Avoiding the Faithlessness of Being a Political Church

Four days ago, Pastor Dennis Di Mauro, on Facebook, posted a link to an article detailing the recent votes of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) calling for an end to US aid to Israel and mandating that the retirement fund of the denomination to refrain from making investments that might benefit Israel.

As a person who left the ELCA to join the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) over the issue of the authority of the Bible, the Word of God, over the life, faith, and practice of the Church, I took particular interest in DiMauro's linked article. Lots of other people did and it's engendered many comments.

Many of those comments lamented the ELCA having become a "liberal" denomination. But I had a slightly different take on things, which I shared in the comments section in the wee hours this morning. Here, in slightly edited form, is what I wrote:

Without commenting specifically on the resolution in question, I want to comment on how the ELCA is characterized by many of its opponents and critics. (Of which I'm one.)
I see the ELCA not so much as a "liberal" church, though I understand what people mean when they use this characterization.

Rather, I see it as an unbiblical and unconfessional church body.

I see the body of which I am now a part, the North American Lutheran Church (NALC), seeking to be biblical, approaching the Word of God with reverence, and confessional, seeking to faithfully live out the Lutheran Cobfessions' understanding of Christian faith. I also don't see the NALC as "conservative."

While the ELCA often seems to be in sync with political movements that are politically liberal, I pray that the NALC will steadfastly avoid associations with any political ideology or agenda.

Jesus isn't conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. He is God in the flesh who died and rose to set sinners free from sin and all of its consequences, to give life with God ever new to all who trust in Christ and the Gospel Word about Him.

Making disciples through the proclamation of this Word is work enough for the Church, the only work Jesus assigned to it, work that will eternally transform the lives of those who receive it with faith. It will even transform the way they view their world, how they live each day, and how they vote.

The problem with church political activism is that it's work of the flesh, reflective of human reasoning and understanding, rather than being the work of the Holy Spirit within us. Church political activism, liberal and conservative, isn't an expression of faith in Jesus. It's actually faithless, born of Christian impatience with how God operates to redeem and transform people.

We need to trust in God, love our neighbor, speak God's revealed truth, make disciples.

What do you think?

Lesson Learned from Ethiopia

I heard two true stories from Ethiopia today, both told by a colleague who has frequent contact with the Lutheran body there, the Mekane Yesus Church.

The first involved a theologian of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the body of which I'm a member and which has wandered so far from God, Christ, and the authority of Scripture. This ELCA theologian was invited to teach a class on the Gospels at an Ethiopian Lutheran seminary.

One class was devoted to discussing the miracles of Jesus. The professor told the class of Ethiopian seminarians that his wife had a doctorate in Chemistry and had confidently assured him that it would have been physically impossible to change water to wine, as the Gospel of John says that Jesus did during a wedding in the village of Cana. All the miracles, he went on to say, were added into the New Testament narrative to buttress the first century Church's claims that Jesus is God-enfleshed and Savior of the world.

One student wasn't sure that he'd correctly heard the American theologian. So, he asked the visiting professor to repeat what he'd said. The professor did so.

The student closed his book and walked out of the class room, as did all the other Ethiopian seminarians.

The professor was mystified. This had never happened to him in the States.

Soon, the president of the seminary came by to confirm what had happened. He, like the students was offended by the professor's assertion, and asked the professor if he believed in the Trinity, the teaching supported by Scripture that God is one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

"Yes," the professor replied.

Then why, the seminary president wondered, would he teach something totally contrary to God's revealed truth about the Trinity in the Bible?

The doctrine of the Trinity affirms that God the Father is the Creator of the universe, the One Who invented chemistry. The doctrine also says that Jesus is God the Son. If God the Father is Lord over the chemical elements of the universe, how could anyone say that God the Son couldn't be Lord over those same chemicals to perform a miracle which affirmed His identity as God on earth?

In too much of the mainline North American churches, we've gotten to the point where we think we're smarter than God and have the right to rescind the clear witness of Scripture. We put too much stock in our own intellects, emotions, and experiences, rather than in what God has revealed through His Word over the centuries. That's why views like that of the ELCA professor who went to Ethiopia are widespread among bishops, pastors, theologians, and even church members in our denomination.

To confess that, "Jesus is Lord" is to say that God is greater, wiser, and smarter than I am.

To confess that Jesus is Lord is to say that when His revelation conflicts with what I think or feel or have experienced, what God teaches in His Word wins the conflict.  Period. End of story.

A Lord Who can't turn water into wine--or kill the power of sin and death for all who believe that He died and rose to life again--isn't worth following, no different from any of the fallible human beings, from football coaches to CEOs, from theologians to reality show participants, that people often hold up as examples or heroes. (Or whose prominence they invoke as an excuse for believing or doing what they want to do, whether their beliefs or actions agree with God's will or revealed truth or not.)

Fortunately, the Church in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is teaching the rest of us who have forgotten what it means to say that Jesus is Lord. Thank God!

I pray that all of us in my own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (and all Christians in North America and western Europe) will learn and live this truth, too. We need to connect to God again! The world needs for us to connect to God again.

Martin Luther and the Need for Reformation Today!

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning. We celebrated Reformation Sunday.]

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 46
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36

He was born in November 1483, in the German principality of Saxony. His name was Martin Luther. From an early age, he exhibited intelligence and many talents. As time passed, he would become a great preacher, a theologian, and a musician.

These pursuits were far from his father’s intentions for young Martin. Hans Luther wanted the boy to become a lawyer.

That was the trajectory on which Martin’s life was moving until a shattering experience intervened. He was going back to the university he attended when a thunderstorm arose. A lightning bolt knocked Luther to the ground. Understandably terrified, Martin cried out to the patron saint of miners. “Saint Ann,” he said, “save me; I will become a monk.”

Luther was mistaken, of course, to trust in a saint instead of God. As one of our Read the Bible in a Year passages from last week, Jeremiah 17:7 puts it, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.”

But who knows? If Luther hadn’t gone to a monastery, you and I, the beneficiaries of his rediscovery of Biblical truths that had been buried beneath traditions and power plays, might not be here this morning.

Nonetheless the new monk Luther was a disturbed young man. He saw himself as completely guilty and hopelessly condemned to an eternity in hell. He couldn’t imagine that God would ever forgive him. He was a mess!

Believing that a fully occupied life would crowd out Luther’s worries though, his superiors decided that Luther should study to become a doctor of theology. He would then teach at a new university being started in the Saxon town of Wittenberg.

At first, the new regimen of work, which included administering fourteen monasteries, pastoring a local church, and teaching at the new university, did nothing to change Luther’s loathing of God and  himself.

But then, something happened to change Luther’s life--and history itself.

Like most seminarians and priests of his day, Luther had never studied Scripture. He did so now, as he prepared for the classes he was teaching. In the Bible, Luther found a God quite different from the one often preached in the Church of his day. He saw a God of grace and love...

• Who reaches out to His children, 
• Who charitably understands their fallen humanity, 
• Who forgives and empowers right living, and promises eternity to all with faith in Him. 

Luther saw a God:

• Who hates sin while loving sinners,
• Who lovingly calls all to repent for their sin and believe in His Son, Jesus.

Luther’s new understanding of God crystallized as he studied two verses in the New Testament book of Romans. Please pull out the pew Bibles and turn to page 648 to read them, Romans 1:16-17. They say:

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel [that means, the Good News about how God sent His Son Jesus to die and rise so that all who believe in Him will not be eternally separated from God in hell, but live with God eternally], for it [the Gospel] is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it [that is, in the Gospel’s message about Jesus] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written [and this comes from the Old Testament book of Habakkuk]: "The just shall live by faith."

Luther saw that righteousness is not some goodness owned by super-saints. Righteousness is having a right relationship with God.

Through Jesus’ cross and empty tomb, Christ gives righteousness to all who turn from sin and believe in Him. Christ does all this as a free gift.

The Bible calls this gift, along with all of God’s other undeserved blessings, grace.

Ephesians sums up the truth that changes the lives of followers in Jesus for eternity when it says, “by grace you have been saved through faith…”

As Luther grew in the confidence he had in the new life given to him by Christ, he grew bolder in sharing what he had learned from the Bible. On October 31, 1517, he posted 95 theses--or propositions for debate—on the church door in Wittenberg.

Luther’s theses challenged a common practice in the Roman Catholic Church of his day. The Church then taught that there was a place called “purgatory,” a sort of holding room that the dead supposedly went to between death and eternity. Purgatory was supposed to be a place where people were purified for entry into heaven. Purgatory was purely a human invention. To raise money, the Church often authorized the mass sale of pieces of paper called indulgences. Indulgences allowed people to buy hundreds or thousands of years out of purgatory for loved ones or even themselves. (Depending on how much a person wanted to or could spend.) Luther was offended by this practice. It turned God's gift of grace for all who trust in Christ into a commodity to be bought and sold by human beings.

When Luther’s preaching and teaching against indulgences impacted the bottom line on their sale, the Church went after him. At a gathering in the German city of Wurms, before the emperor, Luther was ordered to recant, or repudiate, all of his writings. He refused. Ultimately, he came under what was known as an “imperial ban,” meaning that anyone who saw Luther was authorized to kill him on sight.  Luther was labeled a heretic, a perverter of the Christian faith.

But Luther and those who came to agree with him remained steadfast in proclaiming the God we see in Jesus Christ, the God of grace and God of glory. Among Luther’s last words were, “We are all beggars,” an acknowledgement that none of us is better or more important than others in God's eyes and that all with faith in Christ are the recipients of God’s charitable gifts: forgiveness and new life. We cannot earn them, but thank God, He loves to give them to those humble enough to surrender to Christ! These are the central truths of God’s Word, the Bible.

Luther died in 1546.

We celebrate October 31 each year as Reformation Day because on All Saints Eve, Hallowed Evening or, as we call it, Hallowe'en, in 1517, Luther’s 95 Theses began a major reformation of the Church.

That reform movement goes on to this day.

We celebrate the Sunday closest to October 31 each year as Reformation Sunday.

I’m convinced that if Martin Luther were a pastor of our own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) today, there would be some things he would celebrate. But I'm equally sure that he would also be agitating for reform within the ELCA and would be unpopular among many.

On one hand, Luther, who believed that the Bible contains God’s authoritative Word and was willing always to be shown what the truth is by Scripture and plain reason, would be delighted that, in accordance with the Scriptures, we ELCA Lutherans see women and men as equals and that women called by God are ordained as pastors among us.

But I’m sure that Luther would also look at Called to Common Mission, the agreement struck between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church-USA in 1999, and be appalled that people who call themselves Lutherans have accepted the belief that the words and actions of bishops—mere human beings—have as much authority as the Word of God.

He would look at the legalistic system we have in selecting voting members to our synod and churchwide assemblies and ask why we have replaced attentiveness to God’s Word with a Pharisee-like insistence on quotas.

I’m also certain that Luther would look at the many ELCA bishops, pastors, and seminary professors who reject the Bible’s teachings on things like Jesus’ virgin birth, on Jesus’ miracles, on Jesus being truly God and truly human, and on Jesus’ physical resurrection from the dead and ask, “Why do people of the Reformation tradition no longer accept the faith of the Bible and of the Lutheran Confessions?”

Clearly, the need for the movement to reform Christ’s Church that began when Martin Luther posted those 95 Theses on October 31, 1517, has not ended.

As long as there are people within and outside the Church who believe that they can construct lives from fortresses of their own designs and efforts, in which they make people and things other than Jesus Christ the foundations on which they build their lives and hope for eternity, the Reformation must continue.

We must keep singing and continue to strive to live for the truth Luther summarized in his greatest hymn, “A mighty fortress is our God!”

Martin Luther learned and then taught from God’s Word that our relationship with God and our freedom from sin and death come only from the God of the Bible, the God ultimately revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ.

These gifts—relationship with God, freedom from sin and death—come to us freely from a God Who is not subject to our human authority or our puny religiosity.

They come to us from Christ alone, Who shows us that God isn’t our enemy, but our very best friend, and worthy of all our glory, honor, praise, living, trust, hope, obedience, and surrender.

Keep the Reformation Luther began going!

Keep turning to God’s Word alone, to God’s Son Jesus alone, to salvation by grace through our faith in Christ alone! 

Then, pass the truth of grace alone, faith alone in Christ alone, and God’s Word alone as our guide in life, onto everyone you know. Amen!

Hanson Statement Highlights Problem with Churches of the Left...and the Right

One of the biggest problems in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), of which I am a part, is its leadership's insistence on speaking out on a variety of political issues, pretending, it seems to me, that their positions are unambiguously "Christian," when in fact, Scripture gives no such authority.

It matters little to me that the agenda pushed by our denominational leadership is "liberal," which it mostly is. I was complaining about the Religious Right's equation of Christian faith with conservatism a long time ago, and for the same reasons I am so critical of my own denomination's leadership today. Both the ELCA's leaders with their liberalism and those of denominations pursuing conservative political agendas are, I believe, equally heedless of the Gospel, equally prone to an "idolatry of ideology," and equally likely to confuse people about what it means to be a follower of Christ while alienating the very people with whom we're called and commanded to share our "good news.

I returned from a few vacation days in New York to find an email and press release announcing that the ELCA's presiding bishop, Mark Hanson, is pressing the U.S. Congress for immigration reform.

Immigration reform along the lines proposed by Bishop Hanson may very well be a fine idea. And there can be no doubt that we Christians are commanded to treat the strangers in our midst with hospitality and love.

But Bishop Hanson can hardly argue that he has a warrant for saying that two of the "principles" he endorses ("helping new neighbors come out of the shadows...and seeking a path to permanence for new neighbors") have Biblical or confessional authority. They are merely his political preferences, nothing more and nothing less, even if he feels a churchwide assembly vote gave him the right to issue such a statement in the Name of Christ and the Church.

Except in cases where the witness of Scripture is unambiguous in its message for civil authority and a pluralistic society, the Church needs to stay out of politics. Our mission is to share the Good News--the Gospel--of Jesus, not win legislative votes, elections, or coercive power.

Here are some other places where I've written on this subject:
No Politics from the Pulpit...or From Preachers

A Pledge I Wish Every Christian Leader Would Make
Jesus is Not a Republican. Jesus is Also Not a Democrat.
Who is the 'Values Voter'?
"Do religious ideas undermine democratic discourse?"
Dr. Dobson, Stop Playing This Dangerous Game!
Politics Endorsed by a Church? I Don't Think So!
Why Separation of Church and State is Best for the Church and Its Cause
Iraq, the Church, and 'Christian' Political Commentary

Tanzanian Lutheran Bishop Speaks Out Against ELCA Decisions of Last August

Here.

You might be interested...

if you're a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) like me, in the online town hall that presiding bishop Mark Hanson has scheduled for December 6. It will be interesting to hear the questions raised by people from throughout the church body.

For some of my short takes...

Go to my Twitter site. You'll find a link to a great video on the motivations of the Pelotonia bicyclists from the Ohio State James Center, among other things.

From Pastor Jaynan Clark: A declaration of independence?

[The following was written by Pastor Jaynan Clark, president of the WordAlone Network, a group of Lutheran pastors and congregations working to reform the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, calling it to fidelity to the Word of God, a central teaching of the Lutheran movement. Clark is currently on leave from call, no doubt devoting herself to the work of WordAlone these days. For background on her thoughts, you may want to look here.]

I am hopeful that everyone reading this had a fun and safe celebration of the 4th of July, Independence Day. It has historically been a day when accidents happen and people are injured, fires are set and often all the damage was without intention but still severe.

This year we as a family experienced a dangerous close call while entertaining our friends' small children. Their two small boys were in awe of my two large boys' ability to pull off quite a fireworks display with a rather small bag for an arsenal. One tightly packed firework after being ignited was met with the exclamation of an innocent 9-year-old boy, "That was the coolest thing I ever saw in my whole life. This is the most fun I've ever had."

My exclamation was, "Thank God for a thick dock and a large lake." The firework in question, once lit, continued to blow and entertain until it tipped off the edge of the dock into the water. Approaching the now submerged "bomb" to check it out, I was met with glowing green water and a sequence of repeated explosions that blew water through the dock and into the air in a variety of colors. A potentially very dangerous accident. No one was hurt but all were surprised and--moments later than the 9-year-old--even entertained.

It is quite common knowledge that we celebrate our independence as a nation with explosions, fire, noise and smoke. Why is not such common knowledge. I suppose one could parallel it to the wars that seem to always precede independence or just the need to entertain and do it with a flare. Regardless of the reason, the parallels to our current situation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are not a stretch.

The nature of everyone's sin in the wake of the fall can be described as our declaration of independence from God. In order to be our own gods and run our own lives, we act out in many ways that are all covered by the Ten Commandments. There is nothing new about sin. We want things to be our way according to our own desires and to be lords of our own lives. It doesn't take an explosion of intellect to see how destructive that is in the larger context of community and society. If everyone wants to "have it their way," then what about the other? It is the definition of irresponsibility resulting in anarchy.

Our situation as a Protestant church along with other floundering denominations is a testimony to exactly this. When the leadership of these churches declares independence from the authority of the Bible, from the history of the church and its teachings, from the age-old social and cultural norms for the family as the foundation of society, then we can expect nothing other than anarchy.

The issues before us regarding human sexuality are mere firecrackers contributing to the much bigger, out-of-control firestorm that is burning down the very forms and foundations of Christian faith and its teachings. To fail to recognize the present devastation and not to acknowledge the embers that have taken flight, advancing the wildfire, is to contribute to the disaster.

June 30, a pastoral letter was released by the presiding bishop of the ELCA. It is posted at http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Office-of-the-Presiding-Bishop/Messages-and-Statements.aspx. It "exploded" on my computer screen and I was less than entertained.

The bishop rightly turns to the biblical text, repentance and forgiveness of sins and the promises of baptism. However, I am more than a little confused by his latest release. The ELCA churchwide's treatment of the authority of Scripture in relation to human sexuality, in all of its studies and drafts and social statements, has thus far avoided the language of sin, sinful behavior, need of repentance and forgiveness and instead talked about tolerance, acceptance, inclusion and blessing.

We in the WordAlone Network have tried to talk about the issues of sexuality in light of the church's historic understanding of sin, repentance, forgiveness and newness of life. We have been criticized for applying such categories, for in so doing, we are said to be self-righteous, judgmental, fearful and archaic in our expressions of the faith. Likewise, others ask, do we not realize that "god is doing a new thing" in the lives of those practicing a variety of sexual expressions. To not accept that new work of god is to be accused, consequentially, of apparently standing in judgment, fear and being destructive of the church's progressive role in society and mission.

For the young and innocent, a variety of sexual expressions may be viewed as cool and new and even freeing, for they don't realize the danger and impending destruction. Those who are crying out--in warning to the young and uninformed not to approach the explosion, but to stand back and not get too close--appear to be fearful or over protective or just unable to relax, and go with the flow.

But appearances of celebrations are deceiving and what is blowing up across the Christian church are the sights and sounds of independence as declared from the one true God and Father of us all. We are not witnessing a celebration, but a dangerous and destructive phenomenon that is sweeping across not only the church but also all of society, fueling a firestorm that mistakenly is identified as the fire of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit.

Do not be deceived, for the one Holy Spirit of God does not move apart from and contrary to the Word of God no matter how high-ranking are the voices trying to convince you of such. This is a matter of sin, repentance, forgiveness and new life--old language--rightfully applied to an old sinful world in need of holy reform and renewal.

[by Pastor Jaynan Clark, president of WordAlone Networ]

Three preachers got on a bike...

No, that's not the start of a joke. And actually, it should be written in the future tense.

Three pastors will be riding across the United States on a bamboo bicycle built for three next year and, over a period of several months, challenging fellow members from congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to help meet denominational financial commitments to the hunger relief efforts of Lutheran World Relief (LWR). Here's a video about their tour:



As you can see, Tour de Revs is interested in more than just feeding people who are hungry around the world, but like LWR, in fostering sustainability, so that those currently dealing with chronic hunger issues will be able to have food in difficult circumstances.

I also love the suggestion made by "the three revs," that congregations and individuals get involved with local food banks. Here in Logan, our congregation, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, gives monthly offerings of spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, soup, and macaroni and cheese for a local emergency food bank. This bank, CHAP, a local ecumenical effort, "fills in the gaps" for those who suddenly find themselves without food. Another group to which we have given financial support is part of a regional Second Harvest organization. We also give to the hunger relief efforts for which the three revs will be making their ride next year.

With financial uncertainties and the high unemployment here in our state and community, I'm sure that hunger relief efforts will be increasingly important in 2009. At Saint Matthew, we'll be remembering our neighbors, here and around the world.

If you get an opportunity to meet the Three Revs during their bike tour, be sure to say, "Hello." Then, find ways in which you can help alleviate the unnecessary tragedy of hunger, in our own country and everywhere else.

For more information on the Three Revs tour, including their itinerary, go here. There, you'll also find ways in which you can help the Tour de Revs, as well as links to information regarding ELCA Hunger Relief efforts.

Lutheran Disaster Relief Needs Donations for Hurricane Gustav Recovery

[From the Southern Ohio Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, comes the following press release.]

LDR [Lutheran Disaster Relief] Ohio is coordinating resources to assist over 2 million people who were evacuated when Hurricane Gustav struck the Gulf Shore states on September 1, 2008.

Funds are needed to transport the Disaster Response Shower Trailer to the Gulfport, Mississippi area. Additionally, donations of building supplies, furniture, and appliances are being accepted to fill the Disaster Response semi-truck. Funds are needed to cover transportation costs.

In the coming weeks, volunteers will be needed to start home repairs and rebuilds. Information for volunteer reception centers will be made available as the centers are established. Monetary donations will be used to assist families with special needs that are not addressed by government services.

To donate items for the semi-truck and for other information, please contact Mary Woodward, LDR Ohio Disaster Coordinator, at 740-732-6700. To make monetary donations, please forward donations to LDR Ohio, 810 Main St., Caldwell, Ohio 43724 or to donate online go to the Lutheran Disaster Response Hurricane Response website.

The Shepherd's Word

[This sermon was shared during closing worship for today's gathering of congregations from the Scioto Conference, Southern Ohio Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, held at Faith Lutheran Church in Jackson, Ohio.]

Psalm 23
The author Flannery O’Connor once told a story which I first read in a retelling by the late Lutheran theologian, Joseph Sittler. Sittler loved it and after retelling it, reflected on its meaning.

It’s the story of an elderly couple who lived in the Appalachians, surrounded by breathtaking views. They were accustomed to sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of their home for as long as the weather allowed, simply taking in the same sights they’d seen hundreds of days before in their long married life.

One spring day, they were doing the same thing, silently rocking and looking. “Well, Sarah,” the husband said to his wife. “I see there’s still some snow up there on the mountain.”

Sittler then reflects: “Now they both knew that there would still be some snow on that mountain at this time of the year; there always was. So why did he say so? Because just to know that at times there’s snow, while at other times there isn’t, was to be able to embrace the shifting but eternal rhythms of life that had made them so content with each other’s company. In any marriage or intimate relationship you may say the same things, just like that, time after time; you may share a profound and compassionate interest in the same people. And while, on the one hand, this might seem...boring; on the other hand it is simply breathtaking in its way of affirming the joy of life, and of living with someone that you love.”

They say that familarity breeds contempt. It can also breed indifference. But if we let it, as was true of this old couple, familiarity can also breed things that are wonderful--”breathtaking,” as Sittler puts it—things like comfort, confidence, and assurance.

One of the most familiar chapters in the entire Bible is Psalm 23. To prove it, I’ll recite the first clause of a phrase from the psalm and out loud, you finish it. “The Lord is my shepherd....” “He makes me lie down in...” “Even though I walk through the valley of...” “Surely goodness and mercy shall...” You see, you are familiar with Psalm 23!

And yet, I wonder if our familiarity with Psalm 23 and with the entire Bible from which it comes has bred in us not comfort, confidence, and assurance, as it should do, but indifference?

In fact, I wonder if the same thing couldn’t be said of our attitude toward the whole Bible. Almost everybody owns a Bible. But not many of us read it, digest it, study it, absorb it, or give it a central place in our lives. I struggle to do this myself. We don’t, I suspect, allow the Bible the time it needs to help us know the God Who wants to be our good shepherd or to teach us what difference that makes.

If we did, more churches would be more vibrant centers of mission. More of we Christians would be making sounder decisions about our lives. More of us would be loving and serving our neighbors. More of us would be engaged in ministries, serving Christ through our churches. And more of us would be inviting others to worship and to know and follow Jesus Christ. Authentic faith, faith that helps us face everyday living and gives us hope forever, is strengthened when we live under the power of God's Word.

Another familiar passage from the Psalms confesses to God, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and light to my path.”

And in the New Testament, the apostle Paul reminds a young pastor named Timothy [I’m using Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in The Message], “There’s nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of the Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another--showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.”

Folks, I don’t mean to be flippant, but to be quite honest with you, I don’t know if God much cares who the next bishop of the Southern Ohio Synod, who we are to elect next month, will be. Speaking personally, all I expect from a bishop and bishop’s staff is that they assist congregations, which are on the frontlines of Christ’s mission for the Church, through their transition times and that they work to ensure that the ELCA neither embarrasses congregations or gets in the way of their primary mission, making disciples.

Those are tall enough orders in themselves. But the documents of the ELCA and our synod mandate page after page of work to be directed by the bishop. For all that though, I think that congregations led by faithful pastors will keep on doing the work of the Church no matter who our next bishop is. Or whether we even have a bishop.

But of this I am certain: Unless the Church—congregations, pastors, bishops, janitors, and physicists—unless the whole Church is attentive to God’s Word—the Word as it meets water, bread, and wine in the Sacraments, the Word as lived out when we serve others in Jesus’ Name, the Word as we share it when we invite our spiritually disconnected friends and neighbors to follow Christ with us, the Word as proclaimed by faithful preachers, and most importantly, the Word in Scripture, the authoritative source and norm of our life, faith, and practice—unless the Word of God is central to our life as a Church, we will be impotent in dealing with the real-life issues that face people in our parishes. Only the Spirit-empowered Word of God—Law and Gospel—will enable us to help people dealing with things like domestic violence, relational discord, and all the other sin-rooted maladies that afflict us and our neighbors.

It is the Word that convicts us of our sin and our need of a Savior.

It is the Word that shows us that the crucified and risen Jesus is that Savior Who will never abandon His people and is preparing a place for us with Him in eternity.

“The Lord is our shepherd. We shall not want.” People steeped in God’s Word know that!

Christians who don’t regularly attend to God’s Word are setting themselves up for disaster. So are church bodies. We live in an imperfect world. Bad things happen. Temptations come to us. Accidents and disease may come to us. If we’re not steeped in God’s Word, life will knock us flat.

In a way, the message of the whole Bible is summed up well in Psalm 23. Psalm 23 tells us five important things about God, our good shepherd: God provides for us; God He allows us to be at ease, confident that if we will let Him into our lives, He’s with us no matter what; that God gives us life; that God stands with us in dark times, even when we die; and God welcomes us to be with Him always.

I sometimes hear people say, “Well, I believe in God. What do I need to mess with reading the Bible or worshiping or any of the other so-called disciplines of the Christian life for? If I’m freed from sin and death simply for believing in Jesus, I don’t need all that stuff.”

Let me tell you a true story. Shortly after I learned how to ride a bicycle, I begged my Mom to send me on errands to Gus’ IGA near the corner of Central and Sullivant Avenues in the section of Columbus called the Bottoms, where we lived. I had a twenty-four inch, beat-up blue Schwinn bike. I’d grown tired of using it to tool around the neighborhood or the blacktop in front of the warehouse behind our place.

Besides, Gus had a daughter named Mary Ann and she made my eight year old heart go pitter-pat. My mother was resistant to the idea. Sullivant and Central were busy thoroughfares. But one day she started to fix Johnny Marzetti and realized she didn’t have a key ingredient: canned tomatoes.

My two year old sister Kathy needed attending. So, Mom sent me to Gus’ for the tomatoes. When she called me in from playing baseball in the alley, I was psyched! Here was an important errand I could run on my own...and I might get to see Mary Ann in the bargain. “Remember, sliced tomatoes in the can,” my mother called out to me as I pedaled off.

By the time I got to Gus’ five minutes later, I had forgotten what I was supposed to buy. I had to ask Gus to dial my home number, so that I could ask Mom to repeat her order. After I got off the phone and had paid for the tomatoes, I asked where Mary Ann was and learned she wasn’t even around.

On the way home, I decided to take an alley that rolled steeply to my street. I rolled down that hill without looking to my right or left. A car came along just as I approached the end of the hill. Boom! I hit the car’s side. Fortunately, neither I nor the car were hurt.

Now, here’s the point: In the blink of an eye, I had forgotten that I was supposed to get tomatoes. I’d forgotten that I should look both ways when turning onto a street. I’d even forgotten, apparently, how to use my brakes. I was so consumed with thoughts of being a big shot and of seeing Mary Ann that the important things I knew and needed to remember got crowded out of my brain.

The same thing can happen to you and me when it comes to the most important thing in the world, our relationship with Jesus Christ, both as a church and as individual Christians. We can become so consumed with everyday life that we forget our Good Shepherd and our daily need of Him.

Our attentiveness to God's Word is what God uses to daily remind us to keep building our lives on Him and His promises.

It would be a shame if the Church of Luther and Melanchthon and the Reformation forgot that. God’s Word is our great heritage. On its pages, we’re reminded again of the truth we must never grow tired of remembering: The Lord is our shepherd. We shall not want. He makes us lie down in green pastures. He leads us beside still waters. He leads us in right paths for His Name’s sake.

Never grow complacent about those truths! Never grow complacent about God's Word! Amen