tuesday evening's Council meeting while eating ice cream and other treats for the Pastor's 61st birthday, after having already taken actions over the past week to minimize the risk of infection, we did everything but completely shut down Resurrection. And then Thursday afternoon the Governor ordered everyone in the state to stay at home, except for "essential business," from Friday evening through Tuesday, April 7. 17 days Yes, we can shop for food and medicines -- toilet paper had already disappeared from the shelves -- and there are other "essential services" that continue (the list includes "licensed medical cannibis dispensaries and licensed cannibis cultivation centers; reproductive healthcare providers"). But basically everything is shut down.

So how does one pastor a flock when, to try to prevent the spread of a disease for which there is no known treatment, he's not supposed to be in others' presence? Especially when most of the congregation is people who are considered most vulnerable -- the aged (which in the US is 60+ -- so that includes me!), those living in close proximity to others (such as senior communities, all of which were already closing to "outsiders"), etc. -- while many of the "younger" set work with them.

Our most visible step is for me to live stream daily prayer. For the beginning, that's Morning Prayer (Matins) at 10 o'clock in the morning, Evening Prayer (Vespers) at 7 in the evening. Every day. Started Friday evening with Facebook Live from my page. I'd played with that before, but it actually works rather easily with the iPhone app. Even as we were making the decision to do this Thursday evening, I took the first steps to do this on my YouTube Channel, since lots of folks aren't on Facebook. I've not broadcast live there yet, but I have uploaded the last three. Here's tonight's Vespers:

You are welcome to share these links with others.

I'm learning that it's one thing to pray the offices in the church my myself, it's another thing to pray them in the church with a (small) congregation, and it's yet another to pray them by myself while on camera. But I grew accustomed to the first two, so I should become accustomed to the third. Though hopefully not too comfortable.

Once upon a time in the face of grave danger people flocked to churches. Today even those who want to aren't able to do so. For the short term I think that's okay; this gives our health officials, scientist, and the medical profession (yes, I'm avoiding a now-common description) time to get some sort of handle on the spread of this disease. For the moment, streaming congregation-less worship services is a starting point for the Church to keep its connections. But it's only a start, particularly for a Faith where "he became incarnate from the virgin Mary, and was made man."

At the heart of being a pastor is being with the flock I've been called to. That happens when we come together, on the Lord's Day, on other days. We can offer "virtual" or "remote community" for a short while. But many in the Church are unable to access even that. What do we do for them to remain among us?

Behold, the Cross!

Behold, the life-giving cross on which was hung the salvation of the whole world.
Oh, come, let us worship him.

Resurrection Lutheran Church
Godfrey, Illinois, USA

Smiling at Vespers

My favorite evening hymn is "The Day You Gave Us, Lord, Has Ended" (LBW #274) partly because the fourth stanza always makes me smile:

The sun, here having set, is waking
Your children under western skies,...

You see, I grew up in Southern California, 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean. From childhood, when the Sun was setting for us, I've imagined it rising over Japan. But Japan ("The Land of the Rising Sun") is in the east, so (at least in my mind) the setting sun is waking children under eastern skies.

One evening I finally realized that the hymnwriter John Ellerton was from England, not California. And as a little boy he likely never thought he should be able to see the Sun setting behind Japan.

And hour by hour, as day is breaking,
Fresh hymns of thankful praise arise.

From a post of mine of a couple of years ago at ALPB Forum Online.

Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle

A Good Friday hymn that continues to grow on me is the ancient Latin hymn Pange lingua, parts of which appear as two different hymns in the Lutheran Book of Worship: Praise the Savior, Now and Ever, an English translation of the Swedish translation (Upp, min tunga, which I learned in the Vadstena Abbey Church through the Society of St. Birgitta) of the Latin, and Sing, My Tongue, in a translation credited in the LBW to "John Mason Neale, alt." Our friend "alt." has apparently worked considerably on Father Neale's original translation, beginning with Fr. Percy Dearmer over 100 years ago.

The original Latin hymn is by the 6th-century Latin poet (and Bishop of Portiers) Venantius Fortunatus. Here's an English translation of the full hymn (we sing five stanzas in LBW, immediately after the Cross is brought in procession to the front of the Church), by Dearmer and Neale:

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,
Sing the ending of the fray;
Now above the cross, the trophy,
Sound the loud triumphant lay:
Tell how Christ the world’s Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.

He, our maker, deeply grieving
That the first made Adam fell,
When he ate the fruit forbidden
Whose reward was death and hell,
Marked e’en then this tree the ruin
Of the first tree to dispel.

Tell how, when at length the fullness,
Of th’appointed time was come,
Christ, the Word, was born of woman,
Left for us His heavenly home;
Showed us human life made perfect,
Shone as light amid the gloom.

Lo! He lies an Infant weeping,
Where the narrow manger stands,
While the mother-maid His members
Wraps in mean and lowly bands,
And the swaddling clothes is winding
Round His helpless feet and hands.

Thus, with thirty years accomplished,
Went He forth from Nazareth,
Destined, dedicated, willing,
Wrought His work, and met His death.
Like a lamb He humbly yielded
On the cross His dying breath.

There the nails and spears He suffers,
Vinegar, and gall, and reed;
From His sacred body piercèd
Blood and water both proceed;
Precious flood, which all creation
From the stain of sin hath freed.

Faithful cross, thou sign of triumph,
Now for us the noblest tree,
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be;
Symbol of the world’s redemption,
For the weight that hung on thee!

Bend thy boughs, O tree of glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigor
That thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of heavenly beauty
On thy bosom gently tend!

Thou alone wast counted worthy
This world’s ransom to sustain,
That a shipwrecked race forever
Might a port of refuge gain,
With the sacred blood anointed
Of the Lamb of sinners slain.

To the Trinity be glory
Everlasting, as is meet:
Equal to the Father, equal
To the Son, and Paraclete:
God the Three in One, whose praises
All created things repeat.

"You are witnesses of these things..."

From the ALPB Forum Online thread "A Blessed Ascension Day":

Last evening was the 15th consecutive year the Ascension of Our Lord was observed at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Peoria on the Feast Day.

Our typical practice as been what Frank Senn describes as Cathedral Vespers and the Eucharist, using Evening Prayer and Holy Communion Setting III of LBW. He reports this as a better alternative to using parts of Vespers to replace the entrance rite for Holy Communion by letting each liturgy stand on its own, rather than asking it to do something else.

Vespers includes the Lucinarium (at 7pm) with procession, during which all worshipers are invited to light their own candles, Pslam 141, and the Litany. At its "Amen", the organist offers a Prelude (giving me time to change from choir dress into Eucharistic vestments when I'm the celebrant). The eucharistic procession is to the Gloria in excelsis, omitting only the Psalmody and the Prayer of the Church while following the rest of Setting III.

We, too, are not air-conditioned, so while I had been able to get the church down to 75 F in the morning -- think "brick oven" in these longer, warmer, sunny days -- it was 82 in the late afternoon when I noticed the organist perspiring as she practiced the liturgy, so I turned the ceiling and exhaust fans up and brought in a couple more to get the air moving. It's not too bad, but the acolytes aren't used to the air moving quite that much!

We specifically invited not only our sister Conference congregations (which we've always done), but all ELCA full communion partner congregations within the greater Peoria area -- that adds up to over 60 congregations --, got the word out to at least some in the Via de Cristo community (noting particularly that the preacher, the Synod's Director for Evangelical Mission, had been a spiritual director for last month's Three Days), and even got a notice in Sunday's Journal Star. Still, it's a Thursday evening at the end of May, on the South Side of Peoria, conflicting with some graduations and the community theatre.

23 in attendance (on the lower side for Ascension and a guest preacher) from 8-9 different congregations. (Some of our "regulars" had other commitments.) The Gospel was proclaimed, the Sacrament was administered, the world was raised in prayer. And, as is typical at Zion, it's a good hour or more after the Dismissal before we can put away the remaining cookies, clean up the coffee and juice, and I can finally lock the doors and retire for the evening.

Come, Holy Spirit...

Pope Benedict XXVI: Ash Wednesday Homily

I had to run to the store for some olive oil this morning before the Ash Wednesday service and, on the way back, Sebastian's radio (Sebastian is my 2002 Golf TDI) was tuned to our local EWTN Radio station, which was airing the Ash Wednesday Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI. As I said to the congregation, not only is this Pope a fine theologian, he can preach.

...I would like to reflect on the liturgical sign of the ashes, a material sign, a natural element that, in the Liturgy, becomes a sacred symbol, so important on this day that marks the start of our Lenten journey. In ancient times, in the Jewish culture, it was common to sprinkle one’s head with ashes as a sign of penance, and to dress in sack-cloth and rags. For us Christians, there is this one moment which has important symbolic and spiritual relevance.

Ashes are the material sign that brings the cosmos into the Liturgy. The most important signs are those of the Sacraments: water, oil, bread and wine, which become true sacramental elements through which we communicate the Grace of Christ who comes among us. The ashes are not a sacramental sign, but they are linked with prayer and the sanctification of the Christian people. Before the ashes are placed on our heads, they are blessed according to two possible formulae: in the first they are called “austere symbols”, in the second, we invoke a blessing directly upon them, referring to the text in the Book of Genesis which can also accompany the imposition of the ashes: “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return”.

Let us reflect for a moment on this passage of Genesis.

It concludes with a judgement made by God after original sin. God curses the serpent who caused man and woman to commit sin. Then He punishes the woman saying she will suffer the pains of giving birth. Then He punishes the man, saying he will suffer the fatigue of labour and He curses the soil saying “accursed be the soil because of you, because of your sin.” The man and woman are not cursed directly as the serpent is, but because of Adam’s sin. Let us reread the account of how God created man from the Earth. “God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then He breathed into his nostrils, a breath of life. Thus man became a live being. Then God planted a garden in Eden, which is in the East, and there He put the man He had fashioned.” Thus the sign of the ashes recalls the great story of creation which tells us that being human means unifying matter with Divine breath, using the image of dust formed by God and given life by His breath, breathed into the nostrils of the new creature.

In the Genesis account, the symbol of dust takes on a negative connotation because of sin. Before the fall the soil is totally good: through God’s work it is capable of producing “every kind of tree enticing to look at and good to eat.” After the fall and following the divine curse it produces only thorns and brambles and only in exchange for the sweat of man’s brow will it surrender its fruits....

That's what I got to hear (in translation from Italian) about an hour before placing ashes on some 30 foreheads and preaching Ash Wednesday myself. You can (like me) read the rest of it here.

Celebrate His Birth!

You are invited to join the congregation of
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Peoria
in celebrating

The Nativity of Our Lord

Christmass Eve Service of Carols and Candlelight
with Holy Communion @ 7:00 pm

Christmass Day Communion @ 9:00 am

at
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church
1534 S. Easton Avenue, Peoria
(at Easton and Hayes, 1 block west of Jefferson and Western)

Phone: (309) 637-9150

The Rev. Steven Paul Tibbetts, STS, Pastor

And in the meantime (or if you cannot join with us or your own congregation), take time to hear the sacred music of the Christmass season on Lutheran Public Radio online.

Sunday Morning

Spooky!

Celebrate the Birth of Christ!

You are invited to join the congregation of
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Peoria
in celebrating

The Nativity of Our Lord
Friday, December 24, 2010


Christmass Eve Service of Carols and Candlelight
with Holy Communion @ 7:00 pm
at
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church
1534 S. Easton Avenue, Peoria
(at Easton and Hayes, 1 block west of Jefferson and Western)

Phone: (309) 637-9150

The Rev. Steven Paul Tibbetts, STS, Pastor

Alleluia! Christ Is Risen!

He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

O God, on this day you unlocked the way to eternity by conquering death for us through your only Son.

Promise that you will therefore help us to pursue this new hope which you have inspired in us.

Through the same Jesus Christ, your Son our Lord. He lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

Deus, qui hodierna die per Unigenitum tuum aeternitatis nobis aditum devicta morte reserasti: vota nostra, quae praeveniendo aspiras, etiam adjuvando prosequere. Per eumdem Dominum.

Photo: Easter 2009, Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Peoria

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The Gelasian Collect (Prayer of the Day) for Easter Day, as found and translated in Prayers for the Eucharistic Gathering, by Eugene Andrew Lehrke. as prayed at Zion at both the 6:30 am and 10 am services.

Good Friday

Look down on your family, O Lord.

For us our Lord Jesus Christ did not hesitate to be betrayed into evil hands and tormented by a cross.

Through the same Jesus Christ, your Son our Lord. He lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

Respice quaesumus, Domine super hanc familiam tuam, pro qua Dominus noster Jusus Christus non dubitavit manibus tradi nocentium, et crucis subire tormentum, qui tecum.

Photo: Good Friday 2010, Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Peoria, Illinois

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Today's Prayer of the Day and the first words I speak in the noon Good Friday Liturgy, as found and translated in Prayers for the Eucharistic Gathering, by Eugene Andrew Lehrke. It's Pastor Lehrke's translation of the Latin prayer (above) first found in the 5th Century (?) Gelasian Sacramentary, and which was used in the pre-Vatican II Roman Missal for Holy Wednesday.

The STS at Worship

I just learned about this video snip from the opening Eucharist at last Fall's General Retreat of the Society of the Holy Trinity that's been on YouTube. The setting is the Chapel at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary for the Feast of St. Michael and All Saints 2009 as we are singing the grand hymn, "Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones".



In case you're wondering, you can see me in my alb (I'm the Thurifer) standing near the Processional Cross which is to the the right-side (from the viewer's perspective) of the Altar.

For Hallowe'en/Reformation Day

From "BrotherBoris" on ALPB Forum Online:

"The Reformed are like vampires. They are horrified by the sign of the cross, literally run away from holy water (I wonder if it burns them?) and suck any good ceremonial out of a congregation. No wonder they dress in that dreary black robe of death. God forbid we should have something beautiful, colorful and worthy of the King of Kings like a Gold colored Chasuble or a Gold plated chalice instead of some plastic, disposable Nyquil cup for the Sacrament."

Trick or treat!!

Schifrin: Delight, Design, and Destiny

I don't recall what I was expecting from Amy Schfrin, then the campus pastor (or recently departed campus pastor) at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, when she was announced as a speaker for ALPB's Conference on Sexuality in Kansas City in October 2002. I do know that her Ritualizing Life or Ritualizing Death blew me away -- and you can read it in Christian Sexuality: Normative & Pastoral Principles -- and my response to her opened up some interesting conversations between the two of us since then when we've met on occasion over the years.

The latest issue of Let's Talk, the independent theological journal of the ELCA's Metropolitan Chicago Synod, offers several responses to Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust and Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies. And once again, Pastor Schifrin blows me away with Delight, Design and Destiny: Toward a Doxological Ethics of Sexuality. Here it is in its entirety.

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Delight, Design and Destiny: Toward a Doxological Ethics of Sexuality

A Critique of the ELCA Human Sexuality Statement and the Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies, 2009

(From Let's Talk : Pentecost 2009 : Volume 14, Issue 1)

By Amy C. Schifrin

The cosmetic separation of ethics from doxology is a frequent problem when Christians take human response and action as the starting point in determining how they are to live. The proposed ELCA Social Statement, "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" is not unusual in this approach, but such a move determines the misguided course of the nature of the "Report and Recommendations on Ministry Policies" that will follow.

The Social Statement asks what can be considered a sort of third-use-of-the-law type of question, "How do we understand human sexuality within the context of Jesus' invitation to love God and love our neighbor?" The 'how' of this question applies to what sort of actions we, as Christians, will take once we understand what Jesus "invites" us to do.

The framing of the question is a thin veneer for its theological underpinnings, for within its introductory statement command is turned to invitation, and obedience into pretense. In a few short moves love will become tolerance, sincerity will replace truth, and the bound conscience will no longer be bound to Holy Scripture but to its own Old Adamic interpretation of human experience apart from the One whose Word speaks us into life.

A prior question to the one proposed in the document might be, "How does God use His creation of sexually differentiated beings — male and female — in service of His own commandments to love Him and to love our neighbor?" If we do not trust that His creation of us as male and female — complementary; other; made for love — is good. . . if we do not trust His design, or that He delights in His design, or that His design is connected to the destiny He intends for His good creation, our questions are rooted in a suspicion that will only lead to our own death.

The social sciences have many things to tell us, but they seek meaning empirically, not doxologically. When it comes to understanding sacramentality, whether it be the sacramentality of the design of God's creation or the sacramentality of word and water, bread and wine, their suspicions leave them bereft. The gifts that come from God's steadfast love direct us to His heart — He who is the author and giver of all life (Gen. 2:7); He who draws all people to Himself (John 12:32); He who is preparing us to meet Him as one prepares a bride to meet her beloved husband (Rev. 19:7).

If the 'experts' in our secular society observe the wanton behavior of people and find it common, or even normative, they are not bound to speak both law and gospel for the sake of their neighbors.^[1] The Church, however, the body shaped in the cruciform body of her Lord, is so bound. The Church born in the sacramental love of the Triune God, and which has no life apart from Him is His herald, one which calls all people to worship Him — in Spirit and Truth (John 4:23); with their own bodies as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1); with His law written on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33); and with His praise on their lips (Psalm 100).

Our consciences are bound here and nowhere else, and as unpopular or counter-cultural as it might be, the triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — has promised to sustain us until Christ comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead. We are bound to care for our neighbors, and we are called to do so within the sacred frame of God's holy and never-ending love. People may claim in all sincerity to be acting in good conscience, but if their conscience is misinformed, can it be good in the sense that what is good is also what is true?

The elevated value of 'tolerance' that accompanies the ELCA documents with regard to the bound conscience is an attempt to silence what has been passed on as the deposit of faith. Rather, it is the apostolic witness that should be privileged. In saying that we must respect all the voices, the solas of the faith are reduced to one voice among many. The voices that are given equal weight come from those whose interpretation of raw experience apart from the apostolic witness, like all such interpretation, is inevitably self-serving — for the self is, indeed, turned in upon the self.^[2]

The social statement and ensuing recommendations ask us to believe that these proposed changes are for the sake of the neighbor. In some way, we and all of our neighbors seek the companionship of human community. In some way, whether appropriately ordered or destructively disordered, all people desire love, touch, a place to rest and comfort. To hold out that they can receive God's intention for us to have such goodness in a same-sex union is the equivalent of false advertising.

We need to distinguish between the need and a distortion of the need. For no matter how much we might pretend that it were not so, the complementarity between the one who cries "this at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" and the one whose creation was designed for unity with him, can never come to fulfillment or fruition between two members of the same sex. The gift of the fullness of erotic love can be simulated, but like all disordered loving, at the same time that it offers momentary pleasure, it also diminishes who God has intended each one to be.

Neither document examines the multiplicity of reasons or experiences that could lead an individual to come to the self-identification of homosexual. Anything from familial abuse, or the bullying that exacerbates a young person's variations from the media's images of masculinity and femininity, or resentment, or the use of one's body to make a political statement may shape such self-identification. To regularize such an identity (which in its development may be quite fluid) and then bind one to that identity in a relationship blessed by the church is to lock someone into a state that God never intended.

Monogamy and longevity, public accountability and commitment will never turn a same-gendered partner into a sexual other, one whose complementarity allows for the fullness of love written into the creation. Since we are called to care for our neighbor, placing such a barrier to the neighbor's spiritual and relational growth is the opposite of the healing that comes when one is living in the freedom of God's goodness.

While the state may regulate, it is the Church, speaking and acting in trust of the promise of the Triune God that blesses such unions of man and woman. State laws can change with the vote of the people, a bill in a legislature, or a court decision, but the blessing of God comes through faithful apostolic witness, proclaimed in the assembly and enacted in ritual designed to mirror God's intentions.^[3]

Marriage rites are not simply about our commitments to each other, but about God's commitment to us. And God in His wisdom uses this union of man and woman as an eschatological sign of how intimate his love is for us — a love stronger than death, for the Bridegroom will love his Bride, the church, eternally.

If same-sex unions are placed on a par with marriage — and they will have to be if the ELCA adopts the structurally flexible option (How can pastors who are homosexual in their self-understanding be in publicly accountable monogamous relationships without such rites?), the significance of a marriage and the marriage rite will be summarily reduced. If one commitment is just as good and right and valid as another, the eschatological sign written deeply into the creation is lost to the church . . . and if lost to the church, where will it be spoken?

This is the place where the egregious nature of the recommendations is exposed. A series of changes to the standards for the life of clergy ("rostered leaders") is proposed with an oft repeated refrain to "find a way" to accomplish the changes, while at the same time there is an explicit restriction against speaking of changes or additions to the rites of the church.

Did the majority of the task force think that there would be any other way for pastoral candidates who are homosexual in their self-understanding (i.e., whose homoerotic affections and inclinations speak more loudly to them than any other voices) to live a "life-long, committed, monogamous, same-gendered relationship" without a public ritual that celebrates, protects and blesses such a union? The reason given^[4] that a Rite of Same-Sex blessing is to not be proposed does not ring true, because the changes in the standards would precipitate an official rite in order that there be public and ecclesial accountability.

New worlds are made in ritual enactment. We weren't there when the world was made, we weren't there when the world was made new in the bursting of the tomb, and we may not be there when life on this earth as we know it comes to an end. However, in our ritual life, these events are made ours as we are drawn into the resurrected life of our Lord, He who was there when the waters were formed and who will call our names when crystal fountain flows.

In our ritual, liturgical life we enter into the mystery of His passion. In our liturgical assembly, the life of faith is given us in word and sign, and our maturity in this same faith is also expressed and confirmed in the rites of transition that surround birth, death, and marriage. These rites are epiphanic, that is, through them we at last see what God intends for us to see in faith.

The rite of marriage is an event in which we act out what we believe about our creation, and we discover even more about the One in whom we believe — He who has created us for love. With the eyes of faith, we see why God gave us the sexual differentiation of male and female — we were made to love each other. And now this love will serve as yet another reminder of the all-consuming love that Christ, our Lord, has for His church.^[5]

The rites of the church are God's way of giving us a means to live to the praise of His glory. The designing of a rite that binds two people of the same gender together for this life is without this epiphanic dimension, for the binding together of two people of the same gender will leave them with themselves, untransformed.

The Report and Recommendations sets before us two positions, one of continuity and one of change, and it seeks to set these positions before the assembly as equally valid. Here, as it consistently uses the term "same-gender" with regard to particular "orientations" and "relationships," it claims a distinctive identity for those who want the church to approve of their homoerotic desires and inclinations as being natural, right, and fitting.

The social statement has made a clear case for the superiority, appropriateness, and emotional and spiritual health of lifelong, monogamous, committed relationships (which hitherto have been reserved for a male-female relationship) as opposed to transient and/or cohabiting arrangements where the potential for pain is ever immanent. Now the recommendations will use that information as they present the "new" position of affirming life-long, committed, monogamous, same-gendered relationships, because if its good for male-female relationships, how can we deny that it would be good for male-male or female-female relationships, if indeed same-gendered "relationships" are just as pleasing to God?

Without the key piece — i.e., the doxological expression that shapes our faith — one can follow this line of logic all the way up to claiming the church's institution of a Same-Sex Blessing and the ordination of folks who seek life-long, monogamous, same-gendered relationships to be acts of justice, of civil rights; but the ground upon which this argument is built is where the fallacy lies. Males and females were not given the gifts of sexual expression for such homoerotic activity.

The Holy Scriptures have no word of blessing for acts of homoeroticism — regardless of relational contexts, and the church's attempt to sacralize such pairings would work against the health of the neighbor now and for generations to come.^[6] Lex supplicandi legem stauat credendi!^[7] Such 'ecclesiastical' rites would work to change the beliefs all those who participate in them.

Because the proposed social statement starts in the wrong place, the recommendations end in the wrong place, modeling themselves on democratic rather than Biblical justice. True justice and righteousness are rooted in God's steadfast love, so that when our lives reflect His righteousness we are doing what He has made us to do.

So indeed, how does God use His creation of sexually differentiated beings — male and female — in service of His own commandments to love Him and to love our neighbor? Because He has made us in such a way, fitting, complementary, opposite, and paired, He gives us the holy estate of marriage in which lovemaking is an act of faith that He has provided a beloved spouse as a sign of His eternal goodness. For such goodness we give Him praise and from the strength of our homes we work together to care for all in need.

God has made us in such a way that sexual expression and spiritual identity are closely bound, for in His establishment of marriage the nakedness of heart and the nakedness of the body flourish in a covenant of trust and love — and the lovemaking of a husband and wife, with all its joy, delight, tenderness, and passion are among the dearest of His gifts.

For those who receive such a great gift, loving a spouse within God's covenant is both an expression of obedience and a sign to the world of how deeply He loves us all. Trusting that it is He who provided this earthly other for us, trusting that His establishment of marriage for men and women is good, our everyday actions of caring for a spouse become a living doxology, and incarnate ethics of praise.

The Rev. Dr. Amy C. Schifrin
Intentional Interim Pastor, Lower Susquehanna Synod, ELCA
Currently serving Holy Trinity, Hershey, Pennsylvania

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Endnotes

^[1] They may use common sense, but they're not even bound to do that.

^[2] If this can happen with the sexuality issue, why not with any other issue? In this way the sexuality issue is a symptom that reveals a far greater problem in the ELCA, where popular culture's ways of reading scripture and designing rites become the great shapers of how the Church prays when we gather in Christ's name.

^[3] Even in Luther's 1529 "Order of Marriage for Common Pastors" (LW 53:111), vows were exchanged at the church door, but the words and gesture of blessing occurred in front of the altar, where the pastor, with hands raised, spoke the words of Genesis 2:18, 21-24, which then served "as a kind of words of institution for marriage." Philip H. Pfatteicher, Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship: Lutheran Liturgy in Its Ecumenical Context (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990), 459.

^[4] The Report and Recommendations acknowledges that "this church does not have biblical or theological consensus on the matter," so that at this time, ritual matters will be left to local congregations (lines 319-325). A chaotic proposal at best, idiosyncratic rather than ecclesial, it may mirror the worst of the wider culture's influence on the design of the church's rites for marriage, so that the emphasis of the rite is on the couple's "personality," not on the faithfulness of God.

^[5] "Lord Jesus Christ, as you freely give yourself to your bride the Church, grant that the mystery of the union of man and woman in marriage may reveal to the world the self-giving love which you have for your church; and to you with the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory and honor, now and forever. Amen" Post-Communion Prayer for Marriage, LBW, Minister's Desk Edition, 192.

^[6] It would also work against the life of the church because how one deals with the issue of blessing the unions of self-identified homosexuals will become the litmus test within the call process.

^[7] "The law of prayer determines the law of belief." Prosper of Aquitaine.

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Permission is granted for reprint and distribution of Let’s Talk in part or in its entirety, provided the journal title, issue date, and author(s) are cited on all copies.

Renewal of Commitment to Priestly Service

The pews on the Gospel side and the side aisles were full as I entered the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria a couple minutes before one o'clock. The Epistle side was empty, set aside for the priests of the Diocese of Peoria who would in just a few moments process into Cathedral for the annual Chrism Mass, where they would renew their vows and Bishop Daniel Jenky, CSC, would bless the oils to be used in the coming year for sacramental use.

After his sermon, Bishop Jenky invited his priests to stand:

Bishop: My brothers, today we celebrate the memory of the first Eucharist, at which our Lord Jesus Christ shared with his apostles and with us his call to the priestly service of his Church. Now, in the presence of your bishop and God's holy people, are you ready to renew your own dedication to Christ as priests of his new covenant?

Priests: I am.

Bishop: At your ordination you accepted the responsibilities of the priesthood out of love for the Lord Jesus and his Church. Are you resolved to unite yourselves more closely to Christ and try to become more like him by joyfully sacrificing your own pleasure and ambition to bring his peace and love to your brothers and sisters?

Priests: I am.

Bishop: Are you resolved to be faithful ministers of the mysteries of God, to celebrate the Eucharist and the other liturgical service with sincere devotion? Are you resolved to imitate Jesus Christ, the head and shepherd of the Church, by teaching Christian faith without thinking of your own profit, solely for the well-being of the people you were sent to serve?

Priests: I am.

Bishop: (to the people) My brothers and sisters, pray for your priests. Ask the Lord to bless them with the fullness of his love, to help them be faithful ministers of Christ the High Priest, so that they will be able to lead you to him, the fountain of your salvation.

People: Lord Jesus Christ, hear and answer our prayer.

Bishop: Pray also for me that despite my own unworthiness I may faithfully fulfill the office of the apostle which Jesus Christ has entrusted to me. Pray that I may become more like our High Priest and Good Shepherd, the teacher and servant of all, and so be a genuine sign of Christ's loving presence among you.

People: Lord Jesus Christ, hear and answer our prayer.

Bishop: May the Lord in his love keep you close to him always, and may e bring all of us, his priests and people, to eternal life.

Ah, if only we Lutherans could have something like this...

Peoria Journal Star: Holy Traditions

Check out the front page of this morning's Peoria Journal Star! Here's the entire article, posted it its entirety here for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license.

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Christians parade into Holy Week with Palm Sunday procession

By PATRICK OLDENDORF of the Journal Star
Posted Apr 05, 2009 @ 07:05 PM
Last update Apr 05, 2009 @ 10:02 PM
PEORIA — Sunday marked the start of Holy Week, the most somber seven days on the Christian calendar.

"The center of the Christian faith is Jesus' death and resurrection," said the Rev. Steven Tibbetts, pastor of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church. "This is the week we remember the story."

The members of his congregation, like many other Christians, started the week with the celebration of Palm Sunday.

The service at Zion, 1534 S. Easton Ave., began with a procession in which members carried palms above their heads to symbolize the people of Jerusalem placing palms on the ground as Jesus entered the town five days before his death. They placed the palms down because they had proclaimed Jesus to be the son of David and a king, even if he wasn't acting like a typical one.

"Jesus road into town on a donkey," Tibbetts said to the congregation of about 50. "That would be like if when President Obama came to town, we parked an old Chevrolet at the airport and told him to drive himself."

he palm procession and other re-enactments that take place throughout Holy Week, such as acting out the passion of the Christ, are not new traditions, Tibbetts said.

"Christians have been doing this since the 200s and 300s, since before Christianity was legal," he said.

Holy Week is a somber remembrance of "everything Jesus went through," Tibbetts said.

By physically acting out the occurrences of Holy Week, Christians can actually show what they believe Christ went through.

"We do this to show it's not just words in a book," Tibbetts said. "We do it so people can actually see it with their eyes and feel it with their hearts."

On Thursday, Christians will remember the Last Supper, and on Friday, also known as Good Friday, they will gather to pray in remembrance of the day Jesus died.

"We focus on his death on Friday," Tibbetts said. "There are no decorations (in the church), everything is very sparse."

For its Easter Sunday celebration, Zion will start the day at 6:30 a.m., and the church will remain undecorated.

"We will bring things, like flowers, in as the sun rises," Tibbetts said. "It represents the resurrection of Christ."

Holy Week is a time that brings more people into the church.

"A lot of people came for Palm Sunday," Tibbetts said. "(Easter) Sunday will be big for us, too."

Patrick Oldendorf can be reached at 686-3196 or poldendorf@pjstar.com

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Liturgy and Spiritual Awakening

Having recently been given a copy of the old booklet published by the Augustana Book Concern by a brother pastor from the Society of the Holy Trinity (thank you, again, Phil), yesterday I read Bo Giertz' Liturgy and Spiritual Awakening. I had read it before, having downloaded its text from the LCMS website several years ago, but holding the actual booklet (autographed by Bishop Giertz!) in my hands makes for a more satisfying reading experience.

The booklet itself is actually only section of Giertz' first pastoral letter (herdabrev) written soon after his 1949 election as Bishop of Gothenburg. Clifford Ansgar Nelson's translator's introduction tells us,

It is an ancient and treasured custom in the Church of Sweden that when a new bishop is elected in any diocese of the country, he writes a pastoral letter intended in the first place for the ministers of the diocese. This "Herdabrev" is usually a very personal word of encouragement and pastoral counseling which serves to introduce the new bishop to his pastors and people. Sometimes the letter is brief and can be contained in a few printed pages but frequently the letter is long enough so that it becomes a book of considerable size.

Pastor Nelson concludes his introduction with a word that, at least from an American Lutheran perspective, is as amazing today in 2009 as when he wrote it 60 years ago:

It deals with a religious question that is perennial in the church. And it is because the bishop reveals such a profound appreciation of the values of religious awakening and evangelical piety on the one hand, and of the time-honored values of liturgical worship on the other, that this section has been lifted out for translation. We in the American churches will do well to ponder the problem that the bishop discusses in these pages. It is toward an understanding both of liturgy and spiritual awakening that this document is herewith published.

Here we see an attitude towards worship unlike what we've experienced in the "worship wars" between "high church" and "low church" proponents. Interestingly, it is an attitude one finds clearly expressed in Giertz' The Hammer of God and one I experienced when with the Society of St. Birgitta in Vadstena.

Perhaps the following will whet your appetite for Bishop Giertz' important message to the priests of the Diocese of Gothenburg in 1949 and to Christians today:

It is important for us that both awakening and liturgy be given their proper and pristine Christian place in the life of the congregation. Awakening is always needed, not only because the church must always be a missionary church and reach out after those that are on the outside, but also because there is always the need for awakening even among the most faithful members of the church. The church has exactly as many sinners as she has members. The old Adam in each one of us is prone to fall asleep, to make the Christian life a dead routine, to use liturgical form to cloak his self-complacency and impenitence. It is not difficult to fashion a form of religion that suits the ego and allows the old Adam within to become sovereign again. One may go regularly to church and Holy Communion. One may cherish beautiful church music and lovely sanctuaries. One may be honestly convinced that one possesses the correct doctrine and loves the pure preaching of the Word. And at the same time one may be thoroughly obsessed by self-love, complacent with one's self, satisfied with one's own pious accomplishments and totally indifferent to the troubles and burdens of one's fellow men, which are so apparent before one's very eyes. The Holy Spirit always needs to awaken slumbering souls, stir up the dust, push the old Adam against the wall, and blow a new breath of life into the dead bones. Awakening is never superfluous, as long as we are in the flesh.

Liturgy is just as needful. There can be no normal church life without liturgy. Sacraments need form, the order of worship must have some definite pattern. It is possible to live for a short time on improvisations and on forms that are constantly changing and being made over. One may use only free prayers and yet create a new ritual for every worship situation. But the possibilities at soon exhausted. One will have to repeat, and with that the making of rituals is in full swing. I circles where people seek to live without any forms new forms are nevertheless constantly take shape. Favorite songs are used again and again with monotonous regularity, certain prayer expressions are constantly repeated, traditions take form and traditional yearly ceremonies are served. But it would not be wrong to say that the new forms that grow up in this way are usually less attractive and more profane than the ancient liturgy. They contain less of God's Word, they pray and speak without Scriptural direction, they are not so much concerned about expressing the whole content of Scripture, but are satisfied with one thing or another that seems to be especially attractive or popular. The new liturgy that grows in this manner is poorer, less Biblical, and less nourishing to the soul than the discarded ancient order.

Go ahead, read it all here or download it here as a pdf document.

Links updated 21 July 2011

Reading the Bible in Church

The context isn't that important, but the following snippet from an ALPB Online Forum post by Marie Meyer evokes for me a wonderful image. Mrs. Meyer is reflecting after having just returned from five weeks with her husband working among pastors, seminary students and deaconesses of the India Evangelical Lutheran Church:

In the midst of millions of non-Christians are fellow Lutherans who, against obstacles we could not comprehend, are teaching, baptizing and making disciples. We worshipped in thatched huts that followed the liturgy with which I grew up. No matter what the size of the congregation, everyone brings their Bible to church and follows the lessons. One practice that captured our attention is that the first person, man, woman or child, who finds the announced lesson stands and reads the text. The on-going LCMS discussion about whether the pastor is the only one who ought to read the lessons seemed so trivial as we watched the devotion with which the lessons were read by members of the congregation.

Hmm. Perhaps adopting that practice would not only save Zion the cost of bulletins with the lessons pre-printed, but we could also stop worrying about getting people to sign up as Lector. (We haven't that particular LCMS discussion in decades.)

Reminds me of a story my mother often told about when Pastor Eddie Spirer, the first pastor I actually remember, was Vice-Pastor (now we call them "Interim Pastors") of our church. (I was 4 at the time, and I remember being part of a group of children running down the aisle to excitedly greet Pastor Spirer.) Pastor Spirer wanted worshipers to bring their Bibles with them to church. (Seems Lutherans didn't do that any more than we do today.) So he promised that every person he saw carrying a Bible into worship would get one of his famous jelly rolls (you did notice the sub-title of his biography, no?). One Sunday, Mom managed -- between getting us home from Sunday School and coming back to church -- to bring her Bible. Yup, Eddie noticed! "I don't know her name," Mom remembers his announcement beginning his awarding her of a jelly roll.

Of course, no one would have dreamed to ask her to then read the lessons in the service. It was 1963 and that was the Pastor's job, even in the "liberal" LCA. We didn't start having lay readers (lectors) until the mid-'70s. So I'll just point you to Jesus at the synagogue in Nazareth and that's enough for tonight..

Gettin' them into church

Fr. Robert is a cyber friend, formerly an ELCA pastor, now an Orthodox priest who (thankfully) continues to spend some time in Lutheran precincts. Over at ALPB Online, he wrote this yesterday in the "Is the liturgy transcultural?" thread:

...it must always be a place for the proclamation of the Gospel and receiving the Means of Grace. I have never been a fan of contemporary worship. I especially dislike "entertainment evangelism" or whatever they're calling it now. My Lutheran mother-in-law often argues the point with me that "at least it gets people in"; while I am quick to remind her that topless ushers handing out $5 bills would achieve the same results with greater success. The ends never justifies the means; and when the means becomes an end in itself, we find ourselves to be idolaters.

If I smile during the offertory Sunday, now you know why.

Swedish Eucharistic Prayer

Here is an English translation of the Eucharistic Prayer used in the Church of Sweden as published on its web site and as I've inserted it in my Altar Book.

Praise be to you, Lord of heaven and earth.

You have revealed your mercy towards your people
in giving your only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish,
but have eternal life.

We give thanks for the redemption you have prepared
for us through Jesus Christ.

Let Your Holy Spirit come into our hearts
to enlighten us with a living faith.

Sanctify by your Spirit this bread and wine,
which earth has given and human hands have made.

Here we offer them to you,
that through them we may partake
of the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On the same night in which he was betrayed,
he took bread, gave thanks,
broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
”Take, eat.
This is my body, which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way, he took the cup,
gave thanks, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
”Drink this, all of you.
This is my blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins.

Do this, as often as you drink it,
in remembrance of me.”

Therefore, heavenly Father, we celebrate this supper
in remembrance of your Son's passion and death,
his resurrection and ascension.

We will eat the Bread of Life and drink the Cup of Blessing
until the day when he comes again in glory.

We ask you:
remember the perfect and eternal sacrifice
through which, in Christ,
you have reconciled us with yourself.

Grant that we may be united into one body,
and be made a perfect living sacrifice in Christ.

Through him, and with him, and in him,
by the power of the Holy Spirit,
all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father,
for ever and ever.

Amen.