by Michiana Covenant | May 19, 2013 | Pastoral Notes, Worship
Carl Trueman opens a recent article on worship with the following line:
“The problem with much Christian worship in the contemporary world, Catholic and Protestant alike, is not that it is too entertaining but that it is not entertaining enough. ”
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/05/tragic-worship
What is missing? Tragedy. “Tragedy as a form of art and of entertainment highlighted death, and death is central to true Christian worship. The most basic liturgical elements of the faith, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, speak of death, of burial, of a covenant made in blood, of a body broken. Even the cry “Jesus is Lord!” assumes an understanding of lordship very different than Caesar’s. Christ’s lordship is established by his sacrifice upon the cross, Caesar’s by power.”
I’ll let you read the article for yourselves — but I will add here his conclusion:
“Bonhoeffer once asked, “Why did it come about that the cinema really is often more interesting, more exciting, more human and gripping than the church?” Why, indeed. Maybe the situation is even worse than I have described; perhaps the churches are even more trivial than the entertainment industry. After all, in popular entertainment one does occasionally find the tragic clearly articulated, as in the movies of a Coppola or a Scorsese.”
by Michiana Covenant | May 12, 2013 | Marriage, Pastoral Notes
John Milbank always has interesting things to say on ethics and religion. Here is his latest on the gay marriage discussion in Britain.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/04/23/3743531.htm
He suggests that the push for gay marriage is really “a strategic move in the modern state’s drive to assume direct control over the reproduction of the population, bypassing our interpersonal encounters. This is not about natural justice, but the desire on the part of biopolitical tyranny to destroy marriage and the family as the most fundamental mediating social institution.”
He argues that “Heterosexual exchange and reproduction has always been the very “grammar” of social relating as such. The abandonment of this grammar would thus imply a society no longer primarily constituted by extended kinship, but rather by state control and merely monetary exchange and reproduction.”
He concludes that “a gay relationship cannot qualify as a marriage in terms of its orientation to having children, because the link between an interpersonal and a natural act is entirely crucial to the definition and character of marriage.”
by Michiana Covenant | May 11, 2013 | Breckinridge, MCPC
The Cross of Christ and the Kingdom of Christ are at the heart of the Christian faith and life.
Jesus, like John the Baptist, came proclaiming, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17) Likewise, Paul said to the Corinthians, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2)
“The Cross and Kingdom of Jesus Christ” was one of the first titles written by Robert Jefferson Breckinridge (1800-1871). It consisted of two sermons, the first, “The Cross of Christ,” was his sermon for licensure in the Presbytery of West Lexington in April of 1832. The second, “The Kingdom of Christ,” was his sermon for ordination in the Presbytery of Baltimore in November of 1832.
I have chosen this as the title for my blog because I think Breckinridge was right: the Cross and the Kingdom of Christ should be at the heart of every pastor’s ministry — indeed, at the heart of every Christian’s life.
[hr]
Cross
The cross, which is the focus of this design and the power of the new covenant, give our viewer a familiar symbol of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection.
Broken bread
In the new testament the worship of the early church is at times called “gathering together to break bread” (Acts 20:7), which included both the preaching of the word and the celebration of the covenant meal.
[hr]
Upside down kingdom
The crown, a symbol of worldly kingdoms, is turned upside down, thus referencing the upside down kingdom of our LORD.
Crown of Thorns
Our King wore a crown of thorns, representing his sacrifice and our call to die to self and live unto Christ.
Divided parts
Like the animal pieces and the broken bread, the LORD’S covenant is visualized by divided parts.
Upside down kingdom and Crown of Thorns
Separating the crown of thorns from the upside down crown represents the tension we feel living in this kingdom but looking towards the one to come.
[hr]
Mosaic
Our community aims to be all things to all people. The mosaic visualizes the bringing together of varied shapes, colors and sizes. We are one in brokenness. Our worship participates together with the church of all ages.
Out and up
This design moves out and up, symbolizing the resurrection of our Lord.
Texture
The texture represents the approachable, friendly and real nature of our church.
[hr]
I will conclude by quoting from Breckinridge’s sermons — which are as appropriate today as they were in 1832:
“Alas! How long has the universal dominion of this kingdom of righteousness been delayed; and what revolutions are yet to occur in all human affairs before this throne of glory shall be established in the affections of all the creatures of God! Generation sweeps after generation, all toiling as vigorously for the poor baubles of this world, as if the experience of every one did not teach all the rest that they perished in the using.” (35)
“And we, in our turn, and the dying worms around us…rush forward in the pursuit of the worthless vanities which surround us, with a zeal which seems to burn the more intensely, as the objects on which it is wasted, are valueless or hurtful in the judgment of the Most High.” (35-36)
Breckinridge concludes by stating well what we wish to remember in our day:
“Oh! that the day were come when every disciple of Jesus Christ would habitually remember that every impenitent sinner is indeed his brother according to the flesh, and has immeasurably higher claims on him than he has on God; and that every fellow disciple is a member of the same household of faith, and while he is a joint heir of the same inheritance in heaven, sustains also a joint obligation to labour for the conversion of the same ruined world. Then indeed would the light of Zion have risen upon her; then would she arise and shine.” (58)
by Michiana Covenant | Apr 14, 2013 | Hermeneutics, Pastoral Notes, Patristics, Westminster Shorter Catechism
“Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.” (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 1.36.40)
If your interpretation of scripture does not result in love of God and love of neighbor, then you have not understood scripture correctly. Augustine is arguing that love is our primary hermeneutic. That may sound odd at first — but when you consider what Jesus says in Matthew 22:34-40, you are forced to agree with Augustine!
This Sunday we will be looking at the relationship between the moral law and the Ten Commandments.
Last Sunday we saw from Romans 1-2 how Paul tells us that the moral law includes two things:
1) everyone knows who God is — and that they are supposed to worship him;
2) everyone knows what God requires — and that disobedience deserves death.
Not surprisingly, Jesus says that the two great commandments of the law covers the same ground:
1) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength
2) Love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus says, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” The Law includes the whole of the first five books of Moses. The Prophets include all the historical books. So when Jesus says that the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands, he is saying that the whole Old Testament can only be rightly interpreted by seeing what it means to love God and neighbor. If your reading of scripture does not bring you to love God and neighbor, then you need to keep reading until you get there!
by Michiana Covenant | Apr 7, 2013 | Pastoral Notes, Westminster Shorter Catechism
This week we will begin the second part of our catechetical sermon series. In part one (questions 1-38), we focused on “what man is to believe concerning God”; now in part two (questions 39-107), we will focus on “what duty God requires of man.”
We start with the law. This week we’ll think about the moral law — what does God require of everyone?
Then we’ll turn next week to Jesus’ summary of the law — “Love the Lord your God with all your heart… and love your neighbor as yourself” — and we’ll talk about how that relates to the Ten Commandments. Why does Paul sometimes speak so highly of the law and yet also insist that we are not under law?
Then we’ll go through the Ten Commandments and look at how they apply to the Christian life.
The last part of the catechism then works through the Way of Salvation: faith and repentance, together with the word, the sacraments, and prayer.
It’s worth pointing out that the Christian life is firmly grounded in the story that was told in part 1 of the catechism. I like J. Gresham Machen’s way of putting it in Christianity and Liberalism. The modernists wanted to say that “Christianity is a life, not a doctrine.” Machen replied:
“From the beginning, Christianity was certainly a way of life; the salvation that it offered was a salvation from sin, and salvation from sin appeared not merely in a blessed hope but also in an immediate moral change. The early Christians, to the astonishment of their neighbors, lived a strange new kind of life — a life of honesty, of purity and of unselfishness. And from the Christian community all other types of life were excluded in the strictest way. From the beginning Christianity was certainly a life.
But how was the life produced? It might conceivably have been produced by exhortation. That method had often been tried in the ancient world; in the Hellenistic age there were many wandering preachers who told men how they ought to live. But such exhortation proved to be powerless. Although the ideals of the Cynic and Stoic preachers were high, these preachers never succeeded in transforming society. The strange thing about Christianity was that it adopted an entirely different method. It transformed the lives of men not by appealing to the human will, but by telling a story; not by exhortation, but by the narration of an event. It is no wonder that such a method seemed strange. Could anything be more impractical than the attempt to influence conduct by rehearsing events concerning the death of a religious teacher? That is what Paul called ‘the foolishness of the message.’ It seemed foolish to the ancient world, and it seems foolish to liberal preachers to-day. But the strange thing is that it works. The effects of it appear even in this world. Where the most eloquent exhortation fails, the simple story of an event succeeds; the lives of men are transformed by a piece of news.” (pages 47-48)
