Ascension Day Guilt

I swear every year I’m going to do something, and every year Ascension Day sneaks up on me and zooms by. It was May 29^th, last Thursday. I suppose I could always cheat and just make the nearest Sunday Ascension Day (Observed), but I always hate moving actual days like that. The Ascension is 40 days after easter. Pentecost is 50 days after. Compared to All Saints which is always November 1^st, but there is nothing else that connects it to that date. So what I end up doing is reflecting it in the Hymns. The Ascension is Crowning Day – Crown Him with Many Crowns. It is the Day he was “seated at the right hand of the Father” so Christ the Eternal Lord.

A theologian I listen to made me think a little more this year about why I keep missing Ascension Day. Although I think her first take was a little off. There are three accounts of the Ascension in the Bible. The first two are both by Luke, one at the end of his gospel and the other at the start of Acts. If you think of Luke-Acts as volume 1 and volume 2 of a story, it makes sense to retell the ending. And in Luke’s telling Jesus just kinda drifts up. Hence you get icons and images of the ascension with nothing but Jesus’ feet showing. Which in this theologian’s telling is kinda silly. And I guess it is, but that type of thing has rarely bothered me. Superman Jesus is amusing, but really, how are you going to visually depict a spiritual event? As Ender knew, the enemy is always down, and heaven is always up. The third image of the Ascension is in the book of Revelation. It never calls it that, but I’m pretty sure that is what it is. All Heaven is in a sad state because nobody can ascend to the throne and read a scroll. But then the lamb, like one who was slain, appears and is seated and proceeds to open the scroll. (Revelation 5). Maybe a little like my theologian’s embarrassment at those feet, being a good American I don’t know what to do with an actual – as opposed to a metaphorical – enthronement. I’m fine with the imagery of crowns, but an actual crown? Americans of my generation can still sing along with Schoolhouse Rock “No More Kings”.

The second embarrassment of emphasizing “seated at the right hand of the Father” is that we think of Kings as having all authority. “Blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever” all of heaven sings. But what happens when the enthroned lamb starts opening the scroll? All hell breaks loose – 4 horsemen, and saints asking “how long?” and earthquakes and blood and people calling for mountains to fall on them. When God is on his throne, all is supposed to be well. But it is not.

But where do I get that “all is supposed to be well” from? Where does my image of a King with all authority meaning peace come from? It certainly isn’t from the experience of Kings in this world. Even the Sun King of France had his problems. And the biblical picture of the newly enthroned Son King is of the damage Satan thrown out of Heaven is wreaking upon the earth. “All will be well” is the promise at the end of the story. As my favorite Christmas hymn tells it, “All idols then shall perish and Satan’s lying cease, and Christ shall raise his scepter, decreeing endless peace.” But today? Today the din of battle, the next the victor’s song.

What Ascension means is at long last the return of the King. The correct person is upon the throne. We probably all have experienced following the wrong person. The despair that can overcome. The rats seeking to flee the ship. The second guessing. And because Christ has chosen to work in this world through the Spirit and through the church we might have plenty of second guessing. But maybe that is because we are called to faith. Not necessarily faith that all will be well here and now, or that all leadership even is good. But faith that God is working all things for the good of his people. Faith that because Christ is ascended, what we attempt will not be doomed. That nothing done for Christ is ever lost.

Ask

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Biblical Text: John 16:23-33

On our current calendar it was the 6th Sunday in Easter. The old calendar used to call is Rogate, which is Latin for ask or even beg. The gospel lesson for the day, centering around Jesus saying “ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be complete,” has been the text since at least the 8th century. This sermon opens with a bit of memory about older forms of congregational collective asking. Both practical asking and spiritual asking. And then it transitions into a meditation on prayer – the way we ask. It is cribbing from Luther’s postil sermon for this day where he holds there are five necessities to prayer: promise, faith, specificity, soul need, and the name of Christ. You find 4 of those easily in the text. It is that soul need that is an interesting add by Luther. It is not that I disagree with the great man. (I better not, I just preached it.) But soul need as I hope the sermon makes clear, is the difference between my wishing and my praying. I wish a lot of things, but are they the deep needs of my soul? If they are not, they are not prayer. And it is prayer that Jesus promises is heard. Ask. Ask and you will receive. And you joy will be made full.

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In This Name, You Shall Conquer

The past week had two days that are worth commenting upon. May 20^th in the year 325 AD the council of Nicaea was convened. That is the council that produced the Nicene creed that we say in church on and off with the Apostle’s creed. This year, 2025 is the 1700 anniversary of that event. May 21^st happens to be the veneration day of Saint Constantine who played an important role in that council – if not the role that Dan Brown and 1000 conspiracy theories have him play.

Starting with Constantine himself, his mother St. Helena, was the original Christian. She was the concubine of Constantine’s father who was the Roman nobleman and eventually the inheritor of one fourth of the Roman empire in the Emperor Diocletian’s succession plan. Technically he got the worst part, the far west including Britain. His father dies relatively early and Constantine becomes his replacement. And rather like the Biblical David, his life is one of warfare consolidating the Empire. In 312 AD, before the climatic battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine had a vision. Eusebius the church historian records that he saw the “Chi-Rho” which is the first two letters of the name of Christ. The vision told him “In this name, you shall conquer.” He had it painted on all his standards the next day and he did win becoming Emperor of the entire empire. In 314 AD he would issue the Edict of Milan which made Christianity legal in the empire for the first time. Maybe the biggest benefit of this was that churches could now own public space. Constantine’s mother would proceed to sponsor the building of the original edifices of most of the famous churches from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to Old St. Peter’s in Rome.

The seed bed of the conspiracy theories comes from Constantine’s role in starting the Council of Nicea. He convened the council of Bishops from all over the Empire. Early Christianity had two ongoing doctrinal disagreements. The first was about the nature of God and the second very close about the nature of Christ. It really came down to the question of how did Jesus participate in the Godhood. One camp headed by a man called Arius held that “there was a time when Christ was not.” The godhood of Christ was derivative of the Father. The orthodox camp held what we find in the Nicene Creed – “begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father.” The conspiracy theories operate much like any reporting on religion in our press today. Doctrine or religion isn’t a real thing. Politics is the only real thing. So the Nicene creed and the entire council were just an assertion of political power by the consolidating Emperor Constantine who was looking for a faith to unite the empire behind his elevated rule.

But just like our modern day journalists who don’t “get religion” and so view it only through the lens of politics, anyone who does get it could tell you betting on Christianity to unite a political movement is a losing bet. From stories of St. Nicholas (yes, Santa Claus) punching Arius at Nicaea to the 300 plus year aftermath, as the hymn says the church is almost always “by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed.” Politicians in every age may try to make the faith utilitarian, but Christ himself is on the throne and such plans quickly come to nothing. But the creed – the symbol of the faith – is still in use 1700 years later.

The world we live in is a messy one. Its politics are pluralistic. Much like Constantine managing Pagans, Christians, Jews and every other form in the broad empire. And Satan still has his sway on this old earth. The church’s judgement of Constantine has long been contrary to a reductionist power politics view only. Jesus promised that the Spirit would lead his followers into all truth. And as any Christian would probably tell you the paths of the Spirit are often quite surprising. The church’s judgement has long been that God used the rule of Constantine to end the on and off Roman persecutions of his people. To gather the bishops together to make the formal statement of the faith that has stood for 1700 years. To build spaces of worship still in use today. And ultimately to allow the further proclamation of the gospel as the 300 – 600’s AD would not just Christianize the empire, but also well beyond its borders. Constantine may have thought the conquest would be his by means of arms. And on that one specific day it was. But the larger conquest was of hearts. “In this name – the name of Christ – you shall conquer.”

The One About a Three Legged Pig

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Biblical Text: Acts 11:1-18; (Revelation 21:1-7)

The text of the sermon is largely Peter’s vision of the heavenly tablecloth descending which ended up at Gentile Pentecost. It’s a story about ceremonial laws – clean and unclean – and how they play no role in the Kingod of God. Now most of us probably don’t think we have ceremonial laws which is crazy. Because we are constantly making clean and unclean distinctions. And constantly making new ones. They are much easier to render judgement upon. What this sermon does is two things. It attempts to teach some distinctions in the law: moral, civil and ceremonial. And then it proclaims like Jesus to Peter, “what God has made clean, do not call common.” For God made all things good. And Christ is remaking all things. Our clean and unclean distinctions, our ceremonial laws, better not get in the way of the Work of God.

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A Thought on Travel

“Wherever you go, there you are.” I tend to think about that aphorism anytime I have to travel. For some reason I couldn’t remember where it comes from this time, so I made the mistake of googling it. It appears that there has been a popular book by that name recently. So, all the current links google served up were from some Western Buddhist wannabe. But the original place I remember it from is Thomas A Kempis in his “The Imitation of Christ.” His larger context was The Cross.

“No one is so touched with a heartfelt sense of the Passion of Christ, as the man whose lot it has been to suffer like things. The cross, then, is always at hand, and everywhere awaits you. You cannot escape it, run where you will; for wherever you go, you take yourself with you, and you will always find yourself.”

A more modern translation of that runs:

“So, the cross is always ready and waits for you everywhere. You cannot escape it no matter where you run, for wherever you go you are burdened with yourself. Wherever you go, there you are.”

I usually hate travel. Unless I’m going to some all inclusive beach resort, the effort and expense of travel just never seem worth it. I’m not unmoved by the Romance of it. I’d love to go to Constantinople. The problem is that Constantinople doesn’t exist. And even Istanbul doesn’t exist as it is in my conception. I’m convinced that travel is on so many people’s lists of dreams to do because they are running from the cross. They have bought into the simple Jimmy Buffet transaction – Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude – without contemplating He Went to Paris, or even better “Hell, it could be my fault.” We think we can run away from the cross. Yet wherever we go, there we are. Whatever we thought we were escaping, we bring it with us. But what is it we bring?

When Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Mark 8:34),” we often take this as a call to some form of the ascetic life. We look at the cross as doing something that our authentic selves does not want. But that is the way to works righteousness, or maybe even worse, to the perennial martyr. What it really means is crucifying the Old Adam. It means mortifying the sin that lives within our members. For it is only then that we meet our true self. For Jesus’ invitation is followed by the saying, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. (Mk. 8:35 ESV)” We can travel around the world sucking the morrow out of life, and we shall lose it. For wherever we go, we are like poor Marley’s ghost, adding links to the chain of who we think we are.

But wherever we are, at whatever age, or place or spin of fortune’s wheel, there is a cross. Christ chose the cross. He set his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51). And it is only through the cross that the true Christ was shown. “This man is the son of God (Mark 15:39).” It is in picking up our cross that we for the first time know who we are. Who is the person we have stopped running from? What have we accepted as the call of love in our lives?

Wherever we go, we are burdened by our sinful nature. It used to be standard reading – Pilgrim’s Progress. The initial picture of Christian on his pilgrimage is carrying this heavy bag. And he thinks that bag is everything. It is only at the cross that the bag falls off and Christian knows himself. His pilgrimage is just beginning. His travels are extensive. But from that point on it is himself. And his walk is heavenward all the way. We imitate Christ when embrace the cross, when we attempt to live the call of love in our lives and stop running from it.

153 Large Fish

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Biblical Text: John 21:1-19

I think this is about calling. And for me I’d take it as calling in the broad sense. We all know there are things that we should be doing. And the very bedrock it is answering the question who am I? and whose am I? If we answer those calling then is being true to ourselves. The text is the contradiction of what happens when we ignore the calling (nothing) and what happens when we follow it (the grace of God.) It is also about things that stand in the way. Sometimes those are small things, like being hungry. Sometime those are huge things, like betrayal. This sermon is a meditation the weaves back and forth between Peter and the disciples and ourselves and how we deal with calling and the things that get in the way. And how Christ helps in all these things.

Recording note: the first 15 secs of the actual sermon sound bad. My microphone was muted at the board. So I amplified the ambient recording. After 15 secs the mute was taken off and it sounds much better.

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Trusting Providence

We are reading through Genesis in the Wednesday bible study. Only slightly tongue in cheek I shared that the rest of the bible is footnote to Genesis. It is all there in the beginning. Yes, the entire history of Isreal, and then Jesus, and the church, certain fill things out. But one of the New Testament’s favorite words is to be made full – “When the time was fulfilled…that the scriptures might be fulfilled.” (You can look up that word fulfilled in your concordance and see all it’s uses.) The mental picture of the word is that the form is already present like a pitcher or a jug or 40 gallon vat of water. Events fill it up or even change the water into wine. The form is fulfilled, made full. Genesis is the empty 40 gallon vat. And it all fits in the there.

As part of that form, there is a funny little story in Genesis 12:10-20. Most interpreters pick up on the Exodus parallels. Going into Egypt because of a famine. Plagues. The plunder when leaving. All of which are fulfilled. But in the midst of that I think there is something better to ponder with Abram. In the immediate prior verses, God has made his covenant with Abram. And it is that covenant of pure grace and promise. “Go…I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3).” If the covenant with Noah was the promise of temporal providence – “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease (Gen 8:22)” – this is the promise of eternal providence.

And immediately comes the test. “Now there was famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt. (Gen 12:10).” Now one of the things we have to understand about Abram is that he is a very rich man. He has a full household. He has herds and flocks and slaves and everything. So when Abram goes to Egypt, a symbol for the world, he is dealt with by Pharoah as an equal. So does Abram deal with Pharoah out of faith in the providence of God, or does Abram try and deal with Pharoah on worldly terms? If you know the story, or if you just know human nature, you know Abram immediately defaults to worldly terms. He tells his wife Sarai to say she is his sister. He passes Sarai over to Pharoah as part of a treaty. And Abram, already a rich man, receives everything that world can give. “And for her sake [Pharoah] dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.”

It’s a repeating pattern with Abram. He believes the promise, but he’s always trying to figure out how he can speed God up, or how he can help God fulfill the promise. It’s a repeating pattern with us. It is not that we don’t believe God’s providence. We just have trouble seeing His time and His ways. And living in the midst of the Egypt – in the midst of the world – we are always trying to cut deals to help God out. The problem is that our deals with the world are the equivalent of giving our wife to Pharoah’s harem. We hand over the one through whom the offspring is promised to those who would mistreat her. We might get everything the world offers, but we’ve given up the pearl of great price.

The good news is that with signs and wonders – the plagues here, eventually the God-man who takes the plague of the cross upon himself – God still provides. His covenant with us in Jesus doesn’t depend upon our perfection. It is not upon us to make it full. God fulfills it. He has fulfilled it in Jesus, and he is at work fulfilling it in you.

The next time we find ourselves deep in negotiation with the world, pause for a second. Do we need what the world is offering? What are we giving in exchange for it? Has not God promised us “everything we need to support this body and life?” It might feel like a famine, even to a rich man with herds like Abram. But is our deliverance truly in Egypt?

Mission and Witness

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Biblical Text: John 20:19-31, Acts 5:12-32

The second Sunday of Easter, the end of the octave of Easter, is always the appearance to Thomas. And for most of my life this has been the Sunday to talk about doubt – doubting Thomas. Which I happen to think is a terrible reading of the text. Sure, Thomas doubts, but Jesus’ words to him are a gentle rebuke. Something like, “Thomas, stop being a fool, and believe. Do you really know these 10 so little that you think they’d lie to you about something like this?” If you want to talk Dark Nights of the Soul go read Job or Ecclesiastes or maybe even Paul on his fellow Jews. But Thomas is about mission. “As the Father sent me, I am sending you. Receive the Holy Spirit. Forgive Sins.” This is about the mission of the church in all times and places carried out through Word and Sacrament. And the first lesson of the day from Acts is a perfect example.

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Why Pray for the Cardinals?

It is not something that modern Lutherans or Protestants spend a lot of time thinking about, but then you only get a new one every decade or so. In my lifetime there have been 5 popes: Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. And John Paul I barely counts. And the reality is that as the leader of roughly 1.5 Billion Roman Catholics what any Pope says or does has an impact on the church as a whole. There is an old saying often applied, “if Rome catches a cold, Wittenberg sneezes.” There is a list of doctrines that the church has always taught, that many protestant branches have changed with the spirit of the age, but if Rome were to change them, the worldly politics would be rough for any church continuing to confess them. That might explain some of the anxiety of the Francis years because that occasionally looked like a possibility. As a Lutheran it is easy to say “popes and councils may err.” (Luther wrote a treatise under that title.) But to a believer in Papal infallibility, that 2000 years of Popes could teach one thing in faith and morals and you could wake up the next day with the living Pope teaching something else; it went right to the heart of what they confessed.

So, as over the next week, weeks(?), months(??) that we see a new Pope elected, I thought it might be worthwhile to review what we Lutherans believe, teach and confess about that office. Maybe surprisingly the Augsburg Confession – the 1530 primary confession of the Lutheran Church – is rather silent on the bishop of Rome. Everyone, maybe Luther excluded, still hoped for a church council at that time to adjudicate all the issues. And it was only Luther himself who was excommunicated and declared an outlaw. The Augsburg Confession later section restricts itself to commenting on practices it believes need to be universally reformed: Marriage of Priests, The Mass, Confession, Monastic Vows along with some others. It also closes with an article on Church Authority (Art 28). Maybe foreshadowing the fuller teaching, it limits itself to speaking about “the power of bishops.” The pope by implication being merely the Bishop of Rome and not a universal Bishop. The authority of all bishops is simply “that which they have according to the gospel. For they have been given the ministry of Word and Sacrament (paragraph 20-21).” “If they have any other authority or jurisdiction…they have this by human right. (paragraph 29).”

In 1537, what was implied in the Augsburg Confession, is made explicit in two works: The treatise titled The Power and Primacy of the Pope and Article III.4 of the Smalcald Articles entitled The Papacy. Both are rather short and clear. You can read any of the Confessional articles yourself at https://bookofconcord.org/ or ask me for a copy of them, we have some extras. The treatise puts forward three claims of the papacy, which the modern papacy would still hold. 1. The Pope is by divine right supreme over all bishops. 2. That by divine right the pope operates in both the Kingdom of the Right (the gospel) and The Kingdom of the Left (the Civil Realm) with the authority to appoint and remove rulers. 3. That the pope is “The Vicar of Christ” which means simply that he is in the person of Christ in all that he does. Now the modern Roman church may moderate on these occasionally due to practicality, but just like indulgences, they are still there. The treatises teaching can be boiled down to the assertion that all of these are usurping the throne of Christ. It is Christ that is the head of the church. It is Christ who appoints both church and state rulers through various means. And Christ needs no vicar as he is present wherever the church gathers. The treatise holds out a distinction that none of these claims are proper by divine right. The pope cannot bind consciences over his actions in these areas. But, by human right and custom, one can certainly consult the bishop of Rome. Philip Melanchthon the writer was still hopeful of a council healing the schism.

Luther in the same year wrote his article on the Papacy which is more strident, although it really addresses the same three claims. It opens, “The Pope is not, according to divine law or God’s Word, the head of all Christendom. This name belongs to One only, whose name is Jesus Christ. The pope is only the bishop and pastor of the Church at Rome and of those who have attached themselves to him voluntarily or through a human agency. Christians are not under him as a lord. They are with him as brethren.” Luther continues to imagine a “by human right” papacy, but concludes that this would have to be a failure. And in his toughest statement asserts, “This teaching shows forcefully that the pope is the true Antichrist. He has exalted himself above and opposed himself against Christ. For he will not permit Christians to be saved without his power (paragraphs 9-10).” That “saved” is the confession that our sins are forgiven by faith alone. The absolution does not require the pope’s penance. If we believe Christ, our sins have already been forgiven and not even the pope can stand in the way. To the extent the pope stands in the way of the absolution, he opposes Christ.

But there are roughly 1.5 Billion Roman Catholics, fellow Christians. In the words of the confessions they have “attached themselves to him voluntarily or through a human agency.” And it is only good and right that we should pray for them at such a time. Both that a good and faithful man might be elevated to such an office, and that he would not get in the way of the proclamation of the gospel, but that he would be their brother in the faith.

Perplexed and Running

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Biblical Text: Luke 24:1-12

Happy Easter. Luke loves to juxtapose two groups, often male and female. And it is no different here at the Resurrection. Often it is for two ends of a spectrum. Sometimes it is to show different reactions to the same proclamation of the Word. Today the women and Peter are juxtaposed (with the apostles being an indeterminate group). The Word is the Resurrection. Both believe, but their starting place is much different. Their starting places just might be the extremes of the people showing up for Easter Services.

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