The Sixth Commandment works because it reflects God's ordering of creation. When you go your own way, you run into all kinds of problems.
http://www.worldmag.com/2013/02/drug_resistant_gonorrhea_raises_pandemic_threat#.UTAAQJmcYCw.facebook
Thanks to Robert Smith for finding this.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Mark's thoughts: Use Treasury of Daily Prayer, using Treasury of Daily Prayer
Without exaggeration it can be said that Concordia Publishing House is currently in a golden age of its publication history. For at least a decade now they have consistently been publishing a whole range of excellent resources that in a renewed way are committed to teaching the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The 2006 publication of Lutheran Service Book and its accompanying resources has been a blessing to our synod. Pastors have seen a whole array of excellent Lutheran theological works being published.
In midst of all those good things, for me, one item has
stood out above all the others. That
item is Treasury of Daily Prayer (http://www.cph.org/t-tdp.aspx) which
was published in 2008. I am writing
about it for two reasons. First, I
believe that Treasury of Daily Prayer is
the single best resource for enriching the devotional lives of Lutheran
congregation members. It is my hope that
I will be able to encourage more people to make Treasury of Daily Prayer a part of their daily life in the
faith. Second, I have had a number of
members who do use Treasury of Daily
Prayer ask me if at some time I would provide additional guidance in how to
use the book. These members have seen
all of the resources in the book and have felt that they are not getting
everything out of the use of the book that is possible. I am sure that this is true
for members in other congregations as well.
I. What’s in it?
A. Propers for Daily
Prayer
At the heart of Treasury
of Daily Prayer are devotional resources for each day (the Propers). The book provides seven items for each day:
1) Psalmody 2) Old Testament Reading 3) New Testament Reading 4)Writing 5)
Hymnody 6) Prayer of the Day 7) Suggested Reading from the Book of Concord
The Psalmody is a short psalm or a portion of psalm (usually
around ten verses in length). The Old
Testament and New Testament reading provides the biblical text to be read each
day. This is usually about 40 verses. It
is the same daily lectionary printed at the bottom of the bulletin insert each
week. This will take the reader through the entire New Testament and about a
third of the Old Testament in a year.
The Writing is the text of a brief excerpt from the Book of Concord,
Martin Luther or some writer from the catholic (universal) Church during the last two thousand years. The Prayer of the Day provides the text of a
prayer for that specific day. The Suggested
Reading from the Book of Concord provides only a citation of the recommended
passage.
B. Orders of Daily
Prayer
In the center of the book are the Orders of Daily Prayer: 1)
Matins 2) Vespers 3) Compline 4) Morning Prayer 5) Evening Prayer 6) Daily
Prayer for Individuals and Families 7) Responsive Prayer 1 8) Responsive Prayer
2 9) The Litany. Apart from the Daily Prayer
for Families, these are the services that are found in Lutheran Service Book. The Daily Prayer for Individuals and Families provides brief devotional services
that can be used by individuals and groups at Morning, Noon, Early Evening, and
Close of the Day.
C. Seasonal
Invitatories, Anitphon and Responsories
The Orders of Matins and Vespers originated in the setting
of the monastery. Although the same
order of service was used at the same time of day there were numerous portions
of the service that varied depending on the day and season of the Church year.
The Invitatory is the statement that introduces and concludes the
singing of the Venite (Psalm 95:1-7) and the other psalms used in Matins. The antiphons are used at the beginning and
ending of the additional psalm/s and frame the psalm in way that highlights the
day or season of the Church
year. The Responsories are used after
the Scripture readings.
D. The Psalter
Treasury of Daily
Prayers contains all of the Pslams printed in the same fashion as they are
found in Lutheran Service Book. Each one ends with the Gloria Patri: “Glory
be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the
beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.”
The Gloria Patri is a brief but clear confession of the Trinity and its
addition to the end of the psalm connects the psalm from the Old Testament with
the way God has revealed Himself through the incarnation of the Son of God.
E. Selected Canticles
Canticles are biblical texts that have been used as songs in
worship. The are provided for use with
the different Orders of Daily Prayer
F. Luther’s Small Catechism
Treasury of Daily
Prayer includes the text of the Small
Catechism.
II. How is it
arranged?
A great strength of Treasury
of Daily Prayer is that it is arranged on the basis of the Church year.
It begins with Ash Wednesday and takes the reader through Holy Trinity
in the Time of Easter. This orders personal devotions to the rhythms of the Church’s life as each year we again observe our
Lord’s saving work. This journey is also
punctuated by the Feasts, Festivals and Commemorations of the saints who have
gone before us and provided notable service in Christ’s Church. Treasury
of Daily Prayer notes these days and provides the Collect as well as a
brief description of the individual. Because the date of Easter varies from
year to year the next part of the Daily Propers which covers the Time of the Church and the Time of Christmas are marked
according to the specific date (May 18 through March 9). The reader begins the Time of the Church section on the specific date that is the
first Monday after Trinity Sunday. This
is used until the Ash Wednesday when the user returns to the front of the book.
III. Why does this
book exist?
Treasury of Daily
Prayer stands in the tradition of the breviary. This type of work became common in the
thirteenth century. It brought within
one book all of the things needed to pray the Daily Prayer Offices of the Church such as Matins and Vespers. Like the
breviary, Treasury of Daily Prayer places
between two covers all of the resources that a person needs in order to have a
rich, Scriptural devotion and prayer life that follows the rhythm of the Church year.
IV. How do I use
it?
The first thing to realize is that there is no one “right”
way to use it, and instead the rich content allows a Christian to draw upon
those parts that are helpful and fit into the schedule of his or her life. The more parts you can use, the better, and
so as you get familiar with Treasury of
Daily Prayer you can make it a goal to include more of it in your
devotions. A great place to start is by
using some of the orders of service included in the Daily Prayer for
Individuals and Families. Simply reading
the text of the service and following the rubrics (the directions printed in
red) will help you to begin using the many resources in Treasury of Daily Prayer. This
is a good way to begin using the seasonal antiphons. A person can read the antiphon (such as right
now one of the three for Lent found on page O-64) at the beginning of a psalm
and then after the Gloria Patri. The
same thing can later be done with the orders of service such as Matins and
Vespers. You can become familiar with
singing these by using “Evening & Morning: The Music of Lutheran Daily
Prayer” (http://www.cph.org/p-11548-evening-morning-music-of-lutheran-daily-prayer-cd.aspx?SearchTerm=The%20Music%20of%20Lutheran%20Daily%20Prayer). This recording of the Daily Prayer Offices
was ade by The Seminary Kantorei of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN.
V. What about all
those ribbons?
Users are often intimidated by the six colored ribbons that
come with the book and the directions describing how to use them in the first
pages. Don’t be. The ribbons serve a very simple purpose. They
are meant to mark the parts of the book you use so that you can quickly turn to
the needed material in the course of your devotions. You may not need to use
all the ribbons when you first start using Treasury
of Daily Prayer. In addition,
remember: there is no “correct” way to use the ribbons. You simply need to find a pattern that allows
you to remember that a certain color marks a specific kind of material in the
book. So for example, in my office at
church right now I use Matins in the morning when I arrive and the Noon section
of Daily Prayer for Individuals and Families before lunch. In my system the yellow ribbon marks the
proper for that day. The blue ribbon
marks Matins and the green ribbon marks the Noon service so that I can find
them easily. The red ribbon marks the
Invitatories, Antiphons and Responsories so that I can use them. The purple ribbon marks the Psalms since I
use the whole psalm indicated in the propers. And the green ribbon marks the Small Catechism. Decide on what works best for you and do that
– it’s all about marking the parts you want to use.
VI. But what about Portals of Prayer?
As a parish pastor I have learned that you don’t mess with Portals of Prayer. You had better make sure that the new ones
are out long before the current one is finished. And you should probably assume
that people will still want to use it. Portals of Prayer is a great
resource. We should note however that it
exposes the reader to a very small amount of Scripture. As a pastor, I want to encourage people to be
reading more of the Bible each day than ten verses or so and a psalm. One way
to use both Treasury of Daily Prayer
and Portals of Prayer is to use Portals of Prayer for a devotional
reading at a different time than you use Treasury
of Daily Prayer. Another way would
be to use the Portals of Prayer devotional
reading as a “Writing” at one of the times when you use Treasury of Daily Prayer.
VII. Take, read and
pray
I highly recommend Treasury
of Daily Prayer because it encourages a regular devotional life that is
built around praying the Psalms, reading of Scripture and praying in the rhythm
of the Church year. We are blessed to have such a devotional
resource available. If you are
interested in Treasury of Daily Prayer,
I am sure that your pastor will be more than happy to show you a copy.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Mark's thoughts: Catechumenate at a Lutheran parish
The means used to
bring individuals into the Evangelical
Lutheran Church at Good Shepherd, Marion, IL
is the catechumenate. The following is
the explanation that was provided to the congregation before it was
implemented.
The Catechumenate
– Forming Individuals and the Church
in Faith
As a congregation, Good Shepherd faces some significant
challenges as she seeks to catechize individuals and bring them into the
fellowship of the Sacrament of the Altar. The greatest of these
challenges is the fact that we now live in a world that can be described as
post-Christian. There was a time when the core values and assumptions of
the Church and our culture
overlapped to a large degree. As the Church
worked to bring new members into the fellowship, she could assume that
interested individuals shared a common morality and had a basic knowledge of
the biblical narratives. However, that is no longer the case.
Instead individuals are now often quite open to attitudes and behaviors that
Scripture says are contrary to God’s will. They frequently have little
knowledge of the basic narratives contained in Scripture. Their values
and assumptions are often not those of the Church.
And even when a person is coming from a Christian background,
there are still significant challenges. Located in southern Illinois, we live in an area where both the Lutheran Church
and her sacramental and catholic (universal) piety are rare. The majority
of people joining Good Shepherd through catechesis come from various Reformed
churches that deny the Sacraments and whose worship life and piety have
included very few of the catholic practices that have been the common heritage
of the Church – things like liturgy,
creeds, Church year, lectionary,
vestments, etc.
Both of these situations underscore the need to bring people
out of one culture and worldview and to bring them into an evangelical catholic
culture and worldview. This is not an easy assignment. But it is
also not the first time the Church
has faced it. In the course of the fourth century, the Church went from facing empire-wide persecution to
being the official religion of the Roman Empire.
Suddenly there was a large group of people who wanted to come into the Church. However, they came from a pagan
world. They needed to be shaped and formed in the Church’s
culture and worldview.
The Church’s
response was the catechumenate – a formal process by which individuals were
gradually led deeper into the Christian faith and life. This was aimed not
simply at education, but rather at forming people to live as Christ’s Church. A series of rites helped to mark the
stages as a person continued on in this process and grew in their
commitment.
The goal and foundation of this process was Holy Baptism
that occurred at the Vigil of Easter. The season of Lent was a time of
preparation and an individual experienced entrance into the Church within the setting of Holy Week. After
remembering the death of Christ on Good Friday, the celebration of Easter began
on Saturday night at the Vigil of Easter. St.
Paul wrote, “Do you not know that all of us who have
been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried
therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness
of life” (Romans 6:3-4). Baptism at the Vigil of Easter highlighted the
fact that Holy Baptism gives us a share in Christ’s saving death and
resurrection. The week after Easter was then a time of ongoing reflection
upon the Means of Grace and the liturgy of the Church
in which they take place.
The catechumenate has been taken up again by sacramental and
liturgical churches in order to meet the renewed challenge of bringing people
out of the culture that surrounds us and into the culture of the Church. This fall, Good Shepherd will begin
using the catechumenate to bring individuals who are not Lutheran into the
congregation. At Good Shepherd, the catechumenate will take the following
form:
Catechumenate at Good Shepherd
Lutheran Church
I. Time of
Inquiry
A time to answer
questions that inquirers may have about what the Lutheran Church believes.
May – Friendship Sunday
September – Enrollment of Sponsors
II. Catechumenate
Catechesis focused on Lectionary and Catechism
September – Admission to the Catechumenate
III.
Preparation for Baptism and Affirmation of Baptism; Confirmation and Reception
in to Membership
Catechesis focused on worship and living the Christian
life
First Sunday in Lent – Enrollment of Candidates for Baptism
and Enrollment of Candidates for Affirmation of Baptism, Confirmation and
Reception into Membership
Third Sunday in Lent – Blessing of Candidates – Renunciation
of Evil
Fourth Sunday in Lent – Blessing of Candidates –
Presentation of the Creed
Fifth Sunday in Lent – Blessing of Candidates –
Presentation of the Lord’s Prayer
Vigil of Easter – Rite of Holy Baptism and, Confirmation and
Reception into Membership
IV. Mystagogy
Teaching about and reflection upon the Vigil of Easter.
Wednesday in Easter Week
The catchumenate begins with a Time of Inquiry. During
this period, congregation members are encouraged to invite people to attend the
Divine Service. A Friendship Sunday in May will be a time particularly aimed at
this. Visitors who are interested in the Lutheran Church are encouraged
to continue attending the Divine Service because it is through the liturgy of
Word and Sacrament that a person begins to learn about the Christian faith and
to be formed by the Church’s
sacramental and catholic culture. They are provided a copy of the Small
Catechism to read and invited to meet with pastor in an informal setting in
order to ask questions and receive an overview of what the Lutheran Church believes.
As the group who will be entering the catechumenate begins
to form, they are matched with sponsors from the congregation who are enrolled
in September. Sponsors pray for a catechumen, take part in catechesis
with them, and serve as support and encouragement during this process.
The events that take place during the Time of Inquiry
illustrate that the catechumenate is the congregation’s outreach tool.
Congregation members do not simply invite people to come and visit Good
Shepherd. They invite them to a process that is ready to bring those who are
interested into the Evangelical
Lutheran Church. Members
are also part of this process as they serve as sponsors who assist
individuals in becoming part of the congregation.
Inquirers who decide that they want to become part of the Lutheran Church
and members at Good Shepherd are admitted into the catechumenate . This
takes place at the beginning of the Divine Service on the first Sunday in October.
The fact that the Admission to the Catechumenate takes place in the Divine
Service highlights an important point. The catechumenate is a public
process in which the congregation encourages and supports those who are
entering into the fellowship.
After entering the catechumate, the individuals begin
catechesis, meeting once a week with their sponsors and the pastor.
Catechesis is about formation in the faith. It is not simply
education. For this reason catechesis occurs in the setting of worship
using the Service of Prayer and Preaching in Lutheran Service Book (pg.
260). The catechesis focuses on the Scripture readings from the previous
Sunday and on the Catechism (Ten Commandments; Apostles’ Creed; Lord’s Prayer;
Matthew 28:19 [Holy Baptism]; John 20:22-23 [Holy Absolution]; Words of
Institution [Sacrament of the Altar]) as explained in Luther’s Small
Catechism.
Catechesis continues in this way until Ash Wednesday and the
beginning of Lent. The Church
year teaches the faith and unfolds before us the saving work of Christ.
The timing of catechesis allows the catechumen to experience Advent, Christmas,
Epiphany, Lent and Easter. These seasons of the Church
year become part of their formation in the faith and are integrated by the
pastor into catechesis.
The beginning of Lent marks the final stage of catechesis as
the catechumens prepare for Baptism or the Affirmation of Baptism; and for
Confirmation and Reception in to Membership. They have completed
catechesis that focuses on the content of the Catechism and are invited to
express publicly their intention to be baptized or to affirm their baptism at
the Vigil of Easter,and to be confirmed and received into membership. At
the same time, this is a moment when the Church
exercises discernment. The pastor and the sponsors prayerfully consider
whether a catechumen is ready for this next step as they reflect upon their
presence at the Divine Service and catechesis, and the manner in which their
lives display progress in the Christian life.
The Enrollment of Candidates takes place in the Divine
Service on the First Sunday in Lent. Like the Admission into the
Catechumenate this portion of the service marks and helps to reinforce the
deepening commitment. The candidates enter into Lent, which is a time of
catechesis and growth in the faith that leads to baptism. The
congregation affirms that it will support the candidates during Lent as they
make this journey. In turn, the presence of the candidates reminds the
congregation that Lent is a return to baptism for all of us, a point that
becomes clear in the Affirmation of Baptism at the Vigil of Easter.
During Lent, catechesis focuses on worship and living the
Christian life. Candidates learn about how the liturgy is the
setting for the jewels of the Sacraments and about how the liturgy continues to
teach the faith we confess. Through reflection upon the Scriptures, they
also learn about what the Christian faith means for daily life in the
world. The Lenten journey is punctuated by the Blessing of the Candidates
on the Third, Fourth and Fifth Sundays in Lent. As they learn about
the Christian life, the candidates renounce evil. They are also publicly
presented the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. This summarizes the
catechesis in faith and prayer that they have received and emphasizes the
importance of confessing the faith and praying as they enter into the
fellowship.
During Holy Week candidates attend the Triduum – the one
service that runs through the three days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and
the Holy Saturday. At the Vigil candidates receive Holy Baptism or
approach the font in order to affirm their baptism. All candidates are
confirmed, received into membership and then receive the Lord’s Supper for the
first time as they share in the sacrament of unity.
The individuals now share in the fellowship at Good
Shepherd. However, this does not mean they are finished growing in faith.
The Christian life is an ongoing process and this is exemplified by the fact
that they meet on the Wednesday of Easter Week for mystagogy. Mystagogy
is the process of explaining the mysteries of Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of
the Altar. It is reflection upon the service and the experiences of the
Vigil of Easter as we think about what they mean for our ongoing life in the
faith.
Good Shepherd will begin using the catechumenate in order to
transform people by taking them out of the culture of the world and bringing
them into the sacramental and catholic culture of the Church.
However, the catechumenate will also help in the continuing process of renewal
and growth in faith of the congregation’s life. It will make outreach and
evangelism part of the rhythm of the congregation. It will make Lent a
time for renewed commitment to the baptismal life. The presence of the
catechumens and candidates will remind us that just as they are making a
journey of faith, we are called to return to that journey and what it means for
us.
Sermon for second mid-week Lent service
Mid-Lent 2
Gen
7:1-5, 11-18;
8:6-18; 9:8-13
2/27/13
It took place so quickly – so
unexpectedly – that it was really hard to believe that it actually had
happened. When I was about seven years
old my family visited Chattanooga, TN.
It will probably not surprise you to hear that we stayed at the
Chattanooga Choo Choo – the Terminal Station in Chattanooga that had been
converted into a hotel.
There was a restaurant in the
station and passenger cars on the platform tracks that had been converted into
hotel rooms. There was also a new hotel
complex that had been built on the grounds complete with an indoor swimming pool
and café dining area next to the pool.
One day during the stay, my mom was
at the pool with my brother and me.
Matthew was about three years old at the time. He didn’t know how to swim and really was
rather afraid of the water. He would sit
down on the steps at the shallow end of the pool and just splash.
Needless to say we went to the
swimming pool several times during our visit.
And then one day – with absolutely no warning – Matthew got up ran
around to the deep end of the pool and jumped in. The boy who couldn’t swim; the boy who was
basically afraid of the water at that point in his young life, suddenly ran
around to the deep end of the pool, jumped in – and sank. I was shocked. My mom was shocked. It all happened so fast, I don’t remember
whether she actually began to get up to rescue him. The one thing I remember is that suddenly off
to my left I saw a man who had been eating in the café area bolt out of the
restaurant and fully clothed he dove head first into the deep end of the pool
to rescue my brother.
It was a traumatic experience –
probably most of all for my mom. At that
impressionable age I remember thinking that my brother could have died – that
he could have drowned. I think it was
the first time that it really dawned on me that water could be dangerous – that
it could be deadly.
The deadly character of water is of
course the focus of our text tonight as God sends a flood to destroy the world
– to wipe out every living thing. In the
flood we see the extent to which the holy God is offended and grieved by
sin. Yet we also see how he loves and
cares for those who are faithful to him. And in the flood we see how God works
through water to put sin to death and to give new life.
Genesis chapter three narrates the
Fall as Adam and Eve disobey God and sin initially enters into the world. And then as we read on we see sin rippling
out into life. The very next thing we
read about is the first murder as Cain kills Abel in chapter four. Cain is banished and then Adam and Eve have
another son – Seth.
Now when Adam
was created we are told that “God created man in his own image, in the image of
God he created him; male and female he created them.” Yet with the birth of Seth we learn things
have changed dramatically. In chapter
five we are told that Adam fathered a son “in
his own likeness, after his image,
and named him Seth.” Created for perfect
fellowship with God, humanity had lost the image of God. And the results were disastrous. In the chapter before our text we hear, “The
LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every
intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
God saw this,
and we learn that the “LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it
grieved him to his heart.” If you want
to get some insight into how profoundly sin has changed things, consider these
words. When God finishes his creation he
looks upon it and sees that it is “very good.” Yet now that sin has entered
into his creation, we are told that God regrets that he made man in the first
place.
And so
because of this the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from
the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the
heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
Now in one sense, there really isn’t anything surprising about this
outcome since God had said to Adam and Eve that because of their sin they would
die.
Yet in God’s intention to wipe out all sinners we begin
to gain insight into how profoundly the holy God is offended by sin – including
ours. We often hear it said that “God
hates sin but loves the sinner.”
However, this is not true. Instead, God hates sins … and he hates the sinner. The psalmist writes, “The boastful shall not
stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers, you destroy those who speak
lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”
This knowledge needs to frame the way we view our own sin,
especially during this season of Lent. Every Sunday we confess, “We justly
deserve your present and eternal punishment.”
With these words we confess that we
are sinners who sin and therefore we
deserve nothing but God’s hatred – God’s wrath.
God is holy and just in destroying sinners who sin. But
he is also gracious and merciful. We
learn in Genesis chapter six that Noah found favor in God’s eyes. He is described as “a righteous man,
blameless in his generation” and we are told that “Noah walked with God.” This is not the claim that Noah was
perfect. Instead it is the Old Testament
talking about faith.
God saw that Noah was righteous before him – that he
alone walked by faith as he recognized God as the Creator and sought to live
according to his will. And in his grace
and mercy God acted to save Noah and the animals of his creation. He told Noah to build an ark and to gather into
it two of each animal. This means of
deliverance was itself was itself a demonstration of Noah’s faith. As the writer to the Hebrews tells us, “By
faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear
constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the
world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”
And then God sent the water. God sent water that brought death. St. Paul
tells us that the wages of sin is death.
The sinfulness of humanity received God’s wrath in the flood and all
except Noah and his family in the ark were killed by it. The animals of creation suffered as well
because of humanity’s sin, just as they have since the first sin of Adam and Eve. Yet through Noah’s faithful act of building
the ark they were not wiped out. There remained animals to continue life on the
earth.
In tonight’s text we see God using the flood to kill all
human beings and animals, and yet we also see that in the midst of the flood he
acts to save. God is wrathful against
sin, and yet God is also loving and merciful.
This tension that we see in the flood is the same one that we are
preparing to observe during Holy Week.
Jesus goes to the cross in order to receive God’s wrath against sin –
our sin. Sin does bring death as Jesus takes
our place as a sinner and dies for us. Yet in that very event God shows himself
to be loving and merciful because the death of Jesus becomes the means by which
we are forgiven so that we will not die eternally.
During the season of Lent, we are making our way towards
the first celebration of the resurrection – the Vigil of Easter. This service
focuses upon how through Holy Baptism we have shared in the saving death of
Jesus Christ; and also on how through baptism we have received the life of the
risen One.
Tonight’s Scripture reading that deals with the Flood is
read in that service because the New Testament explicitly links the flood and
baptism. The apostle Peter writes, “For
Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he
might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the
spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they
formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while
the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were
brought safely through water.”
Peter tells us that the water of the flood which brought
death to sinners, also carried Noah and his family to safety in the ark as they
were spared. The flood became an event
that killed sin and yet brought salvation to Noah. And then Peter adds, “Baptism,
which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the
body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ.”
The water of Holy Baptism has not has not merely cleansed
you of dirt. Instead, like the flood it
has killed your sin in the death of Jesus Christ. Like the flood, baptism has brought you
death, for Jesus’ saving death has become yours. However the water of the flood was not only
about death. It also was the means that carried Noah, his family and the
animals in the ark to safety. And so
because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, your baptism has brought you to
safety – to knowledge that your sins are forgiven and you will share in Jesus
Christ’s resurrection on the Last Day.
Lent is a season that confront us in our sin. Like the text about the flood, it forces us
to grapple with the way our sin sets God against us in his wrath. But Lent is also
a season that in its movement towards the Vigil of Easter returns us to our
baptism. It brings us back to the fact
that baptism now saves us because it gives us a share in the saving benefits of
Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
Mark's thoughts: Why do they believe the sacraments are only symbols?: Presuppositions in reading Scripture
A. Nagging questions
During the summer after my first year at the seminary, I was
preparing to preach a sermon at my home congregation. I was looking forward to preaching at the
congregation that had supported me during my pre-seminary and now seminary
studies. However, I was even more
excited because the text I would be preaching on included Colossians 2:11-12
where Paul said, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made
without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of
Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised
with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the
dead.”
I was
excited because the exegesis for this sermon would give me a chance to dig into
the biblical texts about Holy Baptism. I
was very interested in New Testament exegesis and had developed good Greek
skills. In my naiveté I thought that I
would be able to use those skills to produce an overwhelming argument in
support of what the Small Catechism
says about baptism – an argument that I would be able to use in bringing people
to accept the biblical and Lutheran understanding.
I began to
work carefully through high quality commentaries as I looked at the different
baptismal passages. Many of these had been written by excellent scholars who
came from traditions that hold a symbolic view about baptism. As I looked at their treatment of texts like
Colossians 2:11-12, Romans 6:1-5 and Titus 3:4-6, I was in for a surprise. On the one hand, it was apparent that they
had to work hard to in order make the text mean the opposite of what it seemed
to be saying. When Paul says that we
were buried with Christ through baptism
into death in Romans 6:4, it takes some doing to argue that nothing really
happens in baptism. Yet on the other
hand, their arguments weren’t irrational.
They might be harder to make, but they were coherent and plausible. I realized that I shouldn’t be surprised by
this. After all, these were very bright
scholars.
This
realization raised two very nagging questions.
The first was about their method:
Why were they committed to explaining the text in a more difficult way –
a way that turned baptism into a mere symbol?
The second question was more troubling:
How could one be confident that they weren’t right? Certainly the greater effort involved in
their interpretation spoke against it.
But that didn’t change the fact that taken on its own, it remained a
rational and plausible reading of the text.
Intellectual honesty did not permit my own Lutheran beliefs to ignore
this fact altogether. After all, the fact that it was rational and plausible
allowed people to believe it and reject what the Small Catechism says. It was
the reason that there has been a division in Christianity about this since the
sixteenth century.
As I
wrestled with these questions there was finally a moment when I had an
epiphany. I realized that I was looking
in the wrong place. Clearly, the answer
was not to be found in the details of the text.
Instead I needed to look at the presuppositions of the interpreters –
the hermeneutical framework that determined how they read the text. They were setting forth interpretations that
required far more moves and explanation in order to arrive at a symbolical
meaning of the verses because their worldview had already determined that the meaning had to be symbolical.
B. The biblical
worldview
In an article
entitled Good Stuff!:The Material World and the Christian Faith I
have maintained that as we think about the material creation and the
Christian faith we can summarize the content of our faith under four
headings:
Creational, Incarnational, Sacramental and Eschatological. In these headings, and in the progressive
relationship between them, we gain greater insight into the manner in which
God works.
The biblical worldview operates on the
presuppositions that the material creation is very good (Genesis 1:31) and that
a human being is composed of a body and a soul joined together in a unity
(Genesis 2:7; Matthew 10:28). The Bible’s starting point is the goodness
of the material creation and we find that God operates on this basis from
beginning to end; from Genesis to Revelation; from creation to restored
creation. It is very important that we
understand this starting point – this presupposition of Biblical thought - if
we are to understand correctly all that follows in Scripture. God’s attitude toward His material creation
is that it is very good and He continues to be concerned about it and make use
of it. In one sense this should not be
surprising – after all, He made the stuff. [1] Yet all too often this basic starting point
and its implications have been hidden from view by a way of looking at the
world that comes from a source other than Scripture.
C. The dualistic
worldview
The biblical is
not the only worldview and set of presuppositions available for reading
Scripture. In western thought another
worldview has exerted a tremendous influence and has had a great impact on the
Christian faith.
Diogenes Allen observes regarding Plato, “Fundamental to Plato’s ontology
and epistemology is the division between what is sensible and what can be
grasped by the intellect only, between the world of senses and the world of
Forms.”[2] According to Plato, the realm of Being (what
really is, namely, the Forms) is unchanging and is the realm of
intelligibility. On the other hand the
realm of Becoming (the physical world) is changing and is the realm of the
senses. Within this framework the
physical world is the realm of appearances and the knowledge gained from it is
described as opinion (doxa). In fact, the physical world
does not truly exist in the ultimate sense.
It is the realm of Becoming and not true Being. These presuppositions of Plato’s
thought are illustrated by Timaeus 27d-28a: “What is that which always
is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always becoming and never
is? That which is apprehended by
intelligence and reason, is always in the same state; but that which is
conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always
in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is.”[3] For Plato, the visible world is
vastly inferior to the ideal world of the Forms of which it is an imperfect
copy.
In Plato’s view the soul is immortal
and existed before the body.[4] Indeed, the “soul has fallen into a sensible
world, and it must return to the supersensible world if it is to attain its
proper destiny.”[5] It is not surprising therefore that Plato
sharply contrasts the body and the soul.
The soul has been bound to the body (Phaedo 81e; 82e) against its
will (Phaedo 80e) and the body is a harsh prison (Phaedo 82e).[6] For this reason, “death is not something to
regret, but something to be welcomed. It
is the moment when, and the means by which the immortal soul is set free from
the prison-house of the physical body.”[7]
Plato’s thought is complex, and we
should be cautious that we don’t turn Plato himself into a true Gnostic who
rejected the material world as evil.[8] Yet even in this brief description we grasp
the general outlines of a trajectory in Western thought that has been extremely
influential in various forms. We
encounter a dualistic worldview in
which the spiritual or intelligible world is “above” and the physical or
material world is “below.” In this
perspective, the material world is less important than the spiritual, or is in
fact evil. There is a great divide
between the spiritual and material, and the two do not mix. The spiritual component – the soul – is what
is important and the body receives little emphasis or is in fact something to
be escaped.
Dualistic worldview
Spiritual (good)
---------------------------
Material (lesser or bad)
I will call this general perspective the “dualistic worldview.” It is found in an extreme form in Gnosticism where the material world is evil and in fact “the Fall” took place when the material world was made and the spiritual elements were trapped in the material world. However, modified by Plotinus in Neo-Platonism and transmitted by Christian writers such as Origen, Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius it has had a profound impact on Christianity.[9] One need only think of the Reformed principle, “the finite is not capable of the infinite” (finitum non est capax infiniti) in order to perceive its influence.
As the names
listed above indicate, the influence of the dualistic worldview has been
present in the Church since her early years.
However in spite of its presence and the way that this influenced the
Church, it never prompted her to abandon the confession that God actually uses
water to give spiritual rebirth in Holy Baptism and that the Sacrament of the
Altar is the true body and blood of Christ.
As Hermann Sasse observes
about Augustine, “There are two levels in his sacramental doctrine – one, as
presented in the liturgy, catholic realistic, the other spiritualizing. This split is the tribute he pays to
Neoplatonic philosophy and is a burden the churches in the West bear to this
day.”[10]
Etienne
Gilson is reported to have said of the first part of the Middle Ages that
“Platonism was everywhere, although Plato was not to be found.” The west only possessed the text of the first
half of the Timaeus and had virtually
none of Plotinus’ Enneads. Nevertheless the influences coming out of
late antiquity meant that during the medieval period up to the recovery of
Aristotle in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the development of
Scholasticism, Plato and neo-Platonic thought dominated.[11]
A radical dualism did eventually lead
Christian groups in Europe into heretical views including the denial of Baptism
and the Sacrament of the Altar. The
Bogomils did so in the Balkans in the tenth through thirteenth centuries, and
in turn they influenced the Cathari in France during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.
The arrival of translations of
Aristotle in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the development of
universities in Europe helped to produce Scholasticism. David Knowles observes that in the realm of
philosophy “the principal transforming agent was the system of Aristotle, which
was revealed piece by piece until all was visible, and its author had become,
in place of Plato, ‘the Philosopher’ to all the schools.”[12] The
general eclipse of Platonic thought continued until the beginning of the
fifteenth century and the start of the Renaissance. Lewis Spitz notes that,
“Partly because of its contrast to the Aristotelianism of the thirteenth
century, so central to Thomistic scholastic philosophy, Neoplatonism seems to
be the most prominent and the most characteristic form of Renaissance
philosophy.”[13] He goes on to add, “From the time of Petrarch
until the end of the Renaissance, Platonism won an ever larger place in Western
thought.”[14]
The resurgence of Platonism in the
new context of Renaissance humanism is crucial for our topic because theologians
such as Zwingli, some of the prominent Anabaptist leaders and John Calvin who led
the Protestant church into symbolic forms of interpretation came out of this
background in their training.[15]
They bore the imprint of Platonic dualism
and this dualistic worldview provided the hermeneutical framework within
which they read Scripture. It should be
recognized that while not as radical in their dualism, the orientation and
results with regard to the sacraments were the same as that of the Bogomils and
Cathari. They rejected that God actually
uses materials means in order to work spiritual results.
When a person
begins reading Scripture with the wrong worldview – the wrong set of
presuppositions – he will arrive at a false understanding of the text. This is what happens when Scriptures is read
from the perspective of the dualistic worldview. It yields a false reading at each point along
the way as it fails to integrate the goodness of God’s material creation into
every area of Christian theology. It
generates a false understanding of creation as it fails to grasp the
fundamental goodness of the material creation and our bodies. It produces an incorrect Christology that
cannot truly confess the One who is true God and true man – the Word become flesh. It yields a sacramental theology that denies
that water, and bread and wine can be used by God for spiritual benefits. And finally, it produces an eschatology that
has no real place for the resurrection of the body and the restoration of
creation – an eschatology that looks forward to some kind of disembodied
heavenly and spiritual existence.
D. What does this mean?: The sacraments
This description of the dualistic
worldview and its implications helps to highlight the significance of the
biblical worldview by means of a stark contrast. These are two very different starting points
and they yield very different readings of the biblical texts. The recognition
of these different starting points proves extremely helpful in a number of
areas. I would like to focus on two of
them.
First, many a pastor knows the
frustration of discussing Holy Baptism or the Lord’s Supper with someone who
has been raised in the Protestant tradition.
Our discussions can swirl around texts such as Romans 6 and 1
Corinthians 11 and get us nowhere.
However, it is helpful to take a step back and realize that real issue
does not pertain to details in the text itself.
Instead the true difference relates to the presuppositions with which the text is being read – the
hermeneutical framework of the reader.
If we read these texts in light of the biblical presuppositions we will
arrive at a catholic reading of the text – the Lutheran one. However, if we read the text with the
presuppositions of the dualistic worldview we will arrive at a non-biblical,
non-catholic reading of the text – the Protestant one.[16]
The Protestant reads Scripture with the assumption that the spiritual and the material do not
interact. Having already decided this, when they come to statements in Scripture
that deal with Holy Baptism or the Sacrament of
the Altar, they conclude that God does not work any spiritual outcome
using the material elements of water, and bread and wine. They detemine that Holy Baptism and the
Lord’s Supper cannot be miracles in
which God uses these physical means, but that instead they must only be symbols.
The task, therefore, is to encourage
people to step back and see the big picture.[17] The battle cannot be won in Romans 6 or 1
Corinthians 11. It must be fought and
won in Genesis 1-2. Only by beginning
there and encouraging people to trace the implications of the biblical
worldview through the incarnation and into the sacraments will we have a real
chance to move people toward the truth about Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of
the Altar.[18] In addition, by tracing the broad sweep of
how the biblical worldview of Genesis 1-2 relates to the incarnation, the
sacraments and eschatology, we will further confirm the correctness of our
position to those who are already Lutheran.
The coherence of this broad perspective – the interlocking fit between
the larger parts – will help to confirm that we are confessing a correct
reading of the individual passages and their details.
As we look at Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of the
Altar, this can be summarized as four basic points that support the biblical
and catholic position of the Evangelical Lutheran Church:
1. The position fits with the creational, incarnational, sacramental and eschatological nature of God’s activity that we find throughout the Bible. That is to say, it is based on the biblical worldview instead of the dualistic worldview that comes from Greek philosophy.
2. The position provides the easiest reading of the biblical texts that deal with Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of the Altar – “they just say it.” In Romans 6 Paul says that through Holy Baptism we are buried with Christ into His death. In the Words of Institution Jesus says that He is giving us His body and blood. The catholic position does not have to try and explain away what these texts are saying quite clearly.
3. The position provides the least variety in interpretation. Because the texts “just say it,” the interpretation is very easy and straightforward, and has been so for the catholic tradition for 2000 years. By contrast, when the Protestant tradition attempts to explain away the biblical statements, they are unable to agree about what the texts mean. Often they are only able to agree that the biblical texts don’t mean what they seem to be saying.
4. The position is the same one that the catholic (universal) Church has held for 2000 years and has held since the beginning of the Church. For example, writing in the second century A.D. the church father Irenaeus said of Holy Baptism: “As dry flour cannot be united into a lump of dough, or a loaf, but needs moisture; so we who are many cannot be made one in Christ Jesus without the water which comes from heaven … For our bodies have received the unity which brings us to immortality, by means of the washing; our souls receive it by means of the Spirit” (Adversus Haereses, 4.26.2). Writing at the beginning of the second century Ignatius the bishop of Antioch wrote about heretics in his area: “They stay away from the Eucharist and prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, which the Father raised up by His goodness” (To the Smyrnaeans 7.1). It is a historical fact that prior to the sixteenth century, the Church had always confessed that God works a miracle as He produces a spiritual result through the waters of Holy Baptism and as Christ uses bread and wine to give us His very body and blood.
E. What does this mean?: Eschatology
The recognition of these competing worldviews – the biblical and the
dualistic – enables us to better assess how biblical our own eschatology is. The
influence of the dualistic worldview in the Christian tradition must not be
underestimated.[19] On occasion, we ourselves hold positions
regarding eschatology that have more to do with Plato, Plotinus and
Pseudo-Dionysus than Paul. In our
preaching and teaching do we point the hearers to “dying and going to heaven”
or do we hold up the biblical hope of the return of Christ, the resurrection of
the flesh and the renewal of creation?[20] After we have recognized these two competing
worldviews, we are in a better position to examine our own eschatological views
and consider where we may need to modify them in order to bring them into a
closer alignment with the presuppositions of Scripture itself.
[1] I have
described this in more detail in Mark P. Surburg, “Good Stuff!: The Material Creation and the Christian
Faith,” Concordia Journal 36:3
(2010): 245-262), 246-247).
[2] Diogenes
Allen, Philosophy for Understanding Theology (Atlanta: John Knox Press,
1985), 47.
[3]
Translation cited from: The Dialogues of
Plato, vol. 2 [trans. B. Jowett; New York: Random House, 1937], 12).
[4] Phaedo
80-82; Phaedrus 245c-247c.
[5] Allen, Philosophy
for Understanding Theology, 19.
[6] Phaedrus
250c says that the soul is bound in the body like an oyster in its shell.
[7] N.T.
Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of
God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 2003), 48. In his excellent
survey of Greco-Roman beliefs about death and the after-life (32-84), Wright
describes this as the “standard philosophers’ view of death” (55).
[8] See Timaeus
29-30 for positive
statements about the world.
[9] See the
survey in S. Lilla, “Platonism and the Fathers,” vol. 2 of Encyclopedia of
the Early Church (ed. Angelo Di Berardino; trans. Adrian Walford; New York: Oxford
University Press, 1992), 689-698.
[10] Hermann
Sasse, “Word and Sacrament: Preaching and the Lord’s Supper” in We Confess The Sacraments (trans. Norman
Nagel; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1985), 11-35, 16.
[11] Paul
Vincent Spade, A Survey of Medieval
Philosophy, 1985 (materials produced by Dr. Spade for graduate Survey of
Medieval Philosophy course at Indiana University).
[12] David
Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval
Thought (2d ed.; ed, D.E. Luscombe and C.N.L. Brooke; London; Longman, 1988), 167.
[13] Lewis
W. Spitz, The Renaissance and Reformation
Movements: Volume I The Renaissance (rev. ed.; St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1987), 173.
[14] Spitz, Volume I The Renaissance, 174.
[15] See the
discussion in Lewis W. Spitz, The
Renaissance and Reformation Movements: Volume II The Reformation (rev. ed.;
St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1987), 382-428.
[16] Sasse
describes how the Reformed churches in the 16th century produced a revolution, not a reformation (Hermann
Sasse, Here We Stand: Nature and
Character of the Lutheran Faith [trans. Theodore G. Tappert; Adelaide:
Lutheran Publishing House, 1966], 109-110).
A confession that denied Holy Baptism as a means through which God works
regeneration or that denied the true body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s
Supper was something that had not existed in 1500 years of Christianity.
[17] I have
described this “big picture” as creational, incarnational, sacramental and
eschatological in the article, “Good Stuff! The Material Creation and the
Christian Faith.”
[18]
Naturally this includes the sacramental manner in which God used located means
in the Old Testament such as the tabernacle/temple and the sacrifices (see Surburg,
“Good Stuff!”, 249).
[19]
For example, Christians often speak of how Christ and his Church seek “to save
souls.” Now it is true that the
Scriptures speak of saving souls such as in 1 Peter 1:9, “obtaining the outcome
of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
Here we need to recognize the unique character of the world “soul.” As BDAG cautions, “It is oft. impossible to
draw hard and fast lines in the use of this multivalent word” (W. Bauer, F.W.
Danker, W.F. Arndt, and F.W. Gingrich, Greek-English
Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature [3d ed.;
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999], 1098). Often there is a Semitic understanding of the
word at work. So for example the Septuagint translation of Gen. 2:7 says that
man became a “living soul” where the passage is describing bodily existence. The
biblical meaning of the word “soul” in 1 Peter 1:9 is very different from the
way that the Christian tradition, influenced by the dualistic worldview, has
come to use this word. So for example, Calvin writes: “And Christ commending
his spirit to the Father, and Stephen his to Christ, intend no other than that,
when the soul is liberated from the prison of the flesh, God is its perpetual
keeper” [Institutes of the Christian
Religion [1559], I, XV, 2; text cited from: John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion [trans.
John Allen; Philadelphia: The Westminster Press 1936]). In our setting, talk about “saving souls” is
very likely to be misunderstood and therefore we should use it with great
caution. The Scriptures teach us that
Christ does not seek to save souls. He
seeks to save people, who are a unity
of body and soul.
[20] See:
Jeffrey A. Gibbs, “Regaining Biblical Hope: Restoring the Prominence of the
Parousia,” Concordia Journal 27
(2001):310-322; Jeffrey A. Gibbs, “Five Things you Should Not Say at Funerals,”
Concordia Journal 29 (2003): 363-366;
James Ware, “Paul’s Hope and Ours: Recovering Paul’s Hope of the Renewed
Creation” Concordia Journal 35
(2009): 129-139; Surburg, “Good Stuff!”, 245-62.