Thursday, April 12, 2012
What If the Bible Is True?
What if the Bible is true and the Word of God really is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword? What if the Bible is true and the Word of God really does what it says. What if the Bible is true, perhaps instead of giving peaceful releases to get people off our roster because we don't want to deal with them, we should actually ban them from the Altar, perhaps we should use the power of the keys given in John 20? What if we preached to them that their sin of absence, of breaking the third commandment is retained and that they are to refrain from the sacrament until they repent. What if the Bible were true, and we were to do that, and they went somewhere else? That they went somewhere else and took the sacrament, but all the while the heard ringing in their ears the Word spoken by the pastor as from God himself? The Bible is true. What if we were to take it seriously? What if we believed it? What if?
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You're right. The problem, of course, is the fact that we don't in practice treat absence from the Sacrament as a very serious sin. In fact, we treat it as a much more minor sin than, say, adultery. We tar and feather adulterers--especially if they hold a prominent position in the Church--but we smile and make merry with those who despise preaching and His Word.
ReplyDeleteThat was from Paul Beisel, by the way.
ReplyDeleteWhat if that person went to another pastor's altar just to find out that that pastor had already been made aware of the fact that this person was under the minor ban, and was also denied the sacrament there?
ReplyDeleteI'm not convinced this kind of language is altogether the best, actually, though I sympathize with the concerns, and agree that we cannot call delinquency a minor sin.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand--and here's my concern--although absence from the Sacrament is certainly a very serious sin, what if we couched the Sacrament in terms of its being the full measure of the grace of God? --which of course is what it is. Are we going to say, "Now see here: You'd better be receiving the full measure of the grace of God or else!" Somehow that doesn't sound very, well, gracious to me.
Just thinking out loud here. The full weight of the law must be applied, but the mercy of God cannot be made into a bullwhip.
The voice of Kenneth Korby keeps ringing in my ears "use the office of the keys." I often just want the roster to be tidied up, and I'm a little afraid of what would happen if I were to exercise the office God placed me in.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right Fr. Eckardt. But despising the full measure of the grace of God and refusing to see that as a sin seems to be the issue. What do you do for that?
I guess what I'm wrestling with here is how do you remain faithful in contacting these folks and yet not embolden or enable their complacency or delinquency? What is the pastoral care of the delinquent look like?
Jason, I have wondered long and hard about the same thing. Sometimes I think the best thing to do would be just to take one person/family at a time, starting with the ones who have been absent the longest, go and visit them at their home, and just be frank. Tell them that they are denying the Lord's Word, and if they have any intentions of returning to the Church. If they say no, then tell them that you wish it were otherwise, but you cannot continue to keep their names as members. Then give them until the next regularly scheduled voters meeting to change their mind, to amend, and if nothing, then remove them by self-exclusion. Let them know that to absent oneself permanently from Christ's Church is to invite the wrath of God upon them, etc. That is what I would do if I were a pastor. Oh wait, I am. Crap!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughtful and challenging post, Jason. Your pointed questions are well taken and ought to be answered in some way.
ReplyDeleteMy initial reactions have been (a.) to agree with your concerns and your point; (b.) to be convicted by what you said, because I know that I haven't been as proactive as I ought to be in this regard; and (c.) to have the same basic hesitations and reservations as Fr. Eckardt has identified in his comments above.
In my experience, there are those people who are clearly despising the Word and Sacrament; who do not take the Ministry of the Gospel seriously or value it, and who do not recognize their own need for it. Surely, those people need to be called to repentance, and bound in their sins until they repent.
Other people do not despise the means of grace or the office of the ministry, so much as they simply despise the pastor, and of course that is also a sin. In the Old Testament, sinning against the Lord is repeatedly tied to sins against His prophets, such as Moses. There is the complicating factor that no pastor is without his own faults and failings. I am most chagrined by a few hoof-in-mouth whoppers of my own, which have probably contributed significantly to members cutting their ties with the church. In other cases, I suppose it is a personality conflict on some level, which causes people to avoid the pastor and stay away. Do such people still need to be called to repentance? Yes. However, it is a great and difficult art -- one that I have not yet mastered -- to speak with the full confidence of the Office and the Word of Christ, while also maintaining the active humility of one's self, and demonstrating sincere repentance in word and deed for one's own faults.
The cases that I find most difficult are those in which the absent member is not despising the means of grace or the pastor, but is struggling with frailty and weakness, and with "fightings and fears," not so much with other people as within. In these cases, the hammer of the Law seems especially out of place. It is only the Gospel that heals and brings life. So I strive to speak the Gospel whenever I am given the opportunity to do so, while also encouraging the person as pointedly as I can to be gathered with the congregation.
A dimly burning wick, He does not quench. Not all of those people who are absent are despising anything or anyone. Some of them are simply hurting and afraid, or too beaten down to pick themselves up. It is a crying shame, because the thing they need the most is the thing they are missing out on by not coming to church. In many cases, they also know that, and Satan then adds to their guilt and shame by accusing their conscience, making them even more afraid to come back. I aim to embolden them by saying, look, you've got to fight back and spite the devil, by coming on the strength of the Lord's Word and promise, rather than hiding yourself away. Sometimes that works, but my experience has been that it's an ongoing lifelong battle.
Rick--but isn't the very failure to make use of the Word and Sacrament itself despising God's Word and Sacrament? So, they may be hurting, they may be frail, or whatever. But John 15 applies I think. They are not abiding in the vine, and so they will be cut off.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Paul. Perhaps you're right. I'm offering my take on situations I have dealt with, and my words aren't adequate. Certainly, I can't read anyone's heart, but it seems to me that there are significant differences that call for different approaches to pastoral care. Sins of weakness aren't the same as hardness of heart. Besetting sins are not the same as a refusal to repent. Those who stay away from church because they are afraid are not the same as those who stay away because they hate the pastor, or because they don't believe they need the Gospel.
DeleteI guess I see a difference, in much the same way that I don't regard my shut-ins as despising the means of grace.
St. John 4 also applies. Here we have the woman at the well, who is, by sheer virtue of the fact that she is with a husband who is not her own, despising the word. Yet the Word approaches her and speaks to her in a way which piques her interest. To be sure, he comes to the point of, in effect, calling for her repentance, but he does not at first approach her harshly, though he would arguably have been 'in the right' to have done so.
DeleteI guess here's my issue, and perhaps you're not saying this Fr. Eckardt, but why is it that we see using John 20 and the Office of the Keys as being harsh? I do too. But why? And are we right?
DeletePerhaps John 20 applies in another way, that is to say, with respect to Thomas, who wasn't there with the gathered disciples the first time, and who rejected the testimony of the Apostles when it was preached to him. Yet, he was there with them a week later, and the Lord approached him with a love and mercy that met his demands with peace. Jesus admonishes him from unbelief to faith, but it is the Gospel opened to Thomas in the wounds of the Lord that raises him up.
DeleteThe right use of the Keys is never "harsh," not in the way that we sinners are prone to be. But knowing where and how to exercise the Keys is not always so clear and obvious. It may appear to us that the problem is a lack of interest in, or a despising of the means of grace; when, in fact, the person's absence may be the symptom or consequence of a more deeply rooted sin, which is where the Keys ought to be used. But of course, that calls for more, not less, pastoral care.
By the nature of the case, binding the sin of absence from the means of grace is a tricky business, because it turns on the value of the very thing the person has not been valuing. Yet, the Word of God is living and active, and we should simply trust it do the work of breaking hearts of stone and recreating hearts of flesh. When it comes to those who truly despise God's Word and the preaching of it, there is the shaking of dust from the sandals as a testimony against them. That may get to your original point and question, Jason.
The difference, of course, is that your shut-ins are actually receiving the Sacrament. You know what we should do--is start taking the Sacrament and Sermon to the homes of those who are absent. See if they would reject it. Might take awhile, but it could be done.
ReplyDeleteJesus has something rather specific to say about this, I think, though it's enigmatic. When he says that if your right hand or right eye causes you to sin you should pluck it out, he's likely referring to excommunication. Immediately after that, in St. Matthew 5, he warns that he who divorces his wife causes her to commit adultery, which I think is a warning against hasty excommunication. Again in St. Matthew 18, he says, "See that ye despise not one of these little ones . . ." and then immediately continues, telling of seeking the lost. In both cases when he speaks of self-maiming he follows up with warnings against haste.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Fr. Eckardt. I think that you are exactly right in these cautions. Thank you for calling attention to these passages and stating the case so clearly.
DeleteThe practical problem that is created by this approach, however, is what do you do when a family from the Church wants you to bury their grand father, who hasn't seen the inside walls of the church since he was confirmed, but he has never been released/removed/whatever. How can you possibly minister to this family, and conduct an honest funeral? I think I would have to change some of the wording of the burial rite.
ReplyDelete