Necessary Roughness

I normally don’t like to link to a lot of blogs. It feels like piggybacking. But when Pastor Weedon follows in time with a post like this, it’s like back-to-back jacks in baseball.

Example:

The task of the preacher is not to master the text, not to interpret it, not to exegete it. Rather, the task of the preacher is to hear God addressing him through that text, interpreting him, exegeting him. The text and the God who speaks through it, is the Master. God would shape through that text the mind of Christ in those He addresses. And a big help in that is the whole community of those whom God has addressed - the Church who has heard Him speak through this text through the ages.

Humility in a preacher, allowing himself to let the Word subjugate his preconceived notions, is a treasure that is growing more rare. It is a quality to be sought far and wide, and as Pr. Lehmann notes in the comments, it is entirely scriptural. Thanks, Pastor Weedon.

Josh S, perhaps one of the first Lutheran bloggers ever, has written a great post that distinguishes Lutheranism from the religion of the megachurch.

Here’s how he wraps up:

You’ll never understand the Lutheran Church just by looking at it as “liturgical” (by the way, our liturgy beats anything Marty Haugen ever dreamed up) or at its tendency for smaller, more intimate congregations. Even those things are outgrowths of its sacramental character. And sure, you’ll find Lutheran churches that have pretty much lost any sense of what it means to be Lutheran. You’ll find the same flawed, annoying people. You’ll find groupthink and power politics. But those things aren’t what make the Lutheran Church what it is. Those things fade into the background when you see Jesus’ sacramental activity and presence in and underneath it all. A faithless pastor might be a puppet of Satan–but that’s all he is. A puppet. The sacraments he serves are still Christ’s, the Lord’s words, “Your sins are forgiven” and “This is my body” remain true, and so his word and presence in the Gospel, baptism and the Supper remain larger and greater than any surface problem the Church could ever have.

To be Lutheran is to believe what God has done for us, to identify what God has said and what he has not said, and to trust in his clearly identified promises and gifts.

HT: Club For Growth

photo credit: Soil-Science.info

The Environmental Working Group has released its Farm Subsidy Database updated with data from last year. Check out who benefits from over $5 billion in farm aid.

Nationally $2 billion went to corn, $1 billion went to wheat, and cotton got half a million dollars. In Ohio, corn is still king at $101 million, but soybeans is second with $38.5 million. In my county $1.7 million of federal subsidy was received for corn. The database lets one drill down to state, county, and finally recipient.

Our tax dollars, not at work.

Fox News has posted the entirety of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s speech at the National Press Club. He is opening a two-day seminar on “the African-American religious experience and its historical, theological and political context.”

One might think because I do not have the most darkly complected skin that I have no right to comment in this domain. I will not comment on the historical and political context that I do not know. The theology, though, is fair game for anyone with Scripture in hand. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” St. Paul states.

Lest I take things out of context, I will try to quote appropriately and emphasize those parts that I am paying attention to, just to be as fair as possible.

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I didn’t realize until the count read 1498 that I was getting close to 1500. The archive number reads 1695, but that’s because faulty WordPress drafts and currently irrelevant LiveJournal notes were taking up numbers.

I’ve tried to do some things to make the blog easier to read and use. The latest thing is the individual category feeds on the left. Some people just want to see the government posts; others just want to see the religion posts. Still others, pictures and audio. The category-specific RSS feeds let you do this. If NR is already in your RSS reader, those feeds will continue to work.

Even if you’re a lurker most of the time, feel free to chime in on this one. What do you like about NR? What don’t you like? What do you think about the post frequency? Post Length? Writing Style? Types of Content? Tone?

I look forward to your feedback. If you don’t want to make your comments public, you can e-mail them to me so I can still use them. I thank you, the reader, for coming in, reading, and offering your feedback.

I was supposed to teach today, but I was informed nobody was going to class today. I caught the 8:00am service again at Lutheran Church and School of Messiah in Grand Junction.
A skip through the radio dial at 7:30 caught the Lutheran Hour with a men’s choir singing “Salvation Unto Has Come.” Not a bad start to the day.

There was interesting news during the prayers: Pastor Roger Sterle, whom I had seen preach in Vernal, UT, had accepted a call to a dual parish in Iowa. Maybe there’s a call for a recent M.Div. grad there.

Divine Service I without Holy Communion was offered, with Pastor Buss as the liturgist and Pastor Storck delivering the sermon. The hymns were:

• Opening: 779, “Come My Soul, With Every Care”
• Sermon: 556, “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice” (all ten verses )
• Closing: 578, “Thy Strong Word”

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Bloomberg reports that oil prices are climbing in the wake of a pipeline shutdown in the United Kingdom and rebels attacking another pipeline in Nigeria. OPEC is keeping production down, and Iran wants oil to climb still northward.

Meanwhile NBC can burn up energy promoting a Green Week, part of which is advertising energy-efficient products like CFL bulbs from NBC’s parent, General Electric.

We can’t tackle energy issues from the demand side alone. We have to address our supply issues. Punitive regulations must be lifted from the power industries, while removing their subsidies. Access to our own natural resources must be restored. Taxation of imported goods, like Brazilian ethanol, should be reduced.

We are making this problem by strapping ourselves to an ideology of planet supremacy. We are choosing the result of higher food and energy prices and more poverty in the pursuit of a stopped planetary evolution. We can ask those who are starving because food isn’t as cheap and energy isn’t as plentiful whether this pursuit is worth it.

My coat was stolen in Grand Junction, but the investigation netted two thieves who stole two coats.

Last Wednesday I wore my coat to the HAL facility, but the day had warmed up so much I didn’t think about wearing it back to the hotel. I left it in the training room, and it was gone the next morning.

After a day of checking everywhere I’d been to see if I’d left it anywhere, I asked the facility manager for permission to review the tape. The training room had a security camera.

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