INTRODUCTION
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You’ve all
seen those little chocolate mints some restaurants give you
along with your bill after you’ve dined.
Well, that’s my role today
– I’m the little chocolate mint.
Thanks to Drs. Wenthe, Marquart, and Feuerhahn, we’ve
all been well-fed from the bountiful table of orthodox Lutheran
theology. The
banquet has been marvelously good.
And having dined, now it’s time for that little mint.
That’s me. Or more accurately, I’m the little wrapper in
which the mint is enclosed.
Pretty insignificant. What in the world am I, a
theological pygmy, doing here in the company of such giants of
confession and scholarship as these good doctors from our two
seminaries? To say
the least, I feel seriously out of place.
Therefore, I
believe a few disclaimers are in order.
I am neither a scholar, nor the son of a scholar, and the
paper you’re going to hear is certainly not a work of
scholarship. I am
merely an unworthy sinner redeemed by God’s grace in Holy
Baptism by my crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. I stand
before you a simple parish pastor – with emphasis upon the
adjective “simple.” Why
I was chosen to address the topic of the challenges a faithful
pastor faces in what’s been called the “New Missionary
Age” is, quite frankly, beyond me.
There are many other pastors who could do the job better.
True, like all pastors, I’ve faced my share of
challenges in seeking to fulfill the responsibilities of the
Office of the Holy Ministry.
The Old Adam within me constantly tempts me to compromise
the truth of God’s Word. At
times I’d like to throw in the towel, back-pedal and go with
the flow, because, frankly, it would be a whole lot easier.
It is indeed only by the grace of God in Christ Jesus
that the Holy Spirit can accomplish anything through the
ministry of a miserable, sinful maggot-sack such as I.
So what business I have in exploring the question how a
faithful pastor will conduct himself and his ministry in an age
when, theologically, everything seems up for grabs, is, as I
said, beyond me.
With those
disclaimers out of the way, let’s now consider a series of
questions which pertain to the topic at hand: How do we Lutheran
pastors do it? How
do we – in a changing culture that really couldn’t care less
– bring sinful men, women and children into fellowship with
the Son of God who died for their sins and was raised again for
their justification? How
do we reach out with the Good News of Christ crucified to people
of diverse ethnic backgrounds, yet still remain true to our
heritage of orthodox doctrine and practice as set forth in the
Lutheran Confessions? How
do we in our post-modern age negotiate the multiple challenges,
pitfalls, and shoals that threaten our integrity as Lutheran
pastors? And above
all else, how do we do this faithfully? -- not with ironclad
legalism, but with love and concern for those we’ve been
called to minister Christ to, because the Lord in whose stead we
serve loves His flock infinitely more than we ever could.
These questions
let us now ponder. And
in doing so, we must, I believe, be aware of two things.
The first thing is the times in which we live.
“Know the times,” the Scripture says.
Specifically, what is this “New Missionary Age” in
which we 21st Century Lutherans find ourselves?
Does this age differ from earlier periods of Church
history? The second
thing of which we need to be aware is the unchangeable nature
and purpose of the pastoral office.
Some would say that the responsibilities of the parish
pastor are different in our new missionary age than they were
500 years ago. I
would contend that the ministry of the care of souls has not
changed in nearly 2,000 years.
How does a
pastor pass along the teachings of the
Lutheran
Church
to the members of his parish and to catechumens who, in varying
degrees, have assimilated the assumptions of an age increasing
hostile to the Christian Faith?
How is a pastor to do this, especially since he also has
assimilated some of those assumptions?
I believe the
answers to these questions won’t be found in any new
discoveries or insights some scholar or ecclesiastical bureaucrat
might think he has attained. After nearly 2,000 years of Church
history I seriously doubt that many such discoveries are lying
around waiting to be uncovered.
No, the answers to these questions are to be
rediscovered, by every generation, in a return to the sources
from which the
Lutheran
Church
was engendered: The Word of God, and the confessional writings
found in the Book of Concord.
Some seven years
ago I was ordained a pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri
Synod. During to the
Rite of Ordination in which I was publicly set apart for the
pastoral ministry, I stated my belief that our Lutheran
Confessions are “a true exposition of the Word of God and a
correct exhibition of the doctrine of the
Evangelical
Lutheran
Church
.” What a radical
statement that is! The
confessional documents to which we Lutheran pastors have
unconditionally subscribed correctly explain and expound the
Bible as the Word of God? How
politically incorrect can you get?
But if I did not believe that, I could not with good
conscience continue to be a pastor in the Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod.
Not only do I
believe in the unique divine authority of the Scriptures, and
the Book of Concord as a correct exposition of those Scriptures
– I also believe that the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions
are perennially fresh and life-giving no matter what age we find
ourselves in. That’s
because they both preach and teach clearly the chief article of
the Christian Faith – the one from which all the other
articles flow: the sinner’s justification by grace, through
faith, for the sake of Jesus Christ.
It was true when the Confessions were written.
It’s true today. It
will still be true 500 years from now, should our Lord delay His
return that long. No
matter the age we live in, it’s still true.
The Confessions preach Christ our righteousness as the
grounds of our justification because that’s exactly what the
Bible preaches.
I.
KNOWING THE TIMES, PART 1
Now if you
belong to a congregation of the Southeastern District of the
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, you’re probably familiar with
the term, “The New Missionary Age.”
In the twenty-six months I’ve served as pastor here at
Mt. Olive, I’ve heard and read that term more times than I
could begin to count. I understand that former Southeastern
District President, the Rev. Dr. Arthur Scherer, is the one who
coined this phrase. He
did so, I believe, to designate the present day of opportunity
for outreach that the Lord of the Church has given to us in the
District. President
Scherer rightly wanted to awaken the congregations of our
District to the mission field that lay just outside their doors,
ripe for the harvest. A
wave of immigrants, flowing into our District in unprecedented
numbers, has indeed provided a God-given opportunity for mission
not merely overseas, but right here in our own backyard.
President Scherer believed that we as a Church should be
aware of this and should make a concerted effort to extend the
Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ to those who’ve
never known that love.
The term “New
Missionary Age,” therefore, is intended to highlight the
possibilities for outreach the Lord of the Church is granting to
us in the Southeastern District.
This is a highly commendable emphasis, without question.
To those coming into our country from historically
non-Christian cultures, the Church should faithfully present the
saving message of Christ crucified and resurrected; the Church
should in obedience seek to fulfill her mission of proclaiming
the Gospel to all people. In
the book of Revelation is described the great multitude of the
redeemed from every nation, tribe, people and language who will
one day worship before the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev.
7.3). Some of that
innumerable, ethnically diverse throng will have lived their
earthly lives within the geographical region encompassing our
Southeastern District. Some
of them will have been brought into the Holy Christian Church
through the mission efforts of the parishes and people of our
District. I have only to direct your attention to the Hmong
Lutheran Mission across the road to drive that point home.
Without a doubt,
the Church is called to go into all the world with the saving
message that by our Lord’s holy life, Passion, death, burial,
resurrection and ascension, God has forever defeated the
infernal triumvirate of sin, death and devil arrayed against our
human race. Faithful
to this calling, the Church goes forth into all the world,
making disciples of all nations by baptizing in the Name of the
Triune God and teaching her converts to observe all things which
our Lord has commanded. If
in the providence of our Lord “all the world” comes to us
here in the Southeastern District, then thanks be to God!
The term “New Missionary Age” therefore serves as a
salutary reminder that the message of Jesus Christ is for people
of every nation, tribe, people and language.
It is not to be kept to ourselves as our own private
little treasure.
So far so good.
My concern, however, is with the implications some draw
from this concept of the New Missionary Age.
Perhaps I’m mistaken here, but I sometimes get the
impression that the New Missionary Age is viewed as an age
unlike any other. I
don’t believe that.
Nor do I believe that, because of the arrival of this New
Missionary Age, wholesale new methods and models for outreach
must be developed and implemented if we as a Church are to be
effective in ministry. Finally,
I don’t believe that for the sake of outreach we should
surrender our precious, God-given Lutheran distinctives in
doctrine, liturgy, or practice.
But that seems
to be what some at District and Synodical levels are saying.
That seems to be what is occurring in not a few of our
LC-MS parishes. Now
please pardon any gross over-simplifications here.
As stated earlier, I’m relatively new in the District.
I’ve only been here twenty-six months, and because of
my status as a neophyte I may have missed the deeper shades of
meaning lying behind official under-standing of what the New
Missionary Age is. But
please lend an ear to my concerns.
Now there’s no
question that times have changed – daily advances in
technology prove that. Case
in point: Twenty years ago I would have pounded out this paper
on a Smith Corona portable rather than a Compaq laptop.
Twenty years ago information about this conference would
not have been posted on the World Wide Web, and I wouldn’t
have communicated with some of you about this conference through
e-mail. So,
certainly in that sense – times have changed.
I defy anyone to deny it.
But here, I
believe, is where the potential for trouble lies.
Observation does indicate
that the times have changed in profound ways. We aren’t
talking merely about advances in communication technologies.
There’s much, much more involved – multiculturalism,
a mania for pluralism, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, with
its accompanying propensity for terrorism.
The times have changed radically over the past two or
three decades, highlighted stunningly by the events of 9/11 two
years ago.
But do these
changes necessitate similar changes in the Church’s mission?
Do they require, for example, that we also change our
Lutheran understanding of the role and function of the pastoral
office in the life of the Church?
Before proceeding with my overview of the changes that
have occurred in our culture, I want to take a detour.
I want to consider how the changes in our society
challenge the Lutheran doctrine of the pastoral office.
I do this because there are those within the
Lutheran
Church
who believe that if the times have changed, then the way the
Church brings the Gospel to the unbeliever should change as
well. The role of
the pastor must likewise evolve into something it was not. The
unique character and demands of a new missionary age, some would
argue, justify these changes.
II.
THE NATURE OF THE PASTORAL OFFICE
To say that such
changes are necessary for the continued viability of the Church
strikes at the heart of our biblical, confessional
understanding of three things: First, the nature of the Gospel;
second, how the benefits of the Gospel are delivered to poor,
miserable sinners; and third, the purpose and function of the
pastoral office. Now
I want to emphasize that new models of what it means to be
church, and the pastor’s place in that church, are definitely
being entertained today – not merely among laity, but among
pastors themselves and District and Synodical officials.
I, however,
would contend that you cannot discuss these matters in
isolation, as though they had no bearing upon ecclesiastical
order and the very nature of the Gospel. “Faith comes by
hearing,” the Scripture says, “and hearing through the Word
of Christ” (Rom. 10.17). That
saving Word of Christ, we Lutherans believe, is applied to us in
preaching and teaching, in Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and
the Holy Supper. We
sinners aren’t manipulated into the Faith by new methods or by
appealing to our so-called felt needs. As the Catechism reminds
us, the Holy Spirit, apart from human reason or strength, calls,
gathers, enlightens and sanctifies believers in Christ and keeps
them, by grace, with our Savior in the true Christian Faith.
Our
understanding of the centrality of the Means of Grace in all
this is one of the things that separate us Lutherans from the
enthusiasts, who believe that the Holy Spirit operates apart
from means. For the
Lutheran, outreach with the Gospel will necessarily involve the
Means of Grace at least somewhere along the line.
Christian outreach would, therefore, ordinarily at some
point involve pastors, who for the sake of the congregations
they serve are stewards of the Means of Grace. Stated simply,
apart from those Means – preaching, teaching, baptizing,
administering the Sacrament – there’s no Jesus, no faith, no
forgiveness, no salvation.
Article V of the
Augsburg Confession has bound faith in Christ and His saving
work to the pastoral ministry of Word and Sacrament. Under the
heading “The Office of the Ministry” Philip Melanchthon
wrote: “To obtain such faith God instituted the office of the
ministry, that is, provided the Gospel and the Sacraments.
Through these, as through means, he gives the Holy
Spirit, who works faith, when and where he pleases, in those who
hear the Gospel” (Tappert).
I believe, therefore, that you could legitimately say
that in the public assembly, faith comes through the pastoral
office – an office given by Christ to the congregation,
and exercised on the congregation’s behalf through the
called and ordained servant of the Word.
According to the
Augustana, Article XIV: “It is taught among us that nobody
should publicly teach or preach or administer the sacraments in
the church without a regular call” (Tappert).
Now the purpose of this article is not to create a
special privileged class of sacerdotalists in the Church, namely
the Clergy. Neither
does this article diminish in any way the God-given calling of
the laity as members of the priesthood of all believers, who in
their daily vocations speak the Word of God to others.
Article XIV, rather, is designed, to ensure continuity of
the pure Means of Grace throughout all generations of the Church
until our Lord’s return. According
to 1 Corinthians 4.1, the pastor is simply a servant of Christ
and a steward of the mysteries of God – that is, the Means of
Grace -- on behalf of the congregation he serves. He does this,
not for himself, but for the flock entrusted to his care.
That’s what the divine call, extended through the
congregation, is all about.
Of you laity I
would ask the question: Does your pastor have a regular call?
Then be assured that you have God’s man, called through
your congregation, to proclaim Christ to you in the public
assembly, to baptize your little ones, to teach and correct you,
to absolve your sins and to administer the Sacrament of
Christ’s Body and Blood to you. He may dress funny.
He may have eccentricities that sometimes get on your
nerves. He may not
be the friendliest fellow in the world.
But nonetheless, in the public ministry
entrusted to this man through your congregation’s call,
Christ is at work in your midst, proclaiming His salvation,
rebuking and forgiving sins, instructing and edifying the
faithful, and preparing the people of your parish for the
Lord’s reappearing. In
speaking of the necessity of the regular call, Article XIV of
the Augsburg Confession establishes all this.
Again, this does not create a special class of little
sacerdotalist Hitlers. Nor
does it make the laity subservient to the whims and agenda of
the pastor. Article XIV of the Augustana merely recognizes that
this is how Christ has set up His Church
-- so that His Means of Grace delivering the benefits of
the Gospel could be made available in a decent and orderly way
to His people. And
this is His design for the Church in every age – even a New
Missionary Age.
That’s why
changes in the culture should not dictate changes in the way the
Church brings the Gospel to those outside the Faith.
That’s why we should not redefine the nature and
function of the pastoral office with every turn of the calendar.
The temptation to buy into this notion that you have to change
the office of the ministry to keep pace with changing times is a
challenge every Lutheran pastor faces.
The
understanding of the pastoral office with which we Lutherans
have operated for almost half-a-millennium does not need to be
modified or discarded for the sake of mission.
To do so would be disastrous. Yes, I know the arguments:
What was effective for people in the years when Johann
Gutenberg’s invention of movable type was cutting edge
communication technology, isn’t necessarily effective today.
We need something more appealing to a culture in
transition rather than sticking to our traditional Lutheran
emphases of Law and Gospel, Word and Sacrament.
But I believe those arguments don’t stand up when we
understand the purpose and nature of the pastoral office.
Make no mistake:
Different models of pastoral ministry are being proposed today.
We have the pastor functioning as CEO of the
congregation. Kind
of knocks in the head Walther’s insights into the authority of
the Christian congregation, doesn’t it?
Then there’s the pastor as the “equipper of the
saints.” This
possesses some biblical basis, to be sure, but in practice it
too often reduces the pastor to the yelling leader of a pep
rally, stirring up the team to go out and win one for Jesus.
We have the pastor serving as a “minister to the
ministers.” Forget
Word and Sacrament; this model suggests that the real work of
ministry is done by the laity.
The pastor merely soothes their hurts and sends them back
into the fray once healing is accomplished.
Other models of pastoral ministry are the pastor as
friend, the pastor as therapist, the pastor as – well, you get
the picture.
I would suggest
that a good, biblical and Lutheran image of the pastoral office
is the pastor as garbage collector.
He’s not really the garbage collector, though.
Jesus is. The pastor merely tells you what to do with the
garbage of your sin, and through his ministry of Word and
Sacrament Jesus gathers that sin up and buries it in the
landfill of His righteousness, mercy, love and forgiveness.
That’s an understanding of the pastoral office we
Lutherans don’t want to surrender, even amidst the profound
changes that have occurred in our society in recent decades.
Article IV of the “Apology to the Augsburg
Confession” tells us that “the highest worship in the Gospel
is the desire to receive forgiveness of sins, grace and
righteousness” (Tappert, Art. IV, 310).
And that is precisely what the pastor is there for.
Even in a New Missionary Age.
III.
KNOWING THE TIMES, PART 2
So yes, the times have changed.
But I contend that they can never change so drastically
that we need to redefine Church and Ministry.
Certainly, the people pastors are called to bring the
holy Gospel to haven’t changed – not in any real sense of
the word. Some of
them may come in different colors and from different cultures;
they may be subject to different temptations then their
forebears were. But
they’re still sinners, just as pastors are.
The Old Adam resident in all of us basically comes in
just one model, and any options are merely cosmetic.
He still must be slain and buried in Baptism, and any
time he so much as sticks his nose out of the grave must be
dispatched again with the shotgun blast of God’s Law.
The New Man in Christ must continually arise to live
before God in righteousness and purity forever. And this is best
accomplished by our traditional Lutheran emphases of Law and
Gospel, Word and Sacrament.
Even in an age
of cultural diversity, sinful human beings still need Baptism,
still need to have their sins absolved, still need solid
biblical preaching and catechesis, still need the Sacrament of
the Altar. This side
of the parousia, the Second Coming, those needs will forever
remain unchanged. And
where by God’s grace those needs are recognized, there the
historic, orthodox
Lutheran
Church
– again by God’s grace – can fill the void as no other.
Our reformation watchwords of “Scripture alone, grace
alone, faith alone, for Christ’s sake alone” are just as
pertinent today as they were in Luther’s day, or dare I say,
in the multi-cultural days of St. Peter and
St. Paul
. The temptation to
discard these Reformation emphases because they’re foreign to
our post-modern age is another challenge the parish pastor
faces.
People and their deepest, truest needs have not changed
one little bit. “All
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3.23,
ESV) – the last time I checked, that statement had not been
stricken from the pages of the Bible.
Forgiveness of sins, redemption, life eternal conveyed by
God’s grace through the Gospel of Christ crucified and
resurrected are what everyone really needs.
People may take it lightly.
They may not recognize it at all.
They may violently disbelieve it.
But they still need it – just as they have ever since
our father Adam transgressed the Lord God’s command and
plunged our race into a catastrophe of cosmic proportions.
However, even
though in essence people are unchanged, in one very real sense
our times have changed.
Not that they have evolved into something new and
hitherto unseen in human history, as some might suggest. In
my opinion, the change that has occurred has been a reversion.
It’s as though the tape has rewound and we’ve gone
back eighteen- or nineteen-hundred years to an era that in
outlook, morals, and religious belief is essentially pagan.
In this regard we today have more in common with the
first several generations of Christians than we do with our
grandparents. Indeed,
as someone of no small reputation within our Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod has said, it’s not our grandfather’s
church anymore. It’s
not our grandfather’s world!
The wheel has turned, and we’re right back where we
began. That’s why
I would contend that the New Missionary Age is in reality
nothing other than the old missionary age.
About eighteen hundred years old, to be exact. Welcome to
the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D
And what’s the
climate like here? Gone
are the old absolutes, the ancient verities that people clung to
for support in difficult times.
Our contemporary culture has largely discarded its
so-called Judeo-Christian heritage.
We have cut ourselves loose from those truths that
anchored our ancestors and gave them support and comfort when
life turned sour. Adrift
on a sea of relativism, without any pole star to steer by,
people are searching desperately for something to sustain them,
something solid to lean upon, something to nourish their souls
in an age of mass-entertainment that seems to plunge to ever new
depths of depravity. The
pillars of Christendom have crumbled. We are between ages, and
what rough beast is slouching toward
Bethlehem
waiting to be born remains to be seen.
We are living in
an age of transition – just as did our fathers and mothers in
the early Church. True,
they didn’t illustrate their lectures with Power Point, nor
did they carry around Palm Pilots and cell phones.
But like us, they lived out their holy Faith in a culture
that was breaking down. They
were forced to confront and challenge a formidable array of
heresies, mysticisms, and popular alternate routes to the
sacred. They were
forced to contend with wide-spread laxity of morals, and an
“anything-goes” attitude toward human sexuality. They
pursued their vocations in a society that at best was
indifferent to the Christian Faith, and at worst inimical to it.
Facing the real possibility of martyrdom, they were
tempted to compromise, to deny, and to apostatize.
In the face of these challenges, the Christian Faith
should have quickly gone belly-up, apart from the gracious
purposes of God.
But it didn’t.
Through the wisdom and perseverance granted by the Triune God,
the Church found herself equal to these challenges. As the
mission of the Church carried her deeper and deeper into the
gentile world, she had to adapt, to be sure.
She found it necessary to develop a rigorous catechesis
to ground in the Faith gentiles who were completely ignorant of
the Scriptures. No
quickie membership classes for the early Church.
After all, how could new converts possibly follow
Jude’s directive of contending for the Faith once for all
delivered to the saints if they had only a foggy notion of what
the Faith was all about? Correct
doctrine and practice were not optional for these early
Christians. They
were essential if the Faith was to survive.
The more things
change, the more they stay the same.
We aren’t talking about
challenges unique to the early Church here.
We’re talking about the challenges the Church and her
pastors face today, in this New Missionary Age.
It isn’t merely a matter of reaching people of
different ethnic backgrounds with the Gospel.
It’s a matter of passing along intact, to all people,
the fullness of the holy Christian Faith.
It’s a matter of equipping the saints so that they can
contend for the Faith, so they can speak the Word of Life to
others, so that they will know to look to the Means of Grace for
the forgiveness that is foundational to the Church’s life in
Christ, so they will know how to bear the Cross, how to live and
how to die. This
instruction is not done quickly.
To do it quickly is to do it irresponsibly. Instruction
in the Christian Faith will require time, faith, love,
dedication, patience, repetition, and endurance on the part of
the pastor and any catechist who assists him.
It will require a lifetime.
There is no magic bullet.
There are no easy steps to bring it about.
In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “To the teaching
and to the testimony!” (Is.
8.20a). That’s
where the faithful parish pastor has always directed His flock,
to the teaching and testimony of the Word of God.
He must continue to do so, especially in a New Missionary
Age.
CONCLUSION
In his Preface
to the Small Catechism, Martin Luther described the sad
conditions prevailing in the Church at the dawn of the
Reformation. He saw
those conditions as “deplorable” and “miserable”.
Luther writes:
How pitiable, so
help me God, were the things I saw: the common man, especially
in the villages, knows practically nothing of the Christian
doctrine, and many of the pastors are almost entirely
incompetent and unable to teach.
Yet all the people are supposed to be Christians, have
been baptized, and receive the Holy Sacrament even though they
do not know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or the Ten
Commandments and live like poor animals of the barnyard and
pigpen (Luther’s Small
Catechism with Explanation, pp. 243-244).
And how did Luther master these challenges?
The same way a parish pastor will address the challenges
he faces today. Faithful,
in-depth catechesis. (Oh,
by the way, in case you didn’t know, Luther’s Small and
Large Catechisms are wonderful resources for this.
Even in a New Missionary Age.)
The faithful pastor will strive to do what Luther did:
immerse his people in God’s Word and the Good News of Jesus
Christ through biblical, Law-and-Gospel preaching. He will
strive for solid liturgical practice that doesn’t exist to
entertain but to serve as the setting highlighting the twin
jewels of Word and Sacrament. He will take the stewardship of
the mysteries of God with utmost serious-ness as befits the Holy
Things that preaching, Baptism, Absolution and the Sacrament of
the Altar are. He
will teach the flock that by grace, through faith, they are the
redeemed children of the Triune God and have a high calling as
priests in His kingdom.
And finally, he will not compromise doctrine or practice
for the sake of outreach.
“Who is sufficient for these things?”
St. Paul
asks in 2nd Corinthians 2.16.
And the faithful parish pastor, ever-aware of his own
weakness, his fallen nature, his tendency to laziness, and the
ever-present temptation to soft-peddle God’s message of Law
and Gospel, will answer, “Not I, but Christ.
He who conquered sin, death and hell for our fallen race
is alone sufficient.”
And that’s the real challenge we parish pastors finally
must face as we seek to fulfill the responsibilities of our
calling: trusting in the sufficiency of Christ.
As St. Paul writes, “Not that we are sufficient in
ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our
sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be
ministers of a new covenant” (2 Cor. 3.5-6a, ESV).
That sufficiency from God equips us all, pastors and
laity alike, to face the challenges of our calling in Christ –
even in a New Missionary Age.
Allow me to conclude on this eve of Reformation Sunday
with Luther’s closing words from the preface to the Small
Catechism. They are
fitting words for us pastors to hear as we seek, under God’s
grace in Christ, to fulfill the responsibilities and meet the
challenges of our holy office:
So look to it,
you pastors and preachers. Our
ministry today is something else than it was under the pope.
It has become a serious and saving responsibility.
Consequently it now involves much more trouble and labor,
danger and trial, and in addition it brings you little of the
world’s gratitude and rewards.
But Christ Himself will be our reward if we labor
faithfully. The
Father of all grace help us to do just that.
To Him be praise and thanks through Christ our Lord.
Amen (Luther’s
Small Catechism with Explanation, p. 248).
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In Nomine Patris. . .
