Teaching the Apochrypa

Do any of you pastors catechize your congregation on the Apochrypha? It would seem to me that if not, once again this is a bit of "lost Confession." By that I mean, what is good and right is lost to the dustpile of history. When attempts to recover it are made, it is done so only with great pain and effort, much like with the recovery of the practice of Private Confession among us.

The Apochrypha is often labeled as "books that don't belong in the canon," when quite properly they *do* belong there, but properly used and understood--just as the antilegomena are. In fact, the antilegomena are called the apochryphal books of the New Testament by some resources (Chemnitz). Other books clearly do not belong in the canon; their heretic influences are so strong inclusion precludes inclusion. Still, the Apochypha *may* be included with caution, and has been. They are considered good books, albeit not entirely reliable. So they may be used devotionally.

So why teach the Apochrypha? First, for the reason stated above. Hebrews 11:35 makes a reference that seems to be resolved only by turning to the story of the seven martyrs in 2Maccabees 7. While a doctrine wouldn't be built from that text (nor would one go to James to begin arguing justification!), it still teaches the Christian what it means to suffer to the point of blood for the sake of one's confession of Christ.

Second, we teach the Apochrypha for liturgical reasons. We have hymns written from its text: Now Thank We All Our God (LSB 895), Sirach 50:24; It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (LSB 366), Wisdom 18:14-15. At the Easter Vigil we sing LSB 931, All You Works of the Lord (Benedicte, omnia opera). The text is from the song of the three young men, which can be found only in the Apochrypha, The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Three Young Men, 35-68. The hymn is listed under "Biblical Canticles." The antiphon for last Sunday and the gradual for tomorrow are both taken from the Apochrypha. We use other words in our worship life which are extra-biblical: the ending to the Lord's Prayer and the Creeds being chief among them. While the words themselves can be found in Scripture, their specific form is not.

I recognize that introducing the Apochrypha in the congregation must be done with patience and delicacy. Still, It is worth the doing for the sake of a greater depth of worship and devotional life in the congregation.

Garden Time at GSLS

This time of year my students are more rowdy than ever. They have Spring fever; they have test (ITBS) fever; and they have end-of-year fishing trip fever. This year I found a project to keep them occupied after the ITBS in the April 2008 issue of Mississippi Gardener (I know all of you get that one!) Hopefully the pictures here will demonstrate enough of what we did so if you want to do it, too, you can.



Here's my happy crew. You will need one of those with what they have in their hands. Also, you will need supplies. We had:

8 curved scalloped-topped cement garden edgers (red)
2 straight scalloped-topped cement garden edgers (red)
3 bags garden and bedding soil
weed fabric
1 flat bedding flowers (we had 36 begonias and one amaryllis)
root stimulator

First we set up our design, which was a fish, an ICHTHUS. The boys knew that we are all little fishes attached to our One Fish, Christ--or, as my oldest student said, "branches living from the larger Branch." After that I scribed the soil with a knife. You don't have to use a knife. Just use something to mark the outside of the dimensions. Then we dug into the soil.


This was so we could set the landscapers into the soil, not merely upon it. That way they'd be solid.

After that, we lined the area with weed fabric.


Here you can clearly see the outline of the ICHTHUS shape. We used the soil dug out from the middle to backfill around the pavers. That way they were stable from the outside. The garden soil we added kept them stable from the inside. We used only three bags of garden and bedding soil to fill our planter. It was even a bit too full!

Here is the final "product" and the proud crew. The amaryllis planted at the center was a gift one of the boys gave me two Christmases ago. It finally bloomed this year. It needed a larger space to grow properly, so we moved it to a new home. They did a great job, and not one dirt fight in all of it!

Office, Baby, Office

Get Office straight, and everything else falls into place: from Office follows all other offices or vocations, and from that station. Office is, first of all, located in Christ. It is the keeping and living in the First Commandment, the First Article, and the First Petition. What do these have to do with Christ? No one comes to the Father except through Christ (Jn 14:6). When Christ is one’s Head, then living as one in the Body of Christ means that love toward neighbor is the habitus of daily living in one’s Baptism (1Co 11:4; Eph 5:23;). This is the lesson Jesus taught the young lawyer with the parable of the Good Samaritan when He turned his question around. It is not “Who is my neighbor?” but rather, “To whom am I a neighbor?” (Luke 10: 25-36).

Last night John and I watched Gone Baby Gone. Ben Affleck both co-wrote the screenplay and directed this film. His younger brother, Casey, was cast in the starring role. Ed Harris, Michelle Monaghan, Amy Madigan, and Morgan Freeman also star in this film of a little girl who was reported missing, and the young man who was hired to search for her. I will try not to reveal too much of the movie’s details for the sake of those who have not yet seen it.

The movie is a fascinating study of office and vocation. There are those who have God-given vocations, yet abandon them. Some take up vocations that are not properly theirs to have. Others are given offices into which they have been place with trust, yet through which they have been abusive. Another is like the last of the Old Testament faithful women, Anna, praying and fasting, faithful in her vocation. She lashes out in righteous anger, “You are an abomination!” Her pain stings the greatest, for she sacrifices all she has, and loses all in the end.

There is, too, a Christ-figure—one who sacrifices his own life so that another might live. Fascinatingly, there is also a hireling. The twist-ending allowing for “What would you have done?” questioning reveals who the hireling is, who the Christ-figure is. Christ said, “Feed My sheep” (Jn 21:17). Certainly the primary meaning of this is directed to the Office and the administration of the Mysteries, the Sacraments. Still, in Gone Baby Gone, we have the distinction between doing right because it feels right, and doing right because it is right.

“If you do this thing, I will hate you forever,” said the tempter in the movie. How many prayers have ascended to God in this way? And yet Joseph declared, “You meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Ge 50:20). A religion centered in the heart; a religion that does not rely solely on what God has done and gives for us; a religion that cannot be satisfied with Christ’s declaration, “It is finished!”; is a religion that can lead one to hating God when He does not give one the desires of one’s own heart. This is why we pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” When we pray these words, we literally ask God that He carry us away, even if it means into an early death rather than into even greater evil than we currently face.

Gone Baby Gone is not merely a fascinating movie; it is also a genuinely Lutheran movie. It gets Office straight, even if by demonstrating by way of the negative, and through instances of the positive through vocation. It’s a movie worth watching for the sake of its theme. This must be said with a great caveat: the language is very strong. Some might find that offensive due to the volume.

Are We There Yet?

With Missouri's pragmatism and idolatrous self-assured congregational autonomy, we are nearly so, if not there already.

Infant Baptism in Baptist Country

We live in Baptist Country. That's rightly capitalized in these parts. Then again, with the way things are going with regard to the general protestanization of the Lutheran Church, Baptist Country is in every pew in every local congregation--despite the efforts of faithful pastors.

Rev. Rick Sawyer of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Brandon, MS, has written an excellent website responding to the favorite retort of the Baptist Country's refutation for Infant Baptism. You can access it here.

In fact, while you're there, take a look at his piece on Historic Faith. and then at his one titled He is Risen.

What Grows Up, Must Blow Down

Before the storm.... April, 2004




After the storm finished its destruction in Little Rock on last Thursday, it headed on over to Jackson, Mississippi, where it unleashed five more tornadoes on Friday afternoon. In fifteen minutes, Jackson and its environs endured more damage than Katrina did to it in a day and a half.

I was at school. The sirens had gone off, and the weather radio alerts were advising a severe storm. We had the students hunkered down in the hallway. They weren't frightened until the electricity went down. That hallway gets mighty dark! So we sang our chapel songs and the Matins liturgy. That puts eyes and minds on Jesus and off fear.

I learned later that John was on the back porch having a cigar. Typical. On the way to the hospital to have bypass he had one more cigarette. I do love that man! In his favor, he'd watched the tv channels and they'd been saying the storm was well away from us. Rankin County is very large. When the order to sound the alert comes down, it doesn't matter what corner is being pinpointed, the whole county sounds alarm. The actual tornado might well be several miles away and never come near us.

John said he knew we were in for it when it suddenly began to hail. Then he saw one of our trees begin to lean. He thought, "Awwww, now don't do that." But it did, taking the one beside it with it. We lost two oaks, both 65-70 ft. tall. At least they fell East, not South. Falling South would have been through the middle of the house. Neighbors weren't so fortunate. They had trees severely damage their house.

Wind noise was so strong no sound was heard of falling treed or breaking fence. Immediately after the wind left our place it began to twist. Neighbors across the street received the twister effect. Their trees were broken from the middle, as were trees on the golf course. A large dead tree was stripped of its bark, bit it's still standing. Probably a red oak, not a white. Reds dig deep roots. Whites, like the two of ours that fell, have shallow roots like pines. We have a large red, about 80 ft tall, that didn't even shudder in this wind. Of course, if it had received the twisting wind, it might have been another story.

We now have the start of two fish ponds in the azalea bed. They quickly filled with water, which hasn't yet drained. This is Mississippi, of course! The root balls on these fells are enormous. Some of my azaleas are now growing horizontally. Squirrels are running across their favorite nesting places instead of up them. We don't know if they had any babies up in the branches. There is nothing that can be done about them now.

So now we are looking to replacing the fence and planting some crepe myrtle. Natchez whites. They'll grow the tallest. Large elegant and shapely. The kind that won't fall on a house. Oh, they get blown over, but they don't crush anything.

And by the way, the trees missed the bluebird's house by a few feet. They had just finished laying their first nest of the season, too.

Sarah Comes of Age

The tornado ripped through about 1/4 mile from her home near Little Rock, Arkansas, last Thursday night. The most memorable damage was to her high school, Sylvan Hills. So on Saturday Sarah went over to a friend's house to commiserate their mutual loss. 

Eventually he told her he had to dress for the prom that evening, and "Oh, aren't you going, too?" No, she wasn't. A string of boys had asked her, but she'd declined. She wasn't much interested in them and where things generally headed with them. 

Now, Kit's a nice young man, but a bit on the shy side. He didn't have a date for the prom, either. His mom and dad began to meddle. "Sarah, you really ought to go. Why not go with Kit?"Well, that was impossible. She had no gown, no shoes. 

Pshaw! Kit's mom put all that aside. She'd been a bride's maid at more than a half-dozen weddings. Still had the dresses and shoes. She and Sarah were the same size. Sarah could go into her closet and pick out something to wear. As for flowers, she could quickly arrange that, too. With a florist in the family, an orchid for Sarah's hair and a matching boutonniere and wrist corsage appeared in no time. A silver ribbon wrapped her hair, matching Kit's tuxedo vest. 

Sarah called her mom and dad, said, "I'm going to the prom with Kit. Is that OK?" It was all arranged in two hours. She had a grand time. Kit was so proud.

The picture says it all. 

     

Feminism That Leads to Christ

Mary writes a beautiful post at the Concordian Sisters of Perpetual Parturition titled Why pregnancy is good for me. It is a gripping confession of a young Christian woman rejoicing in her pregnancy.

 

Æons ago when my own babies were very young, I picked up C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy. Apart from whatever else it is, it is the finest treatise on feminism that I’ve read—especially That Hideous Strength. I’d not suggest reading this last volume without having read the first two, but it is in this final work that the previous two come together.

 

In That Hideous Strength, Jane considers herself locked in the opposite of what she regards marriage to be. Marriage ought to be a source of mutual comfort, but she finds hers to Mark to be a source of solitude. They have mutually consented not to have children. They are a mutual source of small unspoken irritations to each other. The silence between them is the greatest of solitudes.

 

Jane is confronted, at last, by her decision not to have children. The Director, a sort of Father-figure, reminds her that she is not a Christian wife. And since she chooses not to have children from this married union, she is living as though she were a virgin. She is a neither-nor.

 

“You mean,” said Jane slowly, “I’ve been repressing something?”

 

The Director laughed; just that loud assured bachelor laughter which had infuriated her on other lips.

 

“Yes,” but don’t think I’m talking of Freudian repressions. He knew only half the facts. It isn’t a question of inhibitions—inculcated shame—against natural desire. I’m afraid there’s no place in the world for people who won’t be either Pagan or Christian. Just imagine a man who was too dainty to eat with his fingers and yet wouldn’t use forks!”

 

Reading this Trilogy was when I began to really understand the insidious grip of feminism on myself. Ask me truly and I will tell you sincerely: the greatest feminist alive today is me. I do not say that for bragging rights. I tell you this because in all my years of trying to combat the feminism within me, I am unable to do so.

 

There is a simple reason for this that is not so very simple. Although feminism and original sin are not the same, because feminism mocks original sin, it is nearly impossible for anyone now living today to escape the influences of this all-pervasive worldview. First, feminism is a deception. It deceives the hearer to thinking that is an authoritative voice for woman and her needs, as well as society in general.  Second, because feminism considers itself to be authoritative, it presents itself as a movement for empowerment. The individual is her own authority. This is the key to the wrongful use of individualism. This is the same thing that the serpent promised our First Mother when he said she would be “like God.”

 

Eve was deceived into thinking she had to do something in order to be like God, when she was already made in His image. We spend much energy trying to do anything but our vocation—that which God has placed in our hands to do—and trying to take credit for it as if that is what will grant us salvation. This is the core of feminism, and its root is original sin. Mary speaks eloquently of how God has reclaimed her through the repentance of pregnancy.  

 

I can no more free myself of my feminism than I can free myself of my sin. Still my pastor frees me of it, often and much with his word of Absolution in my ear and his hand upon my head. And daily and much my Baptism keeps me free of it, daily and much. In this there is much to rejoice about feminism, as Mary has found—for it brings women back to Christ.

  

Azaleas

Spring has been a bit topsy-turvy this year, much like a wash cycle: warm, cold, warm, cold. The azaleas have shown the effects. Instead of blooming all at once like in past years, they've been blooming in spurts. The earliest bloomers even suffered some frostbite. Still, they are beautiful. here is a picture to prove it.

Excellent Easter Sermons

For some excellent Easter sermons, take a wander over here. 

While you're there, you might take a look at the material on this page, too. 

Pr. Sawyer knows how to keep us all well-fed.

Convocation of Sacred Ghosts

Friday nights are for decompressing. Don’t get me wrong—this year’s class has been a “dream” class for any teacher. They are wonderful students. But that doesn’t mean that after a full week of teaching I still don’t need an evening home with my husband doing the mindless nothingness of eating pizza and watching bad tv. Ghost Whisperer is a fine example of this. It has an implausible premise with an untenable ending. It’s utterly hopeless, for it is lacking in the one thing needful for hope: Jesus Christ. If He is not the source of the light to whom the living have been drawn, then there is no hope for those who have now sleep in death.

 

On a recent show Melinda, the Whisperer herself, took a picture of herself. What it revealed was that she is surrounded by specters. From the tone and setting of the show, viewers were led to believe these were unhealthy ghosts. Either that or that Melinda was being haunted by dead ones who had unresolved issues only she could solve. Oh, dear; oh, my.

 

And yet, what a wonderful picture that was to see for such doubting Thomsases as we! A dear and blessed friend of mine once told me (and I won’t give his name for fear I’ll get this wrong and thereby shame him!) that when we confess that a particular piece of sacred bread given by the hands of the pastor is the Body of Christ, and likewise the wine is Christ’s Blood given the same way, then we must also confess Christ’s Body in those who are receiving these Holy Things into themselves around us.

 

Yet it goes even further. The blessed hand that feeds is Christ’s hand feeding, just as in Baptism it is not the pastor, but Christ Himself who does the work of it.

 

Thus God is present in Baptism, in the Lords Supper, and in the use of the Keys because His own Word is present there. Therefore even though we do not see or hear Him but see and hear the minister, God Himself is nevertheless truly present, baptizes, and absolves. And in the Lord’s Supper He is present in such an extraordinary way that the Son of God Himself gives us HIS body with the bread and His blood with the wine. (LW 3:220).

 

And still deeper and more wonderfully, when Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father, we are put to the question: Where is the Father and His right hand? God is everywhere, and His right hand is where He is. So Christ is where His Father is, everywhere. That means heaven isn’t “up there.” We are surrounded by heaven. How this can be is a mystery, something too unfathomable for my mind to comprehend.

 

Still, it means that the angels, archangels, and all the heavenly hosts surround us daily. We can’t see them, but the armies of heaven surround God’s baptized. How can it be otherwise? Didn’t Christ say there is but one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism (Eph 4:5)? Therefore, the Church only has one Body (Eph 4:25). The narrow door (Lk 13:24) has room for only one body: Christ’s.  Yet that body has many members (Ro 12:5; 1Co 12:20). Those who sleep in the Lord cannot be excluded, for we confess the resurrection of the dead. 

  

Some members of Christ’s body can be seen; some cannot be seen. Those which can be seen pray and work for the Body of Christ. In their various vocations as “little Christs” each member of the church touches the life of the other, serving the other. In this way Christ is served, while Christ is serving others. The heavenly hosts still serve the church in heaven, “We also grant that the saints in heaven pray for the church in general, as they prayed for the church universal while they were on earth” (Ap. I; 9, 2).

 

Surrounded by unsettled ghosts haunting the living and causing their lives to be a wretch? Does not the parable of the rich man and Lazarus teach us this is impossible (Lk 16)? There is a vast gulf between heaven and hell. Moreover, why would Satan allow any to have a vacation from hell, which is what haunting on earth would allow. And heavenly angels always enter with God’s message of peace.

 

So let Hollywood have its silliness, but from that teach us a thing or two. We—the baptized—are surrounded by those whom we cannot see as well as those whom we can see. The baptized are never alone, for to be baptized is to be one of a unity; it is to be a member of a body of many members, the Church who is the Body of Christ—who is her Head.

 

A true picture of one of the baptized would reveal him surrounded by angels, archangels, Adam, Eve, Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah and all the heavenly hosts. Jesus was counseled by Moses and Elijah before His crucifixion, and comforted by angels in His passion. Dare any of us who have been clothed in Christ, those who are full inheritors of His Father’s kingdom, deny that we receive the same in our hour of need? Indeed we are taught to pray for such daily: “Let Your holy angel be with me that the evil for have no power over me. Amen.”

 

 

 

Shepherds and Daddies

Wednesday afternoon I called to see how Emi was doing. Last time her daddy went to Iraq she entered a two-week depression. She was barely a year old then. Now she is four-years-old and has a baby sister who’s nearly five-months-old. Emi understands more than she did the last time he left, so she hasn’t slipped into a deep, silent depression like the last time. But that doesn’t mean she likes it any better. The first thing Emi told me was “I’m at my house. Daddy’s not here. He’s on a long bye-bye.” In her own way she complained about the long distance between her house and mine. “You’re in Mississippi. I’m in Tennessee. That’s far, far away.”

Emi’s very articulate on the phone. That because every time her dad goes to Iraq he takes his cell phone with him. As soon as he can, he converts to an overseas account. If he cannot, he buys phone cards. Every chance he is able he calls home. He likes to call when he can speak to all three of his “women.” Even when all he could do is barely understand Emi’s babblings, that was enough for him. She recognized his voice and clung to the phone as if to a lifeline. Now he speaks to Lianna in the same way.

It was John’s privilege to rise and feed Lianna in the early mornings. That was their time together. It became such an ingrained ritual that if Cindy tried to take over, Lianna rebelled. She wanted her daddy at that time. When he calls on the phone, Cindy holds it to her tiny ear so that she can hear his voice and remember who her father is. He speaks to her some of the same loving worlds he spoke while they were together in her bedroom.

Does the tough-guy Sergeant care if any of his men over hear him? Not one bit. Let them take a lesson, he says. When he returned home the last time, Emi was fearful of anyone save her own mom. She was in her two-year-old Mommy’s-girl stage. There was rightful concern she would be unduly afraid of her own father when he returned from Iraq because she might not recognize him on sight. She was so young when he left. Yet as he approached the car in Frankfort, Germany, Emi let out a squeal of delight. That was her daddy! She’d know him anywhere, and time was no factor in that.

Lianna may not so easily recognize her own father’s face when he returns home again, but she will remember his voice. She continues to hear it often. She knows her father by his voice. It is the same way Emi’s memory of her father was kept alive. She spoke to him often and in the manner that only those two could speak with each other. His voice and words in her ears kept alive her memory of his face.


I’ve never seen Jesus’ own face in the flesh, but I know where He is to be found, nevertheless. Christ’s promises are attached to His Word in water, bread and wine and delivered by men for life, forgiveness of sins and salvation. Wherever Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, preaching, and the Absolution are going on, there is Jesus. Wherever Jesus is, there His voice may be heard in the words that are spoken.

Daddy calls his girls to the phone, and they come to him. Emi clings to the phone when he calls; Lianna will know him by his voice when he returns. The faithful are gathered by Christ’s voice, His Word. He says, “My sheep hear My voice and follow Me” (John 10:27). Yet how can any follow who have not heard the voice of the Shepherd? That is ultimately what Paul asks in Romans 10:

13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Faith–that is, Christ–comes by hearing, yes. And just as Emi’s and Lianna’s daddy has taught them, hearing once (as if to ignite the eardrums and set them ablaze, and then let the fire smolder out) does not make for the familiarity of recognition of the Good Shepherd. Nor are all who call upon the name of the Lord of Him (Mt 7:22-23).

Wherever Jesus is present in His Word purely spoken and rightly administered in His Sacraments is where the Heavenly Father’s children have been called to gather. It is there God’s children are rightly fed by the Good Shepherd Himself. Emi runs to the phone whenever it rings, hoping it's her daddy. She reminds her mommy on Saturday night that church is the next morning, so they’d best be ready early. She knows where she needs to be to hear her daddy’s voice, and her Father’s voice. Two of my students are begging to be baptized. One longs to have the Lord’s Supper, and quotes the Catechism to support his reasons why. “Jesus said do it for the forgiveness of sins. I want it.” They have heard their Shepherd’s voice. Were it up to them, they would spend a great deal more time in church hearing it, responding to it.

I once had a professor who asked me if I would ever be certain that I’d heard my Shepherd’s voice. As certain as I know where to look for my Shepherd by the Marks of His Church. For wherever those Marks are found, there also is the faithful flock gathered around the undershepherd administering the Mysteries of our Good Shepherd. Why would anyone want to miss out on any bit of it?

Generic Jesus, Generic Christianity

In the newest mailing of CTQ (April 2007), Larry Rast explores America's many Jesuses in an essay titled American Christianity and its Jesuses. He quotes Richard Wightman Fox (Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession):

Benjamin Franklin understood Jesus as a wise man worthy of imitation. Thomas Jefferson regarded him as a moral teacher. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which occurred on Good Friday, was popularly interpreted as paralleling the crucifixion of Jesus... as one preacher put it: “Jesus died for the world, Abraham Lincoln died for his country.” Elizabeth Cady Stanton appropriated Jesus’ message to champion women’s rights. George W. Bush named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher.... As we have seen in recent presidential elections, the name of Jesus is often thrust into the center of political debates, and many Americans regularly enlist Jesus, their ultimate arbiter of value, as the standard bearer for their views and causes.

Rast demonstrates that the present Americanized icon of Jesus-as-moralist had its foundation in nineteenth century religiosity. He does this through the Unitarianism/Arianism of Barton Warren Stone (1772-1844), the American Lutheran rationalism of Frederick Henry Quitman (1760-1832) (who defined the Gospel as the “free response of the willful subject to the divine government revealed in and through Christ), and the work of Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875). In Rast’s words, Finney “articulated a perfectionist vision of moral government theology that explicitly and purposefully denied forensic justification and the idea of imputation.” Accordingly, each man had a different view of Jesus, crafted a different Jesus through their theologies, and the effects of each man remain within America’s culture today.

Recently during an interview, Joel Osteen called Mitt Romney, a Mormon, a Christian. Now, don’t get me wrong in this. I’m with Luther on this issue. I’d rather be ruled by a competent heretic than by an incompetent Christian. So this isn’t a statement about voting for a Christian or none other. What I’m getting at is I’m not certain that a man who doesn’t hang a cross where he preaches and doesn’t preach repentance that leads to the forgiveness of sins could recognize the difference between a true Christian or a box of rice puffs anyway.

We like to bat the name Christian around as if it were Kleenex. Kleenex is a brand name for tissues, not the name of the thing itself. However, Kleenex has been applied to every sort of tissue manufactured so that when someone asks for one we don’t even pause to ask, “Do you really mean to be brand specific, or will a Puffs do?” It is becoming so that Christian is just such a generic term. Slap a cross on a mug and the coffee inside is just that much better. Drape a cross around the neck, and whoopsie-doodle, there goes another Christian walking down the street. Is he baptized? Has attended church in the last decade? What does that matter? He has a cross on. Joel Osteen is considered to be Christian pastor, and yet he doesn’t even need to mention Jesus at all. Talk about Deus absconditus!

We Lutherans are in such a privileged position. We know what the Gospel is. And yet, here is another term that is so quickly becoming generic simply because too many have taken it upon themselves to redefine the term. It simply isn’t enough for hungry ears to hear words like “unity in the Gospel,” “I’m a Christian,” or “I believe in Jesus” to know what those words mean any more. Too many others will be able to counter back, “Oh! Then we agree. We are one in the Faith.” While it is good to find those with whom we do agree, it is not this outward agreement that makes us one. It is unity in Christ’s Body and Blood that makes us one, then we are united with each other. So terminology, even the identity of Jesus Christ Himself, must be spelled out so there is no doubt what we mean by by Gospel in the first place. This unity is based on no mere generic proclamation, “Jesus is Lord,” but Christ’s very Body and Blood delivered in the bread and wine for us to eat and drink at His Table for the forgiveness of sins. It is that which unites us to each other as Christians. This Meal is already anticipated in Baptism in which Christ unites Himself to His people–even little babies–through the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

To be Christian is to be Lutheran. The Lutheran confession of the Faith is not ambiguous. It is real meat, full of gristle and grit. This doesn’t mean the toughest bits to chew are handed out to those who are ready only for gnawing on the bones. However, Luther advised that the Small Catechism be taught in the home by the head of the household even to the youngest, but then went on to say he could not go without it himself. There is a model to be followed then. There are no uncertain terms to be found in the Catechism. It is simple enough for a child, yet has the depth and wisdom for a skilled doctor of theology. The most effective theologians are trained by knowing it well–which includes young children.

Pr. Sawyer wrote this clear outline to explain the Faith based on the Small Catechism. It is easily learned, and even more readily available to those who make praying the Catechism a part of their daily lives.

1. We are all born sinful and in need of salvation. The Ten Commandments teach this.

2. God, in His Mercy, has given His Son into death for us. Jesus rose from the dead and now, seated at the right hand of the Father, He pours out His blessings of life, forgiveness and salvation through His Means of Grace.

3. By these Means, He works faith, by which we look to God for all good things, praying as dear children talk to their dear Father.

4. He began such child-like trust and confidence in us when we were Baptized. He does this even in infants!

5. Since we forget what it means to be His children, He never ceases to hear our confession and speak His word of Holy Absolution over us.

6. By that kind of Fatherly and tender mercy, He leads us constantly toward His Supper, by which we eat and drink Christ's Flesh and Blood in bread and wine until we die; and even then, these will raise us up to live forever!

We Lutherans are privileged, but not arrogantly so. We have been given a great gift through the reformation of the church begun by Martin Luther. He didn’t speak in uncertain terms. His Jesus was not one who floated in the æther. Rather, the Jesus of Luther was the Jesus of the Bible and of history. As Creator of the heaven and the earth, of all that is seen and unseen, He alone could enter this world as both God and Man and rescue mankind. Christ alone could continue to enter this world in water, bread, wine, and word to deliver His salvation to mortals. He does not deal with us by generalities, but in specifics and in certain locations in time and place. When we make this clear to our (backyard, next door, water cooler, overseas) neighbors, then we are being true Christians, speaking of the Jesus who was sent by the Father to be incarnated as a human for our sakes, who bled and died on a cross, suffering the wrath of the Father for our sins so that we would not. This is the Jesus who only came for sinners, not the righteous who need no Savior. It is this Jesus who willingly takes to Himself all our sins, and imputes to us all of His righteousness. All means all just as when He said "It is finished" He meant most assuredly nothing was left to be done that was left undone. This is a very specific Jesus, not one whom anyone can confess with a blithe, "Jesus is Lord," call that "The Gospel" by which they desire unity, and mean an entirely different Jesus than the one whom the Father sent and the Holy Spirit calls and gathers His church to.

The world is hungry to know the one true Jesus. Their ears are itching to hear of Him. They hear story after sweet story that speak nothing of sin and salvation, only of pretty sunsets, green meadows, and cool waters, and earthly treasures and then pronounce "Oh! What a sweet Jesus we have. Isn't the Gospel so nice?" Yet nothing has been spoken of sin by which any would wish to long for the forgiveness only Jesus brings wherever He comes! Much may even be said of what one is to do next in order to perpetuate the good peace and unity of the gospel (which is no gospel!) just now experienced (Pass on the email to five more people and continue the peace and joy! Hmmm... maybe here we have a new koinonia with a virtual Presence Jesus. He's as present in this as He is at certain altars where His very Body and Blood are denied in the Sacrament because His words are disbelieved. So can't it be argued that the koinonia achieved is virtually the same?)

Jesus didn't tell stories to wrap things up in nice pretty patty-pat answers to make us all feel all cozy and warm inside. Jesus told stories to draw us near to Him. His parables caused His disciples, those who were paying attention, to have more questions. What does this mean? They didn't get it most of the time, so they begged Him to explain more fully the way of Jesus, the way of the Gospel.

This is the way of the Christian, too. What does this mean? should be on the lips of us all as we listen to our pastors as well as to our neighbors. With the former, we find mutual conversation and consolation with a brother. With the latter, we find opportunity to give a good confession of the hope that is within us. Our mission fields are not as far away as we suppose they were.

All Wrapped Up

Pastor was delivering his last chapel sermon to the students in school before Christmas break. He was describing Baby Jesus in the manger wrapped in swaddling cloths, and linking that to the Sacrament of the Altar. Jesus was laid in a place where animals eat, and we eat of His Body and Blood in the bread and wine at the altar. “There was Baby Jesus,” he said, “all wrapped up like a burrito.”

Afterward one of my students said to me, “In Baptism we are like burritos, too. We are all wrapped up in Jesus.”

That’s a pretty fair exposition of Gal. 3:27.

Word Games

A student in Richmond, VA, has the ACLU on her side. They say she is facing unconstitutional censorship for being asked to cover up, remove, turn around, or otherwise hide a t-shirt she was wearing. The shirt, claims the student, is her favorite. It has a logo on it, two female symbols intertwined. Its lesbian overtones are important because the student declares herself to be a lesbian. Obliterating the message of the t-shirt is said to be silencing the political message “that lesbian identity should be celebrated and is a source of pride.”

"I don't feel like I should have to hide my sexuality," said the girl who was asked to hide her t-shirt. The ACLU agrees and is fast approaching court-speed against the teacher and the school on this one.

Give me a break. The girl wasn’t asked to strap down her breasts or stuff a rolled up pair of socks in her pants. She wasn’t asked to make herself appear to be something she clearly wasn’t. Her femaleness and what that mean with regard to sexual functioning was abundantly apparent whether she wore her favorite lesbian t-shirt or one with Hannah Montana on it. She’s a girl, for pity’s sake. She admits to that. Doesn’t run from it at all. It’s a God-given, created-in-the-womb, unalterable fact. She’s a she.

The school rules are simple: "The school's dress code prohibits 'bawdy, salacious or sexually suggestive messages.'" That would seem to include iconic symbols indicating a student's personal (and what ought to be private) preference regarding sexual intercourse. If not, I can imagine all sorts of icons that would eventually be allowed representing the same. At what point does an iconic symbol become political instead of merely bawdy or sexually suggestive? When it's homosexual instead of heterosexual? The irony is, homosexuals won the constitutional right to live together as a couple without legal incrimination in Texas by arguing that the government has no right to pry into the bedroom. Now why are the activities of the bedroom a political statement to be proudly displayed on the chest rather than one's own personal privacy? Is the defining line only when one wants to make a statement about one's homosexuality or lesbianism?

Is it possible that the incidence of free speech is being unfairly tipped toward a certain sector of society? If so, then there is more at play here than one woman’s right to free speech regarding her chosen style of sexual intercourse. What of the rights of other students to express their "political rights" regarding their preferences in sexual intercourse—such as misogyny? That one still exists in the minds and hearts of every male informed by and subscribing to the siren call of today’s media. Males are taught to bed as many women in and out of wedlock as they can. That’s the highest disregard for the welfare of women and any sacred duties of fatherhood. So how about a symbol of the male sign interlaced with several female signs?

Now let’s not leave the ladies out. Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and her younger sister, Jamie Lynn, have given a whole new interpretation to the model young woman. Marriage is passé. Bedding men early, often, and as publicly as possible is the new propriety. Women have learned to use men as well as men have used women. Call it misandrony for lack of a better word and in want of something that sounds fancy. So for these women, let’s fashion ourselves a female symbol with a whole mess of male symbols intertwined—and don’t forget the little tiny male and female “hangers-on” indicating the babies that come from these various unions.

Does anyone suppose t-shirts of these sorts would be viewed as political and not sexual? We could even get more specific. My granddaughter’s friend is pregnant at 16. She’s tried every sort of sex. Her t-shirt would include not just male intertwinings, but also female. I’m not certain she has yet decided what her so-called "sexual identity" is, even though it is obvious by her swollen belly that God knows what it is.

Word games. That’s what it is. Word games to hide, obfuscate or otherwise confuse the issue. God created sex. Sexuality comes from the sex God created and gives to each of us. Ripped from that realm, sexuality is an abusive tool used against our neighbor and ourselves. The word games are necessary to hide that sin. God’s work to bring us to repentance is a miracle in itself.

Who's Coming to Town?

“It’s like the song, ‘You better not pout, you better not cry, Santa Claus is coming to town.’”

The kid is what we lovingly call “a mess.” Homework at his level is fairly rote: Spelling, Math, History Litany (a chronological list of events with dates and scripture references), and Reading. Each day he’ll write it down in his student planner. The Math and Spelling pages go into his Homework folder, the one with the green sheets on which the litany is printed so he can copy it out. Each day he’ll leave school with his student planner stuffed inside his desk, or left on top of it. The next morning he’ll have an excuse for why his homework isn’t completed—usually in the form of someone else to blame, or “I forgot.” To be fair, this is a problem he is lately overcoming with a mighty effort. He has done himself proud at completing his homework for the past two weeks.

“I forgot” is his favorite excuse. Not paying attention is his favorite pastime. He’s had to be moved away from any window in the classroom. The temptation to gaze outside is too great. His desk was once turned sideways to the room. He spent so much time with his head on his hand lost in dreamland it was the only hope of getting him to look toward the front of the room and the board where the lesson is going on. During Latin Pastor will gently bring him back to the game with a song, “One of these boys is not like the others; one of these boys doesn’t belong. One of these boys isn’t on the same page; one of these boys isn’t playing along.”

Yet here we were, engaged in a conversation on the end times. The chapel reading that week was Luke 21:25-36. The changing seasons alert us to when summer is near. In the same way, distresses upon the earth—among nations, between people, and in the weather—signal changes of another sort. Some will become faint with fear. Others will expend their lives foolishly. But Jesus says to do none of these things. Instead He says to look up, “For your redemption is near.” Jesus reminds us to put our hope in that which is real: Himself.

With the insight and sanctified memory of an eight-year-old, my mess of a student said, “It’s like the song, ‘You better not pout, you better not cry, Santa Claus is coming to town.’ Jesus is coming with His Gifts of Baptism and His Body and Blood. So we don’t have anything to worry about when the world is falling apart.” And this one knows a good deal about worlds falling apart.

Little things this one forgets, like homework. Big things he remembers, like chapel sermons from his pastor. Pastor uses the “Santa Claus is coming to town” illustration every year at this time to bring home the point of difference between what Christ gives and what the world gives at Christmas.

What is Math and History compared to what the Holy Spirit teaches this one at school? This child is a precious treasure, wrapped in Christ and fed by His Word.

Commanding Obedience

The History course in my class begins at the beginning—with God speaking, “Let there be light.” It’s simple enough, but not so that original sin can’t tangle it up. The curse of that first sin shows up in the answers of Second Graders who continue in the pattern of forefather Adam. Blame is the game.

The test question is: How did Adam and Eve fall out of fellowship with God?

Answer given: They ate the bad fruit from the bad tree.

It takes a few reminders, “God looked at all He created and saw that it was very good.” The tree wasn’t bad, nor was the fruit. Adam and Eve sinned because they disobeyed God’s commandment regarding the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Sometimes they don’t like this answer. It’s too close to another one they don’t like to hear. “Why do we have to?” Because I said so.

Luther writes of it this way:

And so when Adam had been created in such a way that he was, as it were, intoxicated with rejoicing toward God and was delighted also with all the other creatures, there is now created a new tree for the distinguishing of good and evil, so that Adam might have a definite way to express his worship and reverence toward God. After everything had been entrusted to him to make use of it according to his will, whether he wished to do so for necessity or for pleasure, God finally demands from Adam that at this tree of the knowledge of good and evil he demonstrate his reverence and obedience toward God and that he maintain this practice, as it were, of worshiping God by not eating anything from it. (LW 1:94)

Thus a twofold temptation is put before Eve, by which, however, Satan has the same end in view. The first is: “God did not say this; therefore you may eat from this tree.” The second is: “God has given you everything; therefore you have everything in your possession; therefore this one single tree is not forbidden you.” However, each aims at the same end: that Eve be drawn away from the Word and from faith. This command about not eating from the tree, which was given them by God, is a convincing proof that even if his nature had remained perfect, Adam, together with his descendants, would have lived in faith until he would have been translated from this physical life to the spiritual life. Where the Word is, there necessarily faith also is. Here is the Word that he should not eat of this tree; otherwise he would die. Therefore Adam and Eve ought to have believed that this tree was detrimental to their welfare. Thus faith is included in this very commandment. (LW 1:153)

Consider Luther’s language here: demands; obedience; command; commandment. Why, he sounds positively Reformed!

NOT! He sounds particularly Lutheran, with a particularly Lutheran understanding of man’s relationship before God.

My students have taught me this lesson repeatedly. If I use the word “hell” to speak of it, one might say, “Oh! That’s a bad word. You shouldn’t say that one.” Oh really? You say it every day in chapel. Their eyes grow wide with wonder. “We do? Where?” So we stand and recite the Apostles’ Creed. There are no bad words, just words used wrongly.

It is the same with the words “commandment” and “obedience.” Now and again I hear in email conversations that this is “the language of the Reformed. We Lutherans simply don’t speak that way.” Since when? Since we Lutherans contracted a phobia of all things Reformed, perhaps?

I’ll grant that the Reformed and we Lutherans have a different understanding of these terms, and that we have differing applications of them with regard to our relationship to God and His relation ship with us. I will also grant that the manner in which the Reformed use these words will send a good Lutheran diving into the waters of his Baptism for relief. However, that does not mean that these words should fall out of use in the vocabulary of the Lutheran. They are good words, properly used. Good words improperly used need not be sent to the dust heap; they need to be washed off and put to good use.

Consider the fact that the Law is placed first in the Catechism. The anticipated use of the Catechism is for those who are of the family of God: those who are baptized or who are preparing for Baptism. This means the First Chief Part is teaching us to live within the Law, as well as to show us where we have fallen short of its demands. Each Commandment has both the positive and the negative aspect to it: This is what a child of God does not do; this is what a child of God does. From this we hunger for the Gospel.

The Commandments make us aware of our need for a Savior and the Means of Grace through which He comes to us. Are we not to use them daily for self-examination? Further, because Christ has united Himself to us in Baptism, because we are all one Body in Him, how we treat each other is how we treat Him (Ro 12:5). When we sin, we make Christ a participant in that sin with us (1Cor 6:15). The child who defies his parent or teacher is not angry at that one alone, but at his heavenly Father. The one who hits another child also injures Christ. There is no nebulous rationality and lengthy discussion regarding why we obey our God. We do it because He says do this, and we, as His children obey Him. What is a life of repentance all about if there is nothing by which we can judge ourselves? Commandment, obedience, repentance, and forgiveness, that’s what a Lutheran is all about.

Luther treats it this way in the Close of the Commandments:

God threatens to punish all who break these commandments. Therefore, we should fear His wrath and not do anything against them. But He promises grace and every blessing to all who keep these commandments. Therefore we should love and trust in Him and gladly do what He commands.

The first two sentences are clearly Law, burdening with punishment and the knowledge of an impossible demand. The third sentence gives relief at last. When God promises grace and blessing, He is speaking only of Jesus Christ. He is the only one who kept these commandments, and He did it for our sakes. Because we are baptized in His Name and now have His righteousness imputed to us, we are inheritors of what Jesus did for us. It is only through Jesus that we are able to keep the First Commandment, which requires us to love and trust God above all things so that we are able to keep all His commandments.

When a Lutheran speaks of his obedience, he recognizes the fact that he is dead in his sins and can do nothing to free himself from that situation. Jesus likes talking to dead people. They can’t do anything for themselves. All a dead person can do is what Jesus’ words say. “Lazarus come forth!” and a stinking body comes out of a grave. “Young man, I say to you, arise!” and the man sits up. Neither one of these men had enough wits about him to decide a thing. The dead do what the dead are told to do by the Lord of Life. Christ's word is effective because it is His word. It is the means whereby things happen. When Christ gives a command—Arise!—He also gives the means to obey that command within the word He speaks.

Creation was like that. The Resurrection will be like that. God spoke into the darkness and there was light. The darkness didn’t create the light. God’s speaking created light. John’s Gospel tells us all things were created in and through God’s Son (Jn 1:3). Specifically, John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1). In the Resurrection Jesus will speak, and the dead in Him will arise. Now there is command and obedience for you!

If others want to believe that they can now be obedient to God’s commandments as Adam and Eve could have been prior to the fall in the Garden; if they want to think their relationship before God is right now something besides that of a dead man—that they can decide to accept or choose Jesus as their Savior—why should that scare us Lutherans off from using two perfectly good words in a right, proper and Lutheran way? We Lutherans certainly haven’t stopped ourselves from using the sign of the cross, crucifixes, genuflecting, incense, the liturgy and all manner of so-called too Catholic thingy-dingies.

God’s commandments are not abolished, and we are called as Christians to obey Christ (2Cor 2:5). Where the Lutheran must begin, however, is in his presupposition regarding these terms. We stand before God as beggars, with nothing in our pockets. We have nothing to give Him. We have not kept His commandments; we have not been obedient to Him. Furthermore, we are as dead beggars. We can’t even reach into our pockets to turn them inside-out to shake them one more time to find that one itsy-bitsy to redeem ourselves in good favor with our heavenly Father. Forget that… someone’s even stolen our clothes!

Who can save us? Thanks be to Christ Jesus our Lord! For it is He who clothes us in Himself, making us obedient according to His obedience to His Father’s every word and will.

Emi Takes a Friend to Sunday School

Last weekend both sets of Emi’s grandparents were gathered at her house in preparation for her sister Lianna’s baptism. I had brought an old CD player with me —a purple one, her favorite color alongside pink. Emi was thrilled. We were upstairs in her room (Oy!) listening to the St. Paul’s Children Choir CD and playing doll house while the others were having a good time “visiting”. Emi was singing along. “O Lord, open Thou my lips… Away in a manger… I am Jesus’ little lamb…” The liturgical hymns were familiar and comfortable to her. She was in heaven! She soon designated one part of her room as “church” and the other “room.”

“Grammy,” she asked, “will you come to Sunday School with me? You can be my friend.” I agreed we could work that out. She danced around with joy.

When we finally went downstairs to join her parents and the rest of the grandparents we found they had been making other plans. Sunday School began at 9:30. They wanted to meet at Shoney’s for breakfast at 9. That meant Sunday School would have to take a pass on Lianna’s Baptism Day if that plan stayed as it was.

I put the question to Emi. “Emi, do you want to go get pancakes at Shoney’s, or do you want to go to Sunday School?” She loves her pancakes, and she knows what going to Shoney’s is all about.

Emi didn’t hesitate. “I want to go to Sunday School.”

“Even if it’s blueberry pancakes?”

“No, Grammy. I’m going to Sunday School and you’re going with me. You’re going to be my friend.”

Plans changed. We met at Shoney’s at 8. Emi got her pancakes and then went to Sunday School with Grammy as her friend. Afterward her baby sister Lianna slept through her baptism.

It was a joy to see Emi so eager to go off to Sunday School. I asked her later what she learned. “Jesus,” she replied. Then she busied herself with preparations for her sister’s baptism. I was wearing a pin remembering my own baptism. On it are a crucifix, a shell with my baptismal birthdate, and a crown with crosses. Emi was especially enthralled with the crown, so I explained that she has one, too. It’s the Crown of Life that Jesus gave her in her baptism and will give her one day. Lianna was going to receive hers when the water hit her head and Pr. Peters said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Emi was fascinated. So much so that when the first bit of water hit her sister’s head she gasped. Throughout the service “crown” references continued to come up. If I didn’t catch it to point out to Emi, she pointed it out to me: “He said crown!” Later she asked Pr. Peters, “You know what Lianna has? A crown.”

Emi will be four in November. Catechesis happens when parents and other authorities take the time to see that it rightly does. It’s a part of her life, not an interruption into it, postponing the regularly scheduled daily programming. For Emi, catechesis is her habit of life.

We have found in our school that children who pray the Catechism daily and learn to judge their actions by its teachings also learn to think differently. They not only place their own actions under the Catechism, they evaluate the world around them by the same. For example, when they read books they make assessments of the characters and their values according to the Catechism. This becomes a valuable tool. Padraic Column’s Children’s Homer proves that in war there are noble men among both friend and foe. Yet, when none worships the true God, there are no good deeds at all. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The House in the Big Woods repeatedly demonstrates the deviltry that lurks behind disobeying one’s parents.

Invariably there is an expectation of forgiveness from my students for characters who have erred and repented in their readings. When it is not forthcoming the students immediately notice and are dismayed. On the other hand, the students also recognize that an oft-repeated “apology” for the same offense without the demonstration of a lesson learned means a lack of true repentance.

Even while watching movies one or another will exclaim, “Hey! That’s like what Jesus does for us.” or “They treated him like Judas. They didn’t forgive him.” Sometimes it takes a bit of work to get to what their connection is, but eventually it can be seen.

Because the Catechism is foremost in their minds, it is that which shapes their thoughts. These children begin at the age of four not just memorizing the Catechism, but also applying it to the way they work and play at school.

Two brothers ran down the hallway. One slipped into my classroom through one door and out the other, slamming it behind him. He was playing hide-n-chase with his younger brother. So I called the older one over. He’s my student.

I explained the facts of life to him: I’m nearly 99 years old and already use a cane to get around. His slamming of the door just jars my old arthritic bones even more. Does he want to break them with all that slamming and jostling?

Well, of course he didn’t. He just wanted to hide from his brother. By then the younger one had joined us.

So did he want to slip up and fall and crack his head open? Or did he maybe want to catch his brother’s fingers in the door and hurt them?

Well, of course he didn’t. He just wanted to play with his brother.

Playing with his brother is great, but this wasn’t the place for it. That was for outside, not inside. Inside someone could get hurt, and getting hurt was what commandment?

“You shall not commit adultery,” he replied.

“I don’t think so,” I answered. “You aren’t married yet.”

He nailed it the next time. So he and his brother repeated the Fifth with meaning, and then the Fourth because they’d been told already not to run in school. And then the First, of course.

After the apology came the forgiveness.

This, too, is how Emi is learning to live. Jesus gave her a crown in baptism, and holds it for her forever. Not even when she sins does she lose this crown. We caught her saying “I lost my crown” after she had gotten into trouble. I didn’t make connections until after a while she said, “I got my crown back again.” So I explained to her, “Emi, Jesus holds your crown for you forever. You never lose it, no matter what you do. You are baptized. Jesus holds you as His own. Jesus holds Lianna as His own. You are both His special princesses, and He has your crown forever. Baptism means you never lose your crown.”

We catechize because we baptize. Can’t have one without the other.

Seven? Now Eight

God Grant It, is a series of devotions written from C. F. W. Walther’s sermons. Last Thursday’s spoke to resisting temptation. Walther writes,

One of the greatest and strongest dangers and temptations for Christians to depart from the path of godliness is the evil example of the children of this world. It is easy enough to see that, for the most part, it goes well for the children of the world in their sinful life. They hurry from desire to desire, and from pleasure to pleasure. . . By this enticing appearance of earthly happiness, which surrounds the children of the world, many a pious person is blinded, deceived, and tempted to fall into sin.

For this reason, Saint John admonishes his spiritual children: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1John 2 15-17).

Countless people in the midst of the severest temptations of the world have remained faithful to their God. The Bible offers some examples. Lot… Joseph…Moses. [Moses] might well have fallen away from the religion of his fathers and become ashamed of his despised Israelite brethren according to the flesh. But it says of him in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (11:24-26).

Gregory the Great (540-605) is credited with codifying the Seven Deadly sins. This was not to suggest that some sins are more damnable than others, for the wages of [all] sin is death. For the sake of catechesis, Gregory emphasized those sins which were tempting, yet could be resisted, but too often were not. These were sins of habit, leading to a lifestyle (habitus) from which it was difficult to free oneself. These sins are known as, by both their Latin names and their translations, saligia: superbia (pride), avaritia (greed), luxuria (luxury, later lust), invidia (envy), gula (gluttony), ira (anger), and acedia (sloth). C. S. Lewis addressed these sins throughout The Chronicles of Narnia. For example, Edmund personifies gluttony in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which Jadis exploits to her advantage with Turkish Delight.

An eighth deadly sin can be added to this list: abdicatus (renunciation). This is the sin of accommodation, and it is the worst of them all. It is the one that finally says that not only can temptation not be resisted; it must be entered into for our own good and human betterment. Moreover, abdicatus is especially heinous because practitioners are quite adept at using scripture to support their cause—just not all of scripture. Abdicatus is conformation with what Walther calls the children of the world so that scripture is used to support their ways and habits, rather than to mark and avoid them. Often the Gospel itself is used as a shield. By this means, one’s own baptism is renounced for he willingly enters into what God has not granted, and yet claims God’s permission upon it because he is baptized.

Abdicatus says that the world has changed, and so must the church. This is as much as to say that the church can no longer withstand temptation, but must accommodate herself to every whim of culture that come along. Let’s ask the question foremost on the minds of theologians in churches that do not ordain women: If all those other churches do it, why can’t we?

Why don’t we press this another direction. There was a time when it was uncommon for couples to live together before marriage. This is no longer true, even among Christians. Sometimes the fact is not even hidden, or is supported by the couple through their own scriptural and theological examinations.

Now, there is scriptural basis for chastity, just as there is for the all-male pastorate. However, society accommodated itself to thinking of virginity as a burden and marriage as a curse. Then "true" liberation was found apart from these things. Marriage was a societal necessity only “for the sake of the kids,” or financial reasons, etc. Marriage, as an icon of Christ and His Bride, is—from the beginning of scripture to the very end—wrapped in Christ. Marriage and sex are sacred, sacramental. The sanctity of marriage is lost when emancipation is found in extra-marital sex and society and the church as a whole embraces this idea.

So what are we to do with any other of the articles of the doctrines of the church? Shall we concede to the temptation of the world and renounce the Apostolic Faith when we do? That is what happens when the church accommodates to the surrounding culture instead of resisting the temptation it presents. The world and its apparent happiness, its growth in numbers, its wealth, all appears to be a success. Still, God has His own way of measuring success. Success for God was measured in His Son’s death. We can’t even begin to imagine how much love that took for Him to send His own Son for our sakes, and yet how painful it was to have His Son die as a sinner. The contrast is blindingly impossible.

We have not even begun to resist our temptations as Christ did, to the point of blood in His own perspiration. He neither gave into temptation, nor did He accommodate Himself to the culture of His day. Christ was obedient to His Father in all things. He told His disciples to be about the business of “baptizing and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19b-20). He also says that His disciples are those who remain in His word (Jn 8:31). It is a foregone conclusion: abdicatus, (renunciation, accommodation), is not the way of the Christian. In fact, accommodation to temptation says that the Gospel is powerless in the face of the devil. James says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (4:7). The latter follows the former. Those who have first been submitted by God to Him are able to resist the devil and all his temptations. The Gospel overcomes the devil and his ways.

"I am baptized" is the answer to all temptation, not the reason for accommodation to sin. St. Paul writes, "Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Ro 5:2-5). If there is a corresponding virtue to abdicatus, and one supposes there must be, it is virtus (character).

We often think of virtus as virtue, but it is not limited to that. It also means courage, manliness. St. Augustine wrote that his mother Monica was a woman who had the faith of a man. By that he meant she had the courage to withstand the temptations life threw before her, and treated them as chastisements from God. She trusted herself to be a son of God by virtue of her baptism into Christ. Temptation was wrapped in the form of freedom from suffering for her—however briefly it might have been. Isn't that true for any of us though? Sexual temptation is suffering for the teen; ordination for some males only causes suffering for some women. Giving in to these things (sex without marriage, women's ordination) as if that's the way things should be is abdicatus. The courage of a manly faith that is Christ's alone, given in Baptism to every Christian is that which resists these temptations.