Letter to the Church in Response to Governor Northam's Statements on Worship

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I wrote the following to the members of Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Alexandria, Virginia.

Dear Christians,

One of the great blessings of America is the First Amendment's guarantee of the free exercise of religion (and the right to peaceably assemble). The government's job is to protect the rights of the people, not make religious pronouncements.

Yesterday the governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, crossed that line. Blaming churches for the spread of the Coronavirus, he said that going to church is unnecessary. “This year, we need to think about what is truly the most important thing. Is it the worship or the building? ... For me, God is wherever you are. You don’t have to sit in the church pew for God to hear your prayers.... Worship with a mask on is still worship, worship outside or worship online is still worship.”

It is important that we show honor and respect to our government and its officers. In matters of Christian doctrine, we must respectfully correct the governor's erroneous statements.

Christians gather together around Christ's Word and Sacraments (Acts 2:42, 46). The Lord's Supper is by its very nature communal (1 Cor. 10:16-17; 11:17-21, 33). It is true, "God is wherever you are." However, God's omnipresence is not His gracious presence. The Lord Jesus established means of grace. These means are tangible, coming to us in water, bread, wine. The Word, while we can encounter it through print or electronic media, is intended to be proclaimed to the assembly of the faithful (Heb. 10:23-25), where the shepherd (pastor) is instructed by Holy Scripture to lay his hands on the people, pray for them, call them by name, etc.

We all want the Coronavirus to go away. Let's listen to the governor in his recommendations to wear masks, practice social distancing, cleanse our hands, and practice other mitigation measures. We will honor and pray for Governor Northam and all our federal, state, and local leaders. But in matters of theology, remember that the gathering of the Church is essential, receiving the sacraments is essential, and in these matters we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).

Every good wish in Christ, 
Pastor Esget

Trinity 7 sermon 2020

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The Washington Redskins announced recently that they’re changing their name. For this season, they’ll be known as the Washington Football Team, which is actually more creative than their style of play.

The name change comes amid the destruction of statues across the land. Stoking the fires of racial and religious division, Shaun King called for the destruction of statues and stained glass images of Jesus and His mother. These Christian symbols are “tools of oppression” and “racist propaganda.”

The fervor behind such iconoclasm is rooted in a new fundamentalism….

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Septuagesima 2020

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Attempts at equality among people often fall far short. In Orwell’s Animal Farm, the Communist system is summed up in one of the “Seven Commandments”: “All are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

Men treat each other unequally. But the Word of God tells us that we are all equal in this respect: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all equally mortal. And we all stand before God as sinners.

But we prefer inequality. That’s what today’s Gospel reading reveals.

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Three Meditations on "Lo! He comes with Clouds Descending"

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“Why won’t there be food in heaven?” a student asked me recently. I reminded this thoughtful child that in the kingdom of God our bodies will be resurrected, and the Bible often talks about God’s kingdom as a feast. And then I asked, “What made you so sure there wouldn’t be food?”

“Because the Bible says we won’t hunger or thirst.” Ah! Yes, I see why you might think that. But you see, it’s not eating and drinking that’s the problem, but a world where people suffer.

Our world is infected with sin, and corrupted by death. So when the Bible says, “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore,” it’s describing a world where people don’t starve, where people have clean water to drink….

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Thankful for All We Do Not Have

Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church
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“He is good.” That confession of faith from the Psalms made its way into the Liturgy of Christ’s Supper: “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.” What if we isolate the words from the time of our prosperity? Can we still confess them? Is He good? Even when He takes away our good things?

Is He good when family is missing at Thanksgiving? Is He still good when your dreams become terrors in the night? Is He still good when your child is in pain?

Or have we made our judgment on God’s goodness dependent on the good we experience? …

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Living for the Bridegroom

Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church

What are you attached to? Are you truly free? What would happen if you gave up, or were forced to give up, Social media? Netflix? Beer? Your cell phone? As another church year draws to a close, the Parable of the Ten Virgins cries out to us again to assess our lives in light of Christ’s return. Are you ready for it, or have you been living as though it were not really the important thing, that the truly important things are what can be found in your Twitter stream, cable news, or whatever it is that you happen to be hooked on? What was it that kept the five foolish virgins from being prepared for the arrival of the Bridegroom? What is it that is hindering your preparation for the return of Christ? What things keep you from living now as a disciple of Jesus?…

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We Are a Forgiveness People

Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church
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Louis Armstrong once said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” Peter’s question shows he doesn’t know what forgiveness is. Forgiveness doesn’t ask, “How many times do I forgive?” Love keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus explains this by means of a parable – a parable about a debt.

The national debt of the United States is currently about $22.7 trillion - up $17 trillion since 2000. Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like a lot of money. I don’t understand how it happened. I’ve never studied economics, but I wonder how we’ll ever pay it off.

The guy in today’s parable was probably wondering the same thing. He owes 10,000 talents. One talent equals 6,000 denarii. A denarius was about a day’s wage. So to get an idea of what this man owes, imagine your annual salary. Let’s call that about 310 denarii. If you worked for 19 years and saved everything you earned, you’d have about 6,000 denarii – or one talent. That means you’d need to work for 190,000 years to get to the amount of this man’s debt. It’s simply not possible. This isn’t the debt of a man, but a nation. How will he ever pay it off? …

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Faith Grasps God's Word

Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church
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Howard Jones sang, “No one is to blame,” but the Eighties were a long time ago. In 2019, someone must be blamed. Political anger has replaced religion as the culture’s driving animus. Someone is to blame, and the mob won’t stop until the scapegoat is called out and cancelled.

Today’s Epistle shows us that people are not our problem. I don’t agree with Marianne Williamson on much, but she’s right about one thing: We have spiritual forces of evil arrayed against us. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Against this enemy, no earthly defenses will avail. The Satan has this aim: to turn you away from the God who loves you; to drive a wedge between creature and Creator...

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Blessed Are the Losers

Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church
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“The Be Happy Attitudes,” they’ve been called. The opening sayings of the Sermon on the Mount, today’s Gospel, are usually referred to as the Beatitudes. It’s from the repeating word Blessed, which in Latin is Beati. Beati pauperes spiritu. “Blessed are the spiritual paupers.” I doubt that’s what people mean when they say they’re spiritual but not religious.

Robert Schuller popularized the idea that blessed is really an attitude. In his book The Be Happy Attitudes, Schuller writes, “Blessed literally means ‘happy.’ So … you can be happy if you will discover the eight positive attitudes given to us by Jesus in the Beatitudes.”

I want you to be happy. But blessedness is something far deeper than happiness. Blessedness transcends happiness. Blessedness helps us survive all the unhappy things. Blessedness is not an attitude. It’s a condition, a state, a status…

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