A Grammar of the Preaching Life

by Michael Pasquarello III

Grand Rapids, Michigan:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (2009)

Preachers should live the message that they seek to proclaim.  Professor Pasquarello suggests that John Wesley’s statement of vocation:  “I do indeed live by preaching,” might well be turned around by the modern preacher to say:  “I do indeed preach by living.”

I just saved you a painful excursion through 152 pages.

Michael Pasquarello III is the Granger E. and Anna A. Fisher Professor of Preaching at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.  This is one of four books that he has published during the past decade.

Pasquarello served in the United States Marine Corps from 1971-1976, attaining the rank of Captain.  He is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and served in full-time parish ministry from 1983-2001.  He received the PhD from the University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill in 2002.

This book begins with a chapter where Pasquarello “argues for an alternative vision” that points to something other than “skills, methods, and techniques” toward “a prayerful receptivity of the Word.”  Then, there is a review of the work of Paul, Irenaeus, and Augustine.  But the majority of the book is an engagement with Thomas Aquinas whose Summa Theologiae, according to Pasquarello “is arguably the finest example of a grammar of the ‘preaching life’ in the Western church.”

For me, preaching is primarily about communicating.  I expect (pardon me!) a teacher of preaching to be able to communicate.  Maybe Pasquarello is great in the classroom.  But, if this book is typical of his written work, he should limit himself to oral communication.

The book made me feel dumb.  It caused my eyes to gloss over.  It was hard to keep plugging away through to the end.

But its not just that this is written in a way that is hard to understand.  The book reminded me of the warning that I received in seminary that sermons ought not be just a string of illustrations.  Pasquarello writes a book that seems to be mostly a string of quotations.  I became so distracted by the unending quotations that I actually went back through the book and counted the lines of quotations that he used:  1,077.  When one takes into account the introduction and summary of each, I am convinced that the book could have been 1/3 shorter if he had just written what he wanted to say.

Beyond presentation, though, I was also troubled by the argument.  My preparation for preaching (not hardly original with me) has always attempted to keep one foot in the Bible and the other in the newspaper.  I have always been fond of Jürgen Moltmann’s talk about identity and relevance.  Pasquarello doesn’t seem to be much a fan of the relevance part.  To be fair, he seems to be concerned that a quest to be relevant to the world might cause the preacher to become irrelevant to the Word.  Pasquarello contends that it is the Holy Spirit who makes the Word “relevant.”  The preacher’s task is just to be faithful to that Word.

I suspect that Professor Pasquarello believes that the “skills” for preaching are widely available in other sources.  This book is an attempt to keep the preacher personally grounded in the Word so that his/her words are spoken with integrity.  It is a laudable goal.  It is too bad that he couldn’t communicate his corrective in a way that was more accessible.

Copyright © 2012 The Rev. Gary L. Froseth.  All rights reserved.

Dear friends:  Grace be to you and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

Frank Sinatra highlighted his public performances with one of the hottest hits of his lifelong singing career, I Did It My Way.

It is a great song.  I still remember the first time I heard it performed.  But it is one of those songs that can cause a preacher to cringe when requested to be part of a worship service.  Believe it or not, I have heard that it gets requested for funeral services because it was the deceased “favorite song.”

Imagine, if you will a service in which the gospel reading ends, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” which is followed by Sinatra’s hit I Did It My Way.  Both cannot be true.  If Sinatra is right, if I Did It My Way is the way the Jesus is not the way, then Jesus is irrelevant.

“Doing it my way” is a very popular philosophy.  Some call it “rugged individualism.”  It has always been a peculiar part of the American experience.  In his book, Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah says that the search for meaning in our society usually boils down to standing alone, to being self-sufficient, to being self-reliant.

We try to become self-sufficient by amassing wealth and by trying to use that wealth to buy freedom.  We think of it as being left alone.  It is how we define success . . . being able to “do it my way.”

We call it “financial independence.”  It is the driving force behind the success of gambling all across the United States.  When the Mega-Millions payout soared above $350 million recently, ticket sales were so brisk that the jackpot increased almost hourly.  It almost reached a half-billion dollars!  Who can resist the lure of all that money.  For if I can amass enough money — for a small investment (for a buck) — then I don’t need any of you.  I can sever my relationship with anything and anyone.  I can be “independent.”  I can be left alone.

Richard Niebuhr wrote about this “independence” more than 60 years ago by listing the “choices” that are made on our behalf before we even consider our so-called “choice” to be independent selves.  “Though we choose in freedom,” Niebuhr wrote, “we are not independent; for we exercise our freedom in the midst of values and powers we have not chosen but to which we are bound.  Before we choose to live we have been chosen into existence, and have been determined to love life as a value.  We have not chosen human existence, but have been elected members of humanity.  We did not choose to be rational rather than instinctive beings; we reason because we must.  We have not chosen the time and place of our present, but have been selected to stand at this post at this hour of watch or of battle.  We have not chosen to be social beings immeasurably dependent on our fellows, nor have we chosen our culture; we have come to consciousness in a society and among established human works.  . . . .  There has always been a choice prior to our own, and we live in dependence on it as we make our lesser choices among the things that are good for life, reason, and society.”  The vine is strong, I think Niebuhr would agree.  Our choices are limited to this place in the sun where we have been connected.

I am reminded of the poem, Invictus by William Ernest Henley.  In part it reads:  “I am the master of my fate.  I am the captain of my soul.”  It ends with the words:  “My head is bloody, but unbowed.”  Keep in mind that Henley died more than 100 years ago.  I guess that he wasn’t as much “the master of” his fate as he might have hoped.

There are television programs that recount the many ways that lottery winners find to lose the independence about which they dreamed.  So, if it is true that we stand on our own, we are surely doomed.  If the theology of Frank Sinatra is the goal of our lives, then we are moving only toward death and there is no hope.

But the gospel has a radically different message.  In today’s lesson, Jesus says that he is the vine and we are the branches.  We are connected to him.  We do not stand alone.  The theology of Frank Sinatra and the culture of the American West is wrong.  Our value and our worth do not come from doing it our way.  That is not success.  Instead, our value and our worth come from our connection to the vine who is our Lord, Jesus the Christ.

Think about it in relation to the plants in your house.  By themselves, each leaf will wither and die.  Self-sufficiency is a complicated process of gaining one’s own roots.  It requires considerable care and attention.  By remaining connected, the whole plant becomes a thing of great beauty and, when appropriate, bears much fruit.

You may have already heard me tell the story of Luther’s visit to an inactive member of his Wittenberg church.  It is one of my favorites.  I tell it all of the time.  According to the story, the parishioner explained to Dr. Luther all of the ways that he could be a faithful Christian without bothering himself with the troublesome institution of the Church.  Luther said nothing.  Instead, he walked over to the fire that was warming them.  He removed a coal and placed it upon the mantle.  Still, no words were spoken.  They merely sat and watched the fire, watched the warmth go out of the separated coal.

The same is true of the leaves on this plant.  It might take longer.  But if I separate this leaf from its vine.  It is surely going to die.  We need to remain connected to the creator if we hope to be warmed by the fire of the promise of life.  We need to remain connected to one another and to the church and to our Lord — for he is the vine that gives us life.

The current issue of The Lutheran tells the story of St. Peter and Paul Lutheran Church in Moscow.  The congregation was established in 1626.  The faithful in that congregation even managed to conduct their ministry for 20 years under the Soviet-Communist regime (not exactly out-of-sight — just one mile east of the Kremlin).  But by 1927, the government had turned it into a film studio.  The steeple was torn down.

But when the vine is strong, the leaves keep growing back.  As soon as the Soviet government collapsed in 1991, St. Peter and Paul was re-founded.  For two decades, the vine of the church has sent its refreshment into the leaf of this congregation.  They partnered with Lutherans from Latvia.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church of European Russia has companion partnerships with three of our ELCA synods.  The fire is hot.  The vine is strong.  A mere fifty-five years of oppression cannot destroy a ministry of 386 years.  The nourishment we receive from the vine of the Church is just too strong to be snuffed out by human opposition, by human indifference.

The people of St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig, Germany had a similar experience after the wall that separated them from West Germany came down at the end of 1989.  Folks in the east had high hopes that the end of the wall would also mean the end of their decades of economic deprivation.  It was not necessarily so.  It took many more years for unification to improve the condition of their lives.

The pastor at St. Nicholas spoke during those days about their difficulties as crosses that the people could bear.  He used an interesting little phrase.  He said, “we can bear these crosses in a resurrected kind of way.”  We can bear these problems because they are a part of our temporary condition as citizens of the earth.  We can bear these problems because they are not our life.  Our true life, our permanent condition is our connection — like branches to the vine — to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Our text for today talks about bearing fruit not about bearing problems.  But we bear fruit in that same kind of way.  We bear fruit because we are connected to the true vine and we are his branches.  We share in his life and in the power of his resurrection.  We bear fruit “in a resurrected kind of way.”

Jesus Christ is the way, and our way is not.  When we obsess about “doing it our way,” then our effort will surely end in failure.  We are branches from the true vine.  We are connected and related and bonded to that vine.  It is because of that connection that we receive ability and power and energy such that we can do great things for God.  We can bear fruit “in a resurrected kind of way.”  Amen.

 Copyright © 2012 The Rev. Gary L. Froseth.  All rights reserved.

Dear friends:  Grace be to you and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  It seems like a put-down for Thomas.  We read this text every year on this Sunday.  We learn of this disciple’s fervent desire to see The Risen Lord and, because of it, have labeled him through all of history as the doubter.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  It is our natural inclination to be doubters:  “don’t believe everything you read.”  We want to provide our children with a healthy level of doubt because, as adults, we know that everything is not as it seems.  Ronald Reagan made doubt into the mantra of  his presidency:  “trust but verify.”

It is too easy to label Thomas as a doubter.  I have a hard time picturing him as a guy who didn’t trust the word of his fellow disciples.  But I can picture him in the grip of an intense grief.

The image that filled his imagination was the pain he saw when spikes were driven through Jesus’ flesh to attach him to the cross.  His mind must have been seared with the thrust of the spear into the side of the man who he loved.

I can picture Thomas gripped by jealousy.  Everyone got to see Jesus but him!  Mad at himself for running that errand on Resurrection morning.  Mad at his colleagues because they were there and he wasn’t.  Mad even at God — at Jesus — for not waiting until he was there with the rest of them.  He had as much right to see the Lord as any of the others,  He wouldn’t believe unless he was offered the same status as all the rest.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  Humans have always been suspicious of God.  “Don’t eat from the tree in the middle of the God.”  One simple instruction for Adam and Eve.  The serpent didn’t have to twist any arms — “Ah, go ahead.  God didn’t really mean it.”  They had to see for themselves.

Abraham was promised that he would be the father of a great nation.  Given such a promise, one might have expected to start bearing children.  One might have expected to have a big family.  But for Abraham and Sarah — nothing.

They got older and older — passed through their 40s and their 50s and their 60s and still — nothing.  Do you think that they began to doubt?  Abraham started looking around for other women who might bear his child.  He thought he had to arrange to fulfill God’s promise for himself.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  My file for this text contains a letter to the editor that compares science with religion.  Science, the writer claimed, adjust theories to be consistent with the facts.  Religion, on the other hand, he said, adjust facts to be consistent with its theories.

His letter was not about the resurrection but I assume that he would apply scientific questions to our celebration of the empty tomb.

How might the tomb have been emptied?  Resurrection would be just one of several alternative theories for him.  Maybe — the body was stolen so that it would just appear that Jesus’ prediction was truthful.  Or maybe, Jesus never really died.  Because of the coming Passover, they took him down from the cross before he actually died!  He recovered from his wounds and was seen around the countryside as one who was raised from the dead.

How did this happen?  That is the scientific question.  But it is not the religious question.  We don’t know — and we don’t pretend to know — how it happened.  Instead, we answer the question of who caused it to happen.  With that question, we are drawn directly into the heavenly plan of God.

Oh, it would be so much easier if we could see, if we could know — for certain.  Then, maybe, our churches would be full.  If only our loved ones could come back from the dead and teach us about their experience.  If only someone could return to share a first-hand experience about the splendor of the heavenly kingdom.  If only I could “see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side.”

Sure, we have doubts.  If it’s not true, then I have wasted my life proclaiming a hoax.  If it’s not true then you have wasted countless Sunday mornings and thousands of dollars to perpetuate a hoax.  If it’s not true, then those who have died are just dead for their hope were based on a hoax.  For we worship one who we have not seen and whose resurrection we cannot prove.

But, still we believe.  We believe that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead by the glory of the Father and that, because he lives, we too are heirs of the promise of eternal life.

Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld wrote a book that I read about a year ago titled In Praise of Doubt.  I was interested in the way that they compared the movement from ignorance to knowledge with the movement from doubt to faith.  Just as ignorance is “an unavoidable preparatory stage for knowledge,” they argue, so is doubt merely “a preparation for faith.”

Sometimes we approach this reading with an attitude of disdain for poor Thomas.  But, didn’t the others also doubt?  Wasn’t it doubt that caused the disciples to run away?  Wasn’t it doubt that led Mary to mistake the risen Lord for a gardener.  Don’t all of us wrestle with the doubts that cause us to wonder whether our involvement in the Church is worthwhile, to wonder whether is might be . . . just a hoax.

The doubt is but a preparation for our coming to faith.  We believe because of Thomas — and Peter and James and John and Mary and Mary Magdalene and all of the others who were in that room and who did see.  They did see the marks in his hands and the wound in his side.  They did see the tomb that was empty.  They did see the glorified body of one who died and who was raised on the third day.  They did see this one, their Lord, as he ascended from their presence into the heavenly realm of God.

We believe it because we believe their testimony.  Imagine how Thomas must have relayed his experience to all the skeptics:  I was just like you.  I took a stand!  I told my fellow disciples that I would not believe it unless I saw him for myself.  Then, just one week later — there he was.  He let me see, Thomas might have told his many audiences, so that I could tell you about all of those magnificent days.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

It is a blessing for every parent and every grandparent who shares the Christian faith with their children and with their grandchildren.  It is a blessing for every dollar of offering that helps the Church to continue its proclamation for another year, another decade, another century, another millennium.  It is a blessing for every friend who extends a word of hope to the sick, the distressed, and the dying.  It is a blessing to every believer who struggles with the mystery of faith.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

It is a blessing for you and for me — for people who have heard the testimony of eye-witnesses (even of Thomas) and believe that Jesus is the Christ, the risen Son of the living God.  Amen.

Copyright © 2012 The Rev. Gary L. Froseth.  All rights reserved.

Dear friends:  Grace be to you and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

You only have to look as far as the front page of the morning newspaper to support a claim that we are a nation, or a state, or a county, or a city that is rife with scandal.

It is even on the Sports page.  Yes, even our Brewers have had to deal with scandal over their offseason.  It seems that one’s opinion of Ryan Braun now depends on what team one supports.  Brewers’ fans gave him a rousing welcome on Opening Day.  We believe his assertion that the off-season drug test was fatally flawed.  Cub fans and Cardinal fans and Reds fans (among others) are expected to boo him when he visits their towns.  They believe he got off on a technicality.  They believe that he won the MVP because he cheated.

There is no scandal, though, to compare with the scandal of our Christian faith.  There is no scandal to compare with the unbelievable claims of 2,000 years of Christian preaching.  There is no scandal — Ryan Braun will be a forgotten footnote to history in the year 4012.  There is no scandal to compare with the event that has led us to worship this morning.  There is no scandal to compare with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

“Scandal” is a word that comes to us from the Greek language.  It refers to something that causes one to stumble and fall.  Inasmuch as a drug test has caused people to lose confidence in Ryan Braun, it is still an open question whether the controversy will cause Braun to stumble and lose effectiveness.  Inasmuch as the resurrection of Jesus Christ seems unbelievable, it causes people to stumble and question the doctrine of the Church.

It would be much easier — more believable for us — if we could proclaim Jesus to be a good teacher, even a wise prophet.  Our conspiratorial nature is willing to consider the claim that Jesus’ body was stolen in that night.  It is will to consider the claim that this was a group of disciples who merely wanted to continue the movement that Jesus started.

Our experience tells us that death is final, that death is permanent.  Since I don’t know anyone who God has raised from the dead, the claim seems fantastic.  It is unbelievable.  Preaching it to be truth is scandalous.

Yet, that is our message.  We preach it because it is the testimony of witnesses — witnesses who, according to Peter’s testimony in this morning’s first lesson, ate and drank with Jesus after he was raised from the dead.  It is the declaration of witnesses who, according to Paul’s testimony in this morning’s second lesson, numbers more than 500 people.

Imagine that trial.  Place yourselves on that jury.  Evaluate the testimony just as if you were watching it on Judge Judy.  Sometimes the testimony we hear on her program seems like a pitiful piece of poor acting.  The stories seem fantastic and made up.  How, then, do you evaluate the testimony of Peter and Paul, of Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of James:

• An angel spoke to them at an empty tomb.
• The man who they saw die is the one who they also saw frying fish for them on the shore of the Galilean lake.
• He appeared so convincingly that he converted Christianity’s harshest opponent into its greatest evangelist.
• He entered into a locked room to show himself to his dearest friends.
• Those who trust this testimony will also share in his resurrection from the dead.

That is their testimony.  It is the testimony of the Church.  It is the testimony of Easter morning.  It is the testimony of every Sunday on which the people of God worship in celebration of the resurrection.

And you are the ones who are called upon to evaluate that testimony.  You are the jury.

• You deliberate every Sunday morning when you decide whether or not it is a day when you choose to worship.
• You deliberate every time when you stand over the grave of one who you love and must wrestle with the question, “Why.”
• You deliberate on every occasion when the world would have you reject the values of our faith — choosing to be spiteful and not loving, choosing to value things and not people, choosing to wallow in self-pity and not extend yourself to one who needs your care.

You are the jury.  Is the testimony of these 2,000 years true — or not?  Is the witness that is recorded in our Bibles reliable — or not?  Is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead true?  Or, is it an elaborate hoax, a scandal to human sensibility, a scandal to scientific thought, a scandal to logic?  What is your verdict?

In response to a world which would boo us and would rail against the scandal of our testimony — against our foolishness, allow me to make my own summation.

The world is correct.  The testimony that you hear from this pulpit is foolishness.  A man risen from the dead, indeed!

But for you to render a verdict that this testimony is not true, you must then conclude that Peter is a liar, that James and John, Andrew and Philip were liars.  You must conclude that more than 500 people who saw him after the resurrection and who ate and drank with him are liars.  You must conclude that Paul is a liar.

Now, normally, one lies because that one has something to gain from those lies.  Who here would lie so that you could be run out of town?  Or, who here would lie so that you could be ridiculed or be killed by stoning or even by crucifixion?  If you choose to render a verdict that none of this testimony is true, then you must conclude that the witnesses have lied.  You must show me how they benefitted from their conspiracy.

But, in fact, you cannot show such a conspiracy.  You must, therefore, conclude that, by the power of God, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, the first born of all who have died.  You must conclude that Easter means more than just the coming of spring.  You must conclude that Easter is real and that the message of Easter is true.  You must conclude that the scandal of the resurrection is the good news of hope for every person.

Deliberate on those words today.  Let it be a long and thoughtful deliberation.  Return to this room again next week to hear more of the evidence.  Let the deliberation stir your soul.  Let it bring you to faith.  Let it provide you with hope.  Let it be the foundation for your life — even for life in the presence of God.  Amen

Copyright © 2012 The Rev. Gary L. Froseth.  All rights reserved.

Dear friends:  Grace be to you and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

Today we gather at the tomb of our faith and hear the words that echo in the loneliness of a wind-swept, wintry cemetery:  earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

They are words we don’t like to hear because they tell us that we have lost one who we love.  They are words we don’t like to hear because they remind us of the day when they will be spoken over our graves.  They are words we don’t like to hear because they remind us of the frailty of human life that rises up out of the ashes, out of the dust of the earth and collapses back to those same elements in so short a period of time.  They are words we don’t like to hear because they remind us of our total dependence on God to resurrect us to a life that won’t disintegrate back to ash ever again.

We gather at the tomb of our faith because it seems, sometimes, as if we have lost the capacity to be faithful.  Week after week after week, we act in ways that force us to confess the same things:  we don’t love God with our whole heart.  Instead we give ourselves over to a love of the world.  We don’t love our neighbors as ourselves.  Week after week after week, we conduct our lives as if God wasn’t really serious when God gave the ten commandments:

• we use God’s name recklessly;
• we neglect the Sabbath;
• we give little honor to authority;
• we rarely know our neighbors much less work to ensure their physical needs;
• we manipulate the meaning of honesty according to what might be “in it” for us;
• and I could go on and on.

If we didn’t spend so much time rationalizing ourselves into clear consciences, then maybe we might spend more time on our knees begging for God’s forgiveness.

My friends, it is the day of rending.  Jewish custom called for mourners to rend (or to tear) their garments as a sign of their grief.  Today, Joel tells us to rend our hearts.  Today, the message of Joel comes to us just as it came to the people of Israel in the days of his prophecy around the Jerusalem temple.  It tells us to mourn for ourselves.  For we are the ones whose faith is dead.  We are the ones who do not have the capacity to live as God has commanded us to live.  The ash of this day is to remind us of that death.  It is an ash that seeks to move us to penitence and to an honest reflection on the quality of a faith and a life that — in the boldness of our sin — we dare to call “Christian.”

But there is more.  The ash is also the ash of cleansing and renewal.  Ashes were once used as a cleansing agent in the absence of soap.  Very often, we will concentrate on the ash of the grave as that substance that was once a human life.  But we must not forget that it is also the ash from which God created life in the first place.  And — it is the ash from which God will re-create life once again.

Whenever children’s sermons and baptisms occur on the same Sunday, I take advantage of the opportunity to bring the children to the water.  Christian people need — continually — to come back to the water, to be splashed by the water, to be reminded by the water.  Just last month, I taught the children to dip their thumbs into the water and trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads.  A continuous movement toward the water (not just for children, but for all of us) is to remember how, in baptism, God brought us to faith, how God has forgiven our sin, and how God has delivered us from death.

Baptism happens once.  But those of you who remember your confirmation unit on baptism (if you don’t, the publishers of Evangelical Lutheran Worship have graciously reprinted the words on page 1165 in the back of the hymnal), will remember Luther’s admonition that baptism is something we need to return to everyday so “that the old person in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily sorrow for sin and through repentance, and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

Today, those of you who received the ashes, received the penitential substitute for water as a sign of baptism.  It came to you out of the hope that it might bring you back to your baptism during this Lenten season.  This is a season that seeks restoration between us and God.  It is a season that seeks the spiritual and moral growth of sinners.  It is a season that seeks to bring us back to baptism.

Yet, none of this talk of restoration would be possible if it weren’t for the character of the God who we worship.  Through the voice and pen of Joel we hear the inviting word of God that bids us to “return.”  If we would just turn away from the gods that seek to dominate our lives and recommit ourselves to the worship of this God who creates us, of this God who saves us, and this God who longs to make us holy.  Then, Joel tells us, God will suspend God’s judgment.  If we will repent and appeal to God’s mercy, then God will bestow God’s most generous forgiveness upon us and will restore us to a right relationship with our creator once again.

This is a season of a journey in the faith.  This evening we move from the ashes of death to the promise of life that will come to us with the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Today we see the Lenten season begin with our confession of those sins that condemn us to death.  But through these next six weeks, we will move to Holy Thursday when we will receive the absolution which makes life with God possible once again.

Pastor Curtis Haney of Billings, Montana provides this thought for a Lenten journey that takes repentance seriously:  “repentance is no fleeting twinge of remorse; no more than it is an exercise in holy ritual that we pass through seasonally.  Repentance is the dawning awareness that another person suffers on our behalf.  And when that other is God, we might do well to go to our closet and shut the door and ponder for several weeks.  After our time with self and God we might emerge to face the world more honestly, more realistically, more compassionately.”

I pray that this might be a time when that awareness might be yours and when that kind of pondering can happen in your life.  Amen.

Copyright © 2012 The Rev. Gary L. Froseth.  All rights reserved

Dear friends:  Grace be to you and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

In Greek mythology, the Sirens were dangerous creatures.  The term “siren song” refers to an appeal that is hard to resist.  The sirens lured sailors with their enchanting music so that they shipwrecked on the rocky coast of the siren’s island.

In Argonautica, Jason was warned that he needed to take Orpheus along on his journey because Orpheus could play his music more beautifully than the music of the Sirens, thus saving their crew from certain death.  The one sailor on this journey who had particularly good hearing, heard the Sirens, jumped into the sea, and had to be rescued by those with less acute hearing.

Odysseus was curious about the song of the Sirens and so instructed his crew to tie him securely to the mast while they-all plugged their ears with beeswax.  Once he heard that siren song, he begged to be untied, but the crew tied him even tighter.  Only after they passed out of earshot and Odysseus was seen frowning could he be safely released from his bonds.

It is a change from tempting the ears to tempting the eyes, but this is exactly the issue that concerns the Apostle Paul in this morning’s Second Lesson.  It is the reality of “siren songs,” of temptations that exasperates Paul when he refers to “the god of this world” who is blinding the minds of unbelievers.

Every generation believes that it lives in a time that is the worst ever in the history of the faith.  It isn’t really.  It’s just that “the god of this world” keeps adapting in new and creative ways to cover over the good news of all that God has done for us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

I’m not convinced that the distractions of Paul’s time were all that different from those in our time.  Athletics were a huge part of Greek culture. Entertainment was very important. The Greeks prided themselves on the knowledge of their great philosophers.  Paul dealt with public bathhouses, with temple prostitution, and with a pantheon of gods designed to cover any situation in human life.

Paul preached a superior message in that culture.  He proclaimed much the same message that you hear from this pulpit on a weekly basis:  that Jesus Christ is God’s answer to the broken relationship between heaven and humanity.  For a people who can never quite get it right, there is Jesus — who did it right for us.  For a people who get anxious about the chasm between heaven and hell, there is Jesus through whom God keeps God’s promise of salvation in his name.

Your question and my question and Paul’s question, then, is why aren’t the folks flocking to that message?  What is it about the good news of the Gospel that isn’t penetrating into every person’s life?  How is it that anyone can resist such good news?  How is is that anyone can resist worshipping such a gracious and generous God?

Paul blamed “the god of this world” who has “blinded the minds of the unbelievers, and keeps them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”

In his commentary on 2 Corinthians, Ernest Best argues that these are verses where “Paul seems to answer some who have picked on the failure of his gospel to win everyone and, therefore, criticized him.”  I guess that if everyone in Corinth is not flocking to the church, it must be the preacher’s fault.  Paul preached his heart out in Corinth and, still, people ventured to the bathhouse.  He explained in detail the sacrifice of Christ and, still, they bent their knees in worship of Zeus.

There are as many reasons for non-participation in our time as there were for the great apostle.  Some are repelled that we don’t practice what we preach, that we don’t act very loving.  Some view Sunday morning as a respite from a stressful week.  Some are caught up in an economy that treats Sunday like every other day.  Some are choosing to engage in athletic activities or in the activities of other community organizations because those other groups have discovered that times for worship are negotiable times.  And some — they just have not figured out any reason why God should be relevant in their lives.  We preach a good news that doesn’t resonate with real life, yet.

Peter, James, and John had an advantage that we don’t enjoy.  If you spend any time in Mark’s gospel, the struggle of the disciples becomes very evident — all the way to the end of the narrative.  Mark’s story is very much a story of the disciples’ attempt to figure out who this Jesus is.  They think they might know.  They hope that they know.  But even when Peter gets the words right, his mistaken belief about what the words mean lead Jesus to ask him to just keep quiet about it.

But, as we do every year at this time, today we commemorate that moment in salvation history when Peter and James, and John get a glimpse of the glory of God.  They get a glimpse of the divinity of Jesus.  For them, the veil is lifted in a very tangible way.  Maybe it was the Transfiguration that Martin Luther King had in mind when he preached, “I’ve been to the mountain-top.”  Life can’t get any better for these three chosen ones than it was on that day atop the Mount of Transfiguration.

It has only been six verses (and six days), in Mark’s story, since Jesus termed Peter as satanic.  Obviously, for one to be called satanic must, by definition, mean that one has been blinded by the “god of this world.”  But there is a cure for Peter’s blindness.  In just those six days, he has the opportunity to see for himself the dazzling whiteness of the one who is our Lord.  He had the opportunity to hear for himself the voice from heaven repeat again, “This is my Son, the beloved . . . .”

It is an advantage that we have not been given.  How much easier would it be for us to be able to see with our own eyes?  How much easier would have been for Paul to convince all of the Corinthians if he were to show them the transfigured Jesus?  How much easier would it be for our children to share our faith if they could visit the mountaintop?  How much easier for our friends and neighbors to believe as we believe if they could just hear the words from heaven?  How much easier would it be to conduct this ministry if we could just see, if we could only hear?

It is an advantage that we have not been given.  Among the choices that God made in the creation of humanity was to provide us with the freedom to believe or not, to provide us with the freedom to attend worship or to attend this weekend’s basketball tournament, to provide us with the freedom to follow Jesus or to follow “the god of this world.”  God has given that freedom.  It should not surprise us when some — even many — choose to follow a different path.

The Transfiguration was for the purpose of a witness.  Not everyone needs to climb that mountain.  Not everyone needs to see the glorified Christ.  Everyone doesn’t need to hear the words from heaven.  Just these three who saw and heard in order to give testimony, in order to be a witness.

The good news for this morning is how their witness has come through the centuries into our lives.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, it is a witness that has convinced us that, in this Jesus, God acted in human history to ensure our presence — with him — in the heavenly kingdom.

I find the witness to be so convincing that, like the Apostle Paul, I have a hard time understanding why everyone doesn’t believe, why everyone doesn’t find this time of worship to be as important as it is for me.  I want to reach them all.  I want my preaching to be convincing.  I want our worship experience to be meaningful.  I want our kids to learn everything that I want to teach.

But the temptations are real.  “The gods of this world” are usually more attractive than a promise of salvation that seems to be in a far distant future.  It is exactly in the midst of those temptations that we continue to proclaim the God of the mountaintop.

It is not for us to manage the impact of the message.  We still believe that the working of faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit.  We give thanks today for all of the ways that the Spirit is constantly at work to convince us of the truth of that mountaintop.

Whether or not this is a time of darkness in the lives of those who we love, we continue to pray that all people might be convinced through the work of the Holy Spirit.  “For it is the God who said, ’Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”  Amen.

Copyright © 2012 The Rev. Gary L. Froseth.  All rights reserved

A Worker Justice Reader

by Interfaith Worker Justice

Maryknoll, New York:  Orbis Books (2010)

A Worker Justice Reader is intended to be a seminary textbook to provide a historical and theological foundation for the relationship between organized labor and the larger religious community.

As is probably the case with many edited works, the quality of work within the volume varies widely.

The economics of the volume is outdated.  In the current environment, any economic analysis that is written prior to 2009 is not helpful.  By waiting, if necessary, to get the most current information from the Economic Policy Institute (the summary in this volume is from 2006), it seems that Interfaith Worker Justice could have presented an even stronger argument about the crisis currently faced by U.S. workers.

Before seminary I spent ten years as a laborer in a company whose employees were members of the United Rubber Workers (URCLPWA).  I served the union as a member my local’s Committee on Political Education (COPE).  I also served as a shop steward and as the chair of my department.  I continue to maintain an interest in the history and current state of the labor movement.  I recently purchased a history of my former union which, after my ordination, was absorbed into the United Steelworkers.

The history of the church’s concern for justice made it a natural fit with the emerging labor movement.  I didn’t realize, before reading this volume, the religious roots of Labor Temple.  Given the name, it was a “dah” moment for me.  It began in 1910 when the facilities of the Second Presbyterian Church in New York City was transformed by Pastor Charles Stelzle into a “working-man’s church” which “was to be run by workingmen, the men who actually lived in the community.” (page 75)

Once unions became institutionalized, the church’s social justice advocacy was no longer necessary. “Unions turned their attention to technical matters:  negotiating and drawing up contracts and building their institutions.  The tasks were somewhat removed from the basic principle of the right to organize, which provided the religious community’s natural point of entry into the labor debate.” (page 53)  Advocacy turned to the plight of the farm workers.  Even to the issues of sexism and racism within the labor movement itself.

The church’s concern for justice is essentially a history of the Roman Catholic Church.  Three encyclicals form the basis of Catholic social teaching on worker justice:  Rerum Novarum — Leo XIII’s “response to industrialization and the rise of socialism in 1891;” Quadragesimo Anno — Pius XI’s “response to Communism in 1931;” and Laborem Exercens — John Paul II’s 1981 “affirmation of Solidarity in Poland.” (page 200)  All of the teaching revolves around the dignity of work and dignity of the worker.  John Paul observed that “the conflict (between labor and capital) originated in the fact that the workers put their power at the disposal of the entrepreneurs, and these, following the principle of maximum profit, tried to establish the lowest possible wages for the work done by the employees.” (page 202).  Its affirmation of human dignity and its support of families requires the church to enter that conflict on the side of a living, sustainable wage.

Kim Bobo, the Founding and Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice sets out a vision for the organization’s future that calls for a rekindling of the historic relationship between workers (both organized and those unable to organize) and the church.  The task is about organizing — around the country on a congressional district level — and about a worker-friendly legislative agenda.  Obviously, the task is immense.  But it is a strategy that takes a long view.  The education of young religious leaders is the portion of that task to which this book is addressed.

The book concludes with some vignettes of the successes of Interfaith Worker Justice during the first decade of the 21st century.  The presence of the religious changes the power balance when negotiating with corporations and institutions who are adamant in preventing their workers from organizing.

Copyright © 2012 The Rev. Gary L. Froseth.  All rights reserved.

The Social Animal

The Hidden Sources of love, Character, and Achievement

by David Brooks

New York:  Random House (2011)

David Brooks has written 2/3 of a great book.

Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times.  This is not the type of book that I would expect from him.  With experiences at The Weekly Standard, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, and other public-affairs focused institutions, I expect Brooks to write about current affairs.  The place where this book goes bad is when he forces his characters into a presidential campaign and a stint in the White House.  It is like Brooks couldn’t help himself.  The segue seems forced and doesn’t fit well with the rest of the narrative.

The Social Animal uses the characters Erica and Harold to talk about what we have learned about human behavior and the brain.  Brooks has created a very readable way to talk about science.  The book takes its reader from conception to death.

Brooks contrasts the French Enlightenment with thinking in Great Britain.  Where the French emphasized the rational self (or the conscious activities of the brain), the British talked more about the emotional self (the unconscious activities of the brain).  Brooks quotes David Hume’s argument that “reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions.”  This is Brooks’ rationale:  “lack of emotion leads to self-destructive and dangerous behavior.  People who lack emotion don’t lead well-planned logical lives in the manner of coolly rational Mr. Spocks.  They lead foolish lives.  In extreme cases, they become sociopaths, untroubled by barbarism and unable to feel other people’s pain.”

When Erica and Harold meet, it is the emotional self that evaluates the other.  All through the human life cycle, Brooks uses Erica and Harold to describe real life situations and then describes the brain science that lay behind his characters’ behavior.

Brooks describes how people bond, how people learn, who attracts us, and the importance in human life of genetics, history, culture, and institutions.  Our unconscious selves are shaped by all those factors.  Over time we incorporate the messages of those influences into our world view to become the person who we each are.  “Harold,” Brooks argues, “found himself living in an under-institutionalized world.  . . . .  He didn’t belong to any religious congregation (young people today are much less likely to attend church than young people were in the 1970s).  He didn’t have any clear ethnic identity.  His view of the world wasn’t shaped by any local newspaper or single opinion leader (he surfed the Web).  His worldview wasn’t molded by any world historical event such as the Depression or World War II.  He wasn’t even bound down by acute financial pressures.”

The book ends with Harold’s death.  It leaves me wanting more.  I want to walk with Erica through her grief.  It is the only time in the narrative that either character confronts the death of one they love.  If there is a great omission from the book, it is the failure to discuss grief.  Brooks could have dumped the campaign, White House, and the partying with millionaires portion of the book and finished with a discussion of the impact of our griefs.

This is a valuable book for all of us — negotiating the seasons of our lives.  It offers grace to parents, a sense of urgency about education, a realistic appraisal of married life (Erica succumbs to the temptation of a extra-marital encounter), and the vital necessity of life-giving relationships throughout all of the seasons of our lives.

Copyright © 2012 The Rev. Gary L. Froseth.  All rights reserved.

by Will D. Campbell

edited by Richard C. Goode

Eugene, Oregon:  Cascade Books (2010)

It is hard to be prophetic as a parish pastor.  There are too many forces that bend us toward maintenance of the institution.  Prophecy has a cost.  Congregations are resistant to paying the price.

Enter Will Campbell.  Ordained into the Southern Baptist Convention as a 17-year-old, Campbell served only two years (1952-1954) in congregational ministry.  Frankly, he doesn’t have much regard for the institutional church.  Don’t look for him at Sunday morning worship.  It is one of his targets for resistance.

To invite Campbell into your institution is to ask for his critique.  When invited to speak at Emery University’s Candler School of Theology, he addressed the “scandal” of their acceptance of a $100 million gift from Coca Cola. But it wasn’t necessarily the “negotiation” for the gift that scandalized Campbell, it was his assumption that it would just be used for institutional maintenance.

Now these are good people that we’re negotiating with, and we say, “Now you understand that we are from a tithing tradition, so [with] this money we are going to take 10 percent of this $100 million and get people off the streets,  We are going to give people shelter and food, so that men, women, old, young and now increasingly little children, babies, don’t freeze to death on the streets.”  (page 223)

   His critique of the institutional church (which he terms “steeples”) is similarly harsh.  At one point he speaks of institutions, in general:

  Institutions, by their very definition, are evil.  For their raison d’être is always and inevitably self-survival.  They, all of them, when they are threatened will go to any length, tell any lie, engage in any program to protect themselves.  And justify it as being in defense of Almighty God.  That is what Paul was taking about when he spoke of powers and principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places.  (page 156)

   At another, he speaks of the institutional church, in particular.  After noting how the 1960’s had torn down notions of the sacredness of property rights and of neighborhood schools, he observes the immunity of churches from any similar notions:

Only the churches continue to contend that their structures are sacred.  As long as they are sacred, they will be stagnant and sterile.  For a sacred tool is one not to be used but to be fondled and polished.  Howard Moody says the church is an instrument of God literally to be used up in  his service, a service to those not even within it.  There is little evidence at this point in God’s economy that the church is about to go out of business through such usefulness.  (page 110)

   Campbell is wrapped in the cross.  Salvation is a present reality for him.  He rooted his life and work in the idea of reconciliation the Paul discussed in 2 Corinthians 5.  He doesn’t understand any concept of “cheap grace.”  At one point he asks, “what’s a pound of grace worth?  If there’s a price on it — it isn’t grace — it’s a commodity, and we ought to go back to selling it.”  Grace cannot be cheap, Campbell argues, because “it is the price of a lowly Galilean, hanging on a cross . . . .”  (page 83)

I am convicted by Campbell’s prophetic message.  But Richard Goode’s selection of excerpts is laced with repetition.  At one point Campbell says “No one has but one sermon” (page 217).  The context leads me to believe that he intends to say “Everyone has but one sermon.”  It certainly seems to be the case with Campbell.  He has a repeated opening quasi-joke.  There are at least three renditions of a story about a retreat that included a covenant of silence with an “unnamed” denomination (because some in his audience might be Episcopalian).  Surely, the wealth of material that Campbell has produced over 60 years should have enabled Goode to edit out the repetitions.

Copyright © 2012 The Rev. Gary L. Froseth.  All rights reserved

by Pastor Froseth

 Grace be to you and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen

   We are still removing Christmas decorations at our house.  Today I need to prepare you for Lent.

Each year I am faced with the question of how to mark this season.  As a time to prepare for the arrival of Easter, Lent is often a time for repentance and renewal.  It is a time for adding depth to one’s spirituality.  We worship more.  We consume less.  We intentionally turn our attention to God.

During my ministry at St. Stephen, we have used this season to study the New Testament books of 1 John and 1 Peter.  Last year we read Real Faith for Real Life:  Living the Six Marks of Discipleship together by Pastor Mike Foss.

This year I would like to draw your attention to some of the lessons from the Easter Vigil.  Lutherans tend to be negligent in our observance of Easter Vigil.  It is a long Easter Eve service — moving the congregation from darkness to light, focusing our attention on the salvation that comes to us on Easter morning.

I am calling the series, Stories of Hope and Salvation.  We will take a new look at the stories of creation, the flood, Sodom/Gomorrah, the exodus, and the dry bones.  We will examine how God is working with humankind in all of those situations to see the many ways that God is at work to bring us to salvation.  We will find the hope — sometimes, in situations of deep despair.

Again this year we will worship on Wednesdays at 12:10 and 6:30.  Shirley Kasten and Phyllis Ament will take charge of soup preparation for our noon service.  I am sure that they will welcome your help.  Don’t be afraid to call.  Harold and Betty Lou Peterson are stepping aside from soup preparations after nearly ten years of service.  If we ask nicely, though, Harold may still be willing to share some of his unique jokes with us.

The Council has already assigned various groups in the congregation with the task of a fellowship meal for Wednesday evening.  Menus are still being developed.  Our time of eating together each Wednesday will extend from 4:45 until the time of the service.

First Communion instruction will also be a part of our Lenten program.  We invite parents of third grade children to consider this opportunity for their family.  St. Stephen teaches that parents should to decide when children are at an appropriate age to receive First Communion — whether that be older or younger than third grade.  Instruction will be on three Tuesday evenings (6:00 – 7:30):  March 20, March 27, and April 3.  Call the church office (715-845-7858) if you are interested.

These are the themes and texts for this Lenten season:

• February 22 — Ash Wednesday — Holy Communion/Imposition of Ashes at 12:10 and 6:30
• February 29 – God Works for Life — Genesis 1:1 — 2:4a
• March 7 — God Preserves Life — Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13
• March 14 — Does God Ask Too Much? — Genesis 22:1-18
• March 21 — See the Deliverance — Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21
• March 28 — You Shall Live — Ezekiel 37:1-14
• April 1 — Palm Sunday — Worship at 9:00
• April 5 — Maundy Thursday — Holy Communion at 12:10 at 6:30
• April 6 — Good Friday — Solemn Worship at 12:10; Tenebrae Service at 7:30
• April 8 — Easter — Holy Communion at 7:00 and 9:00; Breakfast at 8:00

I pray that Lent might be the kind of blessing for you that it is intended to be — a time for renewal, a time to reorient your life,  a time to be more attentive to God and faith.  Let me know if there are specific ways that I can assist in your spiritual journey.

Blessings to you all!

Pastor Gary Froseth