The Liturgy is Not a Competition

Rev. Rick Stuckwisch (LC-MS) wrote an excellent post concerning the tension Christians face over their worship practices.

It's worth a read. Some of the quotes I liked where:

In fact, I would go so far as to say that, as soon our liturgical practice has become a kind of competition, it has to that same extent become idolatrous.

How easy it is to forget that our erring brothers are not simply erring but brothers, and that, however wrongheaded and bungling they may be, they are loved and longed for by the Good Shepherd, who seeks out the lost to save them. If a brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him, even if it happens seven times a day. Forgiveness is the goal.

In the end, I would rather be known for an evangelical preaching and faithful catechesis of the Word, than measured by the "height" or "depth" of my liturgical practice.

I don't know if my Baptism was "high church" or "low church," but it was Christ who cleansed me by that washing of water with His Word, who thereby clothed me in Himself and His righteousness forever. There is no greater benefit to be given or received than that.

Devotional idea

I will be forever thankful for a gift my brother gave to me, the Bible on Audio CD.

Here's why I like it:

1. I can clean my office and do a devotion at the same time.
   
2. It forces me to listen to every word, and not skip to the key words nor breeze over the familiar ones.
   
3. I actually look forward to long drives in the car.
   
4. I seem to grasp big picture stuff better. It's amazing how the Holy Spirit threads the Bible together.
   
5. It reassures me that what I'm listening to is real. Kinda like listening to a sermon from another pastor that says the things you expect him to say.
   

I can see the danger in it too. Your mind drifts and suddenly you've forgotten what was said, and now you've broken the 3rd commandment. What an gracious God we have who takes that risk in hopes that the seed is planted on good soil.

I'm beginning to understand why we don't have quiet reading time on Sunday. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. (1 Timothy 4:13)

Balancing act

A member and I meet once a week to read the Bible together. He had read the People's Bible on Revelation and he thought it would be good to read Revelation again together. I agreed. It's nice to tackle the book of Revelation with someone who's already digested it in recent memory.

Anyways, we were reading the 7 letters to the 7 churches, and while there is a lot to take in from what Jesus says to His church, it struck me this time that what's important to Him was that His church hold on to the Word. He doesn't speak highly of blending His Word with false doctrine nor blending His Word with the world. There's tension between "becoming all things to all men" and "Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent."

Productivity

While I know my boss does not view productivity the way the world does, it is hard to let go of that sometimes. For example, my boss thinks that spending time with Him is very important because of the job. However,it doesn't look so good "on paper." "What's your schedule during the week, Pastor?" is often answered in terms of output than input. "I crank out a sermon, I visited so many people, I made so many phone calls, etc. etc."

It's just part of the gig, I guess. How to spend your time making sure you "neglect everything equally" (a phrase I heard at a Pastor Circuit Study once) and at the same time making sure to take care of your soul?

I was talking with a brother pastor yesterday, and he shared with me a phrase "do one big thing a day." With all the busy things pastors do in a day, if you got one big thing accomplished, you've had a good day. I don't remember coming across such a philosophy of ministry in the Bible. However, God did do one big thing called light and then called it a day... *cue audience laughter*

Well, yesterday I was spent most of the day analyzing Luther's Deutsche Messe and putting it together for my rural churches. A good day. Today I made an important phone call and a visit, both of which I had filled my sinful heart with unwarranted anxiety. a good day. Not that I want to scale back to doing just one thing a day, but a positive viewpoint helps.

Thy Will Be Done

After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, "The Holy Spirit says, 'In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.' "
When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, "Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, "The Lord's will be done." (Acts 21:10-21)

Is sending a missionary to a field hostile to the Gospel good use of what we've been given? I wonder if that's what the brothers in Caesarea were thinking. Here was a man, Paul, a great missionary because of the message he proclaimed, wanting to go where God's message would be rejected and/or seemingly bear little fruit. Yet he goes, gets the chance of a lifetime to proclaim to his fellow Jews in Jerusalem, before the Sanhedrin, and even before kings...but what a waste. Many rejected his message, they put him in prison, they chained him up, and eventually killed him. Yet God's Word still bore fruit (as you can see from the following chapters in Acts). God's Word bore fruit even when people of faith thought the place and time to proclaim that Word wasn't a good idea. Besides that, our mission as witnesses of the Gospel is to follow our Lord, not only to the heaven He has won for us, but also follow Him to the cross.

This is also a marvelous text on handling disagreements. Was one side (Paul) right and the others (Luke and others) wrong? I'm not convinced of that. Yet what did they do? They yielded to their spiritual leader and said, "The Lord's will be done."

My synod has decided in convention to expand rather than use what it has. Was it the right decision? I'm not convinced it was. My leaders who are fallible have made a decision, and now the Lord's will be done. Good thing there's the rest of Acts, because then I see that even when a seemingly "wrong" decision goes very bad, the Lord's will was done then and it will be done now too. God's Word continues to be proclaimed.

Other than God's Word being proclaimed until the end of time, can we project/predict the Lord's Will?

Guess Who!

He was a respected man in his community, a patriotic citizen, and a leading member of his congregation. He could always be seen in church, at both the regular and festival services. His regular offerings totaled $2,000 per year out of an annual salary of $20,000. He was assiduous in his devotional life, and he never missed his appointed time for prayer, no matter where he was or how busy he might be. He was scrupulously honest in his dealings. He was never seen in bad company. He was deeply concerned about purity of doctrine and practice, and when he discovered what he was convinced were departures from a sound confessional position, he had the courage to protest.

He was a typical member of a Wisconsin Synod church, as we would like to see him, right? No, he was a pharisee – a composite drawn from such passages of the Bible as Luke 18.

Satan has peculiar temptations for every kind of person, and for the dedicated church member Pharisaism is one of the strongest. The way to destruction is broad, and there is room on it for the religious by preference and the righteous by comparison, as well as for the ungodly and the blasphemers.

Scripture exhorts us to add to our faith virtue, but the way which leads to life is traveled by breast-smiters rather than by finger-pointers.

---Editorial written by Pastor Immanuel Frey
---Northwestern Lutheran April 8, 1973

Overheard at a Bible class 25 years ago...

I was listening to a Bible class on the Augsburg Confession that was taped 25+ years ago while my father Pastor Arnold Ruddat was here on earth. I liked this quote from him:

"When the confession condemns anything, it condemns not the persons but the confession, that is, the doctrine they publicly proclaim, for which they stand for and defend. We commit their person to the mercy of God, but we submit their doctrine to a more scrutinizing and exacting investigation. Confessing the truth of Scripture involves a condemnation of opposing error."

What do we mean when we say, "Faith Saves"

I really like this article written by Prof. em. D. Deutschlander. Here's a snippet to perk your interest.

Do you notice how eager the fathers are always to link faith with its content, how loathe they are to talk about believing as a thing in itself, separated from a message? Do you see how far removed both the scriptures and our confessional writings are from the mindless and empty exhortations too commonly heard (Perhaps even from us?): Just believe! Just have faith! Both the Holy Ghost and the fathers insist on adding the WHAT and the WHY. Faith without the promise is superstition; faith without the content is merely opinion; faith that is only feeling is mindless naval gazing.

Here's his summary:

1. Faith in the scriptures and in the confessional writings is not merely a feeling, an opinion, some sort of pious optimism.
   
2. Faith in the scriptures and in the confessional writings is knowledge of facts of the history and promises of God in the scriptures, assent that these are true and real—not just myths or fables, and confidence that the particular truth or promise applies to the believer.
   
3. When the subject is salvation, saving faith, it may well be best to avoid speaking of it as weak or strong; for one either trusts that the virgin born and risen Christ is his savior, or he does not.
   
4. Most often when the scriptures and the confessional writings speak about weak/strong faith they are not talking about saving faith but about its consequence, namely that faith which trusts God's word and promises in specific situations and circumstances in life.
   
5. Even when speaking of weak/strong faith in the sense indicated above, the scriptures and the confessional writings are not talking about mindless feelings, emotions alone or opinion; the faith in a particular circumstance is weak or strong in relation to knowledge of God's promises and trust that those promises apply to us in our every need.

The Prodigal Son's Dad

We like the father being so forgiving of the prodigal son (new clothes, good food), but we forget that the father appeared to let the son hit rock bottom. The prodigal was dead to him.

Do we really want those we love to hit rock bottom before we throw in the cloak and forgive?

No sense at all

While waiting at the airport for my colleague's flight to come in, I struck up a conversation with the lady selling roses in the arrival area. (She parked her cart right in front of where I was standing, so I figured I'd make the most of the moment.) Besides roses, she also had a selection of perfumes, scented soaps and some aroma-therapy ointments for sale. As she presented her spiel for each of the items, I realized that -- except for the beauty of the flowers -- there was nothing in the cart that I could truly appreciate. I am asnomic.

As far as I can tell, I was not born with a sense of smell. Not even the strongest scent (good or bad) registers after inhaling deeply. I have no more ability to pick out perfume for my wife than I do to detect a gas leak. Freshly baked bread, pine trees, pig farms, mowed grass, dead skunks, morning coffee and dirty diapers all smell the same to me. That is, like nothing at all. So all the scented flowers, soaps and jars of ointment in this lady's cart were of absolutely no value to me. They are not a part of my world or even of my imagination. People talk to me about smells, and just when I think I understand that smell is related to taste (a sense I do have), they go and describe a scent as "green".

No wonder, then, when non-Christians look at us funny when they hear us talk. So much of the Christian life makes no sense to a person whose eyes have not yet been opened by the converting power of the Gospel. The irregenerate may, indeed, understand the concept of joy -- but not at a funeral. They have a notion of forgiveness -- but it's usually reserved for the person who didn't know any better or who didn't mean to offend. Many central concepts of our faith may not be in their vocabulary at all: justification, Trinity, incarnation, sacrament, substitutionary atonement. As wiser men than me have observed: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand."

I don't know that I'll ever be able to smell. I may forever be on the outside of the olfactory members club, shaking my head as the others suddenly hold their noses for no apparent reason. I can only guess at their motives for inhaling deeply as they walk into the kitchen or for rolling down the windows of the car in winter. Perhaps people outside the church see us with the same curiosity: "Why would Christians get so upset over seemingly nothing?" "What's a small difference in interpretation of a book written thousands of years ago?" "If they're so eager to love and to forgive, why do they insist that I change my lifestyle?" "What would possess a person to give up their Sunday mornings / a percentage of their wage / their homeland and culture to serve as a missionary in a foreign land?"

It could be that there's an operation or a miracle drug that could restore (impart) my missing sense. Maybe a knock on the noggin will jar something loose. But we know what it takes for the non-Christian to obtain an understanding of God's ways and God's will: simply the preaching of God's word and baptism in God's name. We rely on the Holy Spirit to illumine, enlighten, regenerate and convert those who, until now, have lived in darkness. Just as he graciously has done for us, proclaiming to us the simple message that God loves us all, despite the fact that we have been loveless, and has sent his only Son to carry our guilt and to pay the price for our redemption. All who trust in him, namely that he has completely removed the punishment we deserved and has credited us with the holiness of life we lacked, receive God's promise of divine love and protection, now and in the life to come. The gospel of Christ Jesus, God and man, crucified and risen, Lord and Savior, is the only effective tool for making sense of this fallen world.

Mad at God? Blame your tools.

In an interview at Salon.com, Lewis Wolpert author of "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast" has figured out where mankind got religion from, his or her tools.

What makes us different from all other animals is that we have causal beliefs about the physical world...My argument is that causal understanding gave rise to toolmaking; that was the evolutionary advantage. It's toolmaking that's really driven human evolution. This is not widely accepted, I'm afraid, but there's no question about it. It's tools that really made us human. They may even have given rise to language.

Tools gave rise to language? Wouldn't we need language to talk to one another about a problem and invent a tool for it? No, no, They invented the tool and then bragged to their buddies about it. gotcha....

I don't suppose you can learn cause and effect from nature at all, say, from rain. "Look, these wet things fall from the sky and wash my house away with all their wetness."

Mr. Wolpert goes on to say:

Our brains are absolutely hard-wired for causal belief. And I think they're a bit soft-wired for religious and mystical belief. Those people who had religious beliefs did better than those who did not, and they were selected for.*

* as in Natural selection.
In effect, Mr. Wolpert claims that those who have religious beliefs are favored by evolution, and dare I say it, more evolved? That would make Mr. Wolpert a monkey. no, no. His ideas are more evolved, but because they are so pessimistic, they don't catch on (and haven't for MILLIONS of years). Mr. Wolpert's ideas are right, but evolution-which is supposed to prove his ideas- fundamentally says he's wrong.

Anyways, I agree with the first part of this quote. We are hard-wired for causal belief, it's called a natural knowledge of God. We do what's wrong (cause), there is an effect (some guy upstairs is going to punish me). Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. - Romans 2:14-15

Why is cause/effect hardwired in our brains? This is what Paul says
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, - Acts 17:26-27

Perhaps humankind would reach out for God. Perhaps they would find Him. Perhaps He will reveal to them true wisdom. How from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. - 2 Timothy 3:15 True wisdom has one source, and it ain't from biology.

Check out the Scriptures, you'll find your cause/effect, but you'll also find that a God who should carry out the effect on all, chooses instead to carry out the effect on Himself.

Read the whole article here

It's back...

I've been thinking about a blog for posting more church-type stuff, seeing as www.theruddats.com is basically family and life in Montana. I found that this name was back on the market, and as I was once a contributor to the "old" Preach.Teach.Confess. blog, I'd thought I resurrect it. So here it is, resurrected. We'll see what happens...