The Lutheran Review

Mary Asks to visit Her Aunt

Mary had been thinking about how to approach her mother for a couple of weeks.  She wanted to catch her in a good mood.  Good moods were hard to come by, what with the wedding getting nearer.  Once she told Joseph and her parents about Gabriel’s visit a couple of months ago, well who knew what would happen then.  That would take some explaining; that he was an angel and not the stone cutter from Nain.

So one day, when she and her mother were listening to the stories of those returning from the Pentecost celebration in Jerusalem, it seemed as good a time as any.  “I want to go visit Aunt Elizabeth,” she blurted.

‘What?” her mother asked.  “Now you want to go visit Aunt Elizabeth? Last year you didn’t want to see them at all when your father and I went.  ‘Do I have to go,’ you said.  ‘They’re so old. And Zechariah keeps telling those same boring stories over and over again.  Their house smells like old people.’  Now you suddenly want to go visit your Aunt”    

 “You’re fifteen Mary!” her mother cried.  “You just can’t go running off.  There’s the wedding.  What does Joseph think?”

“I haven’t told Joseph yet,” Mary said. 

“Oh, great, what’s he supposed to think?  His bride suddenly decides to go down to Judea to visit her aunt.  How are you going to get there?  You’re fifteen.’

“So you’ve just reminded me, mother.”

“Don’t get smart with me, young lady.  Your father and I still have a few things to say about your life.  I suppose next you’re going to tell me that you p.lan to travel through Samaria.”

“Mother, I’m not stupid.  I’ll take the road east of the Jordan and then cross the river at Jericho.”

“Mary, you can’t go alone.  No woman travels that way alone.  Not only that, you’re only fifteen.”

“Mother, how many times are you going to tell me, ‘You’re only fifteen.’  You treat me like a baby.

Well I’m going to have a baby.  So is Elizabeth.”

“What’s going on, Mary?”

THE BEGINNING…

   

Biblical Vision for the Environment

I am only at the beginning of the introduction to a book, “Creation” by Margaret Barker, T & T Clark International.  But I already have found much to think about.

“A contemporary secular observer might say that the reason the environment is changing rapidly is that there are increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and pollutants in the ocean.”  Think of the oil spewing from a BP well in the Gulf for more than a month.

Barker goes on to write that data would be gathered and presented.  Conferences called.  Governments urged to act now.  Corporations called to task. Immediate action called for.  But it would all lead to not much happening.  The global system would slog along under political pressure, national self interest and corporation loyalty to stockholders.

“Nowadays a disaster is likely to prompt the question, ’Why does god allow such things to hap.pen?’, but the ancient prophets had a different view.  When Joel saw his people suffering disasters…he did not call in question the existence of God.  He proclaimed in the name of the Lord, ‘Rend your hearts and not your garments.’  Return to the Lord your God.’  Many of the eco-disasters of our time are the result of human activity, choices made without the biblical vision, and so choices made with a vision other than that of the original unity…Presented as freedom-the free market, democracy, consumer choice – they have produced what Paul called the creation going nowhere (subject to futility, Rom. 8:20), and in ‘bondage to decay’.”

She cites The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, “We often refer to an environmental crisis, but the real crisis lies not in the environment, but in the human heart.  The fundamental problem is to be found not outside but inside ourselves, not in the ecosystem, but in the way we think.”

I’ll conclude with the following from Barker, “The biblical vision for the creation appeals to the heart and to the imagination, and offers what would nowadays be called a ‘theory of everything’, including the special role of human beings in the complexity of creation.”

I know as a Lutheran I should present both law and gospel, but I’ve only gotten as far as the law, so far.    

 

 

Luther of the Slavs

This is for my friend David Byler. 

Jiri Tranovsky, was known as the “Luther of the Slavs” and the father of Slovak hymnody.  He was born in 1591 in Tesin, Silesia and died in 1637.   Silesia has for much of its history belonged to either Germany or Poland.  Since world War II the larger part is Polish.
Tyrannously entered Wittenburg University in 1607.  He then traveled and taught in Bohemia, Silesia and Moravia.  He was ordained in 1616.  During a persecution of Lutherans in Bohemia he was forced to flee, he was imprisoned, lost two children in the plague and went into exile in 1625.  After fleeing from his next pastorate he settled in Slovakia in 1631.  There he produced a translation of the Augsburg Confession and .published a hymn collection Cithera Sanctorum (Lyre of the Saints) which formed the basis of Slovak Lutheran hymns.  He wrote 150 hymns himself.

However, none of his hymns are found in LSB.  Lutheran Worship has one of his hymns, two are in The Lutheran Hymnal and Evangelical Lutheran Worship has one.
Hymn 253 in TLH is a paraphrase of the apostles Creed and set to a Bohemian melody.

In one true God we all believe
And to his name all glory give.
Creator of all things is He
In heaven, the earth, the sea.

For David’s sake I will include the first verse in Slovak, though without the markings.

Verime v vsemohouciho
Otce, I vsevedouciho,
Jenz stvoril nebe s hvezdami
Azemi s urodami.

(Spell check was very unhappy with the above stanza.)

Many Pentecosts

Vigen Guroian writes of Pentecost in his book of meditations on gardening, “Inheriting Paradise,”

He quotes St. Ephrem’s, Hymns of Paradise:

God planted the fair Garden,

He built the pure church…

In the church he implanted

the Word…

Then he writes of many Pentecosts: “the church’s Pentecost was foreshadowed at the creation of the world when ‘the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters’ and life began (Gen. 1:2).  Pentecost also anticipates the last day when everything will be made new by the Holy Spirit.  The personal Pentecost of each Christian is his or her baptism…  this was foreshadowed by the visitation of the Holy Spirit with Mary and the Spirit’s descend in the form of a dove upon Jesus in the Jordan River.   All these Pentecosts promise immortal life in Paradise.

 

Bede, the Venerable

Bede, who is regarded as the last of the Early Church Fathers, was born in Northumbria, England in 673.  His parents put him in a nearby monastery at the age of seven.  There he stayed his whole life, only occasionally leaving to visit friends, until his death in 735.  He became known as “Venerable” within two generations of his death.  Bede is buried in Durham Cathedral.  He spent his life teaching and writing.  He is best known for his book the Ecclesiastical history of the English People, which became a model for historians because of his careful use of sources.

He was also an interpreter of scripture, whose commentaries are still useful today.

 Two selections from his homilies on the Gospels show that his interpretations are still fresh today.

When the grace of the Spirit is given to human beings, the Spirit is unquestionably

Sent by the father and sent by the Son, and he proceeds from the Father

 and proceeds from the Son.  [The Spirit] also comes of his own accord,

 because just as he is equal to the Father and the Son,

 so he has the same will in common with the Father and the Son.

 

The Spirit breaths where he wills because he has in his power [to choose the] heart he will enlighten by the grace of his visitation.  And you hear his voice when one filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in your presence.

In his Penitentials he indicates the appropriate penance for the faults of churchmen and laity.

“Anyone who kills a monk or a cleric shall leave armed service and enter service of God or do seven years penance.  Anyone who kills a lay person through hate or cupidity shall do four years penance.  The soldier who kills in the course of war shall fast for forty days.  The mother who kills the child she is carrying in her womb before the fortieth day following conception shall fast for one year; if it is after the fortieth day she shall fast three years.  However, there is a great difference between the poor woman who has killed her child because she cannot feed it and the profligate…anyone who gets so drunk as to vomit shall fast forty days if he is a priest or deacon; thirty days if he is a religious; twelve days if he is a lay person.”

Copernicus and Euler

According to the church calendar in Sundays and Seasons (Augsburg fortress) two scientists are remembered today.  Nicolaus Copernicus, (1543) and Leonhard Euler (1783)

As we come into the latter days of May, the gardens and fields are bursting with life.  Thus remembering scientists such as Copernicus and Euler provides a fitting opportunity to consider the mysteries of the universe and the wonder of God’s creation.  Copernicus personified the renaissance.  He studied astronomy, mathematics, Greek, Plato, law, medicine, and church law.  He was also interested in theology, poetry and the natural and social sciences.  He is most remembered for his work as an astronomer and his idea that the sun, not the earth, is the center of the solar system.  However, as we are able to see in the breadth of his studies he was able to integrate a number of fields of study.

Euler (OY-ler) is regarded as one of the founders of the science of pure mathematics.  He made important contributions to mechanics, hydrodynamics, astronomy, optics, and acoustics.

It’s fitting that we remember scientists and their contribution to our knowledge of God’s creation.  Psalm 8, the psalm for Trinity Sunday, praises the Lord for the wonders and mysteries of what God has created.

O Lord, our Lord,

How majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

 the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

 In an interesting article in the St. Louis dispatch on Sunday Kevin Horrigan entitled “The toe of God.”  He cites an NPR interview with Michael E Brown.  Brown has discovered more planetary objects than any other person in history.  Brown says that for the last fifteen years astronomers have been searching for solar systems similar to ours.  “That is, solar systems where large, gassy, super-cold planets – like Jupiter – orbit their stars from a distance and cool planets orbit close in.”  What they have found in the 440 or more planets they have discovered in other solar systems is that two-thirds of the Jupiter-like planets orbit closer to the sun and destroy the smaller planets in their way.  If Jupiter orbited closer to the sun, it would destroy the earth.  Only one other solar system that has been studied bears any resemblance to ours.

Horrigan concludes his article, “So are we alone? Who knows? But in an age where science and belief so often are in conflict, it’s comforting to find them coming closer together.”   

When Robins Attack

During a miserable first week in February I wrote,

I saw a robin in the backyard.

Hope.

Praise God from whom all robins flow.

It’s May now.  The robin did not go away.  In fact the robins have multiplied and they hope to increase their multiplication.  Two nests reside against the side of the house.  One rests in the crook of a drain pipe.  Another sits atop a box where the cable for TV comes in.  Earlier this week I was working in the flower garden in the backyard.  My presence set the robins to issuing warning calls.  They sat on garage roof next door or in the lower branches of the trees.  As I left the backyard I felt the wind of wings next to my head. A little too close for comfort, as far as I’m concerned.  So I’ve taken to brandishing a broom or a shovel when I enter my backyard domain, which has now become a war zone.  My broom against strafing robins.

A long time ago, longer than we know, Noah found birds as a sign of hope.  Noah sent forth a raven, which went to and fro until the waters dried up.  He then sent forth a dove which could find no place to rest and returned to the ark. Later he sent the dove out again.  When the dove returned with an olive leaf he knew he could leave his salvation boat.

The Lord God restarted the creation with his blessings, “birds and animals and every creeping thing…that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply.”  This second blessing upon life came with a caveat.  “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea.”  The evidence for the creatures of the earth to fear us lay beneath our window facing the front yard.  A bird had flown full speed into the window and did not survive.  In the backyard I discovered a chipmunk drowned in a container filled with rainwater.

 We are a hazard to the creatures of the earth.  What has happened in our yard is multiplied a million or more fold in the leak of one oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.  That ongoing catastrophe lessens my self-righteousness in bragging that my Honda Fit gets nearly 50 miles per gallon.

 God blessed the creatures of the earth with incredible gifts of procreation.  They need it because of us little-lower-than-the-angels-beings. 

Be careful out there as we go about our task of managing God’s blessed creation.   After all, we do it in his name and in his stead.

Constantine and his mother Helena

Emperor Constantine

Constantine I was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337.  In 313, persecution of Christians was forbidden by the Edict of Milan.  He also called the Council of Nicea in 325 at which the first version of the Nicene Creed was written.

  Constantine reported that his conversion to Christ happened just prior to a battle that would give him sole possession of the emperor’s throne.  At about noon he and the soldiers with him saw a cross composed of light in the sun.  the words, “By this sign conquer” encircled the vision.  That night Christ appeared with the sign that he had seen in heaven.  Christ commanded him to construct a representation of the symbol and use it in battle.  He called together the Christian priests and asked them questions.  They explained to him how the prophets had predicted the coming of Christ.  The next day, October 28, 312, carrying the banner of the cross, he won the battle at  the Milvian Bridge which crossed the Tiber River north of Rome.

Helena

His mother Helena,( ca.255-329) influenced Constantine.  She had a great interest in locating the holy sites of the Christian faith..  This led her to become one of the first Christian pilgrims to the holy Land.   She initiated the building of churches on several of the site, such as Bethlehem, Calvary, Christ’s tomb etc.  These locations which she identified are still maintained as places of worship today.

Just Watching

 

For several years Charles Mueller has been writing his periodical periodical, “Just Watching,” which has been published on the Wheatridge Ministry website.

As he traveled the country, he would share what he had found among God’s people.  He challenged pastors to take the risk of proclaiming and implementing the gospel in new ways and to new people.  Now, at 81, he isn’t able to travel as he once d\id.  He has decided now is the time to bring a close to “Just watching.”  He is not riding off into the sunset, but will seek new ways to be of service to His Lord and the Lord’s church.

In his final issue he shares with us his gleenings from a book written by Dr. Phyllis tickle, “The Great Emergence (Baker Books, 2008).    She writes that the church holds a gigantic garage sale ever 500 years or so.  It cleans out the closet of the stuff that has become irrelevant.

Mueller writes, “Given that a “garage sail” is going on  right now among Lutheran Christians, I do not fear for our future as god’s people.  Rummage sales have the same effect as scraping barnacles from the bottom of a boat.  It gets rid of a lot drag and increases the boat’s speed.”  He cites roman5 as the reason not to have fear.  We have been justified by faith.  Therefore we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Because of our weakness we are unable to gain a victory over the barnacles in our life.  Not to worry.  “For while we were still weak…Christ died for the ungodly.”

“But I do fear for those who do not understand there’s a rummage sale in process.  Instead of identifying and dumping what’s of no present use, some have become avid collectors of old wine skins and oil-less lamps, afraid to become Alexander Pope’s “…the first by whom the new are tried…” rather than “…the last to lay the world aside.”

Mueller points us to Hebrews 13:8 as a guiding principle.  “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  He is our foundation, “everything else is up for grabs.”

Thus Charlie Mueller leaves off writing “Just Watching,” challenging us to regularly review yesterday’s practices and programs.

 

 

Christians Are

Christians are

Christians are indistinguishable from other people either by nationality, language or customs.  They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life.  Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by curiosity.  Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine.  With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living ing, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives.  They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through.  They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens.  Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country.  Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them.  They share their meals, but not their wives.  They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh.  They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven.  Obedient to the laws, they yet lives on a level that transcends the law.

Christians love all, but all persecute them.  Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again.  They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything.  They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory.  They are defamed, but vindicated.  A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult.  For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life.

Letter to Diognetus, second century