St. Mark’s Lutheran

Here is an article reviewing a split perception of what “Catholic” Universities do to the faith of their Catholic charges.

The money quote…

The CARA report now suggests that Catholics at non-Catholic schools tend to fare worse as far as fidelity and practice goes. But the larger issue is that Catholic higher education simply can’t bear all the weight of passing on the faith.

Parents and families are the greatest single influence on a young person’s faith, experts note, and the deterioration of family life often leaves Catholic students religiously adrift even as dioceses, parishes and the shrinking priesthood are increasingly ill-equipped to take up the slack.

In teaching the faith there are always two components. There is the academic stuff, the faith that is believed. I bring out what in the modern world is a dirty word, the dogma or doctrines of a church. Those are the content of what a church teaches. Then there is the actual faith. Not the faith that is believed, but the faith that believes. This is most definitely taught. Most importantly that faith is taught by God through the work of the Spirit (1 Cor 12:3, John 6:45). That faith is also most clearly taught through the parents. God works through means. He can work directly, but more often in this world through his agents – in teaching faith through parents. (Prov 22:6, Deut 6:7, Eph 6:4)

This teaching is the fundamental work of a congregation. The commission in Matt 28:18-20 is to make disciples. Our congregations are the kingdom. They are the seed-bed where teaching and learning takes place. Both the academic kind, and the living kind.

The article ends with what is essentially a prayer. “Viewed from that perspective, perhaps Catholic colleges should be praised for providing young Catholics a sanctuary and incubator for at least some of the tenets of their faith until, let us hope, these men and women help birth a wider Catholic culture to better support their own children.” That culture the author is praying for only comes from the faith that believes. We don’t built monuments and institutions, as important as it is, to doctrines or things we firmly grasp. We build them to the transcendent Christ – the author and perfecter of our faith (i.e. the one who lived it perfectly). And how was that exactly. He feared, loved and trusted God the Father above all things. Enough to carry the cross and commit his spirit. The living Faith of Jesus.

Tags: Culture, Meditation, cross by Parson Brown
No Comments »

Text: 1 Cor 14:1-12

Looking at the passage for today those in Corinth are hungry for what Paul calls spiritual gifts. If you read closer you realize that these spiritual gifts are not the list of love, joy, peace, patience, etc but are manifestation of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues. Paul directs them instead at two things: 1. prophecy and 2. building up the church. I could be wrong here, but that word prophecy is not the popular imagination of telling the future, but simply the speaking of the Word of God. At a minimum, that is supposed to be the guy in the pulpit. Now I’m sure there are many times when what that guy says sounds like he is talking in a tongue, but it should go beyond that. We should not be looking at speaking the Word to God alone in showy babbling tongues, but speaking the Word to each other. Instead of being foreigners to each other, we are to be brothers and sisters. Instead of looking for ways to look holy without saying anything, look to build up the place where we meet prophets and hear the Word. Is there some way that you can share the Word of God and prophesy to your brothers and sisters?

Tags: Meditation, Witness, Word by Parson Brown
No Comments »

Text: 2 Kings 9:17-37

In confirmation class last night we were covering the 10 commandments and Sinai in Exodus. The opening question was – what does it mean to have a God? Luther’s explanation in the Small Catechism to the first commandment is that ‘we should fear, love and trust God above all things.’ If you say that having a God is that thing that you fear, love and trust above everything else, it is impossible to not have one. All you can say is that you are following better or worse ‘gods’. The most common ‘god’ is probably our belly. Our appetites drive us from one thing to another. Some might deify their mind. Some might deify the nation-state, ancestors or other family members. All of those things have an element of fear in them. The state holds the sword, family members exert all kinds of psychological influence. In between running from one idol to the next, we stop and think about the loving arms of Jesus. We trust that he will always be there. And there is truth in that. But that view is a very domesticated view of Jesus. Aslan, the Christ figure in Narnia, is a wild lion. The Jesus of Gospels says things like ‘go and sin no more’ and ‘be holy as you Father is holy’.

And then you get to our text. God said through Elijah that Jezebel would be eaten by dogs. Later God through Elisha annoints a new King for Israel. A King who kills the the old one and throws Jezebel, the queen mother, out the window and then sits down for a meal. When they get around to cleaning up the mess – to bury the body – Jezebel has been carried away by dogs.

Luther’s definition of God includes fear. Is the God you serve a nice domesticated lion, or is he wild enough to say things like ‘I am about to spit you out (Rev 3:16)’ or ‘follow me, let the dead bury their own dead (Matt 8:22)’ or ‘You are badly mistaken (Mark 12:27)”?

Tags: Meditation by Parson Brown
No Comments »

Text: 1 Cor 5:9 – 6:11

The text is about how people get along with each other and about making judgments. Underlying it is a much different and healthier view of what the church is. For most of the 20th century in the West the church was thought of by its people as an institution, and one of those institutions freely joined or left. That placed the individual in the position of judge or magistrate. One could freely choose which church to be a part of or freely choose to not be a part.

Paul has a much different thought. The church is those people called by God to follow Jesus Christ exemplified by sanctified lives together. In that western institutional church the goal is numbers alone. If someone is living immorally, but claiming to be part of the church, the institutional church turns a blind eye. Or it might go so far as justifying and supporting the behavior. You don’t chase away numbers. In Paul’s church, the church drives them out, and leaves them to God’s judgment. The purpose is not numbers, but in helping people live sanctified lives. Which one is showing love, the one that enables immorality or the one calling you back into relationship with Jesus Christ?

Living sanctified lives together as the people of God. Do we always get it right immediately? No way. Does that body take a painful amount of time to see the right? Often. If you act like the church is a called people in a world that treats it as a come and go institution are you going to be taken advantage of? Yep. So, do we complain about that. Not according to Paul. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? Being church is not an easy calling.

Tags: Meditation, Witness by Parson Brown
No Comments »

Texts: 1 Kings 22:29-45 and 2 Kings 1:2-17

The history books have this snarky line – “Now the rest of the acts of [King's Name], and his might that he showed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel/Judah.” At the death of each king that line appears. (If anyone is a Lord of the Rings fan you hear the echo in the Return of the King when Gandalf overdubs the guy jumping off the cliff -”And so was the reign of elsinore, Steward of Gondor”.) The biblical Chronicler, set against his time and place is unique. In no other documents would you get a King being made to look like the fool. If you want Pravda – go read the other Chronicles – aren’t all of the exploits recorded? But here, we have recorded the Word. And you can hear some of the playfulness of the Holy Spirit. Are not all those great exploits written elsewhere? Go read them if you want. Of course today and probably not long after each king died those exploits were lost, but the Word remains. These things are recorded for your instruction – said with snark.
And Ahab killed in battle and his end pictured as the remains of his life blood washed out of the more valuable Chariot and given to the dogs gives way to his son who falls through the floor of his palace. But within that is part of the story of Elijah. Elijah was just a blunt guy. After falling through the floor, Ahab son sends people to Baalzebub – a Philistine God – at Ekron to discern if he will live. Elijah meets them on the road and asks – “It is because there is no God in Israel?” The answer is of course no – it is because we don’t like that God of Israel’s answers. For Ahab’s son the answer is you’re a goner. But for us isn’t it the same. We can send messengers to this Baal or that Baal – our work or our sports team or our house – won’t you keep me safe? To which we always get a positive reply…until we don’t.
Ahab’s son doesn’t like the message and sends a captain and 50 soldiers to take care of Elijah the messenger. Some fire gets in the way. It also gets in the way of the second cohort. That third captain though is a little brighter. This one can see who is the bigger dog in this fight. Instead of “taking care of Elijah” he and his men become Elijah’s bodyguard. And Elijah delivers the same message in person. As long as we think we are the kings or that the Baals will save us that is the message. The message of the biblical chronicler is exposing the lie, stripping down the kings. And that is the message of the law. It strips us down until we are able to say – where should I go, you have the words of eternal life – until we can enter the Kingdom not as kings but as children.

Tags: Meditation, Word by Parson Brown
No Comments »

Text: 1 Kings 22:1-28

The books of the history of Judah and Israel (1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles) are some of my favorites to read. If you’ve got small males running around the house these are some good bedtime stories – the Arch books like this one or the Brick Testament (the bible amazingly staged out and told with legos). The books are also suitable for girls, but the mayhem and conflict at the center of many of them keeps the boy’s attention.

The text today finds the King of Israel (Ahab) plotting to steal a city from Syria and bringing the king of Judah with him. And the company of prophets does what they typically do in corrupt Israel – they tell the king what he wants to hear. “Go up! for the Lord will give the city into you hands.” The King of Judah is a little swifter and asks – “do you have any non-sychophantic prophets in this place?” And Ahab says yes, but all this one ever does is tell me I’m doomed. Jehoshaphat says bring that guy – Micaiah. Micaiah comes and delivering a line dripping with sacasm – “go and triumph.” The king presses him and Micaiah reveals the true Word.

And here is the surpising scene. The LORD in heaven asking the gathered host, “Who will entice Ahab that he will fall trying to take this city?” And one after another of what must be angels come forward and say various things – none of which seems to catch the attention of the LORD. Until another comes forward and and says, “I’ll put a lying spirit in the mouths of the prophets.” And God tells this spirit to go do that.

In many ways this parallels the scene in Job. It also is somewhat uncomfortable from a ‘problem of evil’ standpoint. Isn’t God in this case the author of an evil? It is a rare glimpse, a moving back of the veil, of the spiritual reality behind events. The fact is that Ahab still can choose not to go to war. In fact he has now been told what the effects of the war would be and that his company of prophets is a bunch of liars. Is that not God’s way? He tells us what the effects of sin will be – death. He warns us that false Christs will be around and not to run to them. He tells us that there will be prophets who tell us what our itching ears want to hear. And he gives us the freedom. And without the intervention of the Holy Spirit – we charge headlong the wrong way. Macaiah ends with the call – Hear! Just as Jesus would often say – “those who have ears let them hear.” God constantly calls us to Hear the way. If we are saved – it only through God’s effort. If we are not – we chose not to hear.

The Lutheran doctrinal statement is the Formula of Concord article XI on Election with special attention to thesis 11 found here.

Tags: Meditation by Parson Brown
No Comments »

The gospel text for the day was Mark 16:1-20 or the ending of the gospel. The non-scripture reading that was paired with it just bowled me over to the point that you wonder if it was just another “preacher story” – truthfully I would hope that it was a pious fiction, but sorrowfully knowing that it was real because our fiction doesn’t imagine stuff like this. I’m probably breaking 50 copyright laws (although the readership is not so great that even on the internet it might be considered private use ), but I’m just going to type it out.

From Paul Tillich:

In the Nuremburg war-crime trials a witnes appeared who had lived for a time in a grave in a Jewish grave-yard in Wilna, Poland. It was the only place he – and may others – could live, when in hiding after they had escaped the gas chamber. During this time he wrote poetry, and one of the poems was a description of a birth. In a grave nearby a young woman gave birth to a boy. The eighty-year old gravedigger, wrapped in a linen shroud, assisted. When the new-born child uttered his first cry, the old man prayed: ‘Great God, has Thou finally sent the Messiah to us? For who else than the Messiah Himself can be born in a grave?’ But after three days the poet saw the child sucking his mother’s tears because she had no milk for him…When I first read it, it occured to me more forcefully than ever before that our Christian symbols, taken from the gospel stories, have lost a great deal of their power…it has been forgotten that the manger of Christmas was the expression of utter poverty and distress before it became the place where the angels appeared and to which the star pointed. And it has been forgotten that the tomb of Jesus was the end of His life and His work before it became the place of His final triumph. We have become insensitive to the infinite tension which is implied in the words of the Apostle’s Creed: ’suffered…was crucified, dead and buried…rose again from the dead.’ We already know, when we hear the first words, what the ending will be: ‘rose again;’ and for many people it is no more than the inevitable ‘happy ending.’ The old Jewish gravedigger knew better. For him the immeasurable tension implicit in the expectation of the Messiah was a reality, appearing in the infinite contrast between the things he saw and the hope he maintained.

Tags: Mark, Meditation, cross by Parson Brown
No Comments »

Text: Mark 14:1-11

Jesus will issue the disciples commands like watch! or like love one another. He will also tell us to forget things – like God forgetting our sins. There are only two things that Jesus says remember. We hear the one every communion Sunday – Do this (bread and wine, body & blood) in remembrance of me. This text is the other one – what this woman did will be told in memory of her. What did this woman do? She broke the alabaster jar. She poured everything out without saving a drop. She did it all for Jesus sake. What did Jesus do that we remember in the Lord’s Supper. He poured out his very life blood for our sake. What we do for ourselves lasts as long as we have the strength to keep it there. Even what we do for others, while seemingly good, will not be remembered. Only what is done in Christ is remembered. Only the one that loses their life will find it. For ultimately isn’t that what life is – being remembered by God?

Tags: Mark, Meditation by Parson Brown
No Comments »

A quick note – I’ve been a slacker about writing most of this summer. It has been a summer full – full of joys and of sorrows. I intend to get back to a 3 – 4 day a week cycle God willing.

Text: Mark 13:28-37

Maybe it is a psychological thing, my good daughter Anna has returned to school and candy corn is appearing in the store aisles, but today felt like autumn. The sun felt that much less intense on the forearm. The air felt crisper than the summer fullness. We pick up those signs. The longer we live on this earth, if we are perceptive, the more we just know what is coming.

Jesus is telling the disciples something that they will know and something that they won’t in the gospel reading for today. The first part most scholars think is talking about 70AD, the distruction of Jerusalem. Jesus is telling them to be observant, learn from the fig, you can tell when the seasons are changing, so when you see these things the end of the temple is near. While that will seem like the end of the world, it won’t be. That time, when Heaven and Earth will really pass away, you won’t know. You know what? The command is still watch. We watch and we can discern when an older order of things is passing away, when the temples of the world are being judged and torn down – a small letter day of the Lord. That watching is preparation for the capital letter Day of the Lord so that we might be found awake and faithful on that great and glorious day.

Tags: Mark, Meditation, glory, grace by Parson Brown
No Comments »

Text: Luke 23:26-31

I’m taking a break from 1 Samuel because of the Gospel text of the day. This text to me has always been one of the scariest in all of scripture. To who is this warning given? Most commentators take it only as specifically to Jerusalem and warning once again of what will happen in AD 70. Very critical scholars will say it is made up after the fact. (The Jesus Seminar I’m sure put this quote in black letters indicating no chance the Jesus spoke it.) Only Luke records the presence of the women on the path and Jesus’ words to them – which fits with Luke’s overall attention to women and the high likelihood of Mary being one of his sources. The trouble with words like this is the scope. Do they apply only to that time, or does time telescope. Many of the OT prophecies about Jesus (like Isa 7:14) have a close fulfillment and then a greater fulfillment in Jesus. When Jesus speaks about AD 70 (Luke 21:5-24) does he also speak about a greater Day of the Lord?

Matt 24:22 gives our answer of hope – do not be afraid. Those days will be cut short for the sake of the elect. In more poetic language maybe you could speak of a tree planted over a stream (Ps 1:3). The church is a tree planted on the stream of life, Jesus. With such life giving water does the tree ever fully go dry? Our hope is not for this world, and we are already living in the next. That second death – the dry branches thrown in the flames – will not touch us.

Tags: Luke, Meditation by Parson Brown
1 Comment »