Pericope for the Week: Garrison Keillor

The following has been around for awhile, especially among us Lutherans, but it hasn't yet been posted here, so I'm going to pass it along as this week's pericope. Keillor is certainly a saint, at least in the Pauline-Lutheran sense of that word, and so it is also fitting that this excerpt from his writings serves as our "All Saints Day" posting for this year...

Garrison Keillor

SINGING WITH THE LUTHERANS 

By Garrison Keillor 

I have made fun of Lutherans for years - who wouldn't, if you lived in Minnesota ? But I have also sung with Lutherans, and that is one of the main joys of life, along with hot baths and fresh sweet corn. 
  
We make fun of Lutherans for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese. But nobody sings like they do. 

If you ask an audience in New York City , a relatively Lutheranless place, to sing along on the chorus of 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore', they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear.. But if you do this among Lutherans they'll s mile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the road! 

Lutherans are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony. It's a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little head against that person's rib cage. It's natural for Lutherans to sing in harmony. We're too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison When you're singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it's an emotionally fulfilling moment. 
  
I once sang the bass line of Children of the Heavenly Father in a room with about three thousand Lutherans in it; and when we finished, we all had tears in our eyes, partly from the promise that God will not forsake us, partly from the proximity of all those lovely voices. By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other. 

I do believe this: These Lutherans are the sort of people you could call up when you're in deep distress. If you're dying, they'll comfort you. If you're lonely, they'll talk to you. And if you're hungry, they'll give you tuna salad! 

The following list was compiled by a 20th-century Lutheran who, observing other Lutherans, wrote down exactly what he saw or heard: 

1. Lutherans believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud. 
2. Lutherans like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas. 
3. Lutherans believe their pastors will visit them in the hospital, even if they don't notify them that they are there. 
4. Lutherans usually follow the official liturgy and will feel it is their way of suffering for their sins. 
5. Lutherans believe in miracles and even expect miracles, especially during their stewardship visitation programs or when passing the plate. 
6. Lutherans feel that applauding for their children's choirs would make the kids too proud and conceited. 
7 Lutherans think that the Bible forbids them from crossing the aisle while passing the peace. 
8. Lutherans drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament. 
9. Some Lutherans still believe that an ELCA bride and an LC-MS groom make for a mixed marriage. (For those of you who are not Lutheran, ELCA is Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and LC-MS is Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, different divisions of the same Protestant religion. And when and where I grew up in Minnesota, intermarriage between the two was about as popular as Lutherans and Catholics marrying.) 
10. Lutherans feel guilty for not staying to clean up after their own wedding reception in the Fellowship Hall. 
11. Lutherans are willing to pay up to one dollar for a meal at church. 
12. Lutherans think that Garrison Keillor stories are totally factual. 
13. Lutherans still serve Jell-O in the proper liturgical color of the season and think that peas in a tuna noodle casserole add a little too much color. 
14. Lutherans believe that it is OK to poke fun at themselves and never take themselves too seriously. 

And finally, you know you're a Lutheran when: 
*It's 100 degrees, with 90% humidity, and you still have coffee after the service; 
*You hear something really funny during the sermon and smile as loudly as you can; 
*Donuts are a line item in the church budget, just like coffee; 
*The communion cabinet is open to all, but the coffee cabinet is locked up tight; 
*When you watch a 'Star Wars' movie and they say, 'May the Force be with you', you respond, 'and also with you'; 
*And, lastly, it takes 15 minutes to say, 'Good-bye'. 

May you wake each day with His blessings, Sleep each night in His keeping, And always walk in His tender care.

The Fourth International Crossings Conference

For the past year, I have been preaching nearly every weekend at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Michigan City. That preaching has taken place alongside of the "proclaiming," the "professing," that I do in my classrooms at Valparaiso University, my "day job." Visitors to this blog know that the pastor at Immanuel died suddenly a year ago. I got the call the same day he died: "Would you please preach the gospel to us tomorrow? Our pastor died today." So, by God's grace, that's what I've been doing and will continue to do until the congregation is able to select and call a full-time pastor, hopefully in the coming year.

One of the ways I prepare for that preaching is to visit the website of The Crossings Community. Not only does that site provide a theological offering on every Thursday (or shortly thereafter), it also gives a weekly analysis of the Scripture readings for the upcoming Sunday. Inevitably, there will be something in that Crossings text study that finds its way into my sermon.

The folks connected with Crossings are friends and comrades in Christ. Case in point: Crossings co-founder, Ed Schroeder, and his wife, Marie, stopped by my office last weekend. They came because it was Valpo's homecoming and Ed, a de jure graduate of '51, wanted to catch up with classmates. He stopped by my office to say "hello" and to drop off some more Elertiana (materials from and about the Lutheran theologian, Werner Elert, who has been an influence on each of us). I use the phrase, "some more," because I've already been the recipient of Ed's generosity re: Elert materials. A whole shelf's worth of books in my office was once in Ed's. (Deo v., I hope to visit the archives in Erlangen next fall to push forward a small book project I've been developing, namely, a translation of several sermons that Elert gave in the 20's, 30s, and 40s. Ed has been midwife to that project.)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

And then last week I received the quarterly Crossings newsletter and was pleased to read a description of the upcoming Crossings conference in St. Louis that will take place in January. The planners of the conference have been kind to invite me to join one of my old grad-school compatriots, Dr. Richard Bliese, who is now the president of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, to speak about Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45). Our friend, Dr. Steve Kuhl, who is the president of Crossings, will serve as the moderator of that conversation on "The Thought and Challenge of Bonhoeffer."

Cathy Lessmann, who serves on the Crossings board, is once again doing a stellar job of planning the pre-conference and conference. She's asked some of us to pass along information about the conference, so I'd like to do that here:

The Fourth International Crossings Conference will take place January 22-25, 2012, at Our Lady of the Snows Retreat Center in Belleville, Illinois (just across the river from St. Louis).

The theme of the conference is "The Gospel-Given Life: Discipleship Revisited."

The pre-conference begins on that Sunday evening at 7pm with an introductory presentation, "How Distinguishing God's Law and God's Gospel Brings Jesus' Full Benefits to Bear on Real Lives in the Real World," by Pr. Jerome Burce, who also served as a long-time missionary in Papua New Guinea.

The pre-conference continues on Monday with two tracks that will run simultaneously. Track A ("You Can Handle the Truth") will provide an in-depth analysis of the famous "six-step method" of the Crossings Community. This method is used each week in the online Crossings "text study" to unpack the law and gospel in the appointed Scripture reading(s) for the upcoming Sunday. Pr. Marcus Felde and Cathy Lessmann will be leading this seminar.

Track B is itself a two-part track. On that Monday morning Pr. Burce will "cross" the Gospel of Mark in a presentation entitled, "Patient Impatience and Other Astonishments: A Reading of St. Mark, Crossings-Style." That afternoon, Dr. Bliese, Dr. Kuhl, and yours truly will hold forth on Bonhoeffer and his views of discipleship. We are asking participants to read a few items ahead of time:

(1) Bob Bertram's essay, "Bonhoeffer's Battles for Christendom: His 'Responsible Interpretation' of Barmen," in A Time for Confessing, ed. Michael Hoy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 65-95. (Bob was the other co-founder of Crossings, my teacher for a couple of courses in Chicago, and a frequent correspondent with me after I started teaching at Concordia, Portland in the early 1990s.)

(2) Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010).

Since the latter work has many flaws, both historical and theological (for confirmation of this judgment, see the critical review at http://www.christiancentury.org/reviews/2010-09/hijacking-bonhoeffer), I recommend that people also examine the following:

Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance (New York: T & T Clark, 2010).

The conference itself will be addressing the question, What does it mean "to follow Jesus" today? Contrary to those who answer this question by asserting some form of "imitating Jesus," conference presenters will hold out a more promising alternative: following Jesus means first and foremost "trusting him and his promises." Jesus can be trusted to do for us what is necessary, as we follow him to the cross. At the heart of discipleship, then, is the invitation "to come and die with me," as Bonhoeffer himself observed. "Exploring the counterintuitive power of this invitation to create a genuinely gospel-given life is what this conference is all about," as the program materials put the matter.

On Monday evening Dr. Kuhl will speak on "The Disciple and Christ: Faith Alone."

On Tuesday morning, a friend and grad-school comrade of olden days, Dr. Mark Mattes, will evaluate contemporary forms of "discipleship" in light of his research into Martin Luther's theology of discipleship. As many of you know, Mark is a bright and leading light among contemporary North American Lutheran theologians.

Later that day, Dr. Robert Kolb, professor at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and one of the great Luther scholars in the world today, will offer insight into the history of Lutheran understandings of discipleship.

Other speakers at the conference include Pr. Marty Wells, the bishop of the Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod of the ELCA ("The Church Executive as Disciple of Christ"), Dr. Kathryn Kleinhans, professor of theology at Wartburg College ("Tweet if you Love Jesus") [Kit's son, Chris, is a student of mine this semester in my honors course on Christians in Nazi Germany.], and Felix Meylahn, pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa ("Following Jesus when Things Are Falling Apart: A Post-Liberation Perspective from South Africa").

For more conference details and to register, please visit the Crossings website:
http://www.crossings.org/conference/default.shtml

It would be great to see you there!

Photo of the Week

A Review of Welcome Them Home--Help Them Heal

Dr. Edward Schroeder is a long-time friend and colleague-at-a-distance. Along with another friend and former teacher, Dr. Robert Bertram, he founded "The Crossings Community," an international group that seeks to relate law-promise theology to our contemporary world. Over the years Ed has asked me to write occasional essays and reviews for the Crossings Community. I've also participated in a few of their conferences and will be doing so again in January (speaking on Bonhoeffer).

Last week Ed published a book review by yours truly that I'd like to reproduce here. It's been a busy week and I thought I'd save time by allowing it to serve a double-duty. To find the original, and to read materials by Ed, Bob, and their associates, please visit the Crossings website: http://www.crossings.org

Thursday Theology #690

September 1, 2011
Topic: A Book Review: Pastoral Care for Iraq/Afghanistan veterans.

Colleagues, More American veterans of the Vietnam war died by suicide after returning home than the 50 thousand who came home in body bags, whose names are inscribed on the monument in Washington, DC. The lethal nature of war persists even when they come home alive--and (allegedly) unscarred. Here's a look at all that from the inside. Reviewer Matthew Becker's father was one such survivor who came home wounded. Severely so. Becker reviews here for us a book about those badly damaged survivors, that then goes on to spell out the rubrics for distinctive Christian care to move them to fuller recovery. Matt is a prof in the Theology Department of Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana.

Peace and joy!
Ed Schroeder

______________________________________________________________________

When my dad returned from Korea in the fall of 1951 he was a wreck. He had been severely wounded in the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge. Actually pronounced dead on the battlefield and then later found breathing, he was rushed to a MASH unit, stabilized, and sent back to the states for months of rehabilitation. He was blind in one eye, partially blind in the other, deaf in one ear. He had lost part of his brain. Bullet wounds and grenade fragments had left other scars on his chest, legs, and head. But the more troubling scars were hidden, psychological, moral, soul-scars. His father, a Lutheran chaplain at the Oregon State Hospital, and mother did their best to try to help their 20-year-old son to accept what had happened to his body and to move on with his life, but they were overwhelmed by the challenges to help heal his spirit. As my grandfather told me later (I was born a decade after my dad was injured), the only medicine for the deepest wounds were the gospel and persistent Christian love and care. At my dad's funeral I commented on how my dad had died twice before his final physical death: the first death was in his baptism, when he died with Christ and was raised to new life in him, and second was on that fateful day in October, 1951. His "third" death happened in June, 2004, long after the 7-10 years that the VA doctors had given him to live after his terrible injuries. Of course, in between these "deaths" my dad died daily in remembrance of his baptism. Such daily dying was necessary, especially when memories of what he had done in the war surfaced to trouble his conscience. (One evening, decades after that Forgotten War, while my dad was watching a report on the news about Korean and Vietnam widows and orphans, he began to cry. "Maybe I killed that woman's husband or that child's father or brother..." We three kids went to bed early that night.)

I should add here that my mom, Glenys, was a huge part of my dad's recovery and rehabilitation. She helped him through some tough days and weeks of his life. Married to my dad for nearly forty years (they met in the late 1950s), she was his biggest supporter and encourager. For example, she helped to motivate him to apply for a job with the regional office of State Farm in Salem, Oregon, a job which he got and which he kept for more than thirty-five years. When he would feel down and out, she had a knack for helping him to see the bigger picture, to find joy in life, to take one day at a time. Together, they found strength and support from the Lord, from their congregation, from their extended family and many friends.


I often think about my dad when I see reports about the young service personnel who are returning with similar wounds from Iraq and Afghanistan. What kind of spiritual care will they receive for their troubled souls?

Given that nearly 70,000 Americans have been severely injured in these wars and that 500,000+ have been injured or damaged in other ways, both physical and psychological, Christian caregivers and church workers will likely face situations where they will be called upon to provide ministry to such individuals and their families.

My grandparents and mom could have benefited from the booklet, WELCOME THEM HOME--HELP THEM HEAL: PASTORAL CARE AND MINISTRY WITH SERVICE MEMBERS RETURNING FROM WAR, a 2009 publication of Elim Lutheran Church of Blackhoof (Barnum, MN) that was written by John Sippola (military and hospital chaplain, parish pastor), Amy Blumenshine (candidate for diaconal ministry in the ELCA), Donald Tubesing (retired pastor, prolific author on wellness and stress management), and Valerie Yancey (professor of nursing). Blumenshine has an MSW and a masters in theology, and both Tubesing and Yancey have earned doctorates (in counseling and nursing ethics[!], respectively). The book was partially underwritten by a grant from Wheat Ridge Ministries.

The purpose of the book is to provide knowledge and resources for pastors, parish nurses, counselors, and Christian caregivers in their ministry to service personnel and their families. By reading the book, I gained new understanding of the challenges that military personnel face before, during, and after deployment. Frankly, I learned about my dad and his similar combat and post-combat experience, even though he served in a different war half a century ago.

All wars are not the same and these current American wars are unique in several respects, not least because the mental and spiritual trauma of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is extensive and intense. A key strength of the booklet is how it offers helpful avenues for addressing these deep and widespread wounds.

The book is divided into six brief chapters. After an introduction that underscores how serious the crisis of care is for America's combat veterans, the first chapter provides an historical overview of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chapter two is devoted to an analysis of the challenges that military personnel face when they return from foreign wars to civilian life. Chapter three helps the reader to understand the complexities of warrior wounds, the ones that have injured the body, the ones that have done damage to the conscience, the ones that have done damage to the spirit. The final three chapters define three key roles that Christian churches have with respect to caring for wounded veterans. The first role is "to reach out" to each individual veteran by listening and encouraging self-expression, by relating to the veteran and not the war, by offering honest encouragement, by encouraging self-care, by making appropriate referrals to professionals, by praying, by being genuine and trustworthy, by receiving care themselves. The second role of the church is "to create a healing environment." Caregivers within Christian communities do this by being tactful, offering hospitality, praying for veterans and their families, creating a "circle of care," remembering veterans in regular staff meetings, learning about the phases of military service (pre-deployment, deployment, post-deployment, re-deployment), working toward peace, allowing for confession and forgiveness and making amends. A final role for the church is to provide healing rituals throughout the church year. This chapter offers several creative ways that congregations can implement spiritual healing exercises and activities into the rhythm of the church year, e.g., one Lutheran congregation developed a Lenten worship series to address personal and communal "spiritual wounds" and the brokenness of war.

While these chapters offer a wealth of practical tips and advice on helping veterans to heal, I was a little surprised that the theological dimension of that healing process was not more explicitly articulated in the chapter that summarizes the church's "first role." The primary role of the church is to proclaim and teach the gospel and administer the sacraments according to the gospel. This role involves inviting individual members of the congregation, including veterans, to repent of their sins and to trust that for Christ's sake they are forgiven. That, of course, is what my Grandfather said finally was most helpful to my dad in his healing. Certainly the gospel is implied throughout the book as essential in the healing process, but there really isn't any careful articulation of how the gospel specifically applies to the lives of these veterans in that chapter four, where it would best fit. What difference does Jesus really make for combat veterans? The lack of explicit gospel articulation in chapter four was the most glaring weakness of the book to me. For example, in that chapter, "Basic Principle #3: Offer honest encouragement" begins with the following assurances: "It's not your fault. Your struggles, whatever form they take, are not your fault nor are they signs of weakness" (p. 52). Are Christian caregivers ever really in a position to say this, especially if in fact some of the veteran's struggle is due to actions (or inactions) that the combat veteran is convinced were sinful? It would seem to me that an appropriate pastoral response to the veteran who struggles with guilt and anxiety, at least in some pastoral situations, is not to excuse or deny or explain away the veteran's guilt, but to help the veteran to come to the point of being able to confess "the struggle" and guilt to God and to receive the forgiveness of Christ. Perhaps one ought to help the veteran to die daily with Christ and rise anew in Christ's mercy and forgiveness. (Sacramental theology is not really addressed until the final chapter on liturgical practices that promote healing.) Thankfully, chapter five does in fact underscore this need for Christ's forgiveness in the section, "coming to grips with guilt," which does involve confession and forgiveness. Maybe the problem here is one of placement. Wouldn't Lutherans put a section on "law" and "gospel" in chapter four ("the church's first role") and at least acknowledge that Anfechtungen ("spiritual struggles") and the accusatory nature of God's law in one's conscience ("guilt") are results of sin that all sinners experience, and that these are only properly addressed through the consolation of the gospel of Christ crucified and risen? That seems to me to be the church's primary role, and thus an articulation of that role belongs in chapter four and not mentioned in passing at the end of chapter five.

Three appendices are tagged on at the end. The first addresses how to make a referral for a veteran and includes an overview of the Veterans Administration and helpful community resources for veterans (such as online organizations). The second appendix includes several screening tools that parish nurses could use for preliminary detection of possible Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression, and traumatic brain injury. These tools are not diagnostic, but are designed to help a caregiver to decide if further evaluation would be helpful. The final appendix is a "wounds of war assessment," which is designed to help the caregiver "identify factors that may affect the health and well-being of veterans who have served in combat and thereby suffered wounds of war" (p. 103).

The style of writing makes each chapter understandable and interesting. Helpful quotations from veterans of several wars, caregivers, and professionals are highlighted in the margins to connect human experiences with the themes in each chapter. "Key point" boxes are interspersed throughout. At the end of each chapter there is a page for the reader to make notes to him- or herself. This is a very practical resource that Christian congregations will want to utilize in their outreach and ministry to veterans and their families.

To order a copy of the booklet ($10) and learn about additional resources, visit http://www.welcomethemhomebook.com/

Pericope of the Week: Senator Mark Hatfield

Former United States Senator from Oregon, Mark Hatfield, died on August 7 at the age of 89. Senator Hatfield has been one of my "heroes," ever since I met him when I was a seventh-grader at Leslie Junior High School in Salem, Oregon. The senator, who had also attended Leslie and had later graduated from my high school, South Salem, had been invited to speak to my fellow students and me about his vocation as a public servant. I don't remember what he said that day, but I do remember meeting him afterwards. In the course of our brief conversation he asked me my name and, when I told him, he then asked if my grandfather was a Lutheran minister. I told that indeed he was. He then said, "Your Grandfather and I go back a long time. When I was in the Oregon legislature I invited him to open a few of our sessions with prayer. He and I had some good discussions about God and the Bible and Christian discipleship. Please give him my greetings." I thought it was pretty cool at the time that my Grandfather was a friend of a U. S. senator.

I didn't know until later how difficult the senator's public service had been, how he had opposed the war in Vietnam, how he had been critical of President Nixon's policies (despite the fact that they both were members of the same Republican Party), how he had been attacked by some of his constituents for "mixing his personal faith and politics" and thereby undermining each (in their view), how he found himself caught between the "rock" of Christian conscience and "the hard place" that is the U. S. Senate.

When I returned to Oregon to teach at Concordia University, Portland, I was given the task of occasionally teaching a course entitled, "Religion and Public Life." My teacher and friend, Dr. John Scheck, had developed the course, which he handed on to me, and then I changed it to suit my own interests in "public theology." One change that I introduced was adding a segment to the course that allowed guest speakers to visit the class and to share with the students their understandings of the relation of their religious faith (or lack thereof) to their work/calling in public life. So I invited a newspaper editor to talk with the students. The head of a public university addressed them on one day. On another, the head of a large corporation spoke about the challenges of relating Christian faith to the dynamics of capitalism. There were others from business, social service agencies, and the media.

Senator Hatfield in 2004

And then there was Senator Hatfield, who was by then retired. He had also graciously accepted my invitation to speak with the students. On that great day he and I met first in my office for an hour or so and reminisced about individuals common to both of our lives (e.g., my uncle had been one of the senator's law students at Willamette University). After a private lunch with a few other faculty members, he spoke to the class of 30. Unlike the talk I had heard twenty years earlier, this one I remembered. I still have the notes I took that day, also the written summary I made of our post-class conversation as we strolled around Concordia's campus. He essentially hit many of the same themes that he developed in his post-Watergate book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place (Waco: Word, 1976). So much of that book and his earlier reflections in Conflict and Conscience (Word, 1971) seem apropos to our current divisiveness in American political life. I doubt that the senator could get elected today, if he were alive and running, given the rightward tilt of the Republican Party, a tilt that is even more pronounced today than when I last spoke with him more than a decade ago.

This week's pericope comes from the epilogue to his 1976 book:

 [In a time of frustration] it helped [to focus] my attention once again on the basic vision and values to which I have committed my life. I knew I had to persevere.

The central issue is whether I believe that the shape of God in Jesus Christ, taking human form in history, is politically axiomatic for me today. Am I truly to stake my life on the conviction that the character of life and quality of love I see in Christ is to be reproduced in me, fundamentally shaping the style of my political activity?

Christ emptied himself. He took the form of a servant. Though rich, Paul tells us, for our sake he became poor. He was counted among the outcast. He forsook the temptations of earthly power out of fidelity to the Kingdom he came to establish. He gave of himself to deliver the poor and the oppressed out of their bondage. He prayed that not his will, but God's be done. He delivered himself into the hands of sinful men, rather than retaliate to their evil.

He loved without conditions. He spoke God's prophetic truth without fear. And he was crucified as a common criminal, dying so that we might have Life.

He proclaimed the emergence of God's kingdom--the rule of true justice and righteousness. He called those who followed him to build that Kingdom by living as a new community of God's people. To those who followed him, he said that the first shall be last, and the last first; that we must lose our lives in order to find them; and that greatness consists of the most humble acts of servanthood.

If we are called to Christ, then our lives are to take on his own shape. Whether teachers, doctors, businessmen, politicians, lawyers, laborers, or ministers, our first task is to embody the quality of Christ's life. Faithfulness to this call totally transcends any requirements of 'success' posed by our vocations or the conformist opinions of society.

Identified truly with Christ, we will find ourselves serving the oppressed of the world--the victims of injustice and sin. We will begin to look at the structures of society from the vantage point of the poor... Our call is to faithfulness, not to efficacy; it is to servanthood rather than power. We know that the most decisive action that we can take to shape history is to follow the way of Christ, to give ourselves to the building of the Body, and to pour out ourselves as he did in love.


 [Additional Pericope: A few months ago, Visko Hatfield, the senator's son, sat down with his father, whose health had become even more fragile. At the time, Visko had asked what he could do for his father. "You need to save a life." "Whose life should I save?" Visko asked. Hatfield's answer: "The first one you can."]