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My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. Ps. 45:1
This weekend nothing seemed to go right. The bulletins were messed up because of a word processing glitch. The livestreaming was messed up due, apparently, to a wifi hiccup (though the recorded service is available on the website with just a bit missing from the beginning). School preparation was all messed up because at the last minute we had to switch to remote learning out of an abundance of caution. It was, as they say, “just one of those days,” and as easy day on which to think the world was rigged against you. The world, however, is not rigged against us. We learn what we can from setbacks and move on. We find a pleasing theme worthy of being addressed to our Lord and King. The exciting news today is that no matter how disappointing, plain or laborious any aspect of our life together might be, we can trust that God is working through us in ways we can’t even see. If the glory of it remains hidden to us, God’s Word can open our eyes to what He is already doing through us and inspire our hearts to ever greater ways of serving Him. That exciting news is not just a bunch of talk. It is an actual, concrete plan for St. Paul’s. Over the weekend Rev. John Nunes (president of Concordia-Bronxville, the one who was featured in the podcast about the church and racism back in May or June that so many of our members loved) agreed to lead a four week Bible study for St. Paul’s. He is a powerful speaker. He is also a writer. So he will lead our study toward a positive, uplifting sense of the future with a “tongue like the pen of a ready scribe.” The study will cover many Bible verses, but will follow the format of his new book, Meant for More: In, With, and Under the Ordinary. Everyone in the congregation who chooses can join our staff and lay leadership though this book. The book is available from CPH or Amazon, or you can get a copy in the church office. There is a $16 suggested donation to cover the cost, but a generous donor has made sure nobody will be excluded for financial reasons. The four week study will take place over zoom (Pr. Nunes had agreed to come lead a one day seminar in person back in the fall, but Covid had other plans) on Wednesday evenings from 7-8:00 p.m. starting January 20. The book is really a series of thematically related devotions and reflections, but they all address the very practical questions that individual Christians and congregations have in difficult times. As your pastor I’ve tried to have the pen of a ready scribe throughout this pandemic, and it because I see such value in this opportunity that I truly hope the people of St. Paul’s will readily participate. Yes, you might not enjoy zoom, yes, reading might not be your favorite pastime, yes, the last thing we need is another appointment on the calendar, and yes, some of the content will challenge as well as inspire you. But also, yes, this study will be worth your time and energy, and yes, you’ll be better off for having participated. St. Paul’s as a congregation will be better off, too. More details to follow, but again, please make the effort. Btw, this also means the Wednesday evening zoom Bible study on Revelation will not resume until after Easter. To those of you who can’t handle the suspense, just know it ends well. In Christ, Pastor Speckhard
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Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Ps. 119:105
One of the most frustrating things for me personally about the ongoing reaction to the pandemic has been the inability to make plans with any degree of certainty. I like to plan ahead. I like have our services and programs on the calendar months in advance. Obviously, Christians know that all planning is always tentative, with or without a pandemic. We don’t know the future. Everything we do is a matter of “God willing.” But normally even when we allow for the unexpected or God having other plans, we can be reasonably sure enough about the future to plan. As of right now, our Advent service are not planned. We hope and plan to have services, but usually we have them all mapped by this time in the year. This year we’re still waiting to see what the situation will be like before deciding how (not if, but how) the school kids will be involved. We’ve also had to postpone our compass event until sometime this Spring due to the travel restrictions in place in that affect our speaker coming in from New York. When you have to live with uncertainty, you feel like you’re walking forward in the dark. You can’t look ahead into the future and see anything through the fog of maybes. You wish you could use reason and predictive powers like fog lamps to navigate by. And since you can’t, you become hesitant. For me, at least, that becomes frustrating, and then everything can start feel like a grind, even things that normally are no problem or even enjoyable. Today’s verse, however, enlightens that situation (pun intended). God might let us live with uncertainty in order to get us to use something else than reason and our predictive powers as our guiding light. The real fog lamp is the Word of God. The only thing you need to know about the path in front of you is whatever is illumined by the Word, which is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. Unfortunately, God’s Word does not tell us about the nuts and bolts of our upcoming schedule. You don’t decide whether or not to make hotel reservations or how long your car is going to hold out before you need to replace it by reading the Bible. And too often those are the kinds of questions that occupy our minds and frustrate us. But thankfully, God’s Word does take away the fear of the future. It puts forth promises that guide us according to what matters. When we walk confidently despite the darkness and fog, we find the frustrations and anxieties that hold us back dissipate like fog in warm sunlight. We have several Bible study opportunities coming up this week. We offer Portal of Prayer to everyone. We link to various Bible and catechism resources via the website. And of course we offer churches services in person and live-streamed. May God’s Word be a lamp to your feet and a light to your path this week. In Christ, Pastor Speckhard [Jesus said] “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’” Luke 14:28-30 Planning. How on earth does one plan anything these days? Not only did nobody anticipate what this year would be like, but we’re more aware than ever that we don’t know what next year will be like. All planning is tentative. Christians have always known that. We walk into the future with faith in the One walking with us, not knowledge of what will happen. Still, there is a common sense element to it. You have to plan. Sometimes you have to plan far in advance, trying to remain flexible to accommodate the unexpected, but not just waiting and waiting to see what happens. You have to plant if you want to reap. When Jesus warns against worrying about tomorrow, he is warning against worrying and fretting, not planning and preparing. And when He rebukes the man in the parable who built bigger barns to secure his future, He rebukes faith in the worldly and visible at the expense of spiritual, eternal things; He is not rebuking the common sense logistics involved with farming. Sometimes we plan things at church waaayyyyy in advance. For example, people planning on getting married here need to plan it. A lot of variables might prevent it from happening as planned, but it certainly won’t happen as planned if it was never planned. Or take another example. In March of 2022 I’m hoping to take another group of pilgrims to the Holy Land. Will it happen? Hopefully. But certainly not if it isn’t planned. Will the choir sing at Easter? Who knows? But not if they didn’t rehearse any songs in advance. Operating a school here at St. Paul’s requires this constant balance of planning and flexibility, too. That’s why I like Jesus’ word “estimate.” You don’t know in advance how much the tower will end up costing. But that doesn’t mean you just start building and go until you run out of money. You estimate. You acknowledge uncertainty, but plan based on estimates. Every year we head into the first semester with a lot of estimates about how much of this or that we will need, what things will cost, how many snow days to factor in, etc. Same with planning church services. When you estimate, you factor in two things. Jesus says you estimate the cost and compare that to how much money you have. In the case of congregations, how much money you have is also a matter of estimating. People move away. New people join. People lose their jobs or get promotions and give more. All you can do is a make an educated guess about how much money people will put in the offering plate (or donate online) to make the ministry here possible. Of course, Covid-19 threw a massive monkey wrench into everyone’s estimates of everything. The income and expense sides of our estimates changed dramatically. But we still have to plan. We have staff, supplies, maintenance, and improvements to consider. We are laying the foundation for the school year and in a larger sense for ministry to the next generation. We have to be able to estimate what we will able to do with what we will have, always allowing that there is no certainty except in Christ’s presence with us and for us. Right now, in-person church attendance hovers at ballpark 50% of where it normally would be. Hopefully the other half are live-streaming the services remotely. We’re working on ways to have more people attending while keeping the livestream option available. And of course we’re hoping the pandemic subsides or a vaccine comes along. But who knows? Weekly offerings are at about 85% of where they normally would be, which is pretty good. That means people are still supporting the ministry even as they have to stay away and worship remotely. Planning for the future, though, looks very different if the estimate on the income side takes a 15% hit for any length of time. Will the offerings come back? Who knows? If it stays at 85% as the pandemic subsides, though, we’ll really have to reevaluate our plans. We have to make honest, good faith estimates based on the best information available. Everyone understands that when unemployment skyrockets, offerings go down. And when uncertainty takes over, offerings require more faith, which really tests us. No surprises there. But everyone also wants to see St. Paul’s (admittedly tentative) plans for the year and the next generation succeed. We’d rather not plan on having 15% less going forward as a congregation; it would adversely affect our mission; we don’t much fat in the budget. But with many people struggling, it falls on those who aren’t struggling financially to go above and beyond when it comes to giving to make up the difference. Please consider doing what you can to start inching that 85% back toward 100% by the end of the year, so that our planning and estimating here at St. Paul’s can build on the ministry we all have here. God will continue to work in us and through us, come what may. We don’t have to guess or estimate about God’s grace. It is boundless. The practical, common sense logistics of farming in the fields of the Lord is what this is all about, and we’d all love to build on the tremendous blessing that St. Paul’s has been for countless people throughout the years. In Christ, Pastor Speckhard [Jesus] answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. Matt. 16:2-3
The signs of the times are nothing new, really. The specifics are unpredictable, of course. I don’t know anybody who saw 2020 coming, for example, in terms of the shut-down, the protests, or anything else in this weirdest year of my life. But interpret doesn’t mean predict, necessarily. When we interpret things in terms of the fall into sin and redemption in Christ, the raging of the nations and the worldly reign of death, the signs changes year to year, but we can still interpret them with the same Word of God. What exactly to do about them is a different matter; we have to use whatever limited lights and resources we have to plan a way forward into the future, always with truth in the ultimate Lordship of Christ. Worldly matters are far easier to predict. We don’t know the specifics of the weather, but the changes of season are fairly predictable. So some things we do here at St. Paul’s simply account for logistical issues we can all see coming because it is summer time. People travel. Vacations happen. Volunteers are harder to schedule. Calendars are harder to mesh. A couple of changes we’re making this week have nothing to do with interpreting the signs of the times (which is what the services are about—applying God’s Word to today) and everything to do with interpreting the worldly seasons and rhythms of life. We’re going to start live-streaming the 9:30 service this week instead of the 8:00 service. I know this will inconvenience some people, but it will really help coordinate the schedules of the people needed to make the services happen. Also, the Wednesday evening Bible study is going to take a hiatus until August. So the next time we will meet is August 5. The Thursday morning Bible study will continue through the summer as scheduled. We don’t yet know how exactly we’re going to start everything back up again once we start the transition back to in-person meetings and Bible studies. It will probably involve a combination of in-person and live-streamed or Zoom interaction. Details will be unveiled as our plans for fall begin to solidify over the summer. As always, stay tuned. We know how to interpret the signs of times—it is a fallen world and a time of testing, but also Anno Domini, the year of our Lord—and as for the logistics, well, we’ll do our best with all the gifts and tools God gives us. In Christ, Pastor Speckhard For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Eccl. 3:1
Lately Heidi has been reading a chapter of Charlotte’s Web aloud every morning after devotions. It is a familiar, beloved story. My favorite detail is the description of the crickets’ song before the big county fair. “Summer is over and gone, over and gone… Summer is over and gone, over and gone.” Even the first time I heard the story as a kid, that way of interpreting the sound of cricket seemed so sad and yet so beautiful at the same time that I never forgot it. I even opened a sermon with those words one time at the beginning of the school year. Today, of course, summer has just begun. The days have only this week started getting imperceptibly shorter, and most of the big summer traditions, like fireworks, pool parties, and vacations, are still ahead of us. But so many of them won’t be the same this year. This year it seems like it isn’t just a season, it is an era that is over and gone, over and gone. When will things go back to normal? Maybe it is a new normal. Will church ever be what it was? Will parades and county fairs be what they were? Storefront sidewalk sales? Park league baseball? Such unknowns and major changes often fill people with anxiety. Sometimes that anxiety comes out in anger, despair, or complete disengagement. Sometimes we simply indulge in nostalgia. But I think it a more hopeful and constructive approach to remember that there is a time for everything under heaven. There was a time in God’s plan for the season, stage of life, or era that is passing. And the next season, stage of life, or era is also something God has allotted a time for. It is sad, but it can also be beautiful to witness the changes and transitions. The important thing for Christians to remember is that God Himself came into world “under heaven” not only to redeem it but to give us citizenship in an eternal kingdom, about which crickets will never sing that it is over and gone or that it is dying. Even when “change and decay in all around I see” we know that the God “who changest not” will abide with us. All times and seasons are His, and His love for us is eternal. In Christ, Pastor Speckhard But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Heb. 3:13
Most photo albums feature standard pictures of important events familiar to everyone. Birthday parties, vacations, proms and graduations, Christmas and Easter family photos, weddings and baby showers, and so forth. Same stuff, different faces, fashions, and years. A photo album of the first half of 2020, by contrast, would feature a bunch of unique things unlike any other year. Just in my own experience locally here I’ve seen some crazy, memorable things this year. Grocery aisles completely emptied of bread and paper products. The camera in an empty church on Easter Sunday. Downtown Chicago completely deserted and quiet. The parking lot at Beverly Shores collapsed into Lake Michigan. Closing chapel with just the teachers holding screen shots of their students. Kids playing thigh deep in floodwater on Briar Lane. Lines of masked people weaving through a shopping cart maze waiting to get into Jewel-Osco. A massive concrete barrier built across Calumet Avenue. You get the idea. Still, as a Christian community we exhort one another regardless of whether it is a routine day or a special celebration, a predictable event or a completely bizarre event. The main thing about every day is the common or particular temptations it brings and the common or particular opportunities it brings I terms of living the Christian life. Daily contrition and repentance, daily taking hold of Christ by faith, daily thanksgiving for daily bread, daily prayers for daily concerns—these are not things that can wait “until things get back to normal” or that we do “when things settle down.” Whether today is your triple bypass surgery or just another day of sitting on your front porch, your first day in a new job or your retirement party, your wedding day with photos your grandchildren will look at or just some day with no photos of anything in particular—it is still called “today.” You are still tempted away from the baptismal life of a Christian today. And you are still exhorted by your Christian community to remember who you are, Who your Lord is, and what really matters today. You also have a chance to exhort others in your Christian community to do the same. Don’t get distracted by swirling events in your own life or in the news. Every day is God’s. Live today as an eternal son or daughter of an eternal King. In Christ, Pastor Speckhard I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; Acts 20:29
Seems like a strange verse for a daily update or devotion. It comes as St. Paul is getting ready to leave after spending a long time teaching the faith to a group of people. The parting of ways is an emotional one for Paul because he knows he won’t see them again and desperately wants them to remain strong in the Gospel after he is no longer there to help them. And he knows it won’t be easy for them. The thought of what false teaching will try to do to them makes him want to go over everything again one last time. But eventually you have to let go. I think in some ways on a smaller scale we experience that emotional parting every year at graduation. Young men and women to whom we’ve taught the Gospel for years depart into the next stage of life. Granted, we aren’t physically parted from them and we hope to continue in ministry together, so that isn’t the same as in Acts. But we have to acknowledge losing hold of them in a way and letting go the way St. Paul had to let go. We know what we’ve taught them and how important it is. But we also know from our own personal experience and from many years of watching our graduates head through high school and beyond that the fierce wolves of life and the falseness of the Zeitgeist are not likely to spare them. I once adapted the lyrics of the table blessing song from Fiddler on the Roof for Christian use, and I always think of that song at confirmations and graduations. “May the Lord protect and defend you. May He always shield you from shame…” At our graduation service the fierce wolves were on my mind, and how desperately I wanted these kids to stand firm in the Gospel. Our principal Barb Mertens even started crying (or at least got something in her eye and needed to clear her throat) in speaking about the class, and I suspect that emotion only increases year by year through any person’s ministry. But at the end of the day, you have to let go. They aren’t babies or kids anymore, and yes, it is a spiritually dangerous world. We can’t put our confidence in how well we’ve taught them or how well they’ve learned it. We have to model the faith for them by letting go with confidence that God never forgets His promises and that His plans for us are always good. The wolves and this world’s prince may still scowl fierce as they will; they can harm them none…one little word can fell them. We pray that our graduates and their parents do not suddenly become strangers to St. Paul’s but continue to be nurtured and fed as part of our Christ-centered community. And we wait upon the Lord who answers prayer. In Christ, Pastor Speckhard And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Acts 1:10-11
“What did you expect?” That’s usually a semi-accusatory response you might get from someone when you express disappointment. The gist of the accusation is that things didn’t turn out wrong. Rather, your prior expectation that they would turn out differently was unrealistic. Disappointment is always a function of expectations. If you never expect much, you’re never disappointed. If you always expect a great deal, you’re very often disappointed. For Christians, the better question is what do we expect? Our expectations define our whole lives. We expect everything to work out for the good of those who live in God. We expect the dead to be raised. We expect everlasting life. We expect to made perfect. When we go by sight, we’re constantly disappointed. Things don’t always seem to be working out for the good of God’s people. In fact, in some times and places it seems like the exact opposite is true. Death seems to have the final word, and the grief of separation is what seems eternal. We look upon the paltriness of our own lives, our lack of true holiness, and inability to overcome sin, and if anything we just get more and more disappointed with ourselves. It would be a sign of dubious spiritual health if we started to more and more satisfied with ourselves rather than more and more discontent with our sinfulness. If we aren’t disappointed when going by sight, we have reason to double-check that our expectations align with God’s Word and our vision of what is happening is really clear. The history of the Christian Church as we know it begins with Acts, Chapter 1. The promise given by the two mysterious white-robed men invites us to go by faith, not by sight. Faith is the only way to live by a promise. Jesus was taken from their sight precisely so that they must proceed by faith. So has the Church lived ever since. We expect perfection and have the only balm for everything that falls short of it, which is forgiveness. Christ Ascends to the throne of God, sends the Holy Spirit into this world, and the whole history begins of God’s people living by faith in His fulfilled death and resurrection. This Thursday is Ascension. Pastor Gumz of Trinity, Hammond has spent a great deal of effort putting together a video service involving all the circuit churches and pastors. We will give you information on how to access that service this week, so that our tradition of having a circuit-wide celebration of Christ’s Ascension can continue uninterrupted. The important thing is neither the tradition nor the technology that makes it possible to continue. The important thing is the Ascension itself, which teaches us that our expectations of God can never be too great, our disappointment with our own sin can never be too great, and our faith in Christ to bridge the gap can never be too great. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Alleluia! In Christ, Pastor Speckhard I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I Corinthians 1:10-13
No matter how quickly the world might be changing as a result of Covid-19, the old adage seems to remain true—the more things change, the more they stay the same. The Christian Church still fails, at least visibly, to live in the unity God intends for us. In worshipping via livestream, we all realize that we have thousands upon thousands of Christian and pseudo-Christian choices available to us at the click of a button. What makes them different? How are they united and how are they divided? You might have driven past some church a thousand times on your way to St. Paul’s and thought to yourself, “I wonder what goes on in there.” Well, thanks to Covid-19, it is pretty easy to find out anonymously. We have no idea who is watching our services, and nothing stops anyone from watching any other church’s online services. Now is a good time, therefore, to really take a look at what makes various churches the same or different, and what makes any given difference important or unimportant. To that end, we’ve begun a Bible study via zoom in Wednesday evenings at 7:00 to examine the various teachings of different church bodies. Everyone is welcome to attend, so feel free to invite your friends, relatives, and neighbors. After all, amid all the cons of not being able to meet in person, we may as well take advantage of the huge pro of this situation, which is that people can join in from anywhere. The Zoom info is included in this update. Ask for help if you need it. We’d love to have you. Last week we looked at the broad ways of understanding how various kinds of churches relate to each other. One way is to look at how different churches order our sources of knowledge about God—Scripture, Tradition, Reason, Experience, Church Councils—in terms of their authority for Christians. Another way is to trace a timeline and look at the history of how various factions broke off from each other or reconnected to each other. Tomorrow we’re going to look at one of the most basic questions we all face. How is it that there can be more than one kind of Lutheran church in the United States? What makes them different? How did they get that way? Which differences really matter, and which are merely a matter of cultural preference or history? In future weeks we’ll look at other church bodies and movements, comparing what they believe, teach, and confess, and how those beliefs show up in the way they worship and live, to what we believe, teach, and confess. So if nothing else, it will really help all of us delve into our own faith and refresh our sense of why we do what we do. That might be yet another good thing God brings out of this difficult situation. Hope to see you tomorrow night! In Christ, Pastor Speckhard “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’” Ps. 122:1
Yesterday’s worship service brought with it a flood of unfamiliar feelings. For some, it might have been finally feeling the gladness the Psalm talks about after years of taking it for granted or not really appreciating it in church. For others, it might have been the sinking feeling of walking into the sanctuary and seeing roped off pews and all the social distancing measures in place. For others watching online, it might have been a keen yearning for the day when they, too, can attend church in the sanctuary safely, or in some cases resentment that for some people that day has arrived sooner than for most. Whatever the emotions, though, the promise remains the same. The service of the Word as livestreamed and the Word and Sacrament in person point us to our Risen Lord and, in different ways, give Him to us by faith. The total attendance yesterday was 46. As expected and encouraged, the vast majority of the congregation remained unable to worship in person due to health concerns. That will likely remain the case for quite some time. Attendance will return slowly. Nobody should rush back or feel pressured to attend until it is safe for them. Nor should those who do return be condemned for doing something unsafe; we strictly followed every health guideline. As we gradually move back into a regular worship schedule we will continue to livestream the services. Our congregation has done a commendable job of keeping in contact with one another and remaining united as a church family in this crisis. While such unity and harmony could be threatened if we focus on the distinction between those who are able to start returning to worship sooner and those who cannot yet even consider coming back, I don’t expect St. Paul’s to have much of a problem. I’ve been impressed at how people have rallied, and the gradual transition out of crisis mode in the coming months need not affect that. Rather, what we should look at is how both groups of people—those who can attend in person and those who cannot-- are able to illustrate a truth about worship in this world, which is that it is always only a foretaste of the feast to come. Yesterday in the children’s message Jaymes Hayes talked about how Jesus went to prepare a place for us in God’s house. When we come to church, we’re coming to God’s house only in a prefigured way. We gather in God’s house here in this world to receive the promises that will ultimately be fulfilled in God’s house in the world to come. People who yearn to be in church, in God’s house, every Sunday and who feel the separation most keenly are experiencing something that is true of the whole Christian life, which is that we yearn for the feast in God’s house that we have been promised. And people who can be in church on Sunday experience the foretaste of the feast to come, but they, too, sense the separation from their church family and the absence of so many of the brothers and sisters in Christ, and yearn for when we can all be together. We all look forward to the day when we can be back in church together. But being back in church together is itself an exercise in looking forward to the Last Day, when we all, without hesitation or concern, without sin or regret, can be glad as we are ushered into the eternal house of the Lord. That day is coming for all of us. The promises in the Word and Sacraments are for all of us. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. In Christ, Pastor Speckhard |
AuthorRev. Peter Speckhard, Senior Pastor at St. Paul's Ev. Lutheran Church, Munster, Indiana 
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