I don’t preach very often, but I was invited to do so yesterday, at Faith Free Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. The sermon has been posted on YouTube, and can be viewed above. I fumbled the service itself a bit (the Prayer of the Day, which I couldn’t find, was actually in my suit coat pocket, mistakenly put away with other papers I thought I didn’t need. That’s how my efforts at efficiency generally work out.) But the sermon itself, I believe, went okay.
This is a sermon I’d delivered before, in a slightly different version, at the Free Lutheran Bible College chapel. I think it’s not entirely contemptible.
Last Saturday I ventured outside my comfort zone to make the perilous drive to downtown Minneapolis (one of the still unburned parts), to hear a lecture. The lecture was delivered at the Mindekirken, the Norwegian Memorial Church (there’s one in Chicago too), where they hold a Norwegian language service every Sunday. You’d think I’d go there all the time, but they’re not really my kind of Lutherans. However, they offer cultural and language programs too, and I lectured myself there once, at one of their regular lunchtime events.
One reason I don’t go there more often is that it’s an awful place to drive to. The conservative Center Of the American Experiment, based here in Minnesota, has documented the fact that our city planners have it as an explicit goal to make driving around here as inconvenient as possible – so we peasants will be compelled to use buses and the wonderful light rail they’re forcing us to pay for. I don’t think I’ve ever driven to the Mindekirken without getting turned around in some way – even with GPS.
Anyway, I arrived at last, only a few minutes late. I came in during the introduction, so I didn’t miss any of the lecture.
The lecturer was my online friend, Pastor Thomas E. Jacobson, who has recently had a book released. It boasts the surprising title, Pain In the Belly: The Haugean Witness In American Lutheranism. I’ve written about the Norwegian lay evangelist Hans Nielsen Hauge many times before in this space – just do a search in the box up above if you’re curious. We Haugeans (I still identify as a Haugean) have been called a sect, but we never separated from Lutheranism or denied its basic tenets. In Norway, the Haugeans in any parish tended to pool their money to build a “bedehus,” a prayer house. There, after having attended regular services in their local Lutheran churches, they could gather among themselves and hold “edification meetings” and other social and educational functions. Many bedehuser still exist in Norway, and continue to be used for something like their original purpose.
I haven’t read Tom’s book yet, but I thought I’d give it a plug here anyway. It focuses on the influence of the Haugeans on Lutheranism in the USA. The title comes from a comment made by a Haugean leader when the old Hauge Synod at last agreed to join a church merger. When told that a theologian in one of the more conservative groups entering new church body had said that he rejoiced that the Haugeans would now be “swallowed up” in mainstream Lutheranism, this man said he expected to cause them “a pain in the belly.”
Sadly (in my view), in the long run the new church body and its successors turned out to have a pretty iron digestion.
In any case, we sang a hymn that Hans Nielsen Hauge wrote in 1799, “With God in Grace I’m Dwelling.” He wrote it during one of his imprisonments for illegal lay preaching. I looked for a video of somebody singing it, but as far as I can tell nobody has ever been bold enough to perform the hymn and leave a permanent record. So I’ll just transcribe a couple verses here. A common tune used for it is “Passion Chorale,” the one we use for “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.”
With God in grace I’m dwelling, What harm can come to me From worldly pow’rs compelling My way thus closed to be? Though they in chains may bind me Inside this prison cell, Yet Christmas here can find me; Within my heart ʼtis well.
Our God has promised surely To free each seeking soul, Who walks in spirit purely With truth as way and goal. Whose heart the world’s deceiving Can never lead astray, Who, constantly believing, Will walk the Kingdom’s way.
God grant us now His power, And help us by His might To follow truth this hour, All guided by His light; And may we work together As one in mutual love, Forsaking self and gather At last in heav’n above.
Above, the King’s College Choir with what I must confess is the only Easter hymn I really like. And it’s not one that’s commonly sung in the churches of my own religious body.
And even this one, lovely as it (it shares a melody with the Christmas hymn, “Sing We Now of Christmas”), doesn’t entirely satisfy me. What Easter merits is a good, rousing, triumphal hymn, something on the lines of “A Mighty Fortress” or “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!” We do have triumphal Easter hymns – there’s “Up From the Grave He Arose!” and “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today!” But personally I find them kind of clunky. They don’t sing well, to my mind. I want one I can throw my head back and bellow, as I used to do at Christmas, before my singing voice gave out.
I should probably write a text myself, and see if somebody can come up with a melody.
Better yet would be if somebody wrote a rousing melody and I could put words to it.
It’s been 2,000 years. Somebody should have taken care of this by now.
Want a writing update? I’m not writing at all right now, in the strictest sense of the term. I’ve got my beta readers reading The Baldur Game, and I’m using the time for the necessary procedural stage of forgetting everything about it. So I can come back to it with my mental palate cleansed.
Therefore, I have turned to the business of book narration. Some generous friends have given me a decent microphone and other equipment, and I’ve carved out a makeshift studio space in my bedroom. I’m playing with the system – especially the Audacity recording software. I have a certain level of technophobia, not unusual, I suppose, in people of a certain age. Right now I’m just doing drills. Self-assigned exercises. The plan is that, once I’ve got The Baldur Game published, I can devote a chunk of time to getting The Year of the Warrior recorded, so I can release it on Audible. I was always considered a good copy reader when I was in radio. Maybe audio books will be my ticket to the big time.
The day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is an odd, muted day. Between a sober Friday service, in which the Christ candle leaves the sanctuary, and a joyous Sunday service, which, if we could, we would pack with sunlight as dazzling as a Hallelujah, stands a Saturday that feels like any other end of the week.
On that first Saturday before Easter, I doubt the disciples would find much comfort in the habits of the Sabbath. The light of the world was gone. “O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?” (Psalm 74:1)
Joseph of Arimathea had put Jesus’s body in his tomb Friday night, and when he woke up on Saturday, he may have wondered how the sun was still allowed rise. How could anything carry on normally with Jesus of Nazareth in the grave?
We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long. How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever? (vv. 9-10)
Holy Saturday is a good day to ask these questions and to consider the darkness that lingers, the dream that’s deferred, the disappointment that goes unresolved.
Psalm 74 is a cry to God after the destruction of the temple. “The enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!” (v. 4). That was in the 6th century B.C. Later, in A.D. 33, Jesus had left a similar hole in his disciples’ hearts. He had told the Jews, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” referring to his body, but no one understood at the time (John 2:19, 21). On that first Saturday, it felt as if the enemy had destroyed everything.
We live in brighter days comparatively, but it’s still easy to ask the Lord whether he has cast us off when our own bodies fail us or when our communities are threatened. How long will enemies war against us and our neighbors? Does our current pain mean he has rejected us?
War, crime, and countless inhumanities—no one knows how long they will last. But we do know who has broken them. “Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth” (v. 12).
O God, let us see your salvation at work with the Easter sunrise and every sunrise thereafter.
Maundy Thursday – that’s the ancient name the church has given to the Thursday before Good Friday. “Maundy” comes from the Latin word “mandatum,” meaning “command.” That’s a reference to Jesus’ words from John 13:34, during the Last Supper: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” He’d already given the Golden Rule, to treat others the way we’d like them to treat us. This was a “new,” further commandment – to go beyond that rule (which is difficult enough) and love one another (I assume He means primarily other believers, though I’m sure it’s not limited to them), in the way that He has loved us – that is, all the way through suffering and death.
After the Last Supper, they went out to the Mount of Olives, a regular retreat of theirs, where Jesus prayed among the olive trees. The video above, from Our Daily Bread Ministries, explains some of the significance of that location, in relation to the events.
I knew a pastor once who insisted that when Jesus prayed that “this cup” might pass Him by, what He actually meant was that He was afraid His physical body would give out before He’d completed the work of suffering. That He was praying to stay alive until the job was done. The pastor didn’t like the idea, apparently, that Jesus could be afraid of mere physical pain.
That never made sense to me. I believe in the Incarnation – Jesus was true God and true Man. If He didn’t instinctively recoil from the prospect of excruciating suffering, it seems to me He wouldn’t be fully Man – which our creeds affirm that He was. We’re told He was subject to all kinds of temptations just as we are. I assume that one of those temptations must be the temptation to take the easy way out.
So, I’m working away at ‘The Baldur Game,’ which I think is going to be a pretty good book. Better than pretty good, to be honest. Not that I’m unprejudiced. But this one’s a genuine epic — broad canvas, big action, historical figures, battles and obsession. The Viking book I always wanted to write, I think.
So, above, a little video of a tour of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. This is where King (Saint) Olaf, a major character in this book, was buried. I believe his bones are still in there somewhere, but nobody’s sure exactly where (supposedly they were hidden to keep them from relic smashers during the Reformation).
I visited there once, briefly. It was part of a tour in connection with one of the cruises I lectured on. By good luck, they were doing a medieval fair in the Bishop’s Palace area that day. Fun to see.
According to my mother, my great-grandfather, her mother’s father, worked on the cathedral restoration in the 1880s. He came from a farm not far away.
Have a good weekend. My book is coming — possess your souls in patience.
I watched this video discussion yesterday, and it had me ready to stand up and cheer. I don’t agree with either of these men entirely (though I respect both immensely), but the essence of their theme is exactly what I’ve had on my mind recently.
In Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis remarks that, although he was an atheist as a young man, he found — to his annoyance — that all the writers who really spoke to him believed in God. I think most of the real creativity in art today comes, to some extent, from our side. Some of the best artists don’t even know they’re on the Road yet, but they are.
Unsplash license, in collaboration with Getty Images.
[The following is the text of the sermon I delivered at the chapel at the Free Lutheran Bible College/Seminary this past Thursday,]
And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’” (Luke 8: 9-10, ESV)
Dr. Sebastian Gorka tells a story about when he was writing his book, Defeating Jihad. When he’d finished it, he showed it to his wife and asked her what she thought of it. As a writer myself, I know what he wanted to hear. He wanted her to tell him it was the most wonderful book she’d ever read, and it would certainly be a bestseller and change the world.
But she didn’t say that. What she did was ask, “Is that all there is?”
He said yes. Here were his facts and his arguments. What was there left to say?
She told him, “You need to tell a story. Nobody will listen to you if you don’t tell them a story.”
So he went back to his word processor and he wrote an introduction. In that introduction, he told the story of a young man who’d been in the underground in Communist Hungary, back in the days of the Soviet Union. He was betrayed by the famous English traitor Kim Philby, and arrested by the government. Imprisoned and tortured.
Then, in 1956, the Hungarians staged an uprising. The man was released from prison, but he knew the Communists were coming back. He made plans to escape to the west. When he left, he took a friend’s 17-year-old daughter with him, at that friend’s request. The man wanted his daughter to live in the free world. They made the very dangerous journey across the border, and ended up in England. Later he married the girl, and they were Dr. Gorka’s parents. He says that whenever people talk to him about the book, they never want to talk about the main text. They ask him about that story.
“Nobody will listen to you if you don’t tell them a story.”
If God had asked my advice, back when He was planning how He’d reveal Himself to Mankind through a book, I’d have told Him to give us a book of Systematic Theology. You start out with a chapter on Epistemology – the science of how we know things. Then I’d suggest a chapter on Trinitarian Theology. And a chapter on the Incarnation. A chapter on Soteriology, the theology of salvation. At the end, a chapter on Eschatology, the Last Things. Everything organized, like the books I used to stock up in the bookstore for seminary classes. I’d want it laid out neatly, with headings and subheadings. Charts and bullet points would be nice, too. Think of all the theological arguments we’d be spared!
But for some reason – and theologians marvel at it to this day – God did not consult me on the subject.
I’m fairly sure I’m losing my mind. You read about it often in artists’ biographies – at the end of their lives they descend into some kind of mania, growing obsessed with astrology or spiritualism or organic food or bitcoin or something. “He was always a little oversensitive, a little unstable,” friends will report. “But at the end he seemed to lose all touch with reality.”
Of course, in the cases of many of those artists, that fatal condition had something to do with syphilis or alcoholism or drugs. And last time I checked, I don’t have a problem with any of those. No, my descent into unreason can only be blamed on my home-grown neuroses and manifold phobias.
All the verbiage above constitutes my quaint method of introducing an idea I’ve conceived, one that’s just silly enough to embarrass me. But that doesn’t make it wrong.
What if the Kingdom of God is a musical comedy?
You may recall my recent theological speculations. In one line of thinking, I posited the theory that the created universe is a Story.
In another, I suggested the universe is Music.
And I asked myself, “Is there any way to fuse those two ideas into a single, Grand Unified Theory?
And then it hit me. What if the universe is a Musical Comedy? That would be perfect! (The argument works for ballet and opera too, I suppose, but I’m a little lowbrow for those metaphors.)
I’m not a major fan of the musical stage – though I once played Mordred in an amateur production of Camelot, and was, it goes without saying, brilliant. But I’ve seen a fair number of the older, classic productions – The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, etc. They can be pretty enjoyable.
But one thing that always troubled me was the moment – so common in musicals – when people are conversing in a normal way, and then somebody suddenly bursts into song, and a few moments later the whole crowd is singing and dancing in intricate choreography. (I embedded a clip of that sort above, a scene from the Marx Brothers’ film, “A Night at the Opera,” featuring Allan Jones with Harpo and Chico.)
I always had trouble with that moment. There are points – occasionally – in real life when people do burst spontaneously into song. Back when I was in a musical group, my friends and I sometimes even did it in harmony. But nobody ever started a chorus line.
But what if the problem isn’t with the musicals, but with the fallen world?
How often have you experienced a sublime moment in life, when your feelings surpassed mere words? When only song and dance would really have been sufficient to adequately celebrate what was going on?
Maybe that was what the world was meant to be like. Maybe Adam and Eve were doing taps and high kicks in the Garden of Eden (perhaps with animals backing them up, as in an old Disney film). Maybe that’s one of the things we lost at the Fall, and we enjoy musicals now because we’re longing for our unfallen state?
It’s just a theory, of course. But let me add this kicker, which I consider weighty indeed –
The American musical comedy was invented, in part, by P. G. Wodehouse. That would make Wodehouse a kind of prophet.
I was casting about (nice English idiomatic expression, that) for a subject tonight, and it crossed my mind that Owen Barfield was the longest-lived of the original Inklings, and he traveled extensively in his later years, lecturing in the US. There must be footage of him around somewhere.
And behold, the video above surfaced on YouTube. It’s the great Lewis promoter Clyde Kilby with Barfield, in a location which I take to be the Marion Wade Center in Wheaton, Illinois. They chat a bit about his friendship with Lewis, and then we get to see just the beginning of one of Barfield’s lectures.
I forget which book about the Inklings it came from, but I was interested to learn that Barfield was an enthusiastic dancer all his life (or as long as he was able, I suppose). Everyone who’s read Surprised by Joy knows he was an Anthroposophist, but he also joined the Church of England later on.
