Here I Stand

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We’re not Lutherans because of Luther. We’re labeled that because it’s our stand too. Five centuries later we are still called to this confession: “I am bound by the Scriptures,” “My conscience is captive to the Word of God.”

Today we have to get ready to confess. Christians are now a minority in America. We are about to find out if we really believe the Creed we just said. Jesus warned in today’s Gospel that the wolf is coming. “The wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.”

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Sermon for Teacher Work Week: The Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist

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What are we here for, at Immanuel Lutheran School? Our goal as pedagogs is to ago the paidoi, to lead the children to their goal, to their completion, to their perfection. We ourselves are not there, but we are on the path. And this path leads to the kingdom of God, the perfection of the world in the regenesis of the human race. All the subjects—math and literature etc.—are to be employed with nurturing the conscience and shaping the heart. We are preparing our young men for the moment Salome salaciously presents herself and now a decision must be made. We are preparing our young women to not be Salome.

Yet there is something beyond morals here, and obedience to the God-given conscience. There is also preparation for the moment after the moment, the time when we’ve stepped off the path our pedagogs mapped out for us.

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