Part 1: New Translations

It had to be a surreal experience, to say the least. All of the disciples were together in that house, without their master who had led them for three years. Who knows what they would have been doing…sharing their experiences, talking about what they want to do next, wondering what the future holds? Then suddenly they hear a sound like the wind blowing violently, and it looks like there are tongues of flame coming to each of them, resting on them. Before they knew it, they were speaking in different languages. Now they could share the experiences they had with Jesus with those around them, with the people who were in Jerusalem to celebrate the holiday.

We as Christians have received that same spirit. As Lutherans, we know that we received that same Holy Spirit in our baptism. It’s interesting that the first gift of the Spirit that the disciples received was the gift of translation, to be able to bring Christ to people in a way that they understood. And so now, even though we may not know foreign languages, we each speak a language that reflects our own experiences, our culture, our traditions. And it is crucial that in order to reach those like us, those around us, we must translate God’s words for our culture around us.

I need to make it clear that I am not calling for a new translation of the Bible. God knows that the last thing we need is another marketing blitz for the latest, greatest edition. I am calling for a new translation of our faith. It’s our calling as baptized, Holy Spirit-filled Christians, to bring this faith that we have made our own to the world. We assimilate this ancient faith into our own personal stories, let it pervade us and shape us and mold us into followers of Christ, and then bring that message to the world. We then take the languages of our culture, whether it be through reinterpretation of advertising clichés, visual arts, authentic personal stories or multimedia experiences and captivate them, making them obedient to Christ.

30 cents

It was a small gesture, in the scope of all things. When national debts reach trillions of dollars, we can watch billionaires on prime time television series, and millionaires seem to be coming (pardon the expression) a dime a dozen, thirty cents isn’t all that much. It was really the situation that made all the difference.

I’ve known Elberta for a little more than five months now, and I am always happy to see her in worship. She’s one of the more lucid residents of the special care unit where I work, a place filled with people who have forgotten who they are because of strokes and alzheimers. They may have forgotten who they are…but, at least for now, some still remember whose they are. Elberta is one of those people who still comes to chapel, and who can read enough of the worship folder to follow along with evening prayer, saying the proper responses.

Elberta and some of the other residents often play bingo in the afternoon for dimes. Their winnings hardly ever surpass a couple of dollars. Elberta had won thirty cents that day. She was happy about her winnings, and she settled down into the ebb and flow of the evening prayer liturgy along with the others.

Afterwards, I thanked her for coming, like I always do. Elberta always returns the thanks, a smiling, “Thank you for coming!” This time, she added, “I want you to have this.” She held out her hand, and between her thumb and forefinger were three dimes, her earnings from the bingo game. “Thank you!” I said, not quite knowing what to do with thirty cents.

It didn’t strike me until later that I realized what this exactly meant. This was all she had. This woman had given me thirty cents. On the surface, I’d be lucky to buy much of anything with it. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like much from her...she has everything taken care of. She gets her food from the cafeteria, she has a bed to sleep in, she has nurses to take care of her. But her gift shows that she appreciates the God who it ultimately comes from, she appreciates the opportunity to worship Him, and so she gives everything she can for Him.

I Survived Ash Wednesday

I wasn’t looking forward to today. Something about touching the foreheads of lots of old people with ashes just isn’t my idea of a good time. Such is the life of a hospital/nursing home chaplain. But that aside, I’d just like to draw your attention for a second to the multisensory experience of the imposition of ashes. We feel the ashes being smeared on our foreheads, we see it on the foreheads of others, we hear the words of Genesis 3:19 “Dust you are and to dust you shall return.”

For me, though, the big deal isn’t the ashes. It’s the washing of the ashes off. Personally I cannot stand walking around with the ash on my forehead. I feel like I’m trying to draw attention to myself. I feel like the Pharisee who was going around thanking God that he is better than others. So I washed my ashes off after about 10 minutes. Why? Because I am forgiven. I knew, in my heart, that today was not the day that I needed to remind myself of guilt or finitude. God knows there are enough things in my life that remind me how short I fall of living up to His holiness.

I guess it was also hard today for me on at least one other count. This woman I’ve been visiting weekly, she’s 83 and a life-long Lutheran, and has cancer. When I stopped by to say hello, she was lying on her side with one leg half-hanging out of her bed. This is unusual. She’s usually either sitting in bed or sitting up straight and properly. She told me she was very tired, and even though she said she was okay to talk her eyes kept shutting. For the few minutes that I stayed and talked to her about her being tired and feeling sick, I got a very strong reminder that she may be very near to death. It challenged my own feelings of mortality. “Dust you are, and to dust you will return.”

So today I focused on my baptism. July 16, 1978 was when I got saved. And from that point on, it’s like the words of that John Mayer song…”I’m bigger than my body gives me credit for…” I have the spirit of God living in me. I have that life.

I also finished up the day at work by talking to a girl at the reception desk. I ended up finding out that she has only been living in St. Louis for the last 8 months or so, and she’s still not connected with many other people her age. So I decided to invite her to my small group. Time will tell where that goes, but I was excited to have that opportunity. “Dust you are, and to dust you will return.” But there’s a lot we can do before we go back.

So, um, why are we here?

I still don't know why exactly I'm creating this. It's really a mixture of different ideas. First of all, I have gotten on the emerging bandwagon. I guess it started out like this.

I've been a church-going, Bible-believing Lutheran all my life. I also grew up being hideously bored in church. It really seems to me a miracle that I'm still a Christian at all, sometimes. When I look back at my spiritual development, I see a lack of being challenged to be the Christian that God wants me to be. However, I did grow up having people who loved me. Honestly, I think that love kept me around the church, but it didn't do much to help me grow much in my faith.

Skipping ahead a few chapters, worship was never something that really interested me. It was always something I did, but it was something I just did. I didn't know why I always went, aside from that's just what Christians do, and I'm sure it's in the Bible or something.

So as I grew older, those reasons didn't really make as much sense to me. I wanted more from life, and more from worship. I wanted more than mindless repetitive liturgy, more than spoken words, more than the contemporary worship offered for seekers. I wanted something that engages the whole me, some way I could love and worship the Lord with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind. I never experienced that until I went to my first "emerging" worship service.

I guess that it's really that joy, that experience that I had that I know others are yearning for. Even other Lutherans. I really get the feeling that my generation, the Gen X of the LCMS (and even Gen Y) wants to get beyond the ghosts of seminex, beyond "church politics," beyond the empty fighting and beyond the empty rituals that have marked the past. We want to move into the future, to recognize both where we come from and where we are going, and that we are part of a church that extends beyond Luther and Walther, back to Christ, and around the world to wherever the gospel is taught and the sacraments are administered in their truth and purity. We want to focus on who we ARE, and move beyond who we are NOT. We are children of God, we are the future, we are not only the Christians of tomorrow but the church of today.

We take Pauls words seriously in 1 Timothy 4:12: "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity."

Welcome to our journey of faith.

In the beginning

There's a certain joy one takes in creating...I don't exactly know how to explain it, but there's something of God in us in that feeling we get when we look on something we've created, and say "It is good." I have high hopes for this blog. We'll see where the Spirit moves us, as we pray for His guidance.