Wednesday, January 30, 2008

On Lent

On Lent
by Pastor Kingsbury

Because of the unfortunate tendencies and practices of Roman Catholicism, Lent can be perceived as a denial of the Gospel instead of an embrace of it. This season in the Church year is widely thought of as a time in which to take on oneself the sufferings of Christ by giving something up, such as chocolate. When one does so, our Savior’s work on our behalf is simultaneously regarded as incomplete and trivialized.
Instead, Lent is a forty-day period of preparation for Easter, at which time we celebrate Jesus Christ’s Resurrection and God’s public declaration of his completed work for his people. One prepares for this Good News by repentance, putting off the sins which hinder and striving to live righteously in dependence on the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, the Gospel readings for Lent this year bring the Gospel into clear focus.

  Matthew 4:1-11: Jesus is tempted by and defeats Satan.
  John 3:1-17: God’s love for the world is shown by sending his Son to redeem.
  John 4:5-42: Jesus presents himself as Messiah to the Samaritan woman.
  John 9:1-41: Jesus heals the man born blind.
  John 11:1-45: Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

Lent (the name comes from the old Saxon word for “spring”) actually begins forty-six days before Easter because it contains six Sundays; since the Lord’s Day celebrates Christ’s resurrection and thus is a feast day on which fasting or other acts of repentance are inappropriate, other days must be added. Throughout Scripture, the Lord uses forty units of time to test people. Mankind was tested for forty days in the Noahic flood; Israel was tested for forty years in the desert. These tests were failed, but Jesus passed the forty-day test he endured at the beginning of his ministry. Because he passed that test for us, we are not tested by God. Instead, we seek to more fully appreciate and lay hold of Christ’s work for us by putting off our sins and living for his glory.
Lent, then, is most especially not a “Sunday-only” season of the Church year. Throughout its weeks, take special care to examine your life and “lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2) Amen.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Lord's Day January 27, 2008

  This Sunday I'll preach on Matthew 4:17-25 ("They Followed Him") at 11 a.m. at Park Hill Presbyterian Church, and also at 4 p.m. at Emmanuel American Reformed Church in Westminster, CO.  At 5 p.m. at Park Hill, Pastor Boersma of Emmanuel will preach on Exodus 28-29 ("Jesus Brings the Church before God in Full Color").

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

How about an Evening Service, then?

  The Modern Reformation website has posted a story, reported by Lilly Fowler of the Religious News Service, on how many evangelical congregations are cancelling plans for Super Bowl parties on Lord's Day February 3 because the National Football League, for copyright reasons, prohibits the game being viewed on screens larger than 55 inches. (http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=blog_view&var1=ViewInd&var2=1&var3=246)
  
  I suppose it's too much to hope they'll be holding worship services instead?

Monday, January 21, 2008

In Case of Rapture, Punctuation Shall Be Discarded

  Driving home the other day, I was stuck in traffic behind a car whose license plate holder read "IN CASE OF RAPTURE CARS YOURS".  (For you hardcore presbyterians utterly unfamiliar with dispensationalism, the "Rapture" is supposedly when Christians will all suddenly disappear to go be with Jesus, resulting in sundry piles of clothing, vehicles careening out of control, and severely understaffed customer-support call centers.  Thus, given what I experience in a typical day in a large city, it may have already occurred.)
  It appears that, for space considerations, a significant portion of the intended sentence was ellided;  one is supposed to read the second part of the sentence as "this car is yours."  Such an ellision is perfectly acceptable, grammatically speaking.  What is not acceptable is the actual sentence's absolute omission of punctuation.  The opening clause should be separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma;  still worse, the abbreviation of "car is" to "car's" requires an apostrophe.  Since traffic wasn't moving, I was able to analyze and reconstruct this grammatical monstrosity at my leisure.  Had it not been, I likely would have rear-ended the vehicle which bore it, and would have had good grounds to hold its driver at fault for the collision.
  In our day and age, I suppose it's too much to expect every car-owner to remember punctuation is an essential element of our language when mounting a license plate.  What makes me weep, however, is the realization this license plate holder had to have been designed and printed by someone before it was bought by the hapless driver ahead of me in traffic.  The language barbarians control the means of print production.  What hope, then, does English have? 

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Lord's Day January 20, 2008

This Sunday at Park Hill Presbyterian Church I'll be preaching on Matthew 3:13-17 ("Praise Father, Son, & Holy Ghost") at the 11 a.m. service, and on Luke 18:15-17 ("To Whom?") at the 5 p.m. service.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Lord's Day January 13, 2008

This Sunday at Park Hill Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Dr. C.N. Willborn will preach on Acts 20:28-32 ("He Gave the Church a Gift") in the morning service, and Acts 6:1-7 ("A Temporal Gift for All Times") in the afternoon.

Friday, January 4, 2008

All Ecclesiology Is Local

(This essay was originally written for the OPC’s Ordained Servant, and so is geared primarily toward elders;  however, I think it might be of interest to a broader audience.)

I pastor an OPC Church in Denver, Colorado. In the metropolitan area, we have a fair representation of most of the confessionally reformed alphabet soup: URC, C&ARC, PCA, RPCNA, and OPC (not to mention numerous EPC and CRC works). Our relationships are cordial, but contact informal and infrequent. We don’t talk much across the denominations, and we certainly never bring up problems within our particular congregations.
As elders, our perspective can become quite restricted. We are in the same congregation, week in and week out, and so have little interest in what’s going on elsewhere, particularly in another denomination. Our people, by and large, do not share that perspective. If they have a principial ecclesiastical commitment, it is to being reformed, not to being OPC, PCA, or URC. We who are ordained may see the ecclesiastical differences as huge, but all our people see is Calvinism.
Thus, they have no problem moving from one denomination to another at will. There’s certainly a fairly free traffic between the PCA and OPC around the country, even amongst ministers. On a local level, the same can be seen between any two given confessionally reformed congregations. If someone isn’t happy with the way things are going at their OPC Church, they just visit, and eventually join, the URC across town.
This creates a pastoral problem. Our Churches are not accountable to each other; no formal mechanism for checking up on sheep who wander across denominational boundaries exists. You know how it goes: a family is less frequent in their attendance, then you get a letter from a nearby consistry requesting a transfer of membership. You send off the letter, but you’ve never discussed this family with their pastor or elders. The best chance for these conversations is the “professional courtesy” which exists between pastors. However, the pressure on pastors to fatten the rolls creates a powerful disincentive against digging into an attractive young family’s ecclesiastical past. From the other side, who wants to look like a spurned lover in front of other elders by trying to pursue fleeing sheep? These issues are exacerbated by denominational divisions. How often do you quash latent guilt over sheep-stealing by comforting yourself with the conviction that your denomination is better than their old one?
No doubt, you are familiar with the result. It happens in Denver, and it happens across the country in most communities with more than one reformed Church. Because people can so easily drift in and out of our congregations, they get into the habit of leaving whenever things become unpleasant. Maybe they get happy feet because the new pastor in town sounds more interesting than the man they’ve been listening to for the last five years. Or perhaps they’re tired of trying to browbeat the congregation into their way of thinking. Let’s be honest: folks almost never have an entirely “innocent” reason to transfer their membership when they’re not also changing their home address. There’s a problem, and most of the time, it’s the same problem that caused them to leave their last Church and join yours.
And so we end up with de facto Church splits as congregants migrate across town. Sure, we’re all members of NAPARC, but we view those people with suspicion. They were obnoxious when they were with us, and if that congregation welcomed them, then everyone there must be equally suspect. Outwardly, we send fraternal delegates to each other’s presbytery meetings, but inwardly consider our confessionally reformed brethren less orthodox than ourselves.
Even where these failures of charity don’t occur, a fundamental and grievous problem remains: souls are not cared for. The serious Spiritual problems which drive people to leave are not addressed by either the dismissing or receiving Church. Oftentimes, we let the sheep go with a sigh of relief, thinking, “If those elders want to deal with this family, then they’re welcome to them!” Our zeal for their sanctification takes second place to our desire for calm session meetings.
In order to properly care for reformed Christians in our city, pastors and sessions must communicate openly across denominational lines. We must help one another to minister. When grumblers find no safe harbor, they may finally try to solve their problems instead of running from them. Such cooperation has positive implications as well: when pastors are not in competition, they can speak charitably about one another. I’ve even gone so far as to advise a visitor to our congregation to consider the American Reformed Church which meets much closer to his home. Despite our organizational divisions, we must pastor as though we were all part of one denomination, as though we were obliged to care for the sheep of other sessions as our own.
Most reading this essay will agree this is the way things ought to be. If so, then consider: why are we organizationally divided when we can whole-heartedly support the ministries of other denominations? Moreover, why do we allow division to continue when we all acknowledge it hinders pastoral care? We ought to be talking about reformed ecumenicism as pastors, yet one almost never hears these concerns raised. Instead, we focus on relatively minute differences in polity or confessional standard, and never ask how we can better minister to our people.
The arguments for remaining divided have a certain appeal when we consider our Churches as national entities. However, ministry takes place locally, and broader concerns over maintenance of tradition are prima facie secondary to our pastoral charge. If we act as one locally, then we should be united nationally.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Lord's Day January 6, 2008 (Epiphany)

This Sunday I'll be preaching on Matthew 2:1-12 ("Come, Worship the King") at 11 a.m., and Luke 18:9-14 ("Me, a Sinner") at 5 p.m.