Sackcloth and Ashes

We entered the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday this week. Tomorrow we gather for worship under the banner of the First Sunday in Lent. I found the following lyrics on First Things for 2008 and again in their Blog this year. The author, Nathaniel Peters, only says that it was written by a friend of his. Whoever that person is, he holds forth some interesting irony for the rest of us to contemplate.

The lyrics can be sung to the tune of “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things.”

Sackcloth and ashes and days without eating,
Mortification and wailing and weeping,
A hair shirt that scratches, a nettle that stings—
These are a few of my favorite things!

Penitence, flagellants, memento mori,
Spending nights sleeping on rocks in a quarry,
The sound of a cloaked solemn cantor who sings—
These are still more of my favorite things!

Tossing and turning and yearning, I’m spurning!
Passions aflame like an ember-day burning,
Corpus and carnis and wild drunken flings—
Forsaken are they for my favorite things!

When it’s Christmas,
When the tree’s lit,
When the cards are sent . . .
I simply remember my favorite things—
And then I can’t waaaaaaaaait ’til Lent!

Inspirational Email

My friend Ron, yesterday sent me an inspirational email. Although I'd read it before, it was great to read the philosophy of Charles Schultz again. It's also featured on the Roger Knapp website as one of his inspirational stories.

Roger is a Texas A&M Aggie, a graduate of Southwestern Med. Sch. at Dallas; a member of the American Board of Pediatrics , Board Certified. Here he is with his family:


He further writes that Seaman A. Knapp - Great-Grandfather - was Co-Founder of the Texas Agriculture Extension Service and the 4 H Clubs of America. According to my research, Texas agriculturist, college administrator, and entrepreneur, Seaman Knapp, initiated in 1906 the county-agent plan, and in order to promote the plan, he organized boys' cotton and corn growing clubs. In 1910 a girls' corn and poultry club was added. These organizations were the forerunners of the modern 4-H Clubs. As a youth, I was a member of a 4-H Club in southern Minnesota. We pledged our heads to clearer thinking, our hearts to greater loyalty, our hands to larger service, and our health to better living - 4 H - for our homes, our country . . . and, at the time, to win the war (WW II, that is).

As to the origins of the CS Philosophy, check out the Snopes website. Snopes tells us that this philosophy was not dictated by Schultz. I haven't discovered who created it.

Amazing what's available online about any one of us. Have a great day!

My Vocation

Tomorrow the congregation of believers I have assisted during the past several months, the congregation to which we recently transferred membership, will gather in a voters' assembly to discuss their need for expanded pastoral care. The pastor who has served them will continue, but neither of us is able to devote our full time to this task. Yet we both sense the calling and guidance of the Holy Spirit to serve them in this manner. This leads me to a brief discussion of my vocation.

Here's a definition from Wikipedia:

The idea of vocation is central to the Christian belief that God has created each person with gifts and talents oriented toward specific purposes and a way of life. Particularly in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, this idea of vocation is especially associated with a divine call to service to the Church and humanity through particular vocational life commitments such as marriage to a particular person, consecration as a religious, ordination to priestly ministry in the Church and even a holy life as a single person. In the broader sense, Christian vocation includes the use of ones gifts in their profession, family life, church and civic commitments for the sake of the greater common good.

The Catholic Encyclopedia has a rather ponderous definition that I will not quote here. Suffice it to say the emphasis is upon what that part of the Christian community calls serving God in a religious or ecclesiastical state.

Over the centuries the temptation has been to make the vocation to serve God in the church as a pastor or church worker as somehow a higher calling than serving as a lay member of the Body of Christ. I often hear the phrase, "I'm only a layman." This was an issue in the Reformation of the church led by Martin Luther in the sixteenth century. The matter is discussed in detail in many places in the official confessional writings growing out of that period, The Book of Concord.

It is given particular attention in Article XXVII of the Apology (defense) of the Augsburg Confession. Following are some relevant comments by Dr. Paul McCain on this matter.

"The insight that Luther and his fellow Reformers brought to light once more is the teaching that all of life is an opportunity to serve God, in whatever a person's place/station and calling in life is. Modern Lutherans would do well not to think that monasticism is an issue that is of no immediate application, or relevance, to the church today. There has arisen a new kind of monasticism among us: the view that a person is really only engaged in "church work" if he, or she, is a member of a church committee or taking part in some church-sponsored activity. It would be tempting to regard Sundays as our time to be "religious" while the rest of our week is in the "secular" world, regarding Sunday as the time for sacred things, while the rest of the week we must live in the profane world. This article extols the Christian virtues lived out in all of callings and stations in life: mother, father, husband, wife, son, daughter, employer, employee. Specifically rejected and condemned in this article is the imposition of lifelong celibacy on a person who does who truly does not have the gift of chastity. Forcing chastity on those without the gift is a horrible sin against God's good creation and led many in Luther's time to think that their standing before God depended on the degree to which they could imitate the "holy life" of the monks and nuns."

While I view the tasks that I am about to assume as a calling from God and while I further assume that serving Him in this manner is my vocation, this does not in any sense make me more religious or more deserving of His grace and mercy. This does not make me more holy. As Dr. Melanchthon says in this Article, "callings vary. . .Callings are personal, just as matters of business themselves vary with times and persons; but the example of obedience is universal."

Like you, I have other vocations as well. In all of them I am called to follow Christ. I have been called by Him to be husband to my wife, father and grandfather to my children and neighbor to the people and friends He places before me. In the instance of this Blog I follow His calling to serve you in this small manner with His Word. So we all have various callings to believe and obey. Quoting Article XXVII again, "So it is perfection for each of us with true faith to obey our own calling."

Dying to Live

Lent begins next week with Ash Wednesday. This year I am providing bulletin inserts explaining the meaning of Baptism in our lives. The first of these follows:

For 40 days, from Ash Wednesday to Palm or Passion Sunday and Holy Week, we prepare our hearts to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ (Easter). Since we never cease to celebrate His Resurrection on the first day of the week, Sundays are not numbered as part of the 40 days in Lent, this time of lengthening light. During these days we focus upon the daily task of dying with Christ so that we may rise with Him to a new life of faith and obedience.

Why 40 days? St. Matthew writes, “Next Jesus was taken into the wild by the Spirit for the Test. The Devil was ready to give it. Jesus prepared for the Test by fasting 40 days and 40 nights.” Jesus chose not to eat for 40 days so that He might recall His forefathers’ 40 years of testing in the wild on their journey to Rest (Sabbath). They failed the Test. They never made it to the Promised Land. Jesus passed the Test for us all by humbling Himself and submitting to the will of His Father.

We too are tested—daily—to denounce our faith in our heavenly Father’s goodness, mercy and love. In our Baptism Christ calls us to follow Him by dying to the many ways we are tempted by the Devil, the surrounding world and our own sinful and rebellious nature to disobey God’s commands, to despair of His mercy and to bow before the empty idols of our culture. These 40 days are an opportunity to examine our hearts carefully, accept forgiveness for our sins, and rise with Christ to a new life. Dying and rising again with Christ is the daily life of a baptized believer.

Foundation For Our New Church

I'm excited to read about the soon-to-be-published The Lutheran Study Bible .

For many years I have used the Concordia Self Study Bible with notes added to the NIV translation. It has been around since 1986. Now, on Reformation Day, Oct. 31, 2009, I read with delight that this new study Bible will become available.

As one of the pastors working with a brand new congregation in our area, I am concerned that these folks become acquainted with the wonderful heritage we Lutherans have. So, in this, the second year of Living Savior's life, I will focus on helping them learn about some of the many Lutheran resources available for Christians desiring to grow in their faith and in their relation to our Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly this new Bible will be right at the top of the list. It can be pre-ordered now from Concordia Publishing House through their website.

Next to it will be A Readers Edition of the Book of Concord. As the product description says,

"Nothing is more important than clearly confessing and bearing witness to the truths of God's Holy Word which reveal the glorious Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is what the Book of Concord is all about. This edition of the Lutheran Confessions will instruct, inspire and educate all who use it and help them learn what it means to be, and to remain, a genuinely confessing Lutheran Christian.

"Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions is a remarkable achievement in Lutheran publishing. In 800 beautifully presented pages, the reader will find helpful introductions, insightful notes and annotations, and helpful tools and guides to aid reading and comprehension. The dramatic history and heroic persons associated with the various documents in the Lutheran Confessions are brought to life. There are more than 115 black and white and 31 full-color plates illuminating the text of the Confessions."

I'll want to add a list of significant books to read and own. As I develop that list, I'll post them on this Blog. Keep watching.

The Hidden God

One of the profound contributions of Martin Luther to the Christian faith was his reminder that God remains hidden even in the disasters of this life. The prophet wrote to the exiled tribes of Judah about this God. They had been complaining and bemoaning their lot in life, wishing God had never created them. He warns them not to quarrel with their Maker, suggesting He does not know what He is doing. For the moment they may not realize that in everything He is at work, most especially for the sake of His chosen children.

Then the prophet turns from the people to pray,

Truly you are a God who hides himself,
O God and Savior of Israel," Isaiah 45:15.

The people must be aware that in the political events of that day a new thing was happening. A new power was arising. Cyrus II, the Great , the founder and ruler of the vast Persian Empire from 539 B.C. until his death in 530 B.C., defeated the Median king, Astyages and took Ecbatana. He expanded his kingdom further by defeating Croesus, king of Lydia in 546 BC, and then conquering Babylon in 539 BC overthrowing Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon. Thus the Persian Empire was formed and the seventy year captivity of the Jews ended.

Even before these events came to pass, Isaiah told the captives they must believe that the Lord's hand was with Cyrus. They must trust the God who had gathered them together. He had allowed them to suffer. He would now see that they return home. For that moment, they must walk by faith, even though they did not see what their loving and merciful Lord was doing.

In 1985-86, the year I turned 52, both of my parents died within six months of one another, my father from congestive heart disease and my mother from complications of Alzheimer's. This had a profound effect upon my life, but my feelings of loss and being orphaned were further exacerbated by attacks upon my integrity and leadership in the congregation I served. Looking back, I see that the folks behind these attacks were acting out the anxiety they felt from the economic woes we were all experiencing in those days. I won't detail that. What I refer to instead is the fact that my entire career, my feelings about my life, my marriage and my future were in the tank! It was a deep, dark and dismal time.

What nurtured me in those days was the Word of promise I had from our Lord. Even when He seems hidden, we press on, trusting in His love for us all. Even in such testings, He beckons us to follow. Our Lord Jesus bore the full import of being orphaned and forsaken by His Father as He cried upon the Cross, quoting the despair of Psalm 22, "Why have You forsaken Me?"

In these days, I keep running into people whose lives are threatened with despair and doubt as they face the trials of our lagging economy. Once again we are tempted to cry out for God to reveal Himself. Is He really at work in these dark times? If so, where?

Turning back to Isaiah, we claim the promise and the hope. In that hope we rise again to fight on.



I quote from the 19th century unspoken sermons of George MacDonald. In the one about Life, he quoted the old Ballad of Andrew Barton:

"Ffight on my men," sayes Sir Andrew Barton,
"I arm hurt, but I am not slaine;
I'le lay mee downe and bleed a-while,
And then I'le rise and ffight againe.

We are able to rise again when we believe what MacDonald wrote, "If we will but let our God and Father work his will with us, there can be no limit to his enlargement of our existence, to the flood of life with which he will overflow our consciousness."

In the darkness a light still shines. We have but to walk toward it. That is the way, for our God is truly a loving Father. We see that upon the cross, even as dark as that day appeared. We are not forsaken.