From the Pastor: Sharing Peace

Dear Peace family,

This year our stewardship theme will be "Sharing Peace in Our World." We want to highlight the many ways that our giving each week helps bring the peace of Christ to those in need in so many places in the world.

Let me give you some examples. In Ethiopia’s Afar Desert region, alternating flood and drought conditions make life tough. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, working through the Lutheran World Federation, has helped to build a river diversion project which enables local families to control the Wama River–avoiding flooding, and enabling water to be used more effectively for agricultural purposes. That’s one way we are "Sharing Peace."

Here in Nevada County, until last year there was no shelter available for the many homeless people in our community. A group of local Christians started Hospitality House, a "floating shelter" that provides a dry and safe place to sleep for the homeless during the winter months. Peace has been involved–both financially, and by offering our facilities for one night a week as the shelter site, and by many individuals providing meals and companionship for our guests. We are "Sharing Peace."

In burgeoning Lincoln, California, Grace Lutheran Church is ministering to increasing numbers of new families. We have been financial supporters of this ELCA mission for several years now, and the congregation is really starting to take off. We are "Sharing Peace."

In Nicaragua, there is a growing Lutheran presence but a shortage of pastors. The ELCA Division for Global Mission has sponsored an innovative pastoral training program, which just last year produced the first five ordained pastors for that empoverished land. Through your giving, you are "Sharing Peace."

It’s easy to see the new Fellowship Center taking shape on our property here in Grass Valley, and it is exciting. It’s harder to see the hundreds of ways that our faithful giving is "Sharing Peace" with people all around the world–bringing hope, sustaining life, offering the good news of Christ. It’s harder to see, but if we open our eyes and understand how we "Share Peace" through our church, it will be every bit as exciting as watching a building go up.

"Sharing Peace in Our World"–what a wonderful opportunity God has given us to do his work! Thanks be to God!

Peace to you,

Pastor Richard O. Johnson

Classic Prayers

Almighty and everlasting God, at evening, and morning, and noon day, we humbly beseech Thee that Thou wouldst drive from our hearts the darkness of sin and make us to come to the true Light, which is Christ; through the same Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.

--Gelasian Sacramentary (ca. 500 A.D.)

Liturgy Notes: Reformation Day

Good Lutherans always look forward to Reformation Day on October 31--the day, so the story goes, when Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg. What is the history of this celebration?

It might be interesting to note, first of all, that historians today question whether the event actually happened as we have imagined it for centuries! On October 31, 1517, Luther did mail a copy of his “95 Theses” to the Archbishop of Mainz, the ecclesiastical “top dog” in the area where Luther lived. He also sent copies to several other bishops. The subject of the 95 Theses was the sale of indulgences--certificates authorized by the church which assured the buyer that their sins were forgiven, and their time in purgatory reduced. Luther opposed this practice, and his theses were an extended argument against it, intended not so much as a public attack but as an invitation to theologians to debate the matter. But whether he actually nailed the theses to the door on that day (or any other day) is less certain. He himself never made reference to this incident, and we are dependent on a remark made by Philip Melanchthon, Luther’s colleague, several decades later, for the story.

Yet whether he nailed the 95 Theses or not, he certainly mailed them to enough people that they shortly became public knowledge. They were printed and distributed all over Germany, so quickly that Luther himself remarked that it was as if the angels themselves had dispersed them. (Remember that the printing press was a new invention at the time, and it was quite unusual for such a document to be so widely-spread.) However you figure it, October 31 is a key date in our Lutheran heritage.

The celebration of that date, however, was not an immediate thing. Very early in the history of the Lutheran movement, Lutheran provinces in Germany and elsewhere set a particular day aside to remember their spiritual heritage; but it wasn’t usually October 31. Some areas celebrated Luther’s birthday. Some observed the anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. Still others celebrated the Reformation on Trinity Sunday (apparently figuring that just as Pentecost represents the birth of the church, so Trinity--the Sunday after Pentecost--represents the “rebirth” of the church).

It wasn’t until 1667 (the 150th anniversary of 1517) that John George II, the Elector of Saxony, decreed that October 31 be celebrated as a Reformation festival. The historical context is interesting; Germany had recently experienced the so-called “Thirty Years War”, a time of great tension and conflict between Protestants and Catholics in central Europe. In a way, the celebration of the Reformation was a way to “shore up the troops” and remind Protestants of their heritage.

But it proved a popular idea, and soon many other areas were adopting it. Today it is virtually universal among Lutheran churches around the world, though it remains a fairly distinctive “Lutheran” festival; it does not appear, for example, on the calendar of the Episcopal Church’s “Book of Common Prayer.” Yet it corresponds with similar festivals in other churches which recognize some foundational event in their own history and heritage.

On Reformation Day we gather as Lutherans to thank God for the witness of the Reformers. We sing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”, of course (what Reformation service would be complete without that?), but some other segments of the liturgy have important Reformation connections, as well. The Psalm for the day is Psalm 46—the Biblical inspiration for Luther’s famous hymn. The Prayer of the Day is quite old, dating back to a church book in Saxony in 1539 (thus it is a prayer that Luther himself is likely to have known—perhaps even written):

Almighty God, gracious Lord, pour out your Holy Spirit upon your faithful people. Keep them steadfast in your Word, protect and comfort them in all temptations, defend them against all their enemies, and bestow on the Church your saving peace...

One of the early versions of this prayer actually “named names” when talking about the enemies of God--it prayed against the Turk and the Pope! Today the perspective of the centuries has enabled us to be more balanced in our view of things, and Reformation should not be, for us, a time of being “against” others. Rather it is a day when we can remember the witness of Luther and the other Reformers, rejoice in the clear view of the gospel that they have left us, and give thanks for the heritage that we have as Lutheran Christians.