O God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.
Next Sunday, after the second service, the members of Zion will gather for a Congregational Meeting and vote to get a sense of where we are as a congregation in regards to our relationship to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the denomination to which Zion has belonged to for the last seventeen years.
Last week, Jack Lien preached a sermon about whether we should conform to the ELCA or confront it, giving his perspective from fifty-eight years of ordained ministry. What was his conclusion? It is time to confront.
To start off, I want to remind everyone that this is your church, and Christ is our leader. Many of you will be here long after I am gone. Your elected Church Council leaders unanimously voted to bring this issue to you. And before they made that decision, I told them that it is important that they not act out of anger, nor should they be indecisive out of fear. We don’t want to hastily make some knee jerk reaction, nor do we want to be silent out of fear or even apathy when it involves core Christian values.
I believe this whole debate is really about the authority of scripture. To put it simply… Do we really care about scripture or not? Is it central to the church and authoritative for your life?
The Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, said:
From childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:15-17)
I am proud to be a Lutheran Christian, with our heritage and emphasis on the Word. Consider Martin Luther, our denomination’s founding pastor, a man of God who worked tirelessly to reform the Church. Threatened with execution if he did not stop criticizing the religious authorities, what did Luther say? Did he say, “Unity is more important than truth”? Nope. Did Luther say, “Let’s just go along to get along”? Nope. Did he say, “Oh gosh, I can’t make the bishop mad at me”? Nope. Under threat of execution, in front of a room full of religious and governmental authorities, Luther said, “Here I stand, I can do no other.”
Jesus said, "Don't be afraid of those who want to kill you. They can only kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. It is better to fear God, who can destroy both body and soul.” (Matthew 10:28)
In other words, Luther was saying that he’d rather be burned at the stake than compromise Holy Scripture.
For many years I have been deeply concerned the direction that the ELCA has been moving. There are plenty of fine organizations to belong to: Rotary, YMCA, Kiwanis… But the Church, at its best, is not an organization. It is not just a club to belong to. It is the living, breathing Body of Christ… the people of God gathered around the Word and Sacraments. Yet, more and more I feel that the church denomination of my childhood has become just another social club. I became a pastor so that others may know the grace and truth of Jesus Christ.
Let me ask you a series of questions to illustrate my point, and for these things I have ample documentation.
Why has our national presiding bishop been quoted as saying that we need to move away from being a scripture centered church? (www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/24936.html) Instead of relying on a "bibliocentric" version of Christian faith, "I believe in a triune God who reveals God's self to me in Scripture," Hanson said, "who is revealed in Christ, and who is revealed for us in the bread and wine" of Communion.
Why can an ELCA church call a pastor from the United Church of Christ or the Episcopal Church in the USA without any Lutheran training.
Why has the ELCA Division for Worship published a genderless marriage service that avoids any use of masculine or feminine words?
(See supplemental materials under Marriage Rites at http://www.renewingworship.org/resources/life_passages/RTF/life_passages_02.rtf)
Why does our largest ELCA seminary have no problem with sending a transgender female seminarian on a pastoral internship, to be mentored by a lesbian pastor? (I have had e-mail conversations with seminary leaders; see Extraordinary Candidacy Project; see Metro Lutheran article)
Why have we accepted the form of episcopacy, which is the ordination of a pastor by a bishop who claims to have been touched by someone who has been touched all the way back to the Apostle Peter, when we clearly know that the episcopacy has absolutely nothing to do with the faithful proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
And on the same line of questioning, why have we moved from having district presidents, to bishops elected for four years, then terms of six years, to finally having Bishop emeritus status for life, all in less than two decades?
Why has our local synod, and our national Lutheran Youth Organization, officially endorsed homosexual and bisexual behavior and even transgender-ism? Let me ask you that again, why has our National Youth Organization endorsed transgender’ism which is cross-dressing and medical induced gender changes? I suspect some of you are thinking that I must be lying or stretching the truth. I’m not. (http://www.thelutheran.org/article/article_mgt.cfm?keyword=lyo)
Why does the ELCA medical plan pay for all abortions when it doesn’t have to?
Why have our national leaders thwarted attempts to have a more representative form of church governance? (See ELCA news service.)
Why hasn’t one of the oldest Lutheran churches on the West Coast been removed from the ELCA church roster even though they openly practice new-age mother goddess worship? (www.herchurch.org which is Ebenezer Lutheran Church)
Why did our National Church Council vote 32 to 2 in favor of ordaining practicing homosexuals? (Some of you weren’t here thirteen years ago, but in 1993, as a congregation, Zion voted 99% reaffirming the traditional Christian understanding of human sexuality.)
Why has the ELCA lost almost half a million members in sixteen years? (Look at the total membership from the 1989 and 2005 ELCA yearbooks. The Yearbooks in between will show the decline as increasing.)
Why has the number of missionaries, new church starts, and percentage of seminary financial support fallen to historic lows even while national church revenues are at historic highs?
We did the ELCA, our national church body, only receive 10 new congregations into full church membership last year? (See Yearbook page 313.) Do we truly care about Jesus’ Great Commission to go and make disciples?
Why have I never heard a bishop apologize for the substance of any of these questions?
Now, I’d like to ask many more questions, but for the sake of time, let me move to the clear answer to all of these questions, which is found in our reading.
They stumble because they do not listen to God's word or obey it, and so they meet the fate that has been planned. But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are a holy priesthood, God's holy nation, his very own possession. This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:8-10 NLT)
God help us all when we call evil, good and good, evil. I don’t say this self-righteously. I say this because I love Christ’s Church. When the Church doesn’t stand for anything, it will fall for and accept just about anything. I don’t want to be in a denomination that increasingly disregards scripture… for when the church doesn’t stand with scripture, it will fall for and accept just about anything.
The reasoning often given for the loss of almost half a million members is because our society has become so secular that people just aren’t receptive to the gospel message and our Lutheran heritage. While our society is becoming more secular, I believe that, for the most part, people are hungry for the Word. They’re desperately seeking meaning and purpose. And we need to give people a little more credit. Why join a church if it is just another club like Rotary?
Some of you are a little nervous about joining the new Lutheran denomination, Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, which was spun off from the reform movement within the ELCA called Word Alone. Last week the executive Service Coordinator for LCMC, Pastor Bill Sullivan, came and spoke at our open forum. And a few years ago, Barry Anderson, a Board Member of LCMC and a Supreme Court Justice of Minnesota, came and spoke to us.
I’m not nervous about joining LCMC ( www.lcmc.net ) , and let me explain why.
Lutheran Congregations in Mission for ChrisT
is an association of congregations and individuals who are:
* accountable to one another;
* rooted in the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions;
* working together to fulfill Christ's Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations.
The LCMC is a flat organization, meaning that there is very little hierarchy or administrative overhead. This does not mean there isn’t accountability to one another. On the contrary, I believe there is more accountability in the LCMC.
By joining LCMC, Zion would be affirming its desire to get back to the Lutheran basics of scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone.
Some of the largest ELCA churches have already joined LCMC, the largest in Nebraska, New Mexico, and Louisiana, and the second largest in Iowa. In the past year, four Lutheran churches in Texas have joined. And a number of churches in the synod are also exploring the possibility of leaving the ELCA. Last month, St. Paul Lutheran Church in Bulverde, a church about our size, took their first vote to leave the ELCA with a 95% approval.
So my point is this, there are many like-minded Lutherans who have also concluded that the ELCA cannot be repaired. We are definitely not alone on this. Some of the most respected Lutheran teachers and leaders in the nation are shocked at how quickly the ELCA has gone astray. And I never thought it would have happened so quickly. -- I’ve heard from a number of pastors and lay leaders in the Hill Country who are grateful that Zion is taking a lead on this.
As a child, one of my favorite fairy tales was The Emperor’s New Clothes, written by Hans Christian Andersen. Do you remember the story? Let me briefly summarize it. In the story, there was a rich and prideful Emperor who wanted to impress people. Well, two con-artists decided they could make a fortune by deceiving the emperor. They told the emperor that they would make him the finest woven clothes in the entire world. So fine and pure, that only bad people would be able to see right through the clothes. The con artists dressed the emperor in imaginary clothes, but because no one wanted to be thought of as a bad person, including the emperor, no one was willing to say that the emperor was really naked, except for one little child.
It is easy to just go along to get along. Yes, as Christians, we are to be a forgiving and patient people, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, but at what point should we say, “The Emperor has no clothes.”?
(from Galatians 3)
Don't be misled. Remember that you can't ignore God and get away with it. You will always reap what you sow! Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful desires will harvest the consequences of decay and death, but those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So don't get tired of doing what is right. Don't get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time. (Galatians 6:7-9 NLT)
Let me close with two final thoughts. First, to those of you who can’t bear the thought of leaving the ELCA, let me in a gentle way ask you this. If we don’t leave the ELCA, how can we hold Zion together in the coming years?
If we hadn’t stopped sending money to the national headquarters two years ago, we would have lost a number of families. And our ELCA church leaders, without apology, are continuing to do many offensive and grievous things to the Body of Christ.
What should we say to our friends and brothers and sisters in Christ when they can no longer, in good Christian conscience and with good cause, remain in the ELCA? This is why I’m praying that next week we’ll have a unanimous vote because I truly believe this is the best thing for Zion as a whole.
My second and final thought is this. Whenever we put our ultimate faith and trust in worldly institutions like denominations, or in people including pastors, we will be sorely disappointed. The only solid ground we should trust is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Ten thousand years from now we won’t care a flip about denominations, but we will care about being the Church universal, of all time and of all places, with all the saints, standing in the very presence of our God.
From our gospel reading from Matthew:
Jesus asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the anointed one, the Son of the living God." And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven. I also say to you that you are ‘a Rock’, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hell will not overcome it.” (Matthew 16:15-18)
The Church was built on the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. The Church was also built on the blood of those early martyrs who were willing to say, “Here I stand. I can do no other.” As long as we are faithful, God will bless our work.
I’m excited about the many plans which God has for us in the years ahead!
Amen