SIN? WHAT SIN?

This blog is only going to be of interest to people who pay attention to worship in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Don’t say I didn’t warn you if you get lost or bored.

The ELCA publishing house sells a book Sundays and Season to help congregations with worship planning. That’s a useful thing, but on occasion I have my doubts if it is a good thing. Case in point. We Lutherans usually have a brief preparatory rite of public confession before we begin our worship. Sundays and Season provides seasonal confessions. Here is the one for November.

Most merciful God,

you know our failings better than we do;

our sins are revealed in the light of your face.

Our days and years pass by;

the things we trust fade like grass.

Be gracious to us, O God.

Guide us again to the water of life,

and renew in us the grace of holy baptism;

through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Now maybe I am missing something, but does that confession actually confess anything? Yes, it has the words ‘failings’ and ‘sins’ in it, but it lacks the pointed expression “we (or I) have sinned.” And of course, since we haven’t gotten around to confessing sin, we never say I’m sorry or ask for forgiveness. There’s something very wrong here.

When I was growing up (in the days of churches without padded pews, air conditioning, or PowerPoint), we confessed with these words led by the minister:

Almighty God, our Maker and Redeemer, we poor sinners confess unto thee, that we are by nature sinful and unclean, and that we have sinned against thee by thought, word, and deed. Wherefore we flee for refuge to thine infinite mercy, seeking and imploring thy grace for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And then we all chimed in:

O most merciful God, who has given thine only-begotten Son to die for us, have mercy upon us, and for his sake grant us remission of all our sins; and by thy Holy Spirit increase in us true knowledge of thee and of thy will, and true obedience to thy Word, that by thy grace we come to everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

You knew you were a sinner.

What happened? Karl Menninger had asked the question in his startling 1973 book Whatever Became of Sin?” Menninger noted that the term ‘sin’ had gone out of public discourse. And with it, perhaps, the notion of personal responsibility. I’ve seen enough of that. I have heard of people defending murderers on the grounds of “television intoxication” or eating too many Twinkies. Locally somebody was acquitted after killing two people (the wife and daughter of an acquaintance of mine) in a car accident. Even though he had a blood alcohol count well over the legal limit, he wasn’t responsible. He suffered from “delayed gastric emptying.” Well, that’s how twisted society has become. It’s not my fault.

Just as disturbing is a blog I read (Whatever became of sin) that notes the absence of the word ‘sin’ in the most recent edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary. The editors concluded children didn’t need to know that word. It just doesn’t appear very frequently in children’s literature. (By the way, the words “abbey, altar, bishop, chapel, christen, disciple, monk, nun, pew, saint” have also been dropped.)

Churches have contributed to the problem by playing down sin. This is not a product of the swinging sixties. Back in 1937 theologian H. Richard Niebuhr had condemned the modern version of the Gospel in which “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross” (The Kingdom of God in America, 193).

Why is ignoring sin such a issue for me? Because if we don’t recognize our own sinful state, we will not turn to the gracious God for forgiveness. If we haven’t sinned, why do we need to be forgiven? If we don’t need forgiveness, why do we need a Savior? As a matter of fact, following that line of reasoning, we don’t need God. And the belief that we don’t need God is at the very heart of sin. Without recognizing sin, we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. As it is written in 1 John, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

Some people bemoan the loss of a recognition of sin because they think they can hammer on people about sin to make them change their ways. That does work. If it had, we could have stopped the story of salvation with John the Baptist who hollered about sin better than anyone. But John’s call to repentance wasn’t enough. We need a Savior, Jesus Christ. I only want to talk about sin as a way of helping people see the need for Christ.

Well, that’s gotten terribly preachy, but that is what I do for a living. Consider it just a signpost of your path.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

Picture Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt

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THE TIE THAT BINDS

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The question was “How does religion bind people together, and how does it separate people?” I begin my answer in a way sure to aggravate some, for I take religion in the most general sense, and I don’t start by talking about God. I’ll explain why in a bit. How does religion bind people together? By reminding us of our common humanity. It tells me whenever I see another person, be it a stranger, friend, or enemy, I am seeing myself, for there is more that we human beings have in common that we have differentiating ourselves. I exist in relationship to other people.

I start with a common humanity because it allows me to talk with both religious and non-religious persons. If I start by talking about aspects of life confined to religious worldviews, I immediately divide humanity into religious and non religious groups. If we have nothing in common, we cannot even talk with one another. But if I can get a non-religious person to recognize that we share a commonality as human beings, we have a place to enter dialogue.

Most religions, however, hold to some kind of transcendent reality underlying everything. Whether that reality is God or the Tao or Atman or Buddha-nature, most religions acknowledge that there is more to the universe, more to life, than what appears on the surface. We human beings are connected in someway to that transcendence. It makes us not just “things” in the world, but “beings” in the world.

For the monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Baha'i, that transcendent reality is God. We are created by God. As the Jewish and Christian Scripture says, we are created “in the image of God.” This again emphasizes our common humanity, but grounds it in a God who is actively at work in the world including in and with and through us. Christians believe that God’s love for us is so great that he became flesh like us in Jesus Christ. He shared our human nature so that we might participate in him. We Christians believe: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, the whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). God loved the world, the whole shebang, everybody. That boundless love of God binds us together.

How does religion separate people? First is the reality that every religion has its own worldview, its own way of seeing things, its own set of beliefs, its own set of values. I used to have a hard time convincing students that all religions were NOT basically the same. They aren’t. I don’t think it does any good to pretend that all religions are the same because we could very well lose the essence of a religion in the process of reducing religion to what is the same in all religions. Do Christians want to give up belief in God because Buddhists do not believe in God? Of course not.

The differences among religions unavoidably produce a degree of separation among people, but that separation need not be destructive. The differences become destructive only when we cease to recognize our common humanity. When we act as if some people are less human because they do not share our religious views, the differences turn us against each other with tragic consequences. We need only look at the frequent religious wars to see what happens when people demonize people who have different beliefs.

I don’t think it’s wrong to try to persuade other people of the truth of our own beliefs. There is something terribly wrong, however, when we try to force those beliefs on people. Inquisitions converted people at the point of a sword, but were they real conversions? Some people in our own country today seem to have an urgent need to force their beliefs on others. Some try to force others to listen to prayers or see words from scripture carved on monuments. By gosh we are going to make people say “one nation under God” whether they believe in God or not.

To me, resorting to force means we have no confidence in the God. To substitute human power for God’s power undermines the very nature of the Christian faith which calls on us to fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

In the end, I can't speak for all religions on the question of binding and separating. I can’t even speak for my own segment of the Christian faith. My personal view is expressed in the wonderful old hymn by John Fawcett.

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

We share each other’s woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

May the glorious hope revive your courage on the way. May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne






12082

FATHER TIM AND ALL PARSONS

An academic colleague of mine, Dr. H. once generously wrote a very flattering letter of recommendation for me with this comment: “In many ways his effective commitment to both church and to scholarship is reminiscent of the sort of nineteenth-century minister who would have tea in the morning with the ladies of the altar guild and then retire to his study in the afternoon to write, say, the definitive commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians.” Yes, I think that sums me up, although I doubt that I ever had that level of scholarly ability. (I do not have sufficient mastery of Greek, for one thing.) And then there is the fact that the nineteenth century is long past. I am certainly aware that I never quite fit in modern times. After 32 years in the ministry, I still don’t feel I’m doing it right.

Dr. Joseph Sittler, with whom I studied for far too brief a time described the heart of the clergy problem.

This basic force is a loss of the sense of the particularity of the church, the consequent transformation of the role of the minister into that of a "religious leader," and the still consequent shift whereby the ministry is regarded as a "profession" and theological education has come to understand its task as "professional education.” Had this shift in meanings not occurred the three specific forces I am about to name could hardly have been effective. But the shift has occurred -- and the minister is macerated by pressures emanating from the parish, the general church bodies, and the ‘self-image of the minister.’ (“The Maceration of the Minister” from The Ecology of Faith. )

Here’s the kicker. Sittler identified the problem of ministry as a “profession” fifty years ago. Ministers are still being chewed up. When I studied with him in the late 70s, he maintained that clergy needed to ditch the idea of being professionals. We ought to go back to being parsons–literally “persons.” Wikipedia quotes Blackstone’s Commentaries to explain the term “parson.” “A parson, persona ecclesiae, is one that has full possession of all the rights of a parochial church. He is called parson, persona, because by his person the church, which is an invisible body, is represented.” That’s what clergy are supposed to do–represent the church in his or her person. It’s not just what you do, but who you are.

It makes me think of Father Tim, the Episcopal priest at Lord’s Chapel in Jan Karon’s fictional Mitford, North Carolina. He really is at core a parson. And yet he, too, experiences the “maceration of the minister.” Despite his faithful work, Father Tim is burning out, or at least he is as far as I have read in At Home in Mitford. The January, 2002 described Father Tim this way:

He drives himself in his work, facing an unending parade of spiritual needs and practical demands: spelling a woman who lives with her senile mother, taking livermush (a local delicacy) to his bedridden sexton, baking a ham for a parish wedding, tending to the leaks in Miss Sadie's roof. He has diabetes, and must discipline himself to jog and watch his diet. He seethes inwardly at Emma Garrett's bossy interference. His difficulty in making a commitment to Cynthia and his clumsy letter-writing while she is away create some rocky patches in their romance. He approaches retirement with fear and denial. He worries about his thinning hair. . . .

Prayer suffuses the lives of Father Tim and his parishioners, and nothing is too small to ask God for, whether it be help with a recalcitrant dog or keeping a feverish boy "in bed and out of mischief." When it comes to something big, a prayer chain can be galvanized with a phone call. Quotations from Scripture pepper everyday speech ("Philippians four-thirteen, for Pete's sake") as well as reining in Barnabas. Grace cannot be earned and isn't about deserving in any case: it's free. Salvation can come from turning one's life over to Jesus Christ with a simple prayer. "It isn't a test you have to pass," Father Tim tells a stranger he finds kneeling in the empty church. "It doesn't require discipline and intelligence ... not even strength and perseverance. It only requires faith." In a tidy two-for-one the rector saves both the stranger—a traveling businessman—and a jewel thief who is listening from his hiding place in the church attic

Karon’s writing has been characterized as “comfort food” literature. I don’t care. I like meatloaf and mashed potatoes with gravy, (However on a low-fat, low-carb diet I rarely eat potatoes and my meatloaf is always low-fat ground turkey with oatmeal in it. ) If I can’t eat comfort food, I’ll read it. Father Tim is a comfortable sort of parson. I am too hyper to be like him, but should try harder. Or maybe the “trying harder” is the problem.

A long time ago my colleague. Dr. H. recommended Eugene Peterson’s book Working the Angles. It was several years before I actually read the book, but it was (and is) and eye-opener. Here is Peterson writing in 1987, a time midway between Sittler’s essay and today.

The pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeeper’s concerns–how to keep the customers happy, how to lure the customers away from the competitors down the street, how to package the goods so the customers will lay out more money. . . . The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God. It is this responsibility that is being abandoned in spades. . . . Three pastoral acts are so basic, so critical, that they determine the shape of everything else. The acts are praying, reading Scripture, and giving spiritual direction. Besides being basic, these three acts are quiet. . . . In the clamorous world of pastoral work, nobody yells at us to engage in these works.

Absolutely right. I don’t recall any church official or congregational leader that ever asked whether I was praying, reading Scripture, or giving spiritual direction. But the ultimate place to lay blame is not on others, but on self. Why should anyone else concern themselves with what I myself don’t set as a priority. Well, I’m taking charge again. I’m back to morning prayer each day, and reading the Rule of Benedict. But that is barely a start. St. Paul’s instructions to the Thessalonians wasn’t “pray when you get a chance,” but “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Well, I need something worthwhile to work on for the rest of my life.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne






12031

O REST IN THE LORD

Apologies, no blog this week. I have had three days off in the last 34 days, I won’t have another day off for 12 days, and it is starting wear on me. I have been listening to a recoding of Jan Karon’s At home in Mitford. Father Tim is having a conversation with the country preacher, Absalom Greer. Father Tim speaks first:

“When it comes to feeding my sheep, I am afraid my sermons are about as nourishing as cardboard.”
“Are you resting.”
“Resting?”
“Resting. Sometimes we get so worn out with being useful that we get useless. I’ll ask you what another preacher once asked me: Are you to exhausted to run and too scared to rest?” . . .
The old preacher’s eyes were as clear as gemstones. “My brother, I would urge you to search the heart of God on this matter, for it was this very thing that sunk me to the bottom of the pond.”
They looked at one another with grave understanding. “I’ll covet your prayers,” said Father Tim.

Amen, Father Tim, I say.

O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him,
And He shall give thee thy heart's desire;
O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him,
And He shall give thee thy heart's desire.

Commit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him;
And fret not thyself, because of evil doers;
O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him,
Wait patiently for Him.

O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him,
And He shall give thee Thy heart's desire;
O rest in the Lord, O rest in the Lord,
And wait, wait patiently for Him.

Felix Mendelssohn, Elijah, based on Psalm 37:6,7

Whether you are laboring on or taking a rest, may the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival

Wayne





11999

SERENDIPITY II

Here’s another one of the those happy coincidences. Once again it starts with a book, Schultz and Peanuts by David Michaelis. First serendipity was discovering a biography of Peanuts creator Charles “Sparky” Schultz. Second serendipity was only paying $6.98 for a $34.95 book. Books at a big discount are always much better.

So I am reading through the first chapters about the early life of Schultz. There is some good insight into his personality and experience and recognition of the way his life projected itself into the cartoon strips. Probably the most notable element (other than the name “Charles”) is that Charlie Brown’s father was a barber like Schulz’s father.

About eighty pages in there are photographs.



One small snapshot shows Schultz (left) in the army with two of his buddies, Marvin Tack (center) and Larry Payne (right). That’s funny, I thought to myself. I once knew a Marvin Tack. I squinted at the picture–the faces are about 1/8th inch high in the book–and decide it was possible, barely, that this could be the Marvin Tack I knew. I turned to the index and find the one page in the text that refers to Marvin Tack. It is 1943. Schultz is at Camp Campbell in Kentucky where he knew no one.

Michaelis recounts a story. “One morning at revile, he made a friend: ‘I looked across the barracks, and there was a blond kid, and the kid smiled at me, and we said good morning. His name was Marvin Tack, and he was from a small town in Minnesota, and he was a very strong Lutheran boy–a very decent kid.’ During the ten-minutes in training sessions, Schultz and Tack would sit together and talk about their lives as they imagined them in the future–Schultz in cartooning, Tack in the ministry.” After a while Schultz and would be joined by a third Minnesotan, Larry Payne. Schultz would eventually Schultz would lose track of the two of them but he always believed “the bond formed among the three Minnesotans, rooted in common values and a shared moral code, had helped him get through infantry training” (p. 133).

No question about it. This Marvin Tack, friend of Charles Schultz, was the same Pastor Marvin Tack I knew in the late 60s and most of the 70s. Marvin Tack was pastor of St. Andrews Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chicago from 1967 to 1980. This was where my aunt and uncle and cousins attended. I sometimes attended his church, occasionally sang in the choir, I even preached for him once and performed the first Baptism of my career at his church by is generous consent. Pastor Tack spend most of his years of ministry as a missionary in Japan (1952-1967). You can find his name frequently in the annals of the Lutheran Church in Japan.

I’ve mentioned Pastor Tack before (Grow Up) so I won’t repeat what I said, but he remains a model for me of what a pastor should be like. I’m not one quarter the pastor he was, but our vision of what should be ought to stretch father than our grasp or we would have nothing to reach for.

I never heard Pastor Tack mention Charles Shultz, but that’s the sort of person he was. He would never tried to build himself up by claiming friendship with a famous person. I’m not sure I could have resisted the temptation myself.

I have often used illustrations from Peanuts in my sermons. (And have occasionally been criticized when people smiled or laughed because of the reference to a cartoon.) It always seemed to me that the characters reveal a lot about human nature and sometime touch on religious or philosophical themes. Who can forget poor Linus trying to recite his part in the Christmas Pageant?

It is difficult, however, to judge Schultz’s own religious views. Although his Norwegian mother was vaguely a Lutheran, Schultz seems to have had little or no religious upbringing, although he did have a keen moral sense. After his time in the service, Schultz was baptized in the Church of God where he was very active. There was something in him, however, that did not allow him to share much of his Christian beliefs with his artistic friends. It’s as if he lived in different worlds, although his behavior was consistent in both. He later taught Sunday School in a Methodist Church and studied the Bible, but by the mid-1970s his faith was rather ambiguous. He was probably too much an independent thinker to be bound by dogmatic religion and too private a person to articulate his faith publicly. And yet something of what he believed leaked into his cartoons, enough so that Robert L. Short could use his work to produce The Gospel According to Peanuts.

It’s been an interesting experience discovering something about a person I thought I knew. I hope your pilgrimage has its pleasant surprises as well.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne






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