Orate pro nobis

The people of Bethany Lutheran Church in Fairview Heights, IL have extended a call to me to serve as their pastor. Pray for us as we seek to discern the best place for us and the best situation for the people of Bethany and the people of Hope in Jerseyville.

Why Ministers must be Men

is the title of a book by Douglas Wilson, reviewed in the current issue of Touchstone (that, you guessed it, arrived in my mailbox today). From the review by Alison Sailer, this delicious paragraph:

[Wilson] argues that not only must ministers of Word and Sacrament be male, they must also be masculine, or as he puts it, vertebrates--men with backbones, easy to approach but difficult to intimidate. While masculinity does not exclude qualities often associated with women, Wilson argues that the task of the minister is to sift, to study, and to say what needs to be said with the distinctively masculine authority of the distinctly masculine male. Christians will be on the road to recovery from their mistakes in these matters when they recognize that God "not only excludes women from becoming women ministers but also excludes men from becoming women ministers."

Or as the quotation I've heard attributed to Dr. Kenneth Korby, "God ordains men into the pastoral office. Be one."

Feast of the Confession of St. Peter

Sermon from Winkel today:

The Confession of St. Peter, A + D 2011

Mark 8:27-35

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Ah, Peter. So close, so precise, in fact. And yet, so far from the kingdom. Today is the Feast of the Confession of St. Peter, not the Feast of the Confusion of St. Peter. Why doesn’t the Gospel reading end after Peter’s confession? Why must we press on, from Peter at his best, to Peter at his worst, or, maybe his second-worst? Perhaps Peter learned that it’s easier to make a bold confession with your lips than to get your brain to believe that confession. You are the Christ! And then, when Jesus reveals to them what His plans are as the Christ, Peter thinks it best to give Jesus a private rebuke, a fraternal correction. This seems better than confronting Jesus in front of the crowds, in front of the congregation. A private rebuke, before going to the Circuit Counselor, seems best. But then “Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah” becomes “Get behind me, Satan.” “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” becomes “You are setting your mind not on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Ah, pastor. So close, so precise, in fact. And yet so far from the kingdom. How easy it seems to make a bold confession with your lips, but how difficult to believe your own preaching. Your preaching delivers Christ, but your private devotional life is wont to receive Him. Like Peter, you sing with your parishioners, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,” but your calendar finds you going more to members and meetings and less to Christ and His Word. You catechize about the sufficiency of the Word of God and the work of the Holy Spirit to convert, but when it comes time to evaluate vacancies in the pews or deficiencies in the budget, you wonder what you could add to the Word or the Spirit to close the deal. “Will you adorn the office with a holy life?” becomes “What if your parishioners knew what you’re doing?” And “Were it not for Thy help, I would long since have ruined it all” becomes “were it not for my work, they would long since have ruined it all.”

Yes, Peter. Make the good confession. Today is not the Confusion of St. Peter. Today we don’t recall St. Peter’s sin, because he has none. We only rejoice in Peter’s bold confession. Peter’s Lord is the Christ, who has the Word of eternal life. Alleluia. When the crowds hearing Peter’s preaching “saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Peter’s Lord is the Christ, who takes away the sin of the world. Peter might have remembered his shortcomings. The rebuke from Jesus might have haunted his memories. But Jesus has no such memory. The rebuke, Peter’s stupidity and timidity, Peter’s faltering faith, his panic in tumultuous waters, his denial of his Lord, all of these are removed. Gone, Peter, your Lord no longer remembers them.

Yes, pastor. Make the good confession. Your Lord is the Christ, who has the words of eternal life. Your Lord is the Christ, who takes away the sin of the world. Make the bold confession. Let your confession to your father confessor leave no corner of your life unexamined. And then receive his words with joy. Believe that he possesses the same keys entrusted to Peter. What he forgives, your Lord forgets. Every prideful thought, every poorly prepared sermon, every selfish motive, every missed opportunity, every sorry excuse, every false hope, at the word of Absolution, exist only in your own memory, not in your Lord’s. Forgiven is gone. The confessional is sealed because there remains nothing of which to speak. Gone, pastor, your Lord no longer remembers them because they no longer exist.

Yes, pastor. Make the good confession. Confess with St. Peter, with all the apostles, with all the men before you who, like you, were placed into an Office so that others might have the faith that justifies. Confess the Word who gives eternal life. Confess and let your ears believe what you proclaim. To whom shall you go? To Jesus, to His altar. Let Him fill you with Himself. Before His Word is proclaimed from your lips, let His Body be on your tongue. Before you can pour Jesus into your parishioners, let yourself be filled with His Blood. At the Lord’s altar, as Jesus fills you with Himself, with all sin removed, only righteousness remains. Filled with Jesus, even your half-hearted works, your weak efforts to be a better pastor, your half-selfless motives are full and complete in Jesus. Hearing your preaching, knowing you to be an uneducated, common man, they will know that you have been with Jesus. How easy it is to receive a bold confession onto your lips. How delightfully simple and effortless all this turns out to be in hindsight. Yes, pastor. This Christ is for you, too.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Dear Pastor,

If you preach Jesus faithfully, when people love you, it's not you they love, but Jesus. And if you speak His words and not your own, when people hate you, it's not you they hate, but Jesus. Your toil is not for their admiration but their salvation. And your goal is not that they like you but that they love your Lord.

Seriously, though. I coulda been a farmer.

Not the Morality Police

Lutheran pastors are not the Morality Police. They are God's Absolution Men. That is, I don't care what sins you commit as much as I care what sins are forgiven.

When I call people to repentance, it's always with this goal: that they would receive forgiveness. When I withhold forgiveness, it's always with this goal: that they would receive forgiveness. When I withhold the Lord's Supper from those who are impenitent, it's always with this goal: that they would receive forgiveness.

Proclaiming the Law to impenitent sinners, those who do not have Godly sorrow--repentance--over their sins and a desire to be free from them, is easily my least favorite thing to do as a pastor. But because I've been called to deliver God's Word and do God's work, I have no choice but to deliver the Law as well as the Gospel. And the Law is never the end of the story. The goal is that the sinner would allow God's Law to work, leading to repentance, so that I might get to do what is easily the most joyful thing I do as a pastor: deliver God's forgiveness.

Sometimes people complain that I'm singling out their particular sins. I don't think that's the case. I try to deal with all sin equally. Some types of sins seem more easily to become public. For the sake both of the one ensnared in such public sin and for the sake of the congregation who sees such sin, these public sins need to be dealt with with a call to repentance. And sin is never the problem. Impenitence is. There are only two categories of people: repentant sinners and unrepentant sinners. The first trusts in Jesus for forgiveness; the latter trusts in himself.

So I am not the Morality Police. I don't care about your sins. I'm the Absolution Guy. I care about God's forgiveness. And I want to do everything possible to see that you receive that forgiveness.

Siberian Lutherans

If you have 22 free minutes, watch these 3 videos about the Lutheran Church in Siberia posted at Pr. Larry Beane's blog. What a wonderful reminder that the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is far bigger than we realize. What an example of faithful pastors and bold parishioners.

Here's the website for the Siberian Lutheran Mission Society.

Russell Moore on Preaching

The day the new issue of Touchstone arrives in my mailbox is a sad day for all my other reading projects. They immediately lose precedence.

In the May/June issue, Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has this wonderful article on preaching: Preaching Like the Devil. Those who preach sermons as well as those who hear them would be well served by reading Moore's article.

For the Sake of the Elect

At the installation of Pr. Joel Fritsche at my vicarage congregation, I shared with him this word from St. Paul to St. Timothy: "I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."

Sometimes this business of being the Lord's absolution guy is difficult. But the elect are worth it. Those not among the elect, who, through the hardening of their hearts and the sealing of their ears, have closed themselves off to the Word of God, will not welcome God's absolution guy. His word that calls them to repentance will be unwelcome, and so his word that forgives their sins will go unspoken. They will plot and scheme against him; they will attempt to thwart the Word of God; they will be a thorn not only in his side but also in the sides of the elect. But the elect are worth it.

What marvelous comfort there is in St. Paul's exhortation: the Lord's elect are worth it. By the power of the Holy Spirit delivered to those who occupy this Office of Christ, I endure everything for the sake of the elect.

Job Satisfaction

Some days I hate this.

Pastoral job satisfaction = x; sins forgiven = y; sins retained = z.

x is directly related to y, but inversely related to z.

And if z ≥ 1, x = 0.

Pastors don’t get the kind of job satisfaction that those in other careers do. Lawyers either win the case or lose it. Doctors either cure patients or don’t. For plumbers, either the fitting is watertight or leaks. Either the wall is plumb or crooked. Either the investment appreciates of depreciates. So it goes.

For pastors, well, people either go to heaven or hell. But no one sees that. There’s no measurable result. Worse, when the elect go to heaven, it’s because the Lord saves His elect. When the damned go to hell, it’s because of the hardness of their hearts and their refusal to hear and receive the Word of God.

So what’s a pastor to do? Love his people. Pray for them. Deliver the Word of God to them. Call them to the altar. Be satisfied with faithfulness and entrust success to the Lord.

So why are some days still so taxing?

On Women's Ordination

Check out this article on a change of heart of a former woman pastor.

Sorry, Lady, Lutheran Masses are Free.

or

Why wearing a clerical collar is a good way to deliver Meals on Wheels

This month, the Jerseyville Ministerial Alliance has been delivering the hospital's meals on wheels. (They find different volunteer groups for a month, Hope has a month, usually in the spring.) This is my week. And, like anything else pastoral I do, I've worn my uniform.

Today a lady stopped me and said, "Father, what are Masses now?" I assumed she meant when are masses now. She didn't. She clarified, "How much do they cost?" It's moments like this when I realize just how apostate Rome is and how little the Reformation accomplished on the other side of the Tiber, despite few reforms. Picking my jaw up from the floor, I responded, "Ma'am, I'm the Lutheran pastor. You can't buy our Masses; the Mass is a gift from the Lord. So it's free."

As a side note, as well as offering opportunities like this to refute Roman falsehoods, a collar adds distinction. None of the other men who've been delivering meals this month wear one. They all dress in normal business casual, which makes them blend in. Six months from now (or less), most of these people receiving meals won't remember the people who delivered their meals and blended in. But they might remember the Lutheran pastor for his distinctive dress. The man deserves no distinction, but the Office he occupies is Christ's Office. It is distinct from anything else. It's the Office through which Christ distributes His gifts. The man is dispensible; the Office indispensible. You might as well dress like it.

If You're Happy and You Know it...

Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns."

What could be happier than calling sinners to repent and delivering the sweet forgiveness of sins?

Top 10 Happy Jobs




HT: Veith, again.

Absent Fathers

When did church become something only for women and children? Why are there families in pews without husbands and fathers? Why are there so many absent fathers?

The countdown to the time of my own fatherhood is on. Weeks, days, hours remain before my testing by fire. It’s a daunting task that lies before me, to be sure. And how a pastor is a father to his family matters so much that St. Paul told St. Timothy that if a man cannot manage his household, as husband and father, he is unfit to be a pastor (1 Tim. 3:4-5).

Why does Jesus call men to be disciples? And why does the Lord call men to be pastors? Not because women are inferior (they’re not). Not because women lack the skills necessary (they don’t). Simply because only men can be husbands and fathers.

Just as pastors are fathers to the congregation entrusted to their care (as Luther says in the Large Catechism), fathers are pastors to their families. That’s a huge responsibility. And it’s one for which men will be called to account. Raising God-fearing children will not happen if fathers are not presiding at the family altar: with daily prayer, Scripture reading, and devotions.

For the Feast of St. Michael, Luther preached, “The Lord is very angry, and it grieves him deeply when young people are not carefully trained. ‘Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones,’ he says, whoever teaches young people to curse, swear, lie, slander, to be unchaste, and so on, it would be better if he were dead. By this he indicates that such sin will be punished not merely with temporal death, but with eternal damnation. The world regards this punishment as wrong, and that is why all kinds of offenses flourish. It is the accursed devil’s doing that the world’s young people are now so depraved, wild, and undisciplined. They become the devil’s children and are capable of nothing but cursing and swearing, slandering and lying; they live immorally, are disobedient, and guilty of all manner of malevolence. Woe to those who foster this in them. For the sentence has already been pronounced upon such people, as Christ says, ‘It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.’”

That’s a serious warning. Luther took seriously the task of fathers to instruct their children in the faith, to raise them as pious Christians, so much that he wrote a manual for fathers to use in instructing their children: the Small Catechism. Nearly every section of the Catechism begins, “As the head of the family should teach it in a simple way to his household.”

Men, stop abdicating your responsibility to teach your children the faith and to model the faith to them. Be a faithful father. Be a man.

Monday, Monday

The joys of being a pastor are innumerable. The heartbreaks, too, it seems. It's always heartbreaking to get from my secretary the list of people who have missed 3 or more consecutive Divine Services. It's heartbreaking to read the names of people the Lord has entrusted to my care who are rejecting the Lord's gifts that He offers in the Divine Service.

We don't go to church to tell God how wonderful He is. "The worship and service of the Gospel is to receive gifts from God" (Apology of the Augsburg Confession, V, 189). God doesn't gather us together because He's so narcissistic that He needs to hear our praise so He won't be depressed the other 6 days of the week. No, He gathers His people because He loves to lavish His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation on them.

Consider a husband who, night after night, chooses to go out to the bar with his buddies rather than home to the meal he knows his wife has prepared for him. Imagine her heartbreak. Consider a grown child who lives in sickness and poverty because he continually refuses the gifts of assistance his parents offer. Imagine their heartbreak. Consider the person who disdains the gifts offered by his Lord in the Divine Service week after week or who only goes to church when there's nothing else that commands his Sunday-morning attention. Imagine the heartbreak of the Lord who delights to give gifts.

"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live." (Isaiah 55:1-3)

Simple Church

Some of the leaders of my home congregation are reading a book called Simple Church over the summer and invited others to read and join the conversation. So, I got a copy and read it. Here are my thoughts on it.

Rainer, Thom S. and Eric Geiger. Simple Church. B&H Publishing (Nashville): 2006.

There are countless books on how to fix what is wrong with churches. So, after years and years of different books, different theories, different strategies, why do many people conclude that there are still problems with churches that require additional approaches, additional books, additional theories? What makes Rainer and Geiger’s Simple Church the long-awaited return to “God’s process for making disciples”?

At one level, there is much praiseworthy to be said about Simple Church. Inasmuch as the it serves to call churches away from inundating themselves and their members with innumerable programs and opportunities. If it were possible for Lutheran Christians to take only this premise away from the book without also swallowing the false teachings that lie under the surface, the book would be safe to read and recommend.

But that’s not possible. Simple Church comes with too much bad-theology baggage. These false teachings are inseparable from the overarching themes of the book. You can’t buy just part of what Geiger and Rainer propose. You can’t import their thinking about what makes an effective church without also believing that churches can be more or less effective.

That’s where Simple Church presents an unhealthy view of “Church” for Lutherans, and it manifests itself in two ways: synergism and asacramentalism.

Synergism
Synergism means “working together.” In most realms, working together is a good thing. In matters of salvation, when the co-workers are God and us, it’s a false, pernicious doctrine.

Rainer and Geiger have a synergistic view of the church that cannot be separated from their proposals to make the church simpler. The entire book rests on the premise that there are things church leaders can do to make the church more effective.

Ministers cannot be effective. Only God, working through His means of grace, is effective. Pastors and people can only be faithful.

Any suggestion that we can help or hurt the work of God through His Church is synergistic, implying we work alongside God in His work. We don’t.

A discussion like Rainer’s and Geiger’s cannot be had withough this false, synergistic premise at the beginning. In Rainer’s and Geiger’s proposition, who makes the church simpler? Who brings clarity? Who creates movement? Who fosters alignment? Who provides focus? You do. That’s synergism, and it’s false.

Lutherans have always confessed this about the church: “The Church is the congregation of saints in which the Gospel is purely taught and the Sacraments are correctly administered.” (Augsburg Confession, XIV)

Lutheran clergy simply cannot ask, “What can I do to be more effective?” They may ask, “Am I preaching and teaching the Gospel purely?” and “Am I administering the Sacraments correctly?” In short, “Am I being faithful?” If the answer is “yes,” that’s as much “effectiveness” as he’s been given to do.

Asacramentalism
Although the singer of the spiritual probably expects the answer to the question “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” to be “yes,” Lutherans have always answered “no.” None of us was there at the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. So how do we get the benefits of Jesus’ death on the cross delivered to us today?

Luther wrote, “If now I seek the forgiveness of sins, I do not run to the cross, for I will not find it given there. Nor must I hold to the suffering of Christ, as Dr. Karlstadt trifles, in knowledge or remembrance, for I will not find it there either. But I will find in the sacrament or gospel the word which distributes, presents, offers, and gives to me that forgiveness which was won on the cross.” (Luther’s Works, v. 40, p. 214)

There’s a difference between where forgiveness is achieved (on the cross) and where it is delivered (in the Gospel and the Sacraments). So Lutheran churches and Lutheran worship has always placed these means through which God delivers to us the forgiveness of sins—the Gospel and the Sacraments—at the center.

The highest worship of God is to receive His gifts. (Apology of the Augsburg Confession, IV, 155:310) Thus the point of “church” is continually to be drawn back to receiving the Lord’s gifts. For Rainer and Geiger, though, who don’t believe that in the sacraments God bestows His gifts of forgiveness and eternal life, the point of the church is to foster growth in discipleship.

There’s nothing wrong with talking about discipleship. What’s wrong is letting those who don’t believe that a Christian’s highest calling is to receive God’s gifts to enable him to live in love toward his neighbor instruct us about making churches more effective and producing disciples.

Conclusion
The Church is as simple as the Lord has made her. Rainer and Geiger cannot presume to speak for God, telling others God’s plan for making disciples, without acknowledging what our Lord Jesus says is the way the Church makes disciples. “Therefore, go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I commanded you.”

What is God’s plan for making disciples? Baptizing and teaching. Sacraments and the Gospel. That’s the simple Church.