The Gospel For Those Broken By the Church

This is an excellent proclamation of the Gospel for those hurt, turned off, or broken by a church somewhere. Gene Veith over at Cranach posted this free resourse from Prof. Rod Rosenbladt. A great way to celebrate the Reformation: the proclamation of the Gospel!

"The 'Best' Church For Us"

You will never find the perfect congregation for you or your family. All of them are full of sinners. All of them are led by sinful human beings. All congregations are full of sinners, but sinners redeemed in the blood of Lamb and for which there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8) The perfect church for you would be a church of one - just you - which isn't a church at all.
We must wait until Christ returns to raise all the dead and judge all, and usher in the new heavens and the new earth in "the life of the world to come." And even then, it won't be the perfect church you seek. It won't meet your expectations. It will be something you can't possibly imagine. That's why it's called "the wonderful surprise."
But as we wait for that glorious day, find a congregation that gathers around God's Word purely preached and His Sacraments properly administered.

With Angels and Archangels and the Cleaning Staff

Clarence and Mildred are an amazing, and faithful, couple. Clarence had a stroke umpteen years ago and is in a nursing home. At the same time, his wife, Mildred lives at home, but can't drive. I have the opportunity and privilege of bringing God's Word and Sacrament to them on a regular basis. I usually pick up Mildred and we drive to meet Clarence at the nursing home.
You never know what's going to happen or under what circumstances you will be at the nursing home. Sometimes we worship together in a private dining room, or even in a staff-members office. This past visit, I asked the activities director what was available. He told me, "The main dining room is free. No one should be in there right now." So that's where we went. We found a table and talked awhile. Then I began our worship service using a brief order found in my LSB Pastoral Care Companion. As I began to prepare for the celebration of the Sacrament, in walks a couple of cleaning staff people. They were going to clean the light fixtures. So here I am, saying the Proper Preface as one of the crew plops down a ladder about four feet away and climbs to the fixture right above us. You never know what's going to happen in the Nursing Home! So I just keep going through the order. So there we are celebrating Holy Communion while the light fixtures are cleaned.
This isn't at all like celebrating the Sacrament in our Sanctuary where there are hundreds of people singing hymns with the organ and we use beautifully-crafted communion ware to distribute our Lord's Body and Blood. This is three people, with a little, unassuming Communion kit, no organ, no singing, sitting around a small table, with cleaning people just doing there job around us. But it's no different. It's no different than any other beautiful celebration of Holy Communion. Jesus Christ, the Son of God was born in a stable in a little, unassuming town in the backwater of the Roman Empire. But there, angels and archangels and all the company of heaven celebrated and praised God for what he has done. Same here, in the nursing home, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven - Christ came to Clarence, Mildred, and myself in, with, and under the bread and wine of his holy meal; forgiving us, nourishing and strengthening us, and sending us.
Even with cleaning people around.

Just Humming Along

How often do you find yourself still singing those hymns from Sunday morning in your head? How often are you humming those tunes in quiet moments at home or work? What we sing on Sunday is important. The decisions made about hymnody for any given Sunday have lasting implications. The hymns sung on Sunday continue to resonate the rest of the week. Important question: Are those hymns/songs faithful confessions of who Jesus is and what he has done for us? That question is important because, in way, the hymns become your confession of the Faith the rest of the week and a probably remembered better than the words of the sermon.

Crumbs from the Table

This past Sunday's Gospel lesson was Matthew 15:21-28 - the story of Jesus and the Canaanite Woman.

And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon." But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, "Send her away, for she is crying out after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." And he answered, "It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table." Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly. (ESV)

So this text was on my mind the entire service. However, the text became a physical reality for me as a knelt at the Lord's Table to receive Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament. As I took the bread, a quarter of the broken consecration host, I immediately thought "crumbs from the Master's table." Here in my hands and then in my mouth was crumbs from my Master's table given to me - a gentile dog begging and waiting at the foot of my Master's table. That's the grace and mercy and love of our God who offers his Son as crumbs falling from his table. The power of crumbs from God's table! - forgiveness, reconciliation, peace, salvation, eternal life - all offered through the Son of God, broken and bleeding on the cross in order that those crumbs - himself - might be given to so many.

Back to School at a Birthday Party

Over the weekend I attended a birthday party with my daughters. One of their neighborhood friends was celebrating her 7th birthday. It's always uncomfortable going to a party like this as an adult, not knowing anyone else but the host. But I did strike up an interesting conversation with someone I discovered also lived in the neighborhood. His name is Hal. And the commonality we shared is the seminary experience.
Hal has just completed his first year in seminary via distance learning. I completed my seminary training over 5 years ago. Hal is of the Methodist tradition. And what we discussed at length was not so much our differences in theology, but our differences in polity. What I mean by polity is how your Church body organizes and governs itself. We compared and contrasted each others. he had not learned much about Lutheranism in general and certainly almost nothing about how the LCMS governs itself. So I think the afternoon was certainly fruitful for him. And while I studied Methodists before, talking with someone intimately involved within that denomination put flesh and blood on the facts and words on a page.
Lesson learned: get to know more people from other Christian traditions.