For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Today in institutional blasphemy: the presidents of the seminaries (President Rast on the left and President Meyer on the right) were spotted sporting each other’s school colors.
From Dr. Rast’s Facebook post with this picture: “My two favorite seminary presidents wearing the ties of my two favorite seminaries.”
But seriously: thanks be to God for the men He has called to serve the Church and especially her future pastors and deaconesses.
Author of the Concordia Commentaries on Leviticus and Hebrews, Dr. John Kleinig from the Lutheran Church of Australia has been on campus this week to teach a Continuing Education course on the Theology of Worship in Hebrews. There was a standing invitation for students to drop in as their schedules permitted, plus a special convocation hour this morning on Hermann Sasse.
Dr. Pless began the convocation with a history of who Hermann Sasse was and his work in the church. Dr. Kleinig then followed up with personal stories about his old professor.
Rev. Sasse is considered one of the foremost Lutheran theologians of the 20th century, having survived Nazism through the 1930s and 40s, despite living in Germany as a very loud and active voice of dissent against the Nazi party. “It was a miracle—a number of miracles—that he wasn’t killed,” Dr. Kleinig said. He went on to explain that Sasse had been an officer in WWI and still had a number of friends among the German army. He was a marked man, but the Nazi party couldn’t touch him without getting into trouble with the army, who already had a tenuous relationship with Hitler. Professor Sasse later served as liaison for the de-Nazification of the University in Bavaria before accepting a call to teach at Luther Seminary in North Adelaide, Australia, in 1949.
Dr. Kleinig studied under Sasse at Luther Seminary in the 60s, and the convocation was a chance to hear him reminisce and tell stories of his time learning under the theologian. “He was a truth-sayer,” Dr. Kleinig recalled. “Very warm and wickedly witty. He made friends with people easily but inevitably he would fall out with them because he always told the truth. And he could be devastating with his one-liners. But even though he was a truth-sayer, he was very generous in his appraisals. He was always inclined to see what was good instead of the bad.”
One of Dr. Kleinig’s classmates once began a question to the professor with, “This may be a stupid question, but…” but Sasse simply said, “Mister—” he always called the students Mr. and their last name, Dr. Kleinig explained “—only stupid people don’t ask questions.” And he had a gift for finding something profound to say about every question.
His students took it as a challenge. One day during class a student said to him, “So I have a girlfriend.”
“Good, good,” the professor replied.
“And we go to church together.”
“Even better.”
“As we sit in the pew together…are we allowed to hold hands in church?”
And Professor Sasse immediately cried out in a fierce voice, “It would be very, very wrong…NOT to hold her hand.”
“It was the only time he answered a question with a single sentence,” Dr. Kleinig recalled fondly.
Besides telling a number of other stories about his old professor, Dr. Kleinig explained why he was still worth reading. He referred to Sasse as a “theological journalist” – someone whose best work was in his letters and short articles. He also passed on some of the lessons from the theologian. Like:
Dr. Kleinig teaches during his CE course. The class had around 30-40 attendees, not counting student drop-ins. During the convocation there were quite a number more, though it’s hard to tell from the pictures as, like good Lutherans, they were all sitting in the back.
1. We shouldn’t just read our friends because they agree with us. We need to read our enemies. You learn more from your enemies. They challenge us and show us where we lack in understanding.
2. Before you dare criticize someone, make sure you understand them within their own context and in their own terms. Then criticize or engage with them on a topic from their point of view. Rather than asking what’s wrong with this person, we should ask what’s right with this person.
3. Pay attention to the little groups. The significance of a church or denomination doesn’t depend on its size. The most significant things happen in the smallest congregations. What the Orthodox forgets is often rediscovered by a fringe group, which then needs to be reclaimed.
4. All the great movements across the church (and even society) are ecumenical, meaning related to church unity, and they need to be understood ecumenically. This was of particular importance to Dr. Sasse, who put much of his time and effort into uniting the two Lutheran church bodies in Australia. He could see the strategic role of Australia; as a European outpost in Southeast Asia, they were in the right place to serve as the base for mission to Asia.
5. You can’t isolate yourself from the big movements across the churches. If you quarantine the body from infection, you only make it more vulnerable to the infection because you haven’t built antibodies against it. Silencing discussion doesn’t help. People need to see and understand the consequences of a movement.
“He believed that the future of confessional Lutheranism – really the whole church catholic (meaning the universal church) – stands or falls with the Missouri Synod,” Dr. Kleinig said of his teacher. Sasse also believed strongly in engaging with those outside the Lutheran church, urging his students to “engage with those confessional Lutherans in other church bodies”—those who may not call themselves Lutheran, but are scripturally confessional in their beliefs.
You can watch a recording of the convocation here:
On September 11, 2001, Rev. Radtke was on his way to the Seminary to preach the first sermon of the new term when he heard the news of the two planes hitting the twin towers on his radio. He rewrote his sermon in the car on the way in. We do not have video or audio of the sermon that day, but the text was published in the October 2001 volume of Concordia Theological Quarterly, which you can read at ww.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/radtkesermon9-11.pdf. He began, as the Church always has and always will, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Missionary Friedrich Wyneken reached America (specifically Baltimore) in the June of 1838, just as a letter from an elder at St. Paul’s in Fort Wayne reached the Mission Committee of the Pennsylvania Ministerium, begging for a pastor as their own had died. The Baltimore pastors, having gotten to know Wyneken over the summer, recommended him in August, and 180 years ago today, the missionary stopped for supplies in Lima, Ohio, with 64 miles still to go to Fort Wayne. He was following an old Indian trail on horseback.
A German there pleaded for him to stay, and he did so: for eight days. In those eight days Wyneken preached nine times, baptized fifteen people, and confirmed a young married man who had been catechized but never communed. The missionary thanked God in a letter to a friend that “at the very beginning of my ministry, He had led me to such hungry hearts,” and in a letter to the Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania Mission Society admitted:
“I regret now, that I didn’t stay longer with the Germans in western part of the State of Ohio, and did not visit more settlements, because there are no pastors there, and also, as far as I can tell from what I’ve been told, none have been visited by a circuit rider to date”
Six years later, in 1844, he would begin tutoring the first two students of Concordia Theological Seminary out of the St. Paul parsonage, where he served as pastor in Fort Wayne and Decatur while also traveling to a number of nearby settlements, before formal classes began in October 1846.
For more details about Wyneken’s week in Lima, visit https://whatdoesthismean.blog/2018/09/10/pastor-wynekens-lima-ministry (with thanks to CTSFW librarian, Rev. Robert E. Smith).
Today is the commemoration of Zechariah and Elizabeth, father and mother of the last of the Old Testament prophets. From Luke 1:5-25 and 57-66:
In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.
After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”
…
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.
Left panel of the “St. John Altarpiece;” specifically, the Naming of John the Baptist, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, by Rogier van der Weyden; 1455-1460.
Shortly after 10 a.m. on September 4, 2018, the Rev. Dr. Lawrence R. Rast Jr. declared the beginning of the 173rd academic year of Concordia Theological Seminary (CTSFW), Fort Wayne, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. President Rast preached for the Opening Service, speaking on the demands of Seminary in context of Jesus’ declaration that His yoke is easy, His burden light. “Some of you take up that yoke for the first time today as a student,” he said. “Others have been doing so for some time. But those of us who have been around for a bit know that the Seminary isn’t easy; and it’s not supposed to be. We are a graduate school of theology. We are academically demanding. The courses are not light. If the classes don’t get you to this point, fieldwork and family needs will contribute to that as well. And so this text, which our Lord intends to be comforting, can cause us distress.
“But when you feel this way, remember,” he continued. “You are so dear to our Lord Christ that He yoked Himself to the burden of the law, fulfilling it. He yoked Himself to death in your place that you might have life. And now you are yoked to Him through baptism into His death, so that just as He was raised from the dead, you and I too will have newness of life eternally.”
After the sermon, the following men were installed as newly appointed faculty and ordained staff:
The Rev. Dr. Don C. Wiley was installed for the second year in a row, this time as assistant professor of Pastoral Ministry and Mission. Last year he served the Seminary as guest professor.
Sergio A. Fritzler, dean and professor at Centro de Misericordia y Seminario Concordia “El Reformador” in the Dominican Republic, was installed at CTSFW as director of SMP Español/English.
Paul G. Hopkins was installed as an advancement officer. A 2005 graduate of CTSFW (whose son graduated from the Seminary only ten years later in 2015), he knows and understands the needs of her students.
“And so redeemed by Christ, baptized into His death and resurrection, knowing the Father because Jesus has chosen you to receive His revelation: be at peace,” President Rast concluded in his sermon, speaking to the Seminary community, drawn together by their roles as faculty, staff, students and family. “For Christ is your peace, your Sabbath; rest and remain in Him today and always.”
