The Bible in the language of the people

This past Sunday's sermon on Pentecost touched on the need for the Gospel to be preached (and Bibles made available) in the language of the people.  It may seem obvious today, but it was not always the case.  From 1567 to 1773 there was not a single Bible printed in Italian for the people of Italy to read.  Why such a lack?  Because Pope Paul V had banned its use by the laity in Italy.  He went so far in his zeal against the Bible to proclaim, "Do you not know that so much reading of Scripture ruins the Catholic religion?"  The Roman Inquisition went to to confiscate and BURN publicly copies of the Bible in Italian.  Regular readers of my blog know of my commitment to ecumenical unity and my wife's Catholicism, you also know that all denominations have skeletons in the closet we'd rather forget.  That being said, for a Pope, the shepherd of his flock, the deny his people the Word of God because he was afraid of what they might do with it goes beyond stupidity to cowardice and negligence.  I continue to pray that my Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ will feel the Holy Spirit burning within them and encouraging them to read the Word of God.  In my sermon on Sunday I reminded my congregation that they have a duty to always compare what I preach/teach to the Word of God.  As the body of Christ, we all have an obligation to study God's Word ourselves and determine if those who tell us what it says are accurate or not.
In the end, the Bible has triumphed over all those in history (and the world today) who have tried to silence it.  Wycliffe Bible Translators are working on 1500 translation projects at this moment in hopes of finishing the last needed translations so that all of the world's 6000+ languages will have at least some of God's Word in their own tongue by 2025.  Likewise, Gideons International distributed about 70,000,000 Scriptures last year (about 1.6 Billion total in their 100+ year history).  The text of our Bible study for this coming Wed. morning is appropriate - "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God." (I Peter 1:23)

Memorial Day in PA

For the past five years I had led the service for Memorial Day at the little cemetery across the street from my church in Palo.  It was a privilege and an honor to do so each time.  This year, I wasn't there (as you know from our move to PA); I missed being there and seeing more than 100 people show up in that tiny town to pay their respects.  This past Memorial Day I was in Franklin, watching the parade with its thousands lining the streets, an impressive sight to be sure.  Then Nicole and I walked over and sat down at the bandstand to await the service expecting the whole park to be full of people (if only 1/2 those who had watched the parade came over, it would have been full of people).  I was saddened to see that only about 100 people stayed for the extra hour to listen to Mother Holly's prayers, watch the wreaths being laid, hear the list of those veterans who had died this past year, and the always moving 21 gun salute with taps.  I've been impressed with Franklin thus far; the town has great civic pride and does so much together, perhaps that was why I was disappointed to see so few linger to pay their respects.  I know that different towns had different traditions, but my hometown of Saranac always filled the cemetery at the end of the parade route for the service, the people of Palo more than represented their town by having more people at the cemetery than lived in the town; I guess I just expected more.  One thing I know, I'll be there next year.

Sermon Video: "The wonders of God in our own tongue!" - Acts 2:1-12

The advent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost was accompanied by the miracle which allowed the disciples to speak in the languages of the multitudes in Jerusalem.  With this eye-opener, the Holy Spirit begins the age of Church missionary activity and shows us an example to live by: give the Gospel to the people in a way that they can understand.  Beginning with William Tyndale and continuining on today with the work of Wycliffe and Gideons, the Bible is being given to the people so that they too can hear the wonders of God in their own tongue.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

A History Lesson: How NOT to run a Church

This nugget of wisdom also comes from Diarmaid MacCulloch's The Reformation but isn't one that very many people will know already.
In 1561 a Greek soldier of fortune named Heraklides found himself in the employ of an unpopular king in the small Eastern Orthodox Christian principality of Moldavia.  Heraklides had little love for the Orthodox tradition of his homeland and had rather become enamored with Protestant Christianity (his work as a soldier had taken him all over Europe to this point).  With the backing of the Hapsburgs and the Lithuanian nobility, Heraklides overthrew the king and took his place.  In and of itself, this wouldn't be much of a lesson for the Church, such coups we fairly common in Europe, but what happened next proves to be rather instructive.
Heraklides ordered Protestant worship in his court, appointed a Polish Reformer as his bishop, and generally annoyed the traditional Orthodox people he intended to rule.  To make matters much worse, Heraklides raided the Orthodox monasteries because of his zeal against sacred images (a huge matter of contention at the time in much of Europe struggling with the ideas of the Reformation) and took their golden crosses and the gilded frames of their icons (Orthodox two dimensional Christian paintings; Heraklides didn't destroy them, just took their valuable frames) which he proceeded to melt down and turn into coinage with, of course, his own image on it.  Forget for a moment the irony of having zeal against idolatry, but making coins with your own image on them, and just think about the choices that Heraklides was making.  As an outsider, he was imposing Reform ideas (whether right or wrong) on the local population of Christians without any regard for how they felt about it.  In other words, he was trying to lead a movement from the top; against the will of the people.
The story ends badly; his army deserted him and he was butchered without mercy, along with any who were suspected of being sympathizers with his cause.  The entire experiment of imposing a Reformation on an unwilling populace had lasted two years.  Similar problems were happening all over Europe (though not to this extent) as nobles and kings attempted to guide/direct/coerce their people toward their own chosen side in the Catholic/Protestant divide.  This certainly should enlighten us about the danger of governing against the will of the people, but it also teaches us about how church leadership, be it local or denominational, cannot simply force people to accept changes (good or bad, right or wrong) from the top down. 
For those of us who are church pastors, this lesson is helpful, though sadly easy to ignore when our own circumstances convince us otherwise.  We see a need, something that our heart tells us is what God wants, and we try to force our people to see it to.  The fault, typically, arises from not taking the time/effort to lay the groundwork properly or not allowing for the fact that change is difficult.  Rather than running around melting down our people's icons (a symbolic stand-in for anything they hold sacred), we should be asking ourselves WHY they feel that way about them?  Where does this passion come from, is it healthy or not?  Can it be utilized rather than attacked?
There are few easy answers for a pastor, elder, or lay leader in a church that is in need of reform or restoration.  The problems were not arrived at quickly or easily (in most cases) and they won't be solved that way either.  But do yourself a favor, don't aspire to be a Heraklides, it didn't end well for him.

Sermon Video: Hard to say Goodbye - Acts 1:6-11

Mothers know how hard it is to say goodbye; they raise their children knowing that in each stage of life they have to let go a little more.  After 40 days with his disciples following his resurrection, Jesus knew it was time to say goodbye.  Before he left, Jesus gave his followers a monumental task: to preach the Gospel to the whole world.  It would not be an easy task, it would not be a short task, but it would bring glory to God.  In the end, Jesus does intend to restore the kingdom of Israel and rule as its king, but not before all the world has been blessed through him.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

The Plot Thickens...or...The More You Learn, the More There is to Learn.

One of the things I love about a good thick book on a subject I already know about is the chance to learn new things and see things in a new perspective.  As I continue with Diarmaid MacCulloch's book, The Reformation, I've been intrigued by the author's attempts to show the parallel developments that were going on throughout the 1500's in areas that converted to Protestantism, and those that did not.  It was not as if reform was absent in Spain or Italy while Martin Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were working in Northern Europe, but rather that those initiatives toward reform took different tracks and ended up with different outcomes.  Some of the explanation is as simple as the normal N/S divide in Europe's culture (along with its climate and geography), as well as the differing relationships between rulers and their nobility, and the simple fact that Rome was in the south.
One particular connection between the Jesuits and Methodists struck me as interesting.  The Jesuits resisted the urge to become a clerical order, "We are not monks!  The world is our house." (Jeronimo Nadal, Society member, 1550's)  Likewise, two centuries later John Wesley sent out another group of traveling preachers saying, "the world is my parish".  That Jesuits and Methodist preachers would have anything in common may seem surprising, but one of Loyola's core beliefs was that the Medieval Church was wrong to think that priests or monks had any greater chance of getting to heaven than anyone else. {an idea he learned from Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ}.  That idea was at home within the Protestant Reformation, where the idea of the priesthood of all believers became a foundational understanding of our salvation by grace. 
What's the point of all this?  Am I saying that there are no real differences between Catholics and Protestants?  Of course not, but if we are ever going to see past those differences and begin to work together for the kingdom of God, it would help if we understood that our common ancestry, the Medieval Church, gave rise to reformers throughout Europe (not just in the North).  That we went down differing paths from there is obvious, but that both groups were in the process of reform should help us see that our paths may at some point run closer together once again. 

Sermon Video: The Reluctant Prophet, Part 2 - Jonah 3-4

After having learned that he cannot run away from the will of God, Jonah proceeds to Ninevah to deliver God's message.  To the shock of all, the Ninevites actually believe God and repent.  In response, God relents and does not send the judgment he had threatened.  Jonah, however, is very angry at this outcome because he wanted his enemies to be destroyed not forgiven.  God uses and object lesson to try to show Jonah the value of each human life and God's desire to forgive any who will repent, but Jonah's own heart is clouded by his hatred.  In the end, as Christians, we have no enemies, only those with whom we can share God's grace.  If Christ didn't die for them also, he didn't die for you either.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video