BEING MADE NEW 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 9/8/13 Pr. Carl Wilfrid Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! In his Small Catechism Martin Luther asks what Holy Baptism means for daily life. His answer: It means that our old self, self-exalting Adam and Eve, is drowned and destroyed by daily sorrow and repentance, so that the new person can arise each day with Christ, to live with him forever. Luther understood that Christian life, life in Christ, is a daily dying with Christ and rising with Christ, a daily leaving behind sin and guilt, selfishness and all hangups, and each day receiving the gift of a new life, the gift of renewal. Luther understood that in Christ we are always being made new, always becoming a new creation. Our church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, understands itself as a church that in the love of God, by the working of the Holy Spirit, is always being made new. Twenty-five years ago in Columbus, Ohio, the leaders of three separate Lutheran bodies each poured water into a large baptismal bowl, and a new church was born. Today, as we celebrate the 25 th anniversary of the birth of the ELCA, we celebrate not our wonderful accomplishments, but that God is still in the new creation business, and that our national church and this congregation are still in Christ being made new. A brief survey of our history will show that Lutheran Christians in America are always being made new. The first Lutheran Christians in North America were Germans in New Netherland and Swedes in Delaware, both arriving in the early-to-mid-1600s, less than a hundred years after Luther s death in 1546. When William Penn sailed up the Delaware River in 1682 and selected the site for the city of Philadelphia, he chose a spot where stood a Swedish village and a Lutheran church. At the birth of the nation in 1776 there were in the 13 colonies about 15,000 Lutheran people gathered into some 133 congregations served by 33 pastors, most of them in the largest colony, Pennsylvania. In the mid-to-late 1800s another wave of Lutheran immigrants came from Germany and the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland) and settled in the Midwest, from Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas and the Dakotas. The 5 congregations I served in rural North Dakota had been established in the very early years of the 20 th century.
-2- Those immigrants often built beautiful churches while they were still living in sod houses. Congregations of the same ethnicity and language (German, Norwegian, etc.) began joining into larger groups, often called synods. The Germans adopted the model they had experienced in the old country, with each state having its own synod: Ohio Synod, Iowa Synod, Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Synod, etc. These larger groups of congregations soon established colleges to educate young people, hospitals to care for the sick, and other institutions to care for orphans, the elderly, and others in need. These institutions knew they were doing what God was calling them to do in this new land: God s work, our hands. Dick Hemp will tell you that one reason he is proud to be a Lutheran is that the Lutheran churches in America have established excellent institutions to educate and care for Lutherans and their neighbors. Even when they were still quite young in this new land the Lutherans were experiencing rapid change, always being made new. At the intersection of two streets in a Minnesota town you might have found four Lutheran churches. If you rushed to judgment you might think Lutherans can t get along, can t be united. But if you looked more closely you would notice that one church was German in origin and heritage, another Swedish, another Norwegian, and the fourth Danish. Of course there are four Lutheran churches at one intersection! At least in the beginning they spoke different languages, sang different hymns, used different liturgies, and honored different traditions. They had come from different countries, and had been thrown together in this new land with only their Christian faith and Lutheran roots in common. And most of those European immigrants had in the old country never seen or lived with so much diversity! But God had a dream. As new generations were born and the immigrants children and grandchildren spoke nothing but English, those barriers of language and custom began to disappear, and congregations and synods more and more merged, joined together in common mission and purpose and language. The story of Lutherans in America is a story of reconciliation, coming together, being made new. In the late 1950s the Service Book and Hymnal was introduced to serve about 2/3 of the Lutheran in the United States, including those four Minnesota congregations at one intersection. Its purpose was unification. This was the first time American Lutherans from different ethnicities with different traditions of liturgy and hymnody agreed to do some letting go of their past and together embrace a new worship book that included the best from each tradition, along with some that was unique to this new world context. But in order to include the favorite hymns from these various traditions, and to keep the book to a size that was easily handled, many beloved hymns had to be left out. So there has been sacrifice and discomfort for many over the years in order to be made new. God s work, our hands. Sometimes God s work involves opening our hands and letting go. Soon after that red SBH was published, the American Lutheran Church (ALC) was formed in 1960 (midwest Germans, two groups of Norwegians, one group of Danes), and in 1962 the Lu-
-3- theran Church in America (LCA) was formed (east coast Germans who had planted this church in Reno in 1947, Swedes, Slovaks, Finns, and one group of Danes). The Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW green book) was published in 1978 in a failed attempt to bring all U.S. Lutherans together in a common liturgy and hymnody. In 1988 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) was formed by the joining of the ALC, the LCA, and the AELC (Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches), a more moderate group of congregations that had over the previous 10-15 years severed their ties with the more conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LC-MS) following years of bitter dispute over Bible interpretation and church practice, including the ordination of women. Pr. Jim Heinemeier and Pr. Ruth Hanusa were AELC refugees from the Missouri Synod, so the timely formation of the ELCA in 1988 made it possible for this congregation to call Pr. Jim later that same year. Pastor Terry Swehla included this message about The New Church in this congregation s 1987 Annual Report. This past summer the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), the American Lutheran Church (ALC), and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) agreed in simultaneous national conventions to approve the merger of the three bodies into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). A constituting convention is to be held this spring. This marked the end of a six-year journey toward the goal of unification; however, the task of turning that desire into reality has now moved into high gear [and] a great deal of work is currently being undertaken. The most direct impact of the merger on the local level will be the formation of the [Sierra Pacific Synod]. This will include the area from the Pacific coast to the Utah border, and from the Oregon-Idaho border to south of Fresno and north of Las Vegas. The Constitution Committee, on which I am serving, is charged with the task of constructing the structure and operation of this new synod in order that the constituting convention (July 10-12, 1987 in San Jose) can have a document ready for adoption. There are many unanswered questions at this point some of major significance. Although a merger is assured and the ELCA will become a reality, it is only with diligent reflection and effort that the new church will become not merely something new, but rather a church renewed. So you can see that the story of Lutheran Christians in North America is a story of relentless change, of continually being made new. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
-4- If those Swedish settlers William Penn met in1682 came to worship with us this morning this building and the songs and liturgy would, of course, feel very strange to them. Those Norwegian and German farmers who built those North Dakota churches would be surprised to hear the newer versions of the Lord s Prayer and Apostles Creed. But I hope they would notice we are still gathering for worship as they did. We are still praying and confessing faith, though perhaps in a different language. We still read the Bible and preach from it; we still baptize; we still share the Lord s Supper. The form of our being church changes, but the substance does not. [Jesus said,] I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Abiding in Jesus, and Jesus abiding in us: that is what does not change. I am the vine, you are the branches. Branches get pruned: people die, move away; some things that used to bear fruit don t work anymore. But always the vine gives new growth, green shoots to the branches that abide. In Christ we are, our church is always being made new. As we celebrate the 25 th anniversary of the ELCA we should also note the 50 th anniversary of what I call the divorce epidemic in the United States. About 50 years ago society s attitudes toward divorce and remarriage began to shift significantly, and the church has had to discern where God is leading us in this time. Now in 2013 our synod Bishop Mark is a man divorced and remarried, my brother Dan is one of many ELCA pastors who have been divorced and remarried, this congregation has called and been blessed by two pastors who are divorced and remarried, and many of you, of course, have that same experience and are a gift from God to this congregation and to many people. Some of those 17 th and 19 th century Lutherans would be shocked at this, but I think they would come to understand this new, expanded understanding of the grace of God. In 1970 two of the ELCA s predecessor bodies voted amidst great controversy to approve the ordination of women as pastors, and in 2009 the ELCA voted to ordain partnered gay and lesbian candidates for ministry. It continues to the present time. God is still in the new creation business, and we are always being made new. I can assure you that when I was prepared for pastoral ministry in 1965-69 I was not prepared for ministry in the church that exists now! No way! Except they prepared me to lead congregations in a life of abiding in Jesus, a life always full of the adventure of becoming a new creation, and a life of bear[ing] much fruit, doing God s work with our human hands. So let us celebrate this 25 th anniversary of the ELCA with gratitude for the past and abundant hope for the future, confident not in the church or any particular expression of it, but confident in God who grafts us into Christ, the vine, and promises that we will bear much fruit.