Mark's thoughts: Confirmation - the magic talisman of the Lutheran Church

This week will mark the tenth anniversary of my ordination into the Office of the Holy Ministry.  Of course, that stretch of time is nothing compared to many of my brother pastors.  However, a decade is also enough time in the parish to begin to recognize how things really work. 

After ten years as a parish pastor, one of the single greatest frustrations that I encounter is the manner in which many parents treat Confirmation.  The topic of Confirmation has been on my mind recently because I am currently in the process of writing a series of posts about the history of Confirmation in the Church (Mark's thoughts: The weird and wacky history of Confirmation, Part 1: Whenthere was no Confirmation - the western Churchbefore Nicaea; Mark's thoughts: The weird and wacky history of Confirmation,Part 2: When there was no Confirmation in Rome).  It is also the subject of ongoing conversation among Lutherans as people wrestle with the fact that so many who are confirmed do not continue with a faithful life in the Church.  This conversation often focuses on the age at which catechesis leading to Confirmation is done or the methodology that is employed in catechesis.

While these are certainly important topics, I have reached the conclusion that they fundamentally miss the real issue – the real problem.  During the last ten years I have come to realize that there is an almost infallible predictor of whether youth who are Confirmed will still be regularly attending the Divine Service during the years that lead up to graduation from high school.  If prior to Confirmation, the pattern of their family was regular attendance, this will continue.  If prior to Confirmation, the pattern of their family was absence from the Divine Service, this will return.

For all of the handwringing about the age of Confirmation and the methodology of catechesis, I don’t believe that changes in these areas will make a marked change in the outcome.  They won’t because the real issue is the faithfulness of the parents.  If the parents consider Christ and his Means of Grace to be important, they will regularly bring their family to church.  And where parents regularly bring their family to church – where they model for their children the importance of the faith by what they do on Sunday morning – we will see youth continue to attend church.  Where this was not important before Confirmation and the parents didn’t bring the family to church on Sunday, it will not be important after Confirmation.  The result is that we will not see confirmed youth in Church.  The relationship between Confirmation and a later lack of faithful attendance by youth is not one of cause and effect.  It is instead the inevitable product of the manner in which the parents conduct their family and its life in the faith.

The fact that almost the entire issue comes down to parents should not be surprising to Lutherans.  After all, the Table of Duties in the Small Catechism says under the topic “To Parents”: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4).  This a foundational responsibility of the vocation of parent that has been announced in God’s Word since the beginning of God’s people.  The book of Deuteronomy says, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7 ESV). Parents are to teach their children the faith, and we know that actions speak louder than words.  If we define the Means of Grace as being the marks of the Church (Augsburg Confession, Article VII), then reception of the Means of Grace defines at the most basic level what it looks like to be part of the Church.  What parents choose to do on Sunday morning is one of the most powerful factors in determining whether their children will live in the faith or not.

And this brings me to the question that profoundly puzzles me after ten years of serving as a pastor: Why do parents who are not in any way faithful about bringing their family to the Divine Service invest the time and effort to see that their children will be confirmed, when after Confirmation the family is simply going to return to absence from the Divine Service?

In my congregational setting catechesis leading to Confirmation takes place over the course of two years when youth are in seventh and eighth grade (this year we have begun a process of catechesis that will lead to early communion for children who want to receive the Sacrament of the Altar and whose parents believe they are ready).  The process leading to Confirmation means attending the Divine Service during the course of those two years, and families do this.  There is an hour of catechesis on Wednesday night with the youth, and then after this parents and youth together attend Learn by Heart – a thirty minute period of time that uses Lutheran Service Book’s Service of Prayer and Preaching, and has a time of catechesis.  The rite of Confirmation comes at the end of a two year period that requires a significant investment of time and effort in an activity that repeatedly emphasizes the centrality of the Means of Grace for the life of a Christian.  

Parents do this.  And yet I know with virtual certainty that parents who were not faithful in bringing their family to the Divine Service before Confirmation will return to this pattern after Confirmation.  I know it, because I have seen it happen again, and again, and again.  This is one of the greatest frustrations of that I have experienced during my first decade as a pastor.

The question then is why they do this.  Why do they invest time and effort into something that their previous and subsequent actions treat as unimportant?   I have come to conclude that for many within the culture of Lutheranism, the rite of Confirmation has taken on the role of a magical talisman.  Magic is usually defined as actions and beliefs that are thought to manipulate the divine in order to produce desired outcomes. In the minds of many Lutherans, Confirmation is a “get out of hell free card.”  It is something that from the perspective of many has a high price (one actually has to go to church and spend time with youth in catechesis).  Yet this price is worth paying because once the investment has been made, the future spiritual status has been guaranteed. Once the work has been done, the parents can revert to their normal pattern of behavior and reclaim Sunday morning for whatever they want to do. They can return to all of those things that are more important than Christ and his Means of Grace.

There are two things that are worth pondering here.  The first is reflection upon how Confirmation achieved this status in the Lutheran Church. The story of how something that did not exist in Wittenberg after the Reformation became a central feature in the piety and culture of the Lutheran Church is a fascinating one (the same can be said about the fact that Confirmation itself did not exist in the western Church for almost a thousand years). It is worth reflecting upon the cultural factors which gave Confirmation this status in Lutheranism, because many of them do not have anything to do with the Gospel. It is not surprising therefore that for many, Confirmation and its catechesis now function in ways that have little to do with the Gospel.

The second item to ponder is the general lack of faithfulness exhibited by parents in attending the Divine Service.  Ultimately, it is not a question of when and how we do catechesis and Confirmation.  If parents don’t bring their family to church before Confirmation, this is what will again happen after Confirmation. The deeper issue is, therefore, the general unfaithfulness of adults – and especially those whose unfaithfulness impacts their children. 

There is always the danger that we will construct a “golden age” in the life of the Church that never really existed. Over the years, I have found the Fifth Part of the Large Catechism to be very comforting.  There Luther repeatedly emphasizes that Christians need to receive the Sacrament. While Luther’s immediate context of Wittenberg at the time of the Reformation (medieval practice being reshaped in evangelical ways) is different from ours, the basic problem remains the same.  Clearly people were not making use of the Sacrament in ways that were commensurate with the Gospel character of the gift and this frustrated Luther. There is an incessant refrain that is telling:

         What is meant is that those who want to be Christians should prepare themselves

         to receive this blessed sacrament frequently (V.39).

         Nevertheless, let it be understood that people who abstain and absent themselves

         from the sacrament over a long period of time are not to be considered Christians

         (V.42).

         In the first place, we have a clear text in the very words of Christ, "DO THIS in 

         remembrance of me."  These are words that instruct and command us, urging

         all those who want to be Christians to partake of the sacrament.  Therefore, 

         whoever wants to be a disciple of Christ - it is those to whom he is speaking here -

         must faithfully hold to this sacrament, not from compulsion, forced by humans,

         but to obey and please the Lord Christ (V.45).

         Thus you see that we are not granted liberty to despise the sacrament. When

         a person, with nothing to hinder him, lets a long period of time elapse without

         ever desiring the sacrament, I call that despising it.  If you want such liberty, you

         may as well take the further liberty not to be a Christian; then you need not believe

         or pray, for the one is just as much Christ's commandment as the other V.49).

         All we are doing is to urge you to do what you ought to do, not for our sake but for

         your own.  He invites you, and if you want to show contempt for his sacrament,

         you must answer for it yourself (V.52).

         It is certainly true, as I have found in my own experience, and as everyone will

         find in his or her own case, that if a person stays away from the sacrament, day

         by day he or she will become more and more callous and cold and will eventually

         spurn it altogether (V.53).

         Surely it is a sin and a shame that, when he so tenderly and faithfully summons

         and exhorts us for our highest and greatest good, we regard it with such disdain,

         neglecting it so long that we grow quite cold and callous and lose all desire and 

         love for it (V.67).

         Thus you have on God's part both the commandment and the promise of the Lord

         Christ.  Meanwhile, on your part, you ought to be induced by your own need, which

         hangs around your neck and which is the very reason for this command, invitation,

         and promise (V.71).

     

         If you could see how many daggers, spears and arrows are aimed at you every

         moment, you would be glad to come to the sacrament as often as you can.  The

         only reason we go about so securely and heedlessly is that we neither imagine nor 

         believe that we are in the flesh, in the wicked world, or under the kingdom of the

         devil (V.82).

What was true in Luther's day is true also for our own.  And by the same token, the text of the Large Catechism tells us that the problem of parents failing to teach their children the faith by what they say and do is not unique to our day.  Luther writes about the Fourth Commandment:

         Instead, they should keep in mind that they owe obedience to God, and that,

         above all, they should earnestly and faithfully discharge the duties of their office,

         not only to provide for the material support of their children, servants, etc. but

         especially to bring them up to the praise and honor of God.  Therefore do not

         imagine that the parental office is a matter of your pleasure and whim.  It is

         a strict commandment and injunction of God, who holds you accountable for 

         it (Large Catechism, I.168-169).

The old man lives, and he will live until the Last Day.  The continuing collapse of cultural Christianity (and cultural Lutheranism) will exacerbate these issues - but it did not create them.  They have been there since the Fall, and they will exist until the return of Christ.  As pastors, we preach and teach Law and Gospel directed at these matters, for that is what we have been called to do. It is, at times a very frustrating calling, because often the old man wins.  People - those who claim to belong to Christ - say no to Jesus and his gifts.  We need to warn congregation members that faith does not consistently say "no'' to Jesus without ceasing to be faith.  Indeed, our Lord warned, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven (Matthew 7:21 ESV).  These are the existential realities that confront us during this life in the now and the not yet.  We need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that we can solve the problem, if we can just find the right age for Confirmation or the right way to do catechesis.

   

Sermon for Feast of All Saints

                                                                                                            All Saints

                                                                                                            Mt 5:1-12

                                                                                                            11/3/13

            On Wednesday night, there was mourning in St. Louis and southern Illinois.  The St. Louis Cardinals, once positioned for game five at home with their ace on the mound, were destroyed in game six as the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. 

            Now it’s understandable that there would be mourning – for that is just the unique character of sports.  When it comes to winning a championship in sports– winning the whole thing - the opportunities are rare and the achievement lasts forever.  A championship brings sheer joy when it happens and over time an even greater sense of pride and satisfaction that can never be taken away. Empty platitudes do not dispel the fact that failure in the face of the great prize is an utterly gut wrenching experience for athletes and their true fans.

            On the night of the crushing loss, it was interesting to watch Cardinals’ fans seek comfort as they posted on Facebook.  Some were just in denial – they sought comfort in empty statements about how “it had been a great season.”  Of course that was simply an attempt to ignore the elephant in the room – the fact that their team had come so close to achieving something great and lasting … and then had failed.

            What was more interesting were those fans who sought comfort by looking to the future.  They wrote as if next year and in the years to come the Cardinals are a sure thing to be right back in the World Series and of course then they will win it. 

            Now certainly the Cardinals are an incredibly well run organization and they have some great young pitching. But it just doesn’t work that way.  There are no guarantees.  Players get hurt – and there is nothing more fragile than a stud pitcher.  Weird things happen – the name Rick Ankiel comes to mind.  It’s really hard to get to the World Series, and then it’s really hard to win it. 

            It sure seems like the remarkable run in 2011 has skewed the perspective of many Cardinals fans.  In incredible and improbable ways they played themselves into the playoffs and then to a World Championship as time after time they came down to the last hitter or the last strike of the last hitter. But that’s not the way things normally work.  And how big does that 2011 championship look now?  For if the improbable had not occurred, the Cardinals would have lost five of their last six World Series instead of “just” four out of six.  Success in the World Series has not proven to be any sort of sure thing for the Cardinals in the years since 1982.

            In the face of a devastating loss like losing a World Series, there is no certain comfort in looking to the future.  And of course, the same can be said about many areas in life where we experience loss. But in our Gospel lesson for the Feast of All Saints we are reminded that things are completely different when it comes to Jesus Christ.  The reality is that there is mourning in the Christian life. But the certainty is that there is comfort for those who have died in Christ, and that this comfort will reach its ultimate fulfillment on the Last Day.

            Our Gospel lesson today contains the Beatitudes – the first words of Jesus’ teaching that occur in the Gospel of Matthew as our Lord begins the Sermon on the Mount.  When we think about the Beatitudes, it is necessary to recognize right from the start that they have a very intentional structure.  The first beatitude says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Note that the verb here is a present tense – “is.”  It describes something that is already now true.  In the same way of the last of the beatitudes states, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Like the first beatitude, the last one is also a present tense.  It too describes something that is already now true.

            When we look at all of the beatitudes that occur between the first and last one, we find something very different.  The verbs in all of these are future tense. They are statements about what God will eventually do: they will be comforted; they will inherit the earth; they will be satisfied; they will receive mercy; they will see God; they will be called sons of God.”  The present statements bracket the future statements, and in doing so the Beatitudes speak in terms of the now and the not yet of the Christian life.

            Our Lord begins by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Who are the poor in spirit?  You are.  This is not a description of an attitude.  Instead, it describes the spiritual condition of each one of us.  We are spiritually helpless.  We are dependent. We have no resources of our own. We are conceived and born as fallen people trapped in sin.  And yet, Jesus speaks a precious word of Gospel!  He says blessed are the helpless.  Blessed are you – which is the same thing as saying that you are saved. 

            You are blessed – you are saved - because of the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus is saying that the saving reign of God that was present in our Lord’s ministry is yours! You have received the reign of God and it has freed you from sin by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through Holy Baptism God claimed you as his own.  He washed away your sins.  This was not something that you chose to do. Instead in his mercy God came to you the helpless one and saved you.

            This is good news.  And it is good news that we need in the present because we are still living in a world that is oppressed by sin and suffering.  It is world where as Jesus says, we “are persecuted for righteousness' sake.”  It is a world where we face hardships because we believe in the saving work of Jesus Christ – a world where increasingly we face opposition if we want to live in ways that are God pleasing.

            We live as people who mourn because we see the continuing presence of sin in our life and world.  We see how we act in selfish ways that harm our spouse.  We know that we react in anger and strike back at others.  We know that we are jealous and covet.  We are the meek, the lowly who are oppressed by sin and so we hunger and thirst for righteousness.  We want God to bring the consummation of his reign.  We don’t want to keep struggling against sin. We don’t want to see the evil around us in the world as our brothers and sisters in Christ in places like Nigeria, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan are killed.  We don’t want to live in a world where millions of babies continue to be murdered in the womb through abortion.

            This is where we are at.  But on this day when we observe the Feast of All Saints, our attention is drawn to another group of Christians.  Our thoughts turn to the saints, like Shelby Tippy, who have died in the Lord.  They have departed to be with Christ.  They too received the saving reign of Christ through Holy Baptism. They were sustained in the faith through God’s Word and through the body and blood of Christ received in the Sacrament of the Altar.

            Yet now for them, there is no more struggle against sin.  No longer do they mourn, because they are at peace in Christ.  And for this we give thanks. St. Paul said that he had the desire “to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”

We take comfort in the knowledge that they are at rest in the Lord and that nothing can separate them from Christ.

            For them the struggle is over.  Yet our Lord’s words in the Beatitudes also lead us to recognize that for them the final goal has not yet been attained.  Shelby Tippy is with Christ.  Following the manner in which our Lord spoke we often express this by saying that her soul is with Jesus. By this we mean that her personal existence has not ceased. Instead she is with the Lord.

            Yet after Shelby died the funeral was held here at Good Shepherd, and then the funeral procession made its way over to Carbondale. There her body was buried in a cemetery.  Her body remains there to this day.  And while it is good that she is with Christ and no longer struggles with sin, it is not very good that her body is buried in the ground. That is not what God intended when he formed Adam out of the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life.

            And so as we return to our text we find that we can be comforted by what is going to happen in the future – something that will be a great blessing to those who are with the Lord now and also to us who are still living in this world where we mourn.

            In our text, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” We mourn now because of sin. But Jesus makes a promise about the future: we will be comforted.  The time of mourning and suffering will come to an end.  And it will not just end because we will die and depart to be with Christ.  It will come to an end because Jesus Christ will return in glory on the Last Day and put all things right.

            Jesus goes on to say in the next beatitude, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”  Jesus says that the meek – the lowly – will inherit the earth. And guess what?  Jesus really means it!  God created us as bodily creatures to live in the good creation that he had made.  His promise for the future is that he will make things very good once again and that this earth is the place where we will live.

            Of course, a few things have to happen first before that takes place.  And so we hear in the next beatitude, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”  We look at the sin in our own lives and the sin that surrounds us in the world, and we want God to do something about it.  We want God’s reign to arrive at is consummation.  Our prayer is “Come Lord Jesus!”  An our Lord assures us that this will happen.

            We will be satisfied because Jesus Christ will return in glory. The apostle Paul said that, “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”  He will do this for us. And he will also free and transform his creation.  Paul told the Romans that “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

            Now sports fans have no guarantee about the future.  One of the reasons that loss in a championship game or series is so painful is because it was so hard to get there in the first place – and you don’t know when or if the opportunity will occur there again. But that is not the way it is for us as Christians.  We can be comforted by looking to the future, because the future has already begun. The future – our future – began on Easter when Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  In him, the resurrection of the Last Day has already started.  And because it has started, we know that it will happen for us too.  No we don’t know the timing. But this is not like being a Chicago Cubs fan. There is no uncertainty about the fact that it will happen.

            And in order to remind of this – in order to sustain us in this faith – Jesus Christ comes to us every Lord’s day.  In the Sacrament of the Altar the risen Lord comes into our midst in a bodily way. He is present in his body and blood as he gives us the forgiveness of sins. His reign is present, sustaining us as the people of God.  And by giving us his true body and blood to eat and to drink he guarantees that our bodies too will be raised, for as our Lord said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

            Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, comes to us in this miraculous fashion.  And in doing so he unites us with those who are already with him now.  We join together around the Lord with the angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven. We join together with Shelby Tippy and with all the saints who have gone before us.  In that experienced we know that our Lord’s words are true now: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  And we have confidence for the future because as Jesus says in our text this morning: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

   

           

           

                       

           

Feast of All Saints

Today is the Feast of All Saints Day, the day in the Church year when we remember and give thanks for all the saints who have died in Christ and are now with the Lord.  The early Church commemorated all the martyrs on a specific day that varied throughout the Church.  In the ninth century, the date of November 1 was fixed in the western Church as the day to commemorate all of God’s saints who had died in the faith. 

Scripture reading:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.  They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.  For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:9-17)

Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God, You knit together Your faithful people of all times and places into one holy communion, the mystical body of Your Son, Jesus Christ.  Grant us so to follow Your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living that, together with them, we may come to the unspeakable joys You have prepared for those who love You; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.