Letters On The Page

Joseph Luzzi,  In A Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me about Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love . New York: HarperCollins, 2015.  On November 29, 2007 at 9:15am, Professor Luzzi's wife, Katherine Lynn Mester, pulled out of a gas station into oncoming traffic.  The injuries sustained in that horrific accident led to her death a few hours later on the operating table. Miraculously, their daughter, still in the womb at eight and half months old, survived thanks to heroic medical treatment.   By noon of that day, Professor Luzzi became a first time father and a widower.  He was numb, shocked, and his grief was long and hard.  Luzzi's mother, sisters, and brother stepped in to take care of daughter Isabel.  After a brief leave of absence, Luzzi returned to teaching at Bard College.  He and Isabel moved to the home in which Luzzi grew up in Rhode Island.  He commuted to Bard, staying long enough each week to fulfill his teaching responsibi...

2022-11-23 - Thanksgiving Eve  Deuteronomy 8:1-10     Philippians 4:6-20     Luke 17:11-19 In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. In the Small Catechism’s explanation of the First Article of the Apostles Creed, Pastor Luther lists a number of things which our heavenly Father provides for us. He points us to those things which are easily overlooked and taken for granted. Things like our bodies, senses, clothing and shoes, house and home, family, and work. We do not deserve any of these things.  Nor do we deserve God’s continual care and attention.  Nonetheless, our Maker gives us all of this and more out of his providential care and mercy for us. In the Large Catechism, Pr. Luther expands on this list with a cosmological perspective: “He causes all created things to serve for the use and necessities of life. These include the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens, day and night, air, fire, water, earth, and whatever it bears and...

  2022-11-21 - Daniel 2:1-23; Revelation 18:1-24 In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. As more and more residents of Judea and Jerusalem are forced into the long 1700 mile march into exile in Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah wrote a letter to the exiles.  Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Jeremiah assured the exiles that their exile would not last longer than two generations.  In the meantime, they should carry on with their lives: marry, have children, build homes, and above all, when possible, seek the welfare of the city.  Jeremiah 29:7 “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  Daniel and his friends were exiled to Babylon in 605 BC.  Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were selected to serve in the court of Nebechadnezzar.  These young boys, soon to become men, resolved to remain faithful to the LORD God while the...

 2022-11-20 The Last Sunday before Advent - Last Words Malachi 3:7-18      Colossians 1:13-20      St. Luke 23:27-43 In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. As we conclude the church year today, we return to some of the last actions and words of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We see the actions of Jesus being misunderstood by those around Him.  We hear in the words of Jesus both judgment and grace.  Both action and words need faith to fully comprehend their meaning.   Oddly, the only person in our text today who has any faith in Jesus is one of the criminals.  He recognizes his own sin and guilt.  He admits he is a criminal. This punishment is a logical consequence of his behavior and of getting caught.  And, he knows innocence when he sees it.  He confesses Jesus’ innocence. He may not understand fully why Jesus is on the cross, but he trusts Him for eternity’s sake.  Remember me when you come...

 2022-11-16     Evening Prayer      Jeremiah 31:1-17, 23-34      Matthew 27:1-10 God’s Promises In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.  One commentator I read says this about Jeremiah, “Compared with a prophet like Isaiah, Jeremiah offers less consolation.  However, the arrangement of his book is such that the overwhelming darkness of his oracles amplifies the brilliance of God’s grace.”  He certainly has that right. Jeremiah is dark because he is unrelenting in reporting the Lord’s condemnation of mankind’s perpetual trust in self (17:5-6) who’s heart is deceitful and wicked (17:9-10).  God threatens the people regularly with catastrophic discipline that includes war, famine, pestilence, and exile. Jeremiah reports on the Lord’s anger with the repeated moral and spiritual failures of an unrepentant leadership.  The call to repent is repeated regularly and in the strongest terms.  And, such ...

  2022-11-14 Vespers Jeremiah 29:1-19 Matthew 26:36-56 Commemoration of Emperor Justinian, Christian Ruler and Confessor of Christ In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.   God has blessed us with 150 Psalms with which we may use to pray to God for all manner of occasions. Some of these Psalms are clearly intended to be part of a liturgy that is used communally or individually.  For example, Psalm 120-134 are labeled as Psalms of Ascent and are probably used by pilgrims as they go up the road to Jerusalem.  Need a break from the climb, there’s a psalm for that.  We find Psalms that help us give voice to lament or grief.  Others are prayers of trust and faith.  My favorite is Psalm 23. Others give us words of praise or thanksgiving.  And, Psalms also can give us words to describe despair, frustration, and anger. The Psalms do not have a single author. We have Psalms written by King David, King Solomon, the Sons of Korah, Et...

 Second Last Sunday before Advent   Malachi 4:1-6 2 Thessalonians 3:1-13 Luke 21:5-36 In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.  King Solomon wrote a poem in his book Ecclesiastes about how there is a time for everything.  For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.  (Eccl 3:1-8) Many of us enjoy ...

  2022-11-9 Evening Prayer            Jeremiah 22:1-23  Matthew 25:1-13 Commemoration of Martin Chemnitz In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.   The prophet Jeremiah had only one king of Judah with which he did not have to speak God’s judgment against. King Josiah deviated from the evil ways of his predecessors and those who came after him by initiating a religious reform while he reigned as king.  A copy of the Torah was found in the temple while it was being repaired. It was read to Josiah. Josiah had it read to the people. All the idols were cleared out of the temple.  And, the Passover was kept for the first time in decades in the palace as well as in households across the land.  King Josiah was the one bright spot of leadership in Jerusalem that Jeremiah witnessed.  But, as soon as Josiah died and Josiah’s sons took over, they went right back to the evil ways that their father forbade.  Jos...

  2022-11-7 Vespers Jeremiah 11:1-23 Matthew 24:1-28 In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.  Reading any of the prophets in the Old Testament can be a sobering experience.  Reading Jeremiah, especially out loud, can be like a gallon of ice cold water thrown upon us on a hot summer’s day.  Jeremiah’s words are shocking.  In the shock, we see how deeply invested God is in his beloved people. And, because God is so deeply invested, we see how hurt God is by his Chosen people’s betrayal of the covenant that God established with them.  His beloved, the very people that God rescued from Egypt through Moses, the very people, the only people, with which God has ever established a covenant with, has without hardly a second thought, embraced the foreign gods of the Caananites.  He says in 11:13, “For your gods have become as many as your cities, O Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to shame, altar...

Wendell Berry. Remembering: A Novel. North Point Press, San Francisco, 1988.  Andy Catlett is one of the regular members of the Port William membership. He appears numerous times in Berry's fiction.   As an adult Andy Catlett lost his right hand in a farming accident.  He is right handed.  He grieves the loss of his hand as well as the fact that others have to do his farm work for him.  And, he has the indignity of having to learn to write and do everything else with his left hand.  It is a slow, agonizing, re-training process.   During his recuperation, Andy is angry with himself and everyone else.  He is angry for his accident that ruined his ability to work as he once did. And, he takes his anger out on those closest to him.   When this story starts Andy is far from KY because he was invited to speak at an agricultural conference in San Francisco.  He is the lone presenter who is not convinced that big is better and tha...

 2022-11-6      Third Last Sunday Before Advent Genesis 3:1-152 Thessalonians 2:1-8, 13-17Luke 20:27-40 In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.  Some of you may have listened to A Prairie Home Companion hosted by Garrison Keillor. At some point in the show, he gave a little report that often began with  "Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown, out there on the edge of the prairie." Mr. Keillor is a masterful storyteller and he whisks his listeners away through the mists of time and place on a fictional trip into a nostalgic history of home, a place that grows fonder in the heart the farther one is away from it. I am certain many of his listeners would love to go back home to a place like that. But, the truth is, if such a place truly existed, no matter how wonderful the memories, we can never truly go back to the same home again. Times change, people change, those who have moved away have changed.  It’s nev...

 What Makes for a Cheerful Giver? St. Paul wrote to Church of Christ in Corinth: “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7). God loves a cheerful giver. But who is a cheerful giver? Abel was. By faith, he gave the firstborn of his flock, and it was acceptable in God’s sight. Abraham was. By faith, he prepared cakes and a tender choice calf for God and entertained angels unaware. So also were David and Solomon. By faith, David would not make a sacrifice to God that cost him nothing, so he paid Araunah his due. By faith, Solomon built a house for God, where his name would dwell and thereby where He would dwell to be Israel’s God and they His people. What more shall we say? For time would fail us to tell of all those who gave not simply for the joy of giving but for the joy of knowing the One to whom they gave. So also our Lord, who for the joy set before Him, gave everything – yes, even His lif...

 2022-11-2 Evening Prayer - Jeremiah 1:1-19; Matthew 21:23-46 By What Authority?  In the name of the Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit.  On the face of it, the question that the chief priests and elders of the people ask of Jesus is a reasonable one: By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?  Jesus comes out of Galilee which is a seed bed of revolution.  And, he is healing and teaching all over the country unbidden.  He does not appear to have any supervisors or a Rabbinic school that he is attached too. In chapter 21, Jesus is on the Temple grounds, no less, and he is drawing a crowd.  He has no invitation.  Wanting to learn his credentials is a reasonable request. At least, on the face of it, anyways.   We are genuinely concerned about authority too. Are you really going to let just anyone come here to teach, preach and administer the sacraments? No, of course not.  We want someone who is authorize...

 "No gentleman can be without three copies of a book, one for show, one for use, and one for borrowers." Richard Heber (1773-1833)

  2022 31 October - The Eve of All Saints   Rev. 7:2-17 1 John 3:1-3St. Matthew 5:1-12 In the name of the Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.  Today is the distinctively Lutheran Festival known as Reformation Day.  In 1517, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther posted 95 statements about repentance and the usage of Indulgences on the church door in Wittenberg.  What was intended to be an announcement for an academic debate with 95 talking points turned into a revolution. We are still living with the effects of the reaction to these 95 statements. At the heart of the issue lay questions about salvation.  What role do we play in salvation? Not only our own salvation but others.  And, because Reformation Day moves right into All Saints day, the question may be framed as thus: How does one become a saint?   Luther taught us that doctrine and theology are important. He also taught us that it all begins with Holy Scripture. The center of Holy Scripture is t...