I have written before about Lutheran givens and wish I had them all collected in one place.  That is, I believe, the one reason I could want those titles and tags people use on their blogs.  But...this blog is for me...not for anyone else.  I work really, really hard not to censor myself, with the exception of details I think would definitely break that social contract.  The pastor I am going to quote below recently wrote a post that was sort of defensive about how his blog posts are his own thoughts, not particularly organized, just his musings.   I surmise he was the recipient of some criticism.  Funny, though, because a whole passel of pastors of late have referenced his writings.

I discovered him a while ago and posted a link (Pastoral Meanderings) from my blog primarily because he often writes about what it means to be Lutheran.  I suspect this is because of the struggles within the Missouri Synod, though it flabbergasts me that any Lutheran church would not fiercely cling to the Liturgy, teach the Book of Concord in initial and on-going catechism, and practice closed communion.  But that is for another day.  Today, I came across Pastor P's post about Lutherans and scripture and realized that this, above all things, is why I kept attending Pastor's bible study four years ago even though it was filled with older people and all were these strange, strange Lutherans.  It is also another Lutheran given.

You see, having grown up in the bible belt, once I was allowed to go to church, I was mostly fed straight biblical teaching.  I crave that, hunger for the Word.  Once I moved away, I spend years frustrated because the biblical churches I attended would more often teach pop culture issues or the latest Christian literature fad, fiction and non-fiction alike than the  magnificent Living Word God so richly and lovingly gifted us.  Does the Prayer of Jabez ring a bell?  My goodness, I could spend my whole life learning about the Lord's Prayer, the very words Christ taught us to pray and this is what I'm being taught?  SIGH.

Anyway, Pastor P wrote a great post on Lutherans and teaching the bible which you should read in full.  To give you a taste, I want to show two points below. 

What does this mean to me?

There was a time when it seemed rude to tell people what a particular Biblical text meant -- as if it diminished their own perspective on things or perhaps someone might have discovered a hidden meaning heretofore unknown or because we were all tired of a lecture format and wanted something different. Whatever the reason, there was a time when it was popular to encourage people to say what the text meant to them. Perhaps you have been at a such Bible study where a verse was read and the discussion went around the room with each person saying "what this means to me is. . ."

Oh, my, I read this and knew immediately what he was saying because most to the bible studies I had gone to were exactly this.  Yes, there would be some bible study booklet we would have with a set of questions no one had answered beforehand.  But those questions and the discussion would center around personal meaning and life application.  On the surface, that sound like a good approach, but I believe that it is dangerously specious.  Oh, how often I have heard that there are no black and whites in the bible, only shades of gray.   I didn't believe that; I fought against it.  I find absolutes all throughout the bible, absolutes that pit Christianity as the way, the only way to God.  Every other religion is wrong, false, empty.  And the way is narrow, a way whereby many will tell Christ what they have done for Him and He will say I know you not.  This is what I believed.  What I believe.  Perhaps...this is one of the things that made Pastor tease me about being a closet Lutheran....

What does this mean?

Lutherans lay claim to being evangelical catholics -- that is, we insist that we are not innovators of the faith, we do not proclaim novel or quirky understandings of Scripture, and we do not have our own Lutheran version of Scripture. We lay claim to what is catholic -- what has always been believed everywhere. While isolated teachers may have run far afield, the Christian history is a solid and clear path of answering the question "what does this mean." Take a look at the Creeds for example. They insist that Scripture speaks with one voice when it comes to the God/man Jesus Christ and so they encapsulate in confession what Scripture says (not departing from it or adding to it or giving it a different slant but speaking forthrightly "Thus says the Lord").

When we come to God's Word, it is not the momentary meaning or the personal meaning that should be forefront on our minds and hearts but what the Word said, says, and will say -- "What does this mean?" Because of this we do not begin with a proposition and then seek Scripture passages to support it -- we begin with what Scripture says and pull together the passages that speak to this -- not as evidence but as a the different voices of Scripture speak the same truth, together though from different authors, different perspectives, and different times.

It seems to me that this is the greatest thing about Scripture (other than its efficacy) is that God gave to us no mechanical means of transmitting His truth but one with the richness of different authors whose own personality still shines through the timeless truth they have spoken. Again, not as what this means to me but as different voices who speak together to answer "what does this mean."

In a sense, he is hearkening back to the Apology of the Augsburg Confession.  In it, the Lutherans refuted the specious and spurious claims against them following the Augsburg Confession.  They say we distorted that, disregarded this... Nay, in truth, the Lutherans stripped the humanism that had crept into Christian teaching to return to the pure Truth of the Living Word.  How can anyone think, reading and studying scripture, that forgiveness can be sold?!

When Pastor teaches, there is a certitude about his faith I find compelling and...well...restful in a way.  I find peace in hearing Truth from his lips and am amazed how often that, for me, it is Christ standing at the pulpit, not him.  But even in his lessoning that certitude draws me like a great siren call.  Yet there is no danger lurking within, nothing to hold me captive.  Instead, there is a freedom so great that I struggle to dare grasp for it.  This is what this bit of scripture means here and how it fits into the whole.  Supported and scaffolded, teaching that is so clearly consistent with who God is and what He has done for man. 

Oh, I may very well be the absolute worst Lutheran around, as clearly exhibited in my struggle with the burden of my sin and repeated failings at properly dividing Law and Gospel, crushed beneath the former and only weakly reaching out for the latter.  But I do believe those men at the Diet of Augsburg had the right of things.  I do believe that original sin means that there is no fear and love and trust of God apart from faith given through the Holy Spirit.  I do believe that the grace bestowed upon us at the cross was, is, and always will be completely Objective, that there is no part I play in my salvation.  I do believe so great was His gift in the Lord's Supper that He is present, giving His body and His blood to wash and forgive me anew.  I do believe.

The last seven days have been a microcosm of the past seven months.  [Has it really been that long, Myrtle?]  And a crucible of sorts.  I have a foundation of my faith (rightly) snatched away from me, and, once more, such is followed by the terrible timing of spiking hormones.  Never before this afternoon, awash in the horror of how I hurt someone in my raging emotions, have I thought more seriously about the option of just yanking out my female parts.  My primary physician is completely against it, believing that it would be dangerous for me and that, knowing the true nature of the problem, I can manage it.  For such times she gives me this spectacular little pill that provides just enough temporary distance so as to safely ride out the tidal wave in just one dose.  But if I cannot remember to turn off the stove when I am cooking on a regular basis, how can I manage to remember a date range on a calendar?  Three times now I have asked for help remembering, asked for help watching for those times when I am most decidedly senseless, awash in emotions.  There is no help with these blessedly brief, but albeit dangerous episodes.

Tonight, however, there was something rather beautiful.

In the waning moments of my emotional storm, I received two emails, both sent from love and concern.  One I read as Law.  I literally spewed the meal I had eaten. I found such condemnation, such failure that I could barely breathe.  I wanted never, ever to go to church again so horribly faithless and selfish have I been.  Again, the author surely meant none of that, but she seemed to have misunderstood what I have been trying to say, which made me feel all the more the failure...I am in communications after all. 

The second was from Pizza Man's bride.  Crying on the floor of the changing room on Tuesday morning, I blurted out how much I needed the world to be flat, for Pastor to be wrong in what he said.  A flat world makes sense of my life in such as way as I can stomach it, as I can dare cling to the smallest mote of belief that God could love me and still allow it all.  At the time, crouched on the floor beside me despite the comfortable chair beside her, she murmured that she could understand how that would be of comfort to me given my past.

Apparently, my comment has been on her mind, so she prayed about writing and then sent off an email trying to encourage me.  She again stated how she could understand the comfort of a flat world, but suggested there might be even an greater comfort in a round one.  Your feelings are not wrong, Myrtle.  They do make sense.  But God's sense, though foolish to the world, would serve you better.

Shortly thereafter, I realized, again with great horror, that my monthly cycle had started and, thus, the past day or so had been more hormone and less reality than I could have wished.  Especially because the one I hurt was Pastor.

I read V's email and worried that what she was really saying was that my revelation was a burden that had been weighing her down.  Yes, I have been so inculcated that I am selfish and unlovable by my family that I assumed the absolute worst in one of the most loving missives I have ever had sent to me.

Thinking on how I probably destroyed any chance of further lessoning, especially given Pastor's response to my email, I called V to see if my fear was right or wrong.  Oh, I was wrong.  So very wrong.  I should have remembered Monday night.  Boy, does my rememberer suck!

V emailed because she was moved by my anguish and wanted to offer comfort.  She didn't think one thing poorly about my doubts and fears and stubborn longing for a flat world.  Not one speck.  In fact, she somehow, as Pizza Man so often does, managed to turn my struggles into a blessing for her.  [Remember?  Confessional Lutherans are strange!]  They are learning from me, from my passion for the Living Word, for my gulping of all things Lutheran doctrine, for my openness of my struggles and grief against my sin.  I simply don't get that.

Her compassion made me wail.  Wail quite loudly and spill forth how horribly I screwed up with Pastor lost in those dratted hormones.  I rather stupidly told him not to come tomorrow because he shouldn't be teaching such a sinful person, that I would be removing myself from his flock to spare him my sin.  He is very good at listening to me.  I just wish he could learn to listen behind the words.  V told me to call him right away and explain about the hormones; he will forgive you, she insisted.  She even offered to call him.  The chicken part of me longed to tell her, Yes!  Do so!  I refrained.  Bless her heart, she tried anyway, but he was not home and she could not think of what kind of message to leave.

She called later, after the two cherubs were in bed, and we talked until Pizza Man came home.  We talked about her doubts and fears and struggles with sin.  I was flabbergasted.  Perhaps...perhaps I am not as alone as I feel.  A few months ago, a very sad thing happened to her and she felt as if God were punishing her, as if it were a direct result of her own failures.  Sound familiar?  When her husband arrived, he, too, spoke of his doubts and fears, both of them even mentioning salvation.  What meant the most to me, what rang the loudest, was V's fears of death and facing Jesus, thinking not that she would leap for joy, but that she would hang her head in her own wretchedness, declaring He might as well just go ahead and cast her into hell as she so rightly deserved.  It was a fear that she plucked from my own heart and held out before me.


One other nugget V said was that church was the closet thing to heaven we have here on earth.  Going there, we have a taste of the glorious feast in which we will partake.  We have the absolution and forgiveness for our sins.  We have the love of Christ poured out upon us.  Pastor and my godmother have said as much, but somehow her plain speak was piercing.  I planned on hiding again.  Now I long for Sunday to hasten its arrival though I suspect I will still desire to hide.

The two of them offered to do devotions with me before we hung up.  Despite the late hour and two wee ones who would wake them up early, we read scripture, sang hymns, and prayed, using the devotion from the church that used to be in our bulletins (I am campaigning for its return, but at least part is posted on the church blog).

You want to hear something strange?  You know how I have been going to sleep every night with Pastor singing over me and how his voice fills my car as I am trying to learn Lutheran hymns?  Pizza Man and his bride told me that one of the hymns I recorded for them was playing on a loop the other day...neither one of them all that moved to stop the audio clip...told me that I sang to them when I wasn't even there.  I smiled for that is what Pastor gives to me and in the smallest measure I was able to pass on such a blessed gift even thought I am not particularly thrilled with how my voice sounds on those clips.  It is not about the voice, it is about God's Word and His Truths being sung, praised, and shared.

In any case, I felt as if God wrapped His arms around me this evening to tell me that He loves me even though I cannot see it, even though I keep insisting to Him that I am too sinful, too weak in faith for such.  Almost...almost I could be thankful for those wretched hormones and my stupid, hurtful blunder...because in my sorrow He brought me joy.

Selah.

A final note:  V noticed that, in both the hymn of the week and the scripture reading, there were Myrtle verses.  I am posting the hymn below.  I will send you a scripture reading or a hymn if you can tell me which verse below was written for me and which one I need help remembering.

The Day is Surely Drawing Near

The day is surely drawing near 

When Jesus, God's anointed

In all His power shall appear 

As judge whom God appointed.

Then fright shall banish idle mirth, 

And flames on flames shall ravage earth.

As Scripture long has warmed us.

The final trumpet then shall sound

And all the earth be shaken,

And all who rest beneath the ground

Shall from their sleep awaken.

But all who live will in that hour,

By God's almighty, boundless pow'r,

Be changed at His commanding.

The books are opened then to all,

A record truly telling

What each had done, both great and small,

When he on earth was dwelling,

And every heart be clearly seen,

And all be known as they have been

In thoughts and words and actions.

Then woe to those who scorned the Lord

And sought carnal pleasures,

Who here despised His precious Word

And loved their earthly treasures!

With shame and trembling they will stand

And at the judge's stern command

To Satan be delivered.

My Savior paid the debt I owe

And for my sin was smitten;

Within the Book of Life I know

My name has now been written.

I will not doubt, for I am free,

And Satan cannot threaten me;

There is no condemnation!

May Christ our intercessor be

And through His blood and merit

Read from His book that we are free

With all who life inherit.

Then we shall see Him face to face,

With all His saints in that blest place

Which He has purchased for us.

O Jesus Christ, do not delay,

But hasten our salvation;

We often tremble on our way

In fear and tribulation

O hear and grant our fervent plea;

Come, mighty judge, and set us free

From death and ev'ry evil.

                                           ~LSB 508