Saint Matthew's

Not the usual story to find here, but it got to me: Channel 7 Eyewitness News is reporting that drug smugglers are using tombstones with the image of Virgin Mary to bring drugs into the US.

Eyewitness News has obtained photographs that show the lengths some drug organizations will go through to smuggle cocaine into the country, and more specifically New York. Sources tell us at least 10 suspects have been arrested in New York as part of an international drug ring that used tombstones with the image of the Virgin Mary on them to smuggle drugs.

Sources say federal agents discovered the cocaine, hundreds of kilograms of it, packed away in those tombstones.

Eyewitness News has learned they were smuggled into the country by a cocaine trafficking organization based out of Monterey, Mexico. Sources say they used all sorts of methods to smuggle the cocaine across the U.S. border, through several states and all the way up the east coast.

Using the image of the Blessed Mother to hide drugs…despicable.

One of the things we accomplished this week: our April Newsletter is out. Our online edition is missing the monthly calendar. Within a couple of days, I hope to have it up on the Calendar section of the site. Also, the newsletter section of the site will also be up an running very soon.

I haven’t posted a lot during the past couple of days — I have been preparing for Holy Week. Starting on April 9th, Palm Sunday, I have 13 services to prepare (Palm Sunday, Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday, Morning Prayer services from Monday through Friday). Over the next couple of days, I hope to finalize everything.

Today I finalized our Palm Sunday and Good Friday services. After printing them out, I couldn’t help but have this eerie feeling welling up in my body. Growing up, these services were central to my family’s worship life. From the time I was a young kid, it was hammered home about the importance of Palm Sunday and Good Friday in our lives as baptized children of God. On Sunday, our Lord Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem … on Friday, our Lord Jesus gives up His life for us. It is at Calvary our Lord Jesus makes final payment for our sins. Pastor F. William Wild, my pastor when I was growing up, never lost sight of this importance and at Palm Sunday and Good Friday services, their importance was held up for all the congregants at the (former) Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Yonkers, New York.

Well, with that rolling around in my head, I finalized our services here at Saint Matthew’s. But it was eerie. Why? Because this is the first time I had the responsibility to lead these worship services. Serving as an acolyte or helper or vicar is one thing, but to LEAD these services. I couldn’t help think about Pastor Wild and all I learned growing up with him. Thoughts jumped to my other Pastor, Jim Douthwaite, who also led these services with a humbleness that I don’t know if I can ever have. Then, I thought about my vicarage supervisor, Pastor Harry Schenkel, who brought such a love for the liturgical aspect of these services that he brought a passion to these services. Just thinking about these three men and their love for the Lord and His Church, it made me almost feel small.

And the funny thing – I didn’t feel this way about Christmas Eve or Christmas Day services! There is something about Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter that just raises the importance level in my mind.

This year will be my first time leading these worship services (and I haven’t even thought about Easter service yet!). I pray that our Father in heaven gives me the strength to be humble so I can lead properly.

As most of you know, I am a graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. One of the most life-forming aspects of seminary is daily chapel service. To have the opportunity to attend chapel each day was one of the blessings of my three campus years at sem.

To be honest, it is one of the things I truly miss about seminary – the worship time at 10A to hear God’s Word strengthened me for the day ahead.

Well, now I don’t have to miss it so much: CTS Chapel in now online. They have been online for a couple of months, but since I didn’t start writing this ‘thing that needs a new name’ until recently, I didn’t have a chance to post this.

OK. It is a weak attempt at media humor (do you remember the “Saturday Evening Post?”).

Just wanted to drop a line or two:

Yes, we are going to update the homepage with the church’s address and telephone number. I know, it doesn’t make sense to have a church website without telling people where the church is…

Yes, today is our Ladies Aid Pot Roast Dinner. Starts at 6:00P.

Yes, I just posted my sermon for tomorrow. Don’t think you can stay home from church just because it is up there…

Yes, tonight is the 100th Anniversary of Company 1 of the New Milford Fire Department. I will be there, especially since I am the chaplain and they can’t eat without an opening prayer.

And yes, I am still trying to figure out some of the interesting things about the blog, like excerpting my long posts. Still working on it. (UPDATE: Just a moment ago I figured out how to except my rather long posts. Check one thing off my “to learn” list)
Have a blessed evening. See you in church tomorrow …

Interesting post by a fellow pastor friend on his blog – he speaks of a class of high schoolers he teaches where their understanding of the Lord’s Supper is a little off kilter when it came to the doctrine our LC-MS church espouses. At times, when it is explained, it will rub people the wrong way, especially when we say we practice “close” or “closed communion.”

One of the important facts about churches and theologians who uphold doctrine: most aren’t good “marketers.” When people hear the words “closed communion,” immediately they will go to the negative (‘close’ or ‘closed’ communion just doesn’t sound nice on the surface) and believe that the church doesn’t want outsiders to come to the altar to receive Holy Communion. That is a misunderstanding. And through the years, have any theologians come up with a better term to describe this essential fellowship of believers in Christ? Of course not! Again, serious theologians (and equally serious churches) aren’t into marketing themselves.

But this got me thinking: what is the general understanding throughout LC-MS congregations regarding the reception of Holy Communion? Most people will tell you that the Lord’s Supper is the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Outside of that, the questions concerning what does it mean for that bread and wine to be the body and blood of Christ, the importance of receiving this most holy food, what it does for us sinners, and most especially what other church denominations believe about this Sacrament will be all over the place.

Sadly, many will say that it really doesn’t matter what a church believes when it comes to the Supper: if they are offering it, and we are in attendance, we should be able to receive.

To pour a cup of cold, icy water over this contention — no, just because a church offers “communion,” it doesn’t mean everyone should just stampede up to the altar like one of those Billy Graham altar calls. Communion fellowship is not private matter between you and God; it is a public matter that shows one and all believe the same thing when it comes to the confession of the Supper. One declares publicly that they united in the doctrine of the Apostles.

When one comes to our altar here at Saint Matthew’s, one is publicly in fellowship with what we believe — that in and under the bread and wine are the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (it is the body and blood of Christ, but the elements haven’t lost their elements — it is still physically wine and bread). Not that it has been converted into the body and blood, like Roman Catholics believe (it stops being bread and wine and is now the body and blood of Christ). Not that is it some memorialized spiritual representation of the Last Supper, and that by a person’s faith (whether they have it or not) the benefits are realized in some spiritual realm, like many Protestants believe.

That is why we don’t run off to some other non-Lutheran church and receive the Lord’s Supper. In their fellowship, they believe something completely different from us. When we go to these churches and receive, we accept their faulty doctrine publicly. As Christians — as Lutherans — we can’t do that because we are supposed to hold true to our doctrinal understanding the Holy Supper.

What I have decided to do is to write up a study on the Lord’s Supper and put it in Saint Matthew’s April newsletter. Yes, it means more work. But that’s OK.
In the meantime, if you want a quick primer, go to my friend’s blog by clicking here.. He has a couple of resources that will help.

“..But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” Romans 13:4

This morning’s newspaper brought an interesting news article concerning comments made by New York Senator Hillary Clinton about immigration laws and Jesus Christ. Clinton commented on a proposed immigration law that would make it a felony to be an illegal immigrant in the United States, thus raising the penalties under the law for the law breaking. In that context, the following is quoted to New York’s junior Senator:

Clinton blasted Republican leadership, which “is constantly talking about values and about faith [but put] forth such a mean-spirited piece of legislation.”

“It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures,” she added.

“Because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself.” New York Post, 3/23/06

Now, don’t get me wrong: this is not a political retort on the nature of the Senator’s comments. Instead, this is a refrain I have used constantly when confronted by the use of Jesus Christ in a political context: leave Him out of it! He is not involved in the political fighting between Republicans and Democrats. He is Christ the Lord, the only Savior of the world. To drag the Son of God into a political fight between Republicans and Democrats is wrong. And this counts for all sides in political debates.

The problem is this — when one brings up Christ to bolster their point, they will NOT bring him up when they support a position that is clearly against what God wants from us. Example? Try abortion (You shall not kill). Do you think politicians who would be in support of Sen. Clinton’s rhetoric on immigration would bring up this Godly admonition when it comes to abortion? I don’t think so.

That is why politicians should refrain from talking about religion in their political lives. They will use only those parts of religion to make their points and never use it to talk about points that conflict with religious beliefs.

Central to Sen. Clinton’s comment, on the positive side, is trying to focus the lives of Americans on the compassion of Christ. But we have to be weary about one thing: having compassion doesn’t mean the lack of punishment for breaking secular law.

There always seems to be this imbalance between the notion of Christianity and secular living. We blend the Godly forgiveness we receive through Jesus Christ with that of our secular lives, and we can’t do that, no matter how hard we try. If we break the secular law, our faith compels us to make good, not because God will be happy with us and pat us on the back but because of our breaking of the secular law, we have to make remission for the wrongful act.

When you speed while driving and get caught … you pay the ticket. When you fail to pay your taxes on time … you pay a penalty. When you don’t finish your homework … you get punished in school. A Christian cannot say that since God forgave me, I don’t have to be punished by secular authorities for breaking secular law. We don’t get a pass just because we are forgiven by Christ.
With all due respect to Senator Clinton, her comments were out of bounds. We don’t need to drag the Savior into a political context to make a political point. If the Congress does change immigration laws and thus making them harsher, we have to remember the words of Saint Paul that lead off this post: as Christians we are to submit ourselves to the secular law.
Fight this battle in the political, secular context, not the religious. Because if we forget, our Lord Jesus Christ kept the Law of God for us when we couldn’t; He suffered and died so that we wouldn’t have to. By faith our breaking of God’s law is forgiven – the punishment for our law breaking was meeded out by our Father in heaven on Jesus Christ, our sacrifice for sin.

Tonight, if you are in the Northern New Jersey area, take a few moments and join us at Saint Matthew’s (225 Center Street, New Milford) for our Lenten Midweek Soup Supper and then stay for our Divine Service. The supper begins at 6:00P while our service kicks off at 7:30P.

The latest on the Afghan man who converted from Islam to Christianity and is facing death for converting could be unfit for trial.

“We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn’t talk like a normal person,” he told The Associated Press.

Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination.

“Doctors must examine him,” he said. “If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped.”

More here.

I have been asked several times to outline some of my favorite things. So, in this first installment:

Favorite newspaper: New York Post
Favorite website: The Drudge Report
Favorite radio show: The Rush Limbaugh Show
Favorite politician, living or dead: Ronald Reagan
Favorite newscaster: Roz Abrams, WCBS-TV
Favorite radio station: Highway 16 and Big Tracks, both on XM Satellite Radio
OK, Favorite terrestrial radio station: WFAN-660AM
What about FM? WPLJ-95.5
Favorite sports teams:
* New York Yankees
* New York Rangers (this could get me in trouble here in Northern NJ)
* New York Giants
* New York Knicks (yes, I did type it)
Favorite Fiction Author: Edna Buchanan
Favorite Non-fiction Author: Scott Hahn
Crosswords or Su Doku? Both, depends on the day
Beer or wine? Wine (I know, good Lutherans like their beer…)

That’s enough for now. It is my day off … I don’t want to spend it all in front of the computer.

Being that it is my day off, I tend not to be so stressed since I try to attend to things that will NOT make me stressed.

This morning, after months of haggling with the New Jeresy Motor Vehicle Commission, I finally (FINALLY!!) have my NJ driver’s license. They never stopped me from registering my car, but they had stopped me from transferring my license because my birth certificae was too old (don’t ask; I don’t have a good answer).

But this morning, with a new birth certificate in hand, the NJMVC was more than eager to help. Starting out in Englewood (where the paper trail begins) to Lodi (where I took an eye test and got my license), it took less than an hour and half to get everything done. Thank you, NJMVC, for making my day less stressful.

Sad story in the NY Daily News this morning: an Afghan man is facing death for converting to Christianity.

Abdul Rahman, 41, was arrested last month after his family accused him of becoming a Christian, Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada said.

During a one-day hearing Thursday, the defendant confessed that he converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Mawlavezada said.

“We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law,” the judge said.

It has to make you sick what this judge said, doesn’t it? Here a man has been led by the Holy Spirit to believe in Jesus Christ and now he faces death because converting is against the law. I wonder if anyone in Washington D.C. is going to make a stink about our ally against terrorism possibly killing a man for exercising his faith in Christ?

My sermon for Sunday has been uploaded to the site here. But if you want a hardcopy on your hard drive, click here for a .pdf copy. This is the first time we have uploaded my sermon to the site, and yes, we are working out a few bugs.

For some reason, prior to Morning Prayer at Saint Matthew’s (by the way, it is held every morning, Monday through Friday, at 7:15A), I was on the telephone talking with a friend (who just happens to be Roman Catholic) about the doctrine of justification within our churches. Considering it was just after 6A and I had forgotten to turn on the coffee pot, I could have gotten a little “snippy.” But I didn’t.

Our discussion centered around my sermon from last Sunday where I wrote about the differences of the importance of faith throughout Christianity and how Lutheranism encompasses all of what God tells us in His Word without adding human machinations to the formula. Or to put another way: Luther got it right. My friend said the opposite – Luther got it wrong. “Biblically, the (Roman) Catholic Church gets it right,” he said. He claimed that the RC believed in justification by faith, but even with that, we needed to live our lives in a state of love.

Even without a cup of coffee in me, I held my tongue. Asking the questions, “Where is that in Scripture? Where does it say that we need to work to prove our faith or our love of God?,” our conversation went toward Saint Paul and his doctrine of justification (look up Romans 3:28 for an easy and quick refresher).

It is without a doubt that Saint Paul understood what the early church believed – we are saved by faith alone in the work of Christ without any works on our part. If we had to work to prove our faith, we would be working for a long, long time without reaching any level of Godly satisfaction.

After Morning Prayer (our readings were Psalm 119:121-128 and 2 Thessalonians 2), I came back to the parsonage and read through “Revisiting Paul’s Doctrine of Justification” by Peter Stuhlmacher. I pull from my reading the following paragraph:

“…Paul built his doctrine of justification on the basis of the holy Scriptures and the doctrinal traditions that had already been developed before him, both in the early church in Jerusalem and in the missionary churches of Damascus and Antioch…He saw himself “accepted” (cf. Rom. 15:7) by the grace of the living Christ on the road to Damascus; he understood the gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ that was entrusted to him to be the message of the revelation of God’s righteousness; and he gave the ‘word of reconciliation’ (2 Cor 5:19) which God had established as a direct counterpoint to the revelation at Sinai, its proper place within the global horizon of apostolic missionary activity.”

Saint Paul understood – it was God who saved, not man. If man could save itself, it would have been done long ago by using the law given at Mount Sinai. But we can’t. Only through faith in Christ can one be saved. Faith built not by human hands or minds but by God Himself through the Word and the Holy Spirit. It was what the early church preached and believed and it is what we believe, as Lutherans, today.