Today is the Epiphany of Our Lord. Now, more from Robert Bertram in "A Time for Confessing."
...Augsburg (1530) has also been epochal for subsequent history. Enough so, that it suggests a paradigm for such recent events as the Kirchenkampf in Nazi Germany, the Christian resistance against apartheid in South Africa, the resistance of Christian seminarians in South Korea, the civil rights movement in the United States, the "authority crisis" in today's Roman Catholicism, the current grassroots anti-bureaucracy in the mainline denominations - for understanding these situations as themselves "times for confessing." That historic moment which took voice in the Augsburg Confession and which later came to further self-awareness in the Formula of Concord's Article X provides some clues - half a dozen, at least - as to what might constitute such confessional "times" also in our own more recent history.
The time for confessing is not in the past. When I first started reading this, I realized that we may be in a time when many of us will be put in the position of saying we cannot be the church when the church appears to be moving from its wonder-filled power of reformation that insists on nothing less than Jesus, Christ, and the grace upon grace that is the foundation for life and the power that pulls us into the approaching Reign of God where the crucified and risen one is already ruling within the clouds of such grace. What comes to me in this reflection is the ongoing manner in which the church sanctions, supports, endorses, and makes rules that do not reflect the unbounded mercy and grace of God's Reign. Specifically this has to do with outright backhanded way we deal with baptized saints in the church who choose to stay in the church and be a faithful witness to the Reign of God and yet they are excluded from full participation because of something that is a part of who they are as the baptized - their sexuality. The GLBT saints within the church are ones who have to put up with remarks that are condemning, actions filled with prejudice and fear that continue to nurture more of the same, and, sad to say, ongoing support of their exclusion - all ow which gives witness to some other gospel - not the one of Jesus as Lord of all. I hear well-spoken leaders in the church who have much to say about wideness of the ministry and mission of the church but when it comes to our life in Christ with GLBT saints, there is always a "yeah, but." It is time to remove the "but" and let us say a welcoming "yeah" as in "yeah," it is good for you to be home.
Connection: Confessing the faith is tied to action. It is when the words of our faith become the life that they shape. How today will our lives be shaped by the overflowing grace that is poured out over all of us? It may be to simple treat everyone as though that is how we see them - wet with the love of God's Reign. The day may change right before our eyes.
Come, Stir up our hearts, O God, and open our eyes and ears to the sound of your grace that becomes as real as our Lord, Jesus, among us. Amen.
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