St. Mark's Lutheran » cross

Martin Luther Sightings

Parson Brown — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:26 +0000

In David Brook’s column an interesting wrap-up.

Liberalism has not expanded because it has not had a Martin Luther, a leader committed to stripping away the corruptions, complexities and indulgences that have grown up over the years.

If you’ll forgive some outside advice, President Obama might consider running for re-election as Luther. It’s not enough to pick a series of small squabbles and then win as the least ugly man in the room. He might run as someone who believes in government but sees how much it needs to be cleansed and purified.

Just two thoughts. First, politically (which you should care about my opinion as much as the crank on the street), he’s probably right, and it would take someone with a D after their name to do it. Just like it took a former extremely pious monk. Second, and this is the deeper problem, arguing for greater purity of anything this side of heaven is a losing battle. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. The first use of the law is as a curb – the civil use of the law. In this case the corruptions, complexities and indulgences need to be curbed. But the law does not save. The more you focus on the law the more it exposes the depth of our degradation. We would create new ways of selling indulgences (cross reference K Street Project, Fannie Mae, TARP – friends of Angelo were just plain refreshing old school corruption). The good news is that there is a Lord who knows our plight. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. And the increase of his government and his peace will never end. (Isa 9:7)

Deserts, knowledge and Truth

Parson Brown — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:14:08 +0000

This year the Gospel of Mark forms the core of the lectionary. That gospel is one that comes out of the desert. A voice is heard in the desert. A baptist appears there. All the countryside goes out there. And Jesus is driven there by the Spirit no less. All within the first 13 verses. The wilderness or the desert is an important place.

I’m pondering that in regard to how we accept the truth of Jesus. If I look at American Christianity historically there have been a couple of ways. Raw and bloody experience directly to the heart. Slaves and abolitionists and revivalists and circuit riders and Quaker quiet meetings. The heart becomes convicted and convinced of Jesus and his truth is marching on. That march has ended up in some strange places and some u-turns. But you can’t question the vitality of the Spirit, even if the message was scrambled in action. This is knowing the truth heart to head. There has been a second way that was often a hallmark of Protestants. You were instructed by people who you know, love and trust. Those people taught you that Jesus was true…and you listened, at least until you knew it yourself. That is knowing the truth head to heart. That doesn’t seem to be much in vogue these days. That group of {baptists, pietists, revivalists, charismatics, enthusiasts}, call them what you know them as, were all being led to a deeper understanding of what their hearts burned with. That group of {frozen chosen, legalists, confessionals, clericalists, dogmatists}, call them what you know them as, were all being led to a real understanding of what they knew in their heads.

At some point we are all placed in that desert. Is it a desert of the heart where if God doesn’t come and fill it up you know it will break? Is it a desert of the mind, where if God doesn’t illumine your thoughts everything just reduces to a deconstructed sentence with no real and true meaning? People lose their way in the desert. Heart and head don’t always connect. Deserts were long thought to be the home of demons or the djinn or whatever malevolent force there ever was. Satan tested Jesus in the desert. There is danger there. Your provisions don’t last long. But it is the desert where God provides the manna. We all enter the desert at some point. Do we come out? In what shape?

One piece that we seem to have lost is that there used to be guides in the desert. Moses shephered Israel for 40 years. The Angels ministered to Jesus (Mark 1:13). Who is your desert guide? Who do you want there? Are you willing to be in the desert with others? What do we give up when we aren’t willing to be led? What do we take upon ourselves?

Deserts, knowledge and truth. It is the harsh environments that reveal.

All the Stockings are hung by the Chimney with care….

Parson Brown — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:24:30 +0000

Well the sermons are done, the programs are practiced, the booklets being printed. As the sticky post above says, everyone is invited to come and worship. Its good for your soul, even if you don’t know what that word means. At Christmas you find amazing things where you don’t think they belong.

There are several people my thoughts and prayers stray toward at this moment. Most of those prayers are for a measure of peace to be granted. Mixed in with those have been a couple of songs in my “Christmas Album” this year. (Here is the Album, by the Lower Lights – it really is gorgeous) In going through my brothers things I found a huge collection of Christmas albums. I converted most of them to MP3. It reminded me of just how big a softie he could be. Every year he would buy a few more, but they were never the big ones. Not a Mariah Carey to be found. He found singers instead of pop stars; instrumentalists and choirs instead of soloists. So I’ve kinda inherited the tradition. I’m sure sometime in early December to pick up a Christmas album. It doesn’t take but a couple of days of WARM 101.3 “Frosty Fest” after Thanksgiving to get my fill of secular tunes. (If I hear Rudolf or this years off-beat tale of grandma being run over again I’ll beat something.) To hear the sacred takes MP3s it seems.

One of the Songs is I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. Its taken from a Longfellow poem. And the third stanza seems very “unchristmas-y”.

And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Sorry for the downer, but I bring that up for two reasons. First, unlike this plastic season of manic Christmas we seem to get foisted with, the older Christmas was preceded by Advent and had the strength within it to contemplate such things. Look at all the good older Carols and Hymns of Christmas. Look past the first verse into verse 2 and 3. Take What Child is This – “Nails, Spear shall pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you”. Take We Three Kings – “Myrrh is mine, is bitter perfume, breathes a life of gathering gloom, sorrowing, sighing, breathing, dying, sealed in a stone cold tomb”. Take Once in Royal David’s City – “For He is our childhood’s pattern, Day by day like us He grew; He was little, weak and helpless, Tears and smiles like us He knew, And He feels for all our sadness, And He shares in all our gladness.” Longfellow talked of all the bells of Christendom. The days of Christendom as Longfellow knew it are over, but that culture knew things that we forgot – or never bring to mind, until forced to.

That brings up the second song on this years album – Stars of Glory. The performance seems designed to break your heart just at the time the soprano’s folk-y voice breaks. The hymn must be a Roman Catholic favorite as it is older. I was not aware of it to my impoverishment. But verse one strikes just the right vein…

Stars of glory, shine more brightly,
Purer be the moon-light’s beam,
Glide ye hours and moments lightly,
Swiftly down times deepening stream,
Bring the hour that banished sadness,
Brought redemption down to earth,
When the shepherds heard with gladness
Tidings of a Saviour’s birth.

The hours and moments gather. Time’s stream deepens. Even in sadness all is not lost. It is brought to fulfillment. The angel’s tidings of peace and joy still ring, even though they are mocked from all corners, because the LORD upholds them. The LORD chose to be with all the moments: Gladness and sadness. Cross and manger; tomb and throne.

I have no interest in a plastic Christmas. But the LORD who can inspire such songs…be near me Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God

Parson Brown — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:06:29 +0000

Sermon Text Mark 1:1-8
Full Text of Sermon

Mark’s gospel as we have it full of odd turns. He boldly states as his first words the title of this post. But the climax of the story is the cross. The demons and the Roman Centurion crucifying Jesus are the only people in the story who recognize the Son of God. Peter might see the Christ, but not the Son. The last scene is the women running confused from the tomb. A reader might ask how such a story is Good News – a Christ who is defeated, disciples who scatter, proclamation of resurrection that causes fear and flight.

It is good news because of the totality of the story. God has acted. God continues to act. God continues with beginnings. God continues guiding beginnings to proper endings. But Mark knows that those stories are not simple. There are no easy epiphanies. We hear the Christmas angels and wonder what that could mean. We read the prophets and are stupefied at times. We run with those women away from that angel in the tomb. We’ve heard the good news, but we don’t know the good news. Not in our bones. As Origen says that requires the heart, not the head. We prepare our hearts. We keep our paths straight. We live under the cross, to instruct the heart. So that we might one day know the depth of the good news of Jesus Christ – The Son of God. The Son of God who knows our beginnings, our middles and our ends.

Three interesting things, no four…

Parson Brown — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:26:24 +0000

1. Pinterest – the front site is very pretty if in a way-too-unreal sort of way. I’m sure I’m way behind a curve here but it appears to be a visual orientation social networking site. You “pin” up things you like. It also appears to be populated primarily by women. First thought, can you imagine if this was populated only by guys, or even if guys started to be a significant minority? That is going to be a problem for them. But the second thought is with my first impression: lots of glossy mag, vaguely inspirational, way too cute visuals that are deeply seductive but not real in any sense of the word. Still, an interesting visual view of the current zeitgeist. A romantic movement in a non-romantic age? (HT)

2. David Brooks’ Life Reports – One, Two – Number Two is the payoff. If you want the actual data its on his new blog. He’s been reading the life reports of 70+ year olds that he requested. There is a lot of stuff to mentally chew on. There is one line that I’m not sure he backed up. (It also could be selection bias).

Metaphysics is dead; very few of the writers hewed to a specific theology or had any definite conception of a divine order, though vague but uplifting spiritual experiences pepper their reflections.

Christianity isn’t a philosophy. It isn’t a metaphysics completely in the way Brooks uses the term. But I can understand what he means. The bible says things like Psalm 90:12 or Ecclesiastes 3:1ff or Luke 8:4ff. Jesus (or the Bible) has some good thing to say about evaluating a life. The Americans Brooks is tapping sound like they majored too much in psychological jargon and self-actualization hierarchies to examine themselves. They would be better with an old form Roman preparation for confession or even just a reading of Sermon on the Mount. I sometimes wonder how many of my physical countrymen will be saying Lord, Lord…(Matt 25:11-12)

3. Better Living Through Pharmacology – A fascinating post (and the comments are insightful and raw as well) about anti-depressants and the Christian life. The question is a good one and something that I’ve spent time thinking about. I’m pretty sure that most of the “saints” and by that I mean the big ones that inspire us all went through serious dark nights. Luther found the gospel in the midst of his Anfechtung. Wesley was there. Francis. Loyola. Even Aquinas whose writing is so clear and logic so profound you wouldn’t think it possible. I’m not sure there is a place where Theology contrasts more with the reigning psychological therapeutic regime then around what today is called depression. It used to be called accidie or the noon-day demon or a dark night and it was all about spiritual struggle. (We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the power and principalities of this dark realm…Eph 6:12). Today it is all flesh and blood. It is all chemical imbalances to be treated with medication. Neither is correct.

3b/4. The problems with a simplistic numbers = God’s will equation. – This is an outgrowth of number 3. Those dark nights are often what throw you onto the Lord. I’m a numbers type guy. This is a constant temptation of mine to look at numerical failure as spiritual failure. Likewise to look at numerical success as spiritual success. It’s not that easy. I’d tie it back to Brooks even. Brooks extrapolates lessons for a “good life”, but it reads like a self-help book. Are self-help books read 50 years after they are written? 1 year? But St. Paul’s prison letters are read 2000 years later. The Freedom of a Christian is still read. I’m not sure what of our modern age might even survive 100 years even though we publish vast amounts more. The failure of our age has yet to be written.

A prayer for the day

Parson Brown — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:33:49 +0000

Lord give us today our daily bread.
We’d like more than bread
instruct our hearts in thankfulness
We’d like it to be more than a day
teach us to trust you for our hours
We’d like it yesterday or last week or better yet inherited
Remind us of our need in these hours
We’d like to work, to pay it back
Grace seems to little, too late, too tasteless, too tough
Lord
Give us today our daily bread.

Preparing the Way

Parson Brown — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:27:04 +0000

Sermon Text: Mark 11:1-10, Isa 64:1,8
Full Text of Sermon

It was the start of advent. The start of the season of preparing the way. With the start of a new church year we also change the gospel that we are reading. We are now reading from Mark in worship. So this sermon in the text part takes a very broad brush view of the gospel to position the action of the actual text.

We all get caught up in the sweep of movements. And there is nothing actually bad about some of the sarcastic examples I use, as long as a person’s identity isn’t based on that object or movement. When you find yourself chasing glory through some object or institution or event, you’ve gone off the path. Jesus has his disciples fetch a donkey. Jesus constantly asks his disciples to do the little things.

That is where you find the beating heart of the Christian life. In the everyday living. In living close to God and your fellow man. That is preparing the way of the Lord. The only true glory is available only by grace and through a cross. Its a narrow way. It can’t be bought, only lived.

Quick Notes

Parson Brown — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:35:25 +0000

In some ways it feels like the passing of an era. I’ve been at St. Mark’s three years. Long enough to know some of the history. Not long enough to know the secrets. But one of the things that smaller churches typically have are “names”. I don’t mean that to put anyone else down, but certain surnames often are associated with certain churches. In the church I grew up in there were Studemanns. One of the names at St. Mark was Bushman. The last Bushman name received Christian burial today. She is survived by a daughter in the congregation and a sister-in-law, but the name passes. The words said today.

Requiem in pace, Jeanne Bushman.

At the same time my father-in-law is not in great shape, any prayers would be appreciated. The parson’s wife has been away. Back for a short time probably to go again. Been watching the three kids in the meantime.

With Thanksgiving a couple of days away, I should note that we are able to say thanks even in the middle of hardship. Churches are an extended family. And this one is a good one.

Hymns We Sing – At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing

Parson Brown — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:17:42 +0000

This coming weekend on the Church calendar and the secular calendar covers a bunch of ground. This is the last Sunday of the church year often called Christ the King Sunday. The Sunday is set to ponder the last judgement, the coming of Christ with full authority displayed before all. At St. Mark’s it is a communion Sunday. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper on 1st, 3rd and 5th Sundays. The following Sunday, being the start of Advent, starts a penitential season of the church year or a season of preparation. Taking on that more somber tone, the Alleluias are removed. And bleeding over from the secular calendar is Thanksgiving. We have a Thanksgiving service on Wednesday evening, but it usually gets at least a nod in the Sunday prior.

We won’t be singing this hymn (tune, text) – #633 in the Lutheran Service Book – as the Hymn of the Day. Instead it is going to be after the Supper. But it really brings together all three threads of the service.

Verse One picks up the Scriptural Theme of the day – Christ the King.
At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing
Praise to our victorious King
Who has washed us in the tide
Flowing from His pierced Side
Alleluia!

This is not just a king or a pretender but the victorious king. The image of the final feast – the wedding feast of the bride (the church) and the bridegroom (Christ) – is put front and center. We have the foretaste of that feast in the Lord’s supper. The church has His presence flowing from His pierced side which verse two picks up on make explicit.

Praise we Him whose love divine
Gives His sacred blood for wine
Gives His body for the feast
Christ the victim, Christ the priest.
Alleluia!

I hope you noticed the Alleluias at the end. As a congregation we celebrate the feast with Alleluia one last time before we put them away for a season. In the past I’ve tried to pack as many into a service as possible. This Sunday just these, but still for a purpose.

What about Thanksgiving? Two things. Isn’t a feast the central element of American Thanksgiving? The other part is acknowledging where our bounty comes from and asking for providence to continue the blessings. The last verse we will sing does that. The last verse is a doxology – a hymn of recognition and praise of the Trinity. And this doxology contains that sense of providence – Spirit guide us.

Father, who the crown shall give
Savior, by whose death we live
Spirit, guide us through all our days
Three in one, Your name we praise.
Alleluia.

(Note, the pictures are some of the windows in our sanctuary)

Let Us Ever Walk With Jesus

Parson Brown — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:45:46 +0000

Text: Matthew 25:14-30 (Really Matthew 25:1-30)
Full Sermon Text

The title of the post is a hymn we sang (tune, lyrics). I meant to get that up as the “Hymns We Sing” selection, but it just didn’t work that way. That is the central theme of the sermon and I believe the sermon text. The parable of that talents (and the preceding parable of the 10 virgins) has a bunch of beguiling allegories. I look at some of those in the sermon. But at their core, there are parables of what the successful Christian life – the life that leads to eternal life – look like. And what they look like are lives committed to walking with Jesus. They are lives full of prayer and praise and the word lived in front of those who would scoff.

That sanctification walk is hard to fake – if anyone would even desire to do so. The only reason that anyone would really try is because they were convinced that this guy Jesus was the real thing. That walking with Jesus, regardless of the circumstances, actually meant everything. It is easy to imagine Pascal’s Wager, but that isn’t enough. That bet gets you to the position of the man with one talent. You are a little afraid of that god, so you take his talent and bury in case he returns. But you don’t really change your life. You don’t live you life walking with Jesus. And as in the parable, that isn’t enough. The Christian life is one that must be lived. And you only do that if you think that man on the cross bidding you to pick up yours is actually the Lord of everything.