A Daughter's Lament

By Edna Hong

May, a grown-up daughter who loves her mother very much be permitted to share some concerns with her siblings, all children of the same Mother – namely Mother Church, or more specifically, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)? – I suppose it's futile to wish that Mother had a simpler name, for example, ALMA or ELLA!But so strangely, it was Soren Kierkegaard who in a journal entry in 1851 collected and summarized my vague uneasiness about Mother Church.The definition of Church found in the Augsburg Confession, that it is the communion of saints where the word is rightly taught and the sacraments rightly administered, this quite correctly (that is, not correctly) grasped only the two points about doctrine and sacraments and has overlooked the first, the communion of saints (in which there is the qualification in the direction of the existential). Thus the Church is made into a communion of indifferent existences (or where the existential is a matter of indifference – but the "doctrine" is correct and the sacraments are rightly administered. This is really paganism. (Soren Kierkegnard's Journals and Papers, Indiana Univ. Press, Bloomington, 1957)Yes, indeed, the doctrines that Mother Church teaches us are correct, the sacraments are rightly administer~but where is what Kierkegaard calls ~ the urgent call to exist in the truths that are so rightly taught and the sacraments are so rightly administered? In that beautiful Year of Our Lord, the Church year that the great-grandfathers of the Church so magnificently devised, what has happened to what they called the Trinity Season, that great, green becoming-season when we grow to become what God has made us in his son Jesus Christ?Oh, the Word of Grace comes through strongly in all its truth and purity from Mother Church until Pentecost, but in the long, long season that follows Pentecost the Word of Response, the Word that calls me to the response in my existential life, my daily existence, calls me to respond in gratitude for the wonder of that grace – that Word from Mother Church has become weak and wobbly. Mother Church, who is so sure about the WHY seems to have become very unsure about the How. And that is what the season after Pentecost is all about! Saint-becoming! How to become the saints of God has made us in Christ! Its goal, now that it ahs proclaimed the Christ is to make us Christ-like, to reproduce the Gospel in our souls, in our lives. Its task is to teach you and me, who live in a world sapped of Christian ideals – indeed, mocks them – to believe in them, honor them, love them, and teach them to our children.The Pentecost Season ends with a triumphant crescendo – All Saint’s Day. Not at all strangely, Mother Church’s indifference to that season results in All Sant’s Day being the most indifferently celebrated festival day in the Church Year! Indeed, I have attended worship services on that day when the only reference to it was a necrology list in the church bulletin. (Incidently, have you heard about the faithful church member who was furious because her name was not on the necrology list?)"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting," said G. KL. Chesterton, "it has been found difficult and left undone." If G. K. Chesterton lived today, perhaps he would say, "It has been found difficult and not proclaimed."Why? Why are Christian ideals not proclaimed? Has Mother Church forgotten that she not only has the authority but also the obligation to proclaim the Christian ideals? Has she forgotten that Croci is not a Greek god who indulges in "meaningful relationships" with mortals, male and female-a god who winks at sin? Has she forgotten that JesusChrist, who forgave without limit, also said, '~o and sin no more"? Has she forgotten that sanctification is the special work of the Holy Spirit, who came with tongues of fire and inaugurated the Church~ut He neeels our cooperation? (Blessed be God, who created us with the freedom of thc will! We are not forced into sanctification!)Has Mother Church ceased to proclaim the Christian ideals because it's such a difficult task to preach the call to be holy without meaning to he "holier-than-thou"? To teach Christian ideals without berating and haranguing? Because she is scared to death of "works righteousness"-to the death of good works? Because in her lust for numbers she is caving in to the social milieu? Because Luther is the Apostle of "Faith Alone"?Ah, but Luther was also a messenger of sanctification! Hear him in his exposition of I Peter it 1:14-16 "And as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct, since it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.' The little word 'holy' means that you are 'consecrated'. Thus St. Peter says: 'You have consecrated yourselves to God, therefore take heed that you are not once more led astray into worldly lusts, but let God alone rule, and work, and live within you, so are you holy as lie is holy."' (Day by Day We Magnify, Thee, Reachings from Martin Luther, Fortress, Philadelphia, 1952, p.265.)A song comes to mind: 'Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my Bonnie to me, to me!" In my sometimes irruptive mind the words change (but not the tune): "bring back, bring back, oh bring back 'You shall’ and ‘You shall not' to Mother Church!"

Yes, bring back a fructiferous, fruit-bearing Pentecost season!

Edna Hong, renowned Kierkegaard scholar and with her husband', the translator of Soren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers, has authored many books. Among them are the classics: Turn over any Stone, and Bright Valley' of Love.