The Medicine of Immortality

 

 

Given and Shed ...

 

 

... for  YOU

The Lutheran Stiff Upper Lip

 

 

KEEP   CALM

 

 

 

AS  HE  CARETH  ON

How to Tell if the Worshipers Around You Actually Believe That God is Less "Far Out" ...

... than Something Far, Far Off.

Or Maybe Just Off.

A Practical, Scripturally-Based Handbook of Diagnostic Symptoms and Signs

1.)   They sway and shout loud ... really loud ... important, for the conscious or unconscious ego's attempt to gain a locked-up-in-heaven-or-vacationing deity's avid attention (1 Kings 18:28; AV translation).

According to their theories and "anxiety bench" surmises, such expression could serve as a usefully objective demonstration of faith's genuineness, as measured in dB's.   In a pinch, though, determination of the perspiring supplicant's galvanic skin response (GSR) may adequately suffice. 

2.)   Their priests are exceedingly into instruments of bodily self alteration,  so as to capture their deity's attention to themselves.

Like the employment  of a death-dealing knife plunged into the skin (1 Kings 18:28), for instance.  In a pinch, though, a hypoxia-dealing hangin' noose around the neck (perhaps secured with a natty Windsor half-knot) will often do nicely.

Others within this spectrum of clerics ... surely ... may prefer lipstick (especially Shirley); but only if the device is PETA approved.

3.)   They eschew the notion of a sacrifice to a deity, positioned on wood (1 Kings 18:26; but cf. 1 Kings 18:33)  In America, an important and domineering variation are those groups which eschew even any reminder of a corpus placed on wood, within their "sanctuaries."

4.)   God is obviously not seen hanging from their rafters or found at the drums (much less any Altar) , so they eat and drink the stuff they've selected and deemed essential for an ego-soothing worship experience ; fill up their bellies; and thence rise up to "play" (Ex 33:6; AV translation).  "Praise the Lord and pass the latte, willya buddy.  Don't forget I called firsts dibs on lane 3 at the seeker-friendly bowling alley, in the fellowship hall.  And where's your cute wife?"

5.)  They are deserving of targeted ridicule, by those familiar with the Word (1 Kings 18:27).    

Prayer Lesson Ideas from Hell

The folks over at Google have devised a fiendishly ingenious  side-bar feature which allows you to be ogled (or more forthrightly if less metrically and derivatively said, stalked) by ads which they imperiously deem to be of interest to you, their loyal and appreciative patron.  Today, while checking out the S.S.P.'s communication board ... where (some outsiders may fantasize) furtive plans are feverishly made to fix synodical elections; sack a palace (one Purple, not Lateran); age a really good beer in fine oak casks; and restore the tonsure as Lutheran haute couture ...  my peripheral vision was itself rudely invaded by this notice:

Lords Prayer Lesson Ideaswww.TeachSundaySchool.com
14 Fun Ways to Teach Kids the Lord's Prayer: Crafts & Games

If you're out there watching  in NSA-Land,  kindly Mr. Goo, I must admit to having some very strong trepidations about this one.   No, not about the missing apostrophe, or even about TeachSundaySchool's ability to spell "Lourdes."  Not at all.  Rather, I have had the time-worn impression, even from my mother's bended knees, in fact, that the most sublime and divine of all prayers could be readily mastered by a wee one, quite without the assistance of cotton candy, roller coasters, and clowns.   Then again, as a wimpy kid alumnus, I was creeped out by clowns ... especially those conducting Mass with grease-paint, seltzer bottles and balloons ... so maybe my opinion is a trifle biased.

But why the surrendering insistence from some quarters that kids can't possibly learn, or absorb, tough realities without being entertained?  It's not the kids' supposed lack of neurons; nay rather, this is an adult problem, by "grown-ups" who eagerly project their own repressed sense of unease, irreverence, and disbelief onto those unassuming helpless to whom (says our Lord Almighty) the kingdom of God truly and properly belongs.

What exactly is fun and games about repentance and forgiveness, for wrongs encountered daily on our pilgrimage ... whether we are carried on our mother's back, tool about in a Malibu or Mustang, or are wheeled to the bathroom in a wheelchair?   What exactly is fun and games about temptation, and the battle to overcome it?  What is fun and games about evil, and our desperate need to be delivered from it by a crossed Someone?   If there is anything valid to this didactic approach in getting a vital point across, why didn't God employ a bulbous rubber nose, over-sized shoes and frizzy orange hair to expound on this message (Gen 2:16,17) : "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.  For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

"Umm ... because God knew that one day www.TeachSundaySchool.com would do it for Him?"  Hey, wow, awesome ... you get a gold star from teacher for that one, Bobby!  And  if you continue to shine, we'll work on Crucifixion Memories Lesson Ideas14 Fun Ways to Teach Kids the Lord's Seven Last Words on the Cross: Crafts & Games!

Piffle.  These "teachers" are insulting the kids.  From a Kleinian dynamic perspective, the little ones pulling themselves along the floor, if on all fours, instinctively know about powerlessness, frustration and the sense of being dazzled and overwhelmed by those adultish giants moving around them like trees (cf. Mk 8). Why make a joke of such, to deal with the seriousness of this situation?   The crawlers and the toddlers of this world, watched over by the Lord's angels, are far braver little souls than those rascals who make games out of the Lord's prayers (and especially, His Prayer).  And who are probably not above devising cool crafts and games to hilariously inform our brave little souls about butter knives, electrical outlets, 120 V alternating current, and cardiac arrests.

Turning the Lord's Prayer into an amusement park for kids is a certain way to instrumentally condition the eventual  "grown-ups" to demand and expect a side-show at worship, instead of a Divine Service in which God offers Himself, in Word and Meal, for the remission of sins.   You don't have to understand pigeons or B.F. Skinner to know this, although I think that pigeons ... on the whole ...  make more sense.

Dear Lutheran brothers and sisters:  We worship in the House of the Lord Who is Present, not the Coliseum of Caesar who is dust.  Let the games NOT begin.

Those Pesky Marks, Seen Upon Rising

You have only one of two behavioral responses to express, following the post-slumber shock of recognition.

You will either recoil from the ugly wounds ... in terror and horror of what you inflicted on a God you perceive as having been absent, unfaithful, capricious and uncaringly vengeful; projecting onto Him your own anger and rebellious disdain (and thence tragically enough, devolve to become smugly satisfied with your delusional wisdom, as you weep and gnash your teeth in the darkness) ...

Or ...

You will be attracted to such beauty, like St. Didymus, in holy fear and love of a servant-God you now see and feel fully, face-to-face, as truly Emanu-El and Savior and Lord ...  more than you have ever experienced Him before (and thence, to advancing from memories of Fore-tasting to an engagement in the never-ending Party).

Look! Is It an Angel? The Order of Creation? No ... It's Ralph Lauren!

It is September.

A month noted for the changing of the seasons, a slow metamorphosis from stitched horsehide to laced pigskin, and for many, a changing of the duds as well ... from those spiffy summer whites, to the more earthy tones and patterns of the browns, the grays, and the hounds-tooth.

Ah yes, September ... glorious September;  a month calendrically symbolized by a nine, wherein the laity may actually begin to shed the flip-flops, the T's, the jeans and the halters so as to dress to the nines again, in the reverent worship of the Almighty God who comes to His Altar and serves us. 

Maybe even the "ministers" themselves will come to so shed, if we are truly blessed.  Maybe       

But speaking of a changing of the duds, one such transition occurred within the Roman church on an autumnal Oct 15, 1976.   On that date, its Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith  issued a declaration entitled Inter Insigniores (cf. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19761015_inter-insigniores_en.html).  The treatise is probably best known, today, for summarizing the theological and historical rationales for excluding women from the Holy Offices of priest and bishop.

There is a bit more to it, however.

Section 4, paragraph 3 of I.I. solemnly intones the following:

"Another objection [to the permanency of the Lord and His Apostles' restrictive views regarding pastoral gender] is based upon the transitory character that one claims to see today in some of the prescriptions of Saint Paul concerning women, and upon the difficulties that some aspects of his teaching raise in this regard. But it must be noted that these ordinances, probably inspired by the customs of the period, concern scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance, such as the obligation imposed upon women to wear a veil on their head (1 Cor 11:2-16); such requirements no longer have a normative value."

The attitude expressed here, immediately above, decisively decapitates Canon 1262 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which mandated that women "shall have a covered head and be modestly dressed, especially when they approach the table of the Lord."  The authorized Roman counter-argument made some sixty years after the formulation of the 1917 Canon Code, then, is that a discipline assigned to and assumed by saintly women is of little real consequence; and that St. Paul's prescriptions to the Corinthian people of God (and other churches of the Christian Way) were driven from prevailing cultural influences ... the very stuff serving in the formation of tradition, in other words.  Somehow, the spectacle of the Roman church so blithely deserting a tradition because ... because ...  well, because it's nothing but a tradition not only puts a serious crimp in the wearing of those lovely and laudable mantillas; but also threatens the gaining of indulgence through the twitterings to a pope.  And the latter's been a smart-phone tradition for but a few weeks, at most.  The head-covering's been around for a couple of millennia, at last count.

Frankly, in comparison (all right, all right; better said "in theory" ), the Church of Augustana treats ancient tradition far less cavalierly than Rome's Sacred Congregation of our era.  In the Augsburg Confession (Art XXVII.40,41), to illustrate, the assertion is made by the Evangelical Catholics that "many traditions are kept among us, such as the order of   readings in the Mass, holy days, etc., which are conducive to maintaining good order in the Church."  Elsewhere (Art XXVII.45), the Lutheran fathers quote the Tripartite History, Book IX, which reads "It was not the intention of the Apostles to make decrees about festivals but to preach good conduct among people and godliness."   There you have it.  There is found the proper role of tradition; not something with which to forge a salvific justification apart from Lord Christ, but rather something to encourage a Godly etiquette and behavioral decency, in His Presence.  A humble head-covering can do that, as can the study of the lives of the saints, that cloud of witnesses which has gone before us, and triumphed.

The 1976 I.I. is sorely mistaken on a very vital point.  The prescriptions of blessed St. Paul in 1 Cor 11, regarding the head-coverings of women in the context of the Mass (i.e., the Divine Service) were not "probably inspired by the customs of the period."  Piffle.  This weighing of the statistical confidence levels is a blatant resort to brain cells which can lead to a Fall.   The Apostle does not make any excuse for his advice, based on the haute couture of the first century A+D world.  Read the text closely.  The reasons given for a specific, womanly example (to Adam's brutes) of a deep reverence towards God are 1) the acknowledgment of the Order of Creation, which reality of Order testifies to the mystical relationship existing between Christ (Head) and His Church (body); and 2) "because of the angels," who apparently take great interest in what we the children of God are up to.  We can delight these creatures, it seems, and perhaps even inspire them; but we can certainly also appall them.  The styles of the New York, Paris and Milan runways come and go, and are exceedingly ephemeral; the angels, in contrast, come and go and are eternal.  They're still around, and it's all very, very Scriptural.  It thus would be well for the members of the Church catholic, both men and women alike, to take angels and their sensitivities seriously. 

But then perhaps St. Paul's 1 Cor 11 is speaking more directly to our attitudes, and those broken and contrite spirits directed towards our merciful God (Ps 51), than to an eye-balling of our external accouterments ... however lovely, and however good, they may be. The over-arching theme of St. Paul's writing places a far greater value on the circumcision of the heart, than on an excision of the epidermis.  This is the Age of Unmerited Grace.  We are saved by Christ's blood and His merits; we are salvaged by a cross; not by our scarves, our derbies or our i-phones.

But here's the thing.  Even St. Peter admits that he finds St. Paul's letters to be difficult to understand at times (2 Pt 3:16); and that the "unlearned and the unstable wrest [with such], as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction (Authorized Version)."  Unlike the supposedly learned and magisterially stable Sacred Congregation, however, that fellow nicknamed "the Rock" by Lord Christ doesn't blow off the Pauline head-scratchers ... if they indeed are really that ... as little more than cultural phenomena and mere habits, subject to autopsy by the neighborhood anthropologist.   Maybe these constitute a special occasion for Lutherans, instead, to remind ourselves that great mysteries like order and even the angels do matter (including that jackass walking around like a roaring lion); to admit to our weaknesses when it comes to the Word; and to take some time in our Sunday frivolities and freedoms to earnestly repent, as well as to praise.              

That All Generations Shall Call the Altar-Guild Blessed

So over at Gottesdienst Online (Thursday August 22, 2013), the Rev. Father Burnell F.  Eckhart, Jr.  stoutly asserts  that the Altar Guild is “the most important group in a Christian congregation.   It is the first group to which any new pastor should pay attention. More important than the board of elders or trustees; even more important than the church council itself is the altar guild.”

At the risk of stirring the progeny of Karlstadt and Vehse to further deeds of historical mayhem, cowardly vigilantism and the counting-of-collars as something of real note, I am convinced that the good father is absolutely correct.  God’s Presence far transcends in importance the work of brushes, hot water boilers, ballots, and certainly of axes taken to church statues.  That Presence may be overlooked within the  modern Lutheran nave by the chatting, the latte-swilling, the snoring and the spiritually arthritic in this our Age of Grace; but this does not in any way negate the Reality of Emmanu-El desiring to come to His sanctuary.  Those who recognize such Reality are blessed beyond measure.  And so, the Lutheran pastors are and will be blessed to help the layfolk to open their eyes and see the Reality there on the Altar; to come to revere, adore and love the Presence who has given us His all, for the forgiveness of our sins and our salvation.   

The duties of the Altar Guild predate the dawn of the Christian Pentecost and a subsequent Voters' Assembly; such Guild’s inspiration and guide were in evidence at the stark foot of the cross on Good Friday, and on early Easter morn (Jn 19:38-42; Mark 16:1-4).  

Often taken for granted as but a kind of "mop-up" expeditionary force, the Altar Guild is a grand thing.  The important task of looking after the saving body and blood of our Lord has kindled a courage and love in men and women to confront the butcher Pilate over a spent and wearied Body; to cradle, cleanse and incense the battered Lord’s Presence, and to focus on Him so very intently that a large stone blockading the sepulcher … not to mention that burly Roman squadron on active duty … was but a forgotten meme, for a while.

If today's Lutherans are actually true to their so easily voiced beliefs, then the fair linens, the Corpora and the Pall must not be taken lightly … for Lord Christ Himself did not do so.  In Mt 23:20ff, He identifies the Altar and “all things thereon (Authorized Version)” with the very God of very God.   Physical materials which touched the body of our Lord could heal; and indeed, many with divers diseases importuned the Christ to simply clutch His garments, for their relief.  Rest assured, this is not the stuff of medieval legend or popish superstition; for inspired Scripture goes on to relate that “and as many as touched [the hem] were made perfectly whole” (Mt 14:38).

The Altar Guild deals with holy things, the touching things which are no more profane than the “handkerchiefs or aprons” secured from the body of St. Paul; the touching things which the cloud of witnesses says dispelled disease and cast out demons (Acts 19:12).  There is, of course, no guarantee that the fair linens will render physical cures to suffering Lutherans.   Scripture is abundantly clear that “God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul” (Acts 19:12; Authorized Version), through means of his servant's humble apparel.  Special miracles, please note here … events soaring far beyond what was already beyond ordinary expectations.  We beggarly rascals have no right to order God's will to meet our fancies.

It is enough then, perhaps, that the local Altar Guild comes to fully treasure as holy what God Himself treasures … what Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James treasured … to honor our gracious Father, through the honoring of His Son’s crucified Presence, so that we His people and Church may live long on this earth. 

And most especially miraculous, to live and commune in that new heaven and new earth which is to come; and to exist perfectly whole and fully embodied throughout all of eternity with our God face-to-face, as Promised.