Random Thoughts Triggered by a Month of Reformation

I carry a notebook and jot down thoughts continually, half formed thoughts that are more like questions then answers.  Sometimes I work them out more completely, other times I just think them and leave them for someone else to work.  Here are some that I want to record because I lack the time just now to whip them into any type of fuller coherency.  Most deal with concepts related to the month of celebrating the Reformation in our church (which strained a little at my former Roman Catholic upbringing).

Why do we hate silence in our church services?  There is never a moment to be quiet before God.  In our church we always have to sing.  We sing to enter, we sing to worship, we sing at the offertory, we sing at communion, we sing when we leave.  And consider prayer, when was the last time you heard the pastor call you to prayer and then had a silent church for ten minutes as each soul wrestled inside itself.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and church congregations abhor silence in prayer.  After thirty seconds of silence, someone is guaranteed to pray.  My soul needs silence in church, places where I can appropriate what I have heard, what I have done.  Places where there are no longer the distractions of the spiritual cacophony that often fills our sanctuaries.  I am reminded that it was only in the silence that Elijah heard the still small voice of God speaking to Him.

Why are Protestant robes black, and Roman Catholic robes white?  For as much as we Protestants like to lean on scriptural warrant, it seems from on-line sources that the Protestants chose their robe color because they placed a high emphasis on trained and educated clergy, and black was the color of the academic robe.  Who can tell from the internet whether anything is really true nowadays, but this one sort of rings true in my ears.  The Reformation aftermath saw a significant shift in the understanding of ministry as a calling to that of a profession.  And it always seemed to me that one of the legacies of the Reformation was the constant reminder that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags.  Perhaps that’s why we prefer black to the white that the saints of God are always clothed in.  Sometimes we put too much emphasis on our depravity, and not on the image of God in which we are created.

I recently attended a wedding at a church where there was no altar or table at the front, just an elevated pulpit that dominated the entire front center of the church.  There was no cross, there were no adornments of any kind, and there was this strange scripture verse displayed across the front, “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” Proverbs 22:28.  I wondered if the church had ever seen true spiritual life in its sanctuary.  It was typical New England style, with pew boxes and austerity.  No room for a choir, little room for any instruments of worship, just the stark reminder of truth, forever set as a plumbline, and always condemning.

I remember the part in the movie about Martin Luther where his confessor Staupitz counsels him to pray simply to God from Psalm 119:94, “I am yours, save me.”

Staupitz:   “Martin, what is it you seek?

Luther:     “A merciful God.  A God whom I can love.  A God who loves me.”

Staupitz:  “Then look to Christ.  Bind yourself to Christ and you will know God’s love.  Say to Him,

                 “I’m yours.  Save me.”

Luther:     “I am yours.  Save me.  I am yours.  Save me.  I am yours.  Save me.

How great a difference that simple confession is, how much more compassion and comfort it brings, then the most robust theological discussion of the doctrines of salvation, justification, and sanctification.  I am yours.  Save me.

Last one for today.  We have been discussing the Great Commission in church for some weeks now, but I find one disagreement in me regarding the initial premise of the whole thing.  I don’t think the thrust of the Great Commission is to make disciples, with the emphasis again on “teaching” and the underlying assumption that this is doctrine, truth, and right belief.  I think the entire purpose of the Great Commission is to bear witness to Jesus, His person, His message, His actions, His calling.  At least for me that is different then teaching right doctrine.  It is also interesting that the account in Mark is never mentioned as the Great Commission, even though it records the same historical occurrence.  Then again Mark says “Preach the gospel” as his rendition of the commission.  Luke’s account is broken up between his gospel and the first chapter of Acts, but even he says “You are my witnesses…”  I have been known to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, but to turn the Great Commission into a command to teach right belief seems too Reformation to me.  Bearing witness to the work of God through His Son seems to be the starting point.  But we surely do like our doctrinal or propositional faith.

Reformation and Revival

 At the end of October our church celebrated Reformation Day.  I participated in it, but frankly with mixed feelings.  I am a follower of church history and can tell you why the Reformation was needed, in fact, why it was necessary, set in motion by the plan and purposes of God Himself.  But history is first and foremost factual, and facts need to be presented understandably if they are to be understood. I was manning the 95 Theses booth with a dog eared and stained reproduction of Luther's invitation to debate laid out on the table, looking much the way you might have imagined it being talked about and handed from person to person in the common rooms of inns and taverns.  What I found was that  many people had never heard of the Reformation, or Martin Luther, or the 95 Theses.  A whole section of their spiritual heritage and foundation had never been poured.  And of those that had some inkling of what those things referred to, no one had ever read the 95 Theses.  They had no opinion on them because they had no idea of what their content was.

The kids who came up to the table just wanted to know what they had to do to get a piece of candy.  At least they cut to the chase quicker than the adults.  But the fact of the matter is that you can't make the Reformation understandable by pinning the 95 theses on the wall while blindfolded, or fishing in a pond for fish cutouts that have the Solas of the Reformation written on them.  The bottom line was candy, not understanding.  Frankly I'm not sure you could ever make the Reformation anything but boring except to those with a scholarly or historical bent.  And that leads me back to what I was thinking about as I sat at the table and answered questions about Martin Luther, or his theses.  What is the difference between Reformation and Revival, and what does the church need?

Questions, questions, questions, and no complete answers seem to stand up and challenge them.  While I do not dispute the importance of the Reformation in the life of the church, I do wonder about its legacy, what we have made it to be.  At its hearts it was about restoring the centrality of Jesus to the church, retelling with power the story of grace received by faith, of restoring the liberty won for each believer at the cross, and making the very word of God available to each and every follower of Jesus.  What we have fashioned it into, in my thinking however, is the hammering out of each point of doctrine, finely honing it and expounding it so that a strong wall against error in thinking and behaving is hedged around us.  In my mind that's been tried once by a man named Moses who received the words of God on a mountain, written by the very finger of God.  And those that came after compiled instructions and elucidations on what those words meant, how they were to be interpreted, how they were to be lived.  And the law killed those who tried to serve it.  I am not saying that this is the rule, but it has proved itself time and time again, those that follow strict reformed teaching end up turning into grumpy old men.  Their life and joy is drained out of their soul.

That's why I wondered about Revival, rather than Reformation.  Revival seems solely to be the work of God's spirit, changing things from inside the human heart.  And maybe that is why we are so suspect of it.  We can never control the human heart, it is unpredictable, it it spontaneous, it appears to act without reason or forethought.  It moves on the wind of the Spirit, turning wherever the Spirit wills.  Two final scriptural thoughts.  First, Job 34:14  "If He (God) should determine to do so, if He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust."  And Psalm 104:29. "You hide Your face, they are dismayed; You take away Your spirit, they expire and return to their dust.  You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the ground."  Reformation and Revival....God removes His spirit and we die, He breathes and we are renewed.  God removes doctrine and dogma and what happens?  Interesting thought at least.

The Old, Old Story

It seems that the older I grow, the less sure I am in my assessment of life, in my spiritual faith.  I recognize this tendency because I find that I ask more tentative questions that I offer certain answers.  And recent questions as I sat in church include these.  Why did we invent liturgy?  Why do we have lectionaries of ordered scriptural readings to guide us through the church year?  And the simple answer is that we are selective beings, and left to ourselves we will surround ourselves with that which makes us comfortable, or content, or secure.  We will edit and redact until the spiritual story and setting suits us perfectly.  And in that comfort zone we will stagnate or decay; worse yet we will solidify and become set in concrete, unchanging, and losing the ability to effect change in our world.

Liturgy insures that each time that we gather in the name of Jesus, we do those things that are important to our spiritual wellbeing and growth.  Paul told the church that "all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner."  (I Corinthians 14:40).  Without a sense of what should be present, what priority it holds, and how it should be participated in our church services could become a hymn fest, or an all-night preaching service, or extended silence and contemplation, or concerts of prayer...whatever suits our fancies.  We see the hints of liturgy  in Acts 2:42, "They were continually devoting themselves to the apostle's teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."   The elements of liturgy unfold in that passage, the word, shared life, the sacraments, corporate prayer; a skeleton around which diversity and variety can still be accommodated so as to be fresh, meaningful, and relevant.

 Liturgy is the moment in time in which we express our spiritual reality, Lectionary is the context. Using a lectionary helps us to avoid telling only part of the story of God's threefold action in our world, creation, providence, deliverance. And it guards us against losing the center of the story, Jesus. As the old hymn tells us, the repetition and cycle of the lectionary help us to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.  

And in that hymn we find the key elements of why lectionary preaching remains, in my opinion, one of the most powerful tools to fostering life in our church congregations, and raising up the next generation of churchmen and women.  Simply put,
Tell me the old, old story of unseen things above....
Tell me the story simply, as to a little child...
Tell me the story slowly, that I may take it in....
Tell me the story often, for I forget so soon....
Tell me the story softly, with earnest tones and grave....
Tell me the story always....
Tell me the same old story....
Tell me the old, old story, Christ Jesus makes thee whole.

The Center of Our Church

I recently read an article in Christianity Today in which the author reminded us that Protestants moved the pulpit to the center of the church displacing the altar.  If that is really true, it is a reflection on the priorities of American evangelicalism.  I say that because the altar in the scriptures was always a place where the people of God came to allow God to act on their behalf.  Altars were always memorials to the deliverance or promise of God now made real and present.  And to me that seems much more than what the pulpit could ever be.  It reflects this tendency in our churches to replace the presence of God with the word of God.  There is a danger in substituting the Bible, the written word of God, for the living Word of God, Jesus.

But back to the altar.  I recently used this as an illustration in a call to worship.  I reminded the congregation that we did have an altar at the very center of our front dais, and although Protestants tried to downplay it or call it a table or put a choir loft in front of it, it still pretty much looked like an altar in a church to me.  And it contained everything about the story of God's work on our behalf.  It was white reminding us of the holiness of God and His high calling upon us.  We ascended up multiple steps to reach its level to remind us that God's dwelling place is exalted above all the earth.  I pointed out that it was a constant reminder of God's love, because in its very center, lifted above all else, was the cross of Jesus.  By that cross we gained access to God in the first place.  In front of it was an open Bible, reminding us that the word of God is good news given to all people and that it lies open before us, not hidden away or incomprehensible.  And on either side was a lit candle, reminding us that light has come into our world in Jesus, and that the darkness has been overcome.  We need never fear it again.

We stare at the altar in our church for nearly two hours each Sunday and hardly give it a second's notice because our eyes are always drawn to either side by the worship leaders or the pulpit.  But in its image we see reflected the whole counsel of God and the whole work of God on our behalf, renewing covenant, renewing each of us on every Sunday gathering.

A Time of Healing

As Kathy and I grow old, we are becoming more and more aware of our own weaknesses, and of the slow but steady decline of our bodies' ability to keep itself alive and thriving.  Kathy has always been the healthy one, I have been the one consigned to taking eight medications and three or for other popular over the counter supplements to keep my blood pressure controlled, my heart from suddenly stopping, my cholesterol in check, and my gout in abeyance.  But recently her health and eyesight have taken a significant turn for the worse, and so on one August Sunday we found ourselves attending mass at the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Williston.  It was communion Sunday, but then it is always communion Sunday in the Roman Church, and we partook of the sacrament with the other worshippers with only a slight tinge of hesitation.  Although we may be officially protestant in this time of our lives, the Roman Church always says "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic", and so we took to heart the admonition of "Welcome Home Catholic", at least as far as sharing in the worship of the God we serve.  What lightened my heart tremendously was seeing the old forms made present in a new and living way for this generation, and what pleased both Kathy and I was receiving the full lectionary readings of the scriptures, Psalm, Old Testament, New Testament, and Gospel, and then having the pastor actually preach from the Gospel and relate the particular story of Jesus to our immediate needs and focus.

But I digress.  We actually went to the church to participate in a healing service led by a Catholic priest, Father Lance Harlow, who has a healing ministry that he offers to all comers.  What struck me by the service was the vast difference between it and most protestant healing services I have gone to.  It was simple, it was reverent, it was powerful, it was conducted in silence.  It was also unusual for a former pre-Vatican II altar boy.  Father Harlow displayed the consecrated host in a monstrance on a small table in front of a kneeler and then told each person seeking healing to come to the front, kneel down, and touch the bottom of the monstrance as if you were touching the hem of Jesus' garment, and then just tell Jesus what it was that you wished Him to do.  Any pre-Vatican II Catholic knows that no one directly touches a monstrance, when a priest elevates it or it is moved by a server it is always through the outer vestment, and I sensed immediately that there was something genuinely divine present at work.  Several people were visibly affected, there were assistants to help you if you needed it.  And then, about an hour after it began, Father Harlow closed the service and left without ceremony and we went home.  The work was the Lord's, there was no reason to linger on, it was either done or not.

I record this event solely to introduce this question, "If you could ask Jesus for anything, what would it be?"  That was the question Kathy and I wrestled with in the service.  I know that is supposed to be available to us anytime we pray, but all I can say that in this sanctuary that question was more real than it has ever been, and I knew that if I asked, I would be heard.  Not wanting to appear greedy, I chose to forgo asking for healing for the different ailments I brought in with me and asked for something else instead.  It only remains to be seen what the manifestation to that request will bring.  More than anything else I knew that Jesus was present, not in theory but in reality, that I was present, and that something divine had occurred.

Marking Time

I thought it was appropriate to title this post marking time, since I have obviously not marked any time on this blog since March.  I chalk that up to grandchildren, the short but glorious summer in Vermont, and life in general. But as the changing of seasons approaches once more, I thought I should get on with it and start writing again since, in a way, these words will one day be the only legacy I leave behind.

Several questions continue to plague me for answers...Why do we go to church, or said another way, Why do we even need church?  And while there have been many answers given that have some validity, I think ultimately the answer is somehow related to the historic church concept of marking time.  It is not surprising that our lives as well as history revolves in cycles.  At creation God set planets and stars in the heavens to mark times and seasons.  Even the creation of light placed two distinct periods of time into every day.  And when He gave the law on Sinai, He built into the ten commandments one that required observance of a sabbath, one day in seven, observed in holiness because of the work of God Himself.  To that He later added the sabbatic year, one year in every seven years for the land to rest, the jubilee year, one year in every seven of sevens of years for the release of debt, and the seven holy convocations for the nation (as the scripture calls them the times appointed by the Lord).

And the purpose of those times was to remember the works of God's deliverance and providence, and to become partakers in those graces, to make them present in the moment (we might say renew covenant with Him).  We are no longer under the Jewish laws, but old habits (or divine principles) die hard and so the Church marks time in its own way, ordering its year and celebrations around the two great anchor feasts of Christmastide and Eastertide.  And that's why our church year begins in December with Advent and not on the civil New Year's Day.  That's why the cycle of readings contained in the lectionary has remained so important to me and to the church.  We need that annual remembrance and covenant renewal in the grace and work of God.  Just as Moses commanded the entire law to be read in the hearing of the Israel when their gathered for their convocations, so too we need to hear the whole story again and again to keep it fresh, to make it ours, to give it to our children.  I tend to be crotchety this way; don't recite to me Paul's theology and doctrine, just tell me the old, old story of Jesus and His love.  It's only the latter that truly renews the covenant of grace in my heart and soul.

One last thought about marking time and going to church.  The New Testament states the principle of the tithe just as well as the Old Testament did when in Romans 11:16 it declares that if the first fruit is holy, then the entire batch is holy.  I think that gives a perfect reason for observing Sabbath, for going to church.  If we dedicate the first day of our week to God and His purposes and participate in the way in which our conscience guides us, then the offering of that tithe or first fruit makes the balance of our week consecrated, set apart also to God and His purposes.  We need to do that, because in the midst of business or school or home, our weeks sometimes seem far from God and His influence.  But that is the power of the tithe, even if we do not feel it, even if we are not aware of it, the transaction has been made, the offering has been given, and God will remain faithful to do His part in every moment of time.  I go to church to dedicate my week to the God I serve and to His purposes, I may not always fully succeed throughout the week, the I am confident that failure would only results without that first good beginning.

The Professional Christians

I recently had a good exchange with my pastor over a new on-line service that he is experimenting with.  In a nutshell, a church can subscribe to this website that makes popular teaching and teachers available to the congregation on video.  Need a how-to on evangelism?  Let Bill Hybels tell you how to do it, complete with handy illustrations that you can sketch on a napkin.  Need some help on your marriage?  The Family Life staff will be glad to give you more than you want.  Planning a VBS?  Why don't you invite Max Lucado into the room to tell your stories for you.  Feeling the need to follow Jesus more fervently?  Francis Chan has just what you need.  Ready to start small groups in your church?  Well there's two dozen people who will tell you the secret for success.

The core of my comments to the pastor had to do with the fact that we are starting to turn our churches over to the professionals, the experts, and even to the Christian celebrities.  Why listen to your pastor when you can listen to Chuck Swindoll or John MacArthur or Alistair Begg, or R.C. Sproul?  My concern with the professionals is that their materials, however sound and good they may be, are productions with everything just right, edits and final proofs buffed clean, and study notes appended at the end.  Somehow I just never get the warm and fuzzies when a video is speaking or preaching to me as I get when I hear a pastor who knows me for who I am preach a heart-felt sermon face to face and force me to confront the grace of God.  It may not be perfect, it may not always be dynamic, the church pews are certainly not as comfortable as my easy chair, but it is the order and method that Jesus ordained for His Church to be instructed in all godliness and holiness.  The church, above all, is local first.  It is a body, not a corporation.  It is in the local church that we see the face of God and handle the word of life.  And that fellowship cannot be packaged and marketed.

Two other quick thoughts on this.   The first is about the marketing that always accompanies such productions.  These materials are billed as just what you need to help you in your walk with Jesus.  But why can't Jesus help us in our walk with Him?  Why can't we take Him at His word and seek how it applies to our life situations?  Why can't the brothers and sisters that are on the same spiritual pilgrimage as us in our congregations help us in our walk with Him?  Sometimes I think we are just to quick to reach for the all inclusive package rather than put the sweat equity into developing something ourselves that may not be as slick but that does meets the exact needs of our church,  It's sort of the concept of not trying to buy the latest square peg no matter how well it's packaged and how much it promises to do, and then try and jam it forcefully into our round hole congregation.

The second thought is this.  Over dependence on the experts, the professionals, will ultimately cripple our ability to develop our congregational members in their giftings.  Why raise up dedicated, trained Christian educators who develop their own materials to grab the hearts of the next generation?  Just grab the latest eye-candy for kids and put it up on the screen.  We are too quick to avoid the struggle to bring forth our own materials that convey the truth of God for the particular people of God of which we are a part.  We use other materials because they are glossy, they are efficient, they are less work and more convenient.  But as I said earlier, one size does not fit all.

For the time being I reserve my final judgment for two reasons.  First, I have been known to be completely out in left field when everyone else is in the dugout, but second, and more important,  I trust my pastor's judgment in this time and I am content to see how this all plays out and whether it leaves our church stronger for its presence or just less-equipped to handle the word of God for ourselves.