Editor’s Note: Pastor Megan Ann Shaffer is writing for Lutheran CORE for the first time. She is an NALC pastor in Pennsylvania.

“Ugh, discipleship is so law-based.” Sadly, I frequently hear this as a disciple-maker. Quite frankly, I can understand why people hold such a position, which results in their hesitancy as Lutherans to begin making disciples intentionally.

However, this interaction got me thinking. What causes such hesitancy and resistance to discipleship? One answer is easy. For years, outreach and evangelism were a silo within the church. Tasks that fell into either of these areas were often left to a team and/or the pastor. As times have changed, that approach no longer works for most congregations. Gone are the days when we could safely assume our neighbors were Christian. Now such assumptions are invalid due to the diversity of our communities.

Secondly, individual faith in America has been a matter of privacy for hundreds of years. My grandmother taught me that there are two topics you do not discuss at a dinner party: politics and religion.

Additionally, Lutherans face another layer of complexity due to the proper distinction between law and the Gospel. As those justified by faith in Christ rather than by good works, we proclaim the Gospel. Why would we focus on something that could trap our parishioners in the cycle of the law?

As disciple-makers, we have a strong tide to swim against while working to reshape the culture in which we live—if we are truly going to live out our vocation to follow Christ’s command to go and make disciples of all nations. It’s a lot to think about, so where does one begin? That was the question I found myself asking as I began my call to a congregation eager to grow. Taking all of these and many other factors into account could easily have overwhelmed me.

When faced with something overwhelming, my seminary professors emphasized that those are the moments when we need to use our toolbox. As pastors and church leaders, we are blessed with a wealth of knowledge available to us in our Lutheran tradition and within the broader Christian community.

Recently, I listened to a podcast featuring an interview with Pastor Bill Hull, who commented on the relationship between preaching and discipleship. He stated what my Lutheran homiletics professors taught me: how we preach and the focus of our preaching forms our parishioners. The idiom ‘you get what you give’ perfectly sums it up. Pastors preaching legalistic sermons form legalistically focused Christians. Likewise consumeristic preachers shape consumeristic Christians, and so on.

What Bill is saying makes sense: “If you want your parishioners to understand their identity as disciples, you must preach the Gospel accordingly.” But what made even more sense was what he said next: “We don’t start the conversation on discipleship at ‘make disciples.’” How can we expect our flocks to go out and make disciples if they have not been discipled?

We don’t start the conversation on discipleship at ‘make disciples.”

Bill Hull, Discipleship pastor and author

As an example, when I was a child, my grandmother never told me to crochet an afghan. That would have been absurd since I had no knowledge of how to go about doing so. Instead, she sat down with me and showed me the basics. As I watched, Grandma demonstrated to me how she created each stitch. Additionally, she showed me how to seamlessly join colors, so they looked like they naturally flowed together. As she worked, I sat with her and would repeat aloud what she was going to do next. Over time, I tried out simple stitches with her help. Eventually, I could also work on my own and seamlessly join colors, so they naturally flowed into a functional piece of art.

Similarly, the goal of discipleship is to empower others to follow the Great Commission, as my grandmother taught me to crochet on my own. She did this by spending time with me. Christ invested in his disciples by spending time with them. Telling our parishioners to go out and do something they have no clue how to do absolutely produces hesitancy and resistance. Conversely, if one has some familiarity with a concept because they have heard about it, it is less intimidating. So consider priming the pump of discipleship by introducing it through preaching.

If your church is following the three year lectionary, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday with 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10.  Officially, the pericope begins, “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:20b–5:21, ESV) In light of the fact that he is addressing established Christians, what Paul is obviously driving at here is the ongoing need for even the most committed Christians to realign their lives with the will of God.  “Be reconciled” implies that these already-converted Christian believers are not in a conciliar state with God; in fact, Paul is addressing them for a third time precisely because while claiming Christian identity, they are behaving in ways inimical to God.

At a recent gathering of primarily conservative clergy, I got some hostility but engendered much more fantastic conversation when I brought up the danger of Christianity being coopted by conservative politics. In the end, everyone agreed that Christians need to be on God’s agenda first, offering critique as well as necessarily-conditional support to any ideology, political party or strategy. This is what it means to be “the light of the world” and the “salt of the earth.”

A wise mentor once told me that people’s politics are always influencing their theology, but that the great conversation that is the inner life of the church over time corrects—and when necessary, excises—the errors that people of any given time and place incorporate.  Because of the fractured nature of the Church’s communion and witness, amplified by social media, there is a real danger of these much-needed course corrections being significantly delayed or not even engaged in.

The solution to this is to heed Paul’s words to “be reconciled to God,” which is of course, what the season of Lent is all about. The difference between the orthodox Christian construal of these words and the progressive Christian one is that for the orthodox Christian, the Bible provides the content of what being reconciled to God looks like—a detailed road map for discerning where one’s life is out of sync with the life of the triune God.  Conversely, for the progressive Christian, the Bible provides abstract theological principles, but the content comes from elsewhere, sources deemed more relevant because they are more contemporary, scientific, progressive, or whatever.

The outcome of these two approaches is what yields at least some of the divisions observable in contemporary Christianity, where people united by confessional traditions like Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, etc. have radically different ideas of what makes for faithful Christian living.  While both agree for the need to reconcile ourselves to God, one group sees God as telling us what would constitute alignment with God, the other believes that God is “just” or “forgiving” or “love,” but asserts that what those words mean is not what Christians have traditionally thought they mean, based on the witness of Scripture.

What this means in practice is that the progressive Christian lacks any tool whereby to critique their own politically-influenced positions, for they have no data by which to evaluate them.  As long as the principles they have gleaned from Scripture seem to be met by the ideologies and morays acceptable within their own narrow cultural conditioning, they are living as God intends and no reconciliation is necessary. Conversely, for the orthodox Christian, while perceiving one’s own biases is always notoriously hard, the Scriptures provide actual canons against which to measure cultural assumptions and political prescriptions… and the exhortation to do so.

Paul goes on, “Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” It is important that we not consign the persistent warnings of the New Testament about spiritual disqualification to the dustbin based on our theological principles, no matter how venerable or new. We can receive the grace of God in vain, and only the lifetime of persistent Christian repentance (realignment) that Luther called for in the first article of the 95 Theses can stave off that terrifying reality. So, since we cannot hope to be perfected in theology, holiness, or piety, let us be perfected in repentance, and let the Scriptures dictate to us what that should look like… furthermore, let us start today. “For [God] says, ‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor 6:1–2, ESV)

 

For it is sufficient for the true unity of the Christian church that the Gospel be preached in conformity with a pure understanding of it and that the sacraments be administered in accordance with the divine Word.

(Augsburg Confession, Article VII)[1]

Maintain Unity

One of the most difficult and important tasks of pastors and
leaders in any congregation is to maintain unity. It is no easy thing to keep a
group of several hundred people united around a common vision of mission and
ministry. Many of you have experienced how painful and destructive conflict
within a congregation can be. Friendships are broken, people become
disillusioned with the Church and therefore with the Gospel itself. Some just
drift away and stop going to church altogether. Even when things seem to be
resolved, distrust can continue to simmer below the surface.

Politics are Divisive

One of the things that seems almost certain to cause
division and distrust in 2020 is politics. The division between Red State and
Blue State, conservative and progressive, Democrat and Republican is as wide
and deep as it has been in a long time. Just begin to discuss immigration, LGBT
rights, war, abortion, gun control, religious freedom, Israel/Palestine, global
warming, and a host of other issues, and the conversation will quickly become
heated. Express the wrong opinion and you might be shunned, or unfriended on
Facebook. In some cases, you may even lose your job or be sued. This is as true
in the family and the church as it is in the workplace or social media.

As a pastor, I have always worked carefully and diligently
to make sure that people of all political stripes feel welcome in my congregation.
I encourage each person to live out his/her vocation as citizen by voting,
volunteering and advocating for those causes that he/she believes are in accord
with God’s will. However, I have made it clear that the congregation and its
ministries cannot be used as a platform to advance partisan causes. For
instance, the congregation does not pass out voting guides or endorse amendments
to the state constitution.

And yet at the Synod Level

You can understand my dismay then, when I have seen the
annual assembly of my synod used as such a political platform. Several years
ago, members of St. Paul were shocked when they listened to a report given by
our synodical VP. They expected to hear about how the synod planned to proclaim
the Gospel. Instead, they heard a laundry list of political tasks the VP
insisted the Church must undertake. To add insult to injury, the VP suggested
that those who were skeptical of or opposed to her agenda were in the same
moral category as Nazis and White Supremacists. This same pattern of behavior
has continued for at least four years, if not longer. I can imagine the voting
members to the synod assembly thinking to themselves, “But pastor said that the
Church is not to be used as a political platform for one’s favorite political
causes. Was he being untruthful when he said that?”

Where Does the ELCA Leadership Stand?

The bottom line on all of this is that it is no longer clear
whether the leadership of the ELCA agrees with what the Augsburg Confession
(AC), Article VII, says about the true unity of the Church. It seems that many
believe that the true unity of the Church is found in a common socio/political
agenda. Those who do not share or will not support this agenda are anathematized.
 

A further problem arises when we consider what the AC,
Article V, says about the Ministry:

To obtain such faith God instituted the office of the ministry, that is, provided the Gospel and the sacraments. Through these, as through means, he gives the Holy Spirit, who works faith, when and where he pleases, in those who hear the Gospel.

[2]

The Holy Spirit Gives Faith in Jesus Christ

The primary calling of the pastor and the primary mission of
the congregation is to preach the Word of God, in Law and Gospel, and to
administer the Sacraments.  The Lutheran
Church confesses that it is through these means that God gives the Holy Spirit.
It is this Holy Spirit that gives the gift of justifying faith in Jesus Christ.
In turn, it is faith that becomes active in good works for the neighbor. (See
Article VI on the New Obedience.) You might say that through the faithful
ministry of the pastor and congregation, God brings about true change in persons,
communities and the world.

Lost Confidence in the Gospel?

One of my primary concerns with the current emphasis on
political advocacy and engagement in the ELCA is that it suggests we have lost
confidence in the power of the Gospel to change the world. It is often
suggested that the mission of the Church is to be transformative. It is our
calling to change the world. And it is through engagement in the issues of the
day and in the promotion of certain political causes that the Church truly
makes a difference. This turns the Augsburg Confession on its head.

Political Advocacy Is ELCA Pastoral Duty?

Of more concern is the notion that, within the ELCA, it is the
duty of pastors to promote the political causes and agendas endorsed by the
larger denomination. Wording in the standard letter of call in ELCA synods says
that a pastor shall “impart
knowledge of this church and its wider ministry though distribution of its
communications and publications.” When the focus of the ELCA was primarily on
Word and Sacrament ministry, this was not problematic. When the majority of the
communications and publications of the ELCA focus on political advocacy,
however, it turns the pastor into a political operative or press agent.

Unity via the Gospel and the Sacraments

The current
direction of the ELCA in regard to political engagement and advocacy presents a
serious challenge to the ministry of pastors and congregations as outlined in
the Augsburg Confession. It encourages and sometimes insists that we welcome a
major cause of division into our congregations at a time when the political
divide is at its worst. It would prevent us from finding the only unity that is
necessary, namely unity through the Gospel and the Sacraments.

---

[1]
Theodore G. Tappert. Augsburg Confession (Kindle Locations 88-89). Kindle
Edition.

[2]
Theodore G. Tappert. Augsburg Confession (Kindle Locations 79-81). Kindle
Edition.

“I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.” (St. Paul, writing in Philippians 1:12-13)

As you look over the past few days, have you spent more time thinking about President Trump and the NFL or our Lord Jesus Christ and His kingdom?

The apostle Paul had more reason than most to focus on the politics of his day.  For preaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ and teaching His followers to live obedient lives of faith marked by kindness, forgiveness, and self-control, Paul found himself arrested by the political authorities and placed in chains.  Yet look what he says of it: “What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.”

The gospel had captivated Paul with stronger bonds than chains, and in that gospel captivity, Paul found himself to be free: free to be joyful and hopeful, humble yet bold, and resolute but forgiving.  He even viewed injustices against his own person in light of God’s decision to establish His Son’s kingdom.

Something immense has struck this world: God has raised a crucified and rejected man from the dead.  Is it enough to occupy our thoughts, and shine new light on our actions, every day?

LET US PRAY: Still my mind and heart, O Lord, that I may not miss You amid the currents of this life.  Help me to perceive, in every circumstance, Your gracious hand at work, for my good, and for Your glory; in Jesus’ name.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau