The Snorting Horse

As a racehorse that snorts when the gate's latch is jangled by the jockey's aide as he fumbles with the lock, so the Christmas issue of Gottesdienst prepares itself to bolt onto the racetrack. The mailroom volunteers are like the horse's restless hooves: she can't wait to spring forth, and they can't wait to sort and carry the mailbags to the Post Office this week.

In this issue you will find the 2012 Gottesdienst Liturgical Calendar, and:

Two seasonal sermons
The Gospel in the Details
The Virtue of “Overstatement”
Two new poems
The Marcions Are Coming!
An Unfading Remembrance and Noble Heritage
The Best Preaching
Sixteen Years of Sabre-Bearers
GottesGuests at La Quinta January 17-20
Kneeling
In the Beginning: The Seventh Day

Not a subscriber yet? It's still very inexpensive ($15/year), so why not take care of that matter today.

30% Off DDSB & New Testament in His Blood

The publisher of Gottesdienst editors' choice is running a cyber Monday sale. Get Daily Divine Service Book, The New Testament in His Blood, and other titles from Dr. Eckardt or myself for 30% off with the code CYBERMONDAY305 at checkout.

+HRC

Out of my depth

The most useful thing I've read about being a pastor in a long time. How to live a life out of your depth.

HT: The inestimable Lew Rockwell.

+HRC

Contemptible Worship, Swedish Style

By Larry Beane

As if Lesbian "bishops" and gay porn in the cathedral weren't enough, here is the latest blasphemous attempt by the Lutheran (sic) "Church" of Sweden to engage the youth.

This about sums it up:

The church in Sweden has become increasingly progressive.  In 1958, it allowed its first female priests, and two years ago ordained its first openly gay bishop, Eva Brunne, and gave priests the right to wed same-sex couples.   

Idestrom says his modern Mass is a further development on the road of progress.

"People say this is exactly what the Church of Sweden needs," he said. "We need to develop the services so that we have a service also for people, mainly from the younger generation, who like this kind of music."

That's always the rationale for "contemporary worship."  And notice how it never stops with a few guitars, a flute, and a piano...

"There are churches who have U2 Masses, where they play music by U2, some have animals — horses and dogs and donkeys — and we have motor cycle Masses."

This is exactly what happens when the church forgets that worship is Gottesdienst (Swedish: Gudstjanst), God's service - a holy, supernatural, sacramental transaction in which the Lord gives His gifts to His people in Word and Sacrament, who in turn worship Him with reverence and gratitude for the sacrifice that has saved them from sin, death, and the devil.  Once that bond of mystery is broken, once the connection to the faith of our fathers is severed, there is not much left but a shallow and pathetic cry for attention that can quickly degenerate into a freak show.

At the heart of the matter, it's a first commandment issue.  Do we worship and submit to Christ?  Or do we worship ourselves and serve the god "entertainment"?  The liturgical butchers of the "Church" of Sweden have made it clear what is the object of their veneration.

HT: Dr. William Tighe

Speaking of Poetry . . .

This blew me away this morning, again from the Almanac:

The White
by Patricia Hampl

These are the moments
before snow, whole weeks before.
The rehearsals of milky November,
cloud constructions
when a warm day
lowers a drift of light
through the leafless angles
of the trees lining the streets.
Green is gone,
gold is gone.
The blue sky is
the clairvoyance of snow.
There is night
and a moon
but these facts
force the hand of the season:
from that black sky
the real and cold white
will begin to emerge.

"The White" by Patricia Hampl, from Resort. © Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1983. From The Writer's Almanac for November 12, 2011.

It is cold here, all the leaves are down, but the sun is shining and the sky is blue. The last two nights the sky has been clear, the moon full. Ms. Hampl just described my world and noted for me the sad foreboding reality that we are in our last "nice" days of the year: winter is coming.

Anyway, great poem.