Ash Wednesday & Lent 2011

Ash Wednesday – March 9, 2011

Our Shepherd Lutheran Church – Severna Park, MD

For the next 40 days, you are invited to live your life as if your life matters.  You didn’t expect me to say that did you?  Let me say it again.  For the next 40 days, you are invited to live your life as if your life matters.

You received a reminder of your mortality on your forehead just minutes ago.  You heard the words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  As I see it, you have a couple of choices.  Live your life as if your mortality is a far off into the future slight possibility.  Or, live your life as if your life matters, precisely because you are mortal.

What people want me to do today is to be a cheerleader.  You are giving up chocolate for Lent?  Great!  You can do it for 40 days.  It will be hard.  Hang in there.  You can do it.  It is only 40 days.  Think of the reward at the end!  It will be worth it.

I can’t do that.  I’d rather turn in my pastor card.

Let me tell you something else you might not expect me to say.  What we do during Lent is never meant to be temporary.  That’s right.  If you are living this season as it is intended and you are giving up, oh let’s say chocolate for Lent, then when Easter arrives, there will be no chocolate Easter bunnies for you.  Why play like Lent means nothing?  Why decide to ignore the call Jesus issues to obedience?

Live your life as if your life matters.  Lent is a time for renewal.  Lent is a time to take on some spiritual disciplines that make sense 24/7/52/lifetime.  Lent is a time for making sure the “whenevers” of Matthew’s Gospel are part of who we are.

Whenever you give alms.  Whenever you pray.  Whenever you fast.

Jesus doesn’t say, if you give alms, if you pray, if you fast.  He doesn’t say when you take the time to give alms, pray, or fast.  The expectation is that these three are all done, all the time, unnoticed by others, because this is what people of faith do when they are living their lives as if their life matters.

Whenever you care for the needs of others … just do it without fanfare or recognition.  It’s what people of God do.

Whenever you pray to align yourself with God … just do it without any need for recognition.  It’s what people of God do.

Whenever you deny the temptations that draw you away from God … just do it without needing to draw attention to yourself.  It’s what people of God do.

If you give alms, pray, and fast only during Lent, isn’t that really drawing attention to these practices and that you are something special during Lent?

Sorry if what I’m saying is messing up your plans for Lent.  I simply want you to live your life as if your life matters.  Why trivialize it?  Why make this 40 day time mean so little?

The church I served in Johnstown invites people to use self-denial envelopes during Lent.  I think they are asking either 25 cents or $1 per day as a means of self-denial.  Horse feathers!  You want to give alms, or to use this as self-denial … what about giving a full tithe during Lent if you’ve never done this before?  More than a tithe if you already tithe.  Maybe an even amount … say $80-100 a week.  A quarter a week?  Nonsense.  Live as if your life matters.

Pull out a 1 minute devotion and pray daily during Lent?  Ok, I suppose that’s a start.  Phfff.  Write a devotion daily, pray each hour on the hour for 5 minutes, memorize scripture … maybe a couple of chapters, read 20 pages of scripture a day, read a Gospel book a week and cycle through them twice during Lent.  All of this is prayer.  All of this addresses a whenever.  Live as if your life matters.

Don’t eat meat on Fridays, but instead go to some fish fry or seafood place?  When did that ever get to be equated with fasting?  Stop pretending!  Do you really need more than 1500-2000 calories a day, ever?  Have you ever considered eating a restricted calorie diet because it is the right thing to do, because over-consumption of everything is an American anti-Christian attitude?  Does our gluttony say something about how we see ourselves as entitled?  Is entitlement a Christian virtue?  Live your life as if it matters.

There are a lot more examples.  You can use Lent as a trivial venture into pretending that we are mortal.  Or you can use Lent as if you really get your mortality and live as if your life matters.  What you do has an impact on the world, on the people around you, on you, and on your relationship with God.

For the next 40 days, you are invited to live your life as if your life matters … and then …

Amen

Lutheran Fundamentalism & Civility

In a previous post, I commented on the secularization of the 10 Commandments.  Recently, that stirred up some comments that turned “sharp”.  Combine that with my current reading of Eric Gritch’s “Toxic Spiritualities” and I’ve got some observations I’d like to make, and I fully expect to be blasted more for these.

The commenter wrote,

Lutherans base our beliefs on the teaching of truth and are firmly committed to guarding against false teachings. It is a church that exists for one reason and one reason only, the sake of pure doctrine of the Gospel – a confessional church above all others. We are faithful to this church because it is the church of Jesus Christ and the plain Word of God not because of our history or because it is the church of Luther. The Lutheran Church is, to quote Dr. Theodore Schmauk, “the church who stakes all on bearing witness. Her office is one of public proclamation and confession of the Truth, as it is in Christ Jesus. The preaching of God’s Word, pure and as given in Scripture, is her central activity… She is here to proclaim and apply God’s Word in Scripture, sermon, and sacrament. She is the church of faithful, regular, and continuous witness to the Truth. Hence the source of her witness, the Word; the standard of her witness, the Confessions; are central; and she is willing to abide by and uphold her confessional principle.”  … Lutheranism does not change, it cannot change because the gospel which is the substance of our confession does not and cannot change.

I don’t think I could find a better example of Lutheran Fundamentalism if I tried.  I differ significantly from the author of this post, and for that reason, other parts of the comment resort to some uncivil discourse.

One fundamentalist aspect of the comment is the focus on preserving pure doctrine.  The author will no doubt agree with me that the primary purpose of the Lutheran church is proclamation of the Gospel (although that’s not what the author says).  Yet the author retains an intense focus on the “purity” of the Gospel.  It is a mistake, I believe, to resolve the Grace AND Obedience polarity of the New Testament witness on one side or the other, and it seems that the author insists on doing that.  I find it interesting that when I read the Schmauk quote, I find that I can agree with it without elevating the confessions to near-scripture authority.  Therefore it doesn’t work very well as a “proof text”.

And yes, Lutheranism can and does need to change while the Gospel remains the same.  Relevance to 21st century demands that there be change from 16th century arguments.

Another section of the comment is probably more illustrative of Triumphalism than Fundamentalism, but the two “toxic spiritualities” are close cousins.

You state, “Let’s let our culture borrow from many religious traditions to order society for the common good … and let our culture borrow from secular traditions to order society for the common good.”  Lutheranism does not “borrow from many religious traditions.”

My original post had to do with the secular culture, not Lutheran culture.  Maybe that was lost on the author of the comment.  I never suggested that Lutheranism borrows from other religious traditions.  I suggested that was a proper role of the secular culture.  Too often, those deeply entrenched in a religious world don’t recognize the secular world and its structure as having value … maybe even to the point of wanting the secular world to mirror the religious world.  That’s Triumphalism.  That also dismisses Luther’s Two Kingdoms Principle as invalid.

It is because of the Two Kingdoms Principle that I can make the claim that secularizing the 10 Commandments is inappropriate and be firmly rooted in Lutheran principles.  For the commenter, the use of the Two Kingdoms Principle makes me a “socialist”.

Which gets me to the topic of civility.

In a series of comments from this person, I’ve been called

• bitter
• condescending
• elitist
• all-knowing
• small of heart
• socialist

Sharing one’s perspective is a terrible thing, I guess.

Can’t we just disagree without resorting to demonizing the other?

Christmas Wars

I think it is worse this year.

More and more “Christian” groups are stridently demanding that Christmas be celebrated as the remembrance of the birth of Jesus Christ and are opposing what I refer to as “secular Christmas” celebrations.  One group, “Repent Amarillo”, has gone so far as posting a video of the execution of Santa Claus.

I observe that as a group loses influence within a culture, they often become more strident and work hard at regaining lost influence.  This is what I think is happening to religious conservatives.

I operate with the assumption that there are two Christmas celebrations.  One is firmly rooted in the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.  The other is a secular winter holiday with the same name.  When someone wishes me “Happy Holidays”, they are in fact being considerate because they don’t know which one (or ones) I celebrate.

Here is the kicker.  I celebrate both.  I don’t find that to be a problem at all.

What religious conservatives and Christmas “purists” don’t seem to recognize is that they continue to drive a wedge between Christians and non-Christians with their strident rhetoric.  When it gets to be an either/or situation, evangelism suffers.  Far better to use Paul’s example in Corinth when faced with the monument to the “unknown god”.  He shared with the people of Corinth what he knew about that unknown god … Jesus Christ rather than beating them over the head with their paganism.

The way Christians can claim Christmas is through that interpretive maneuver.  After all, it is a short step from the secular Christmas celebrations to the Christian celebrations, and when approached reasonably, most who observe the secular holiday are open to Christian interpretation.