Fred Meuser Tells ELCA, God Will Build the Church

FRED MEUSER TELLS ELCA,
GOD WILL BUILD THE CHURCH
97-CA-14-RF

PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- "There are only two sure things in life. Death is one. Taxes are not the other," the Rev. Fred W. Meuser told members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's fifth biennial assembly, gathered for worship Aug. 17. "The other, in the words of Luther's Small Catechism, is: God's kingdom comes indeed without our prayer, but we pray that it may come among us also."
As the ELCA prepared to consider historic proposals to move closer to the Episcopal, Reformed and Roman Catholic churches, Meuser, president emeritus of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, reminded voting members that the church's heritage and hope derive not from comfortable structures and human interpretations but from Jesus' promise to Peter in Matthew 16: "I will build my church."
"You who were baptized as infants, raised in Christian homes, children of God from the cradle to this day in spite of having strayed onto some very slippery spiritual slopes who did that?" he asked.
"You who once were too sophisticated to believe, too proud to repent, too self-reliant to pray, to stingy to give, but how happily do them all, and are here representing this whole church and imagine! -- making decisions about its future who did that? Who toppled each of us off the control panel of our lives and put Jesus Christ there?"
Christ's promise is significant because it says that God's power sustains the church and that the church belongs to God, not to its human caretakers, Meuser said.
"It's easy to forget what God promises to build: Not sanctuaries, not the American way of life, not American Christianity," Meuser said. "What God does promise is a saved people, a fellowship no solitary Christians a family of disciples for whom Jesus is the center of life
A worldwide family of forgiven and forgiving sinners, bound together by the Word and water of baptism, by the Spirit, by the Body and Blood of the Supper, who cheer each other on, suffer together, worship together, care for the world together."
The church, Meuser said, has walls of the "living stones" of its members, windows in Christians "through which God's love shines into someone else's life," and the "world of need, near and far," which is the altar upon which Christians lay their lives and gifts.
The music of God's church, he said, is "the harmony that comes when people with differing gifts, differing convictions, differing traditions work together, pray, and cooperate in the cause of Christ." And doors? "No doors. No one kept out. No one forced to stay in. Nothing locked up for internal use only. Everything meant to flow out as God's blessing into God's world."
The signs of that outpouring of God's love are many, Meuser said. "Lives that were coming apart at the seams put back together. Relationships, gone to pot, restored and healed. Graspers turned into givers. Resenters into forgivers." Young people, such as ELCA youth gathered at New Orleans last month, "rejecting the question, 'How can we get in on the big bucks?' and asking instead, 'Teach me your ways, O Lord; show me your paths.'"
Christ's promise, the basis of the heritage and hope which is the theme of the ELCA's gathering, comes to life "wherever the life-changing message of Christ the Savior is discussed, shared, celebrated Whenever it comes alive in witness and sacrament, song and prayer, and service to people in need. Then God does it!"
"The saddest sight in the church is people who think God cannot or will not build that flock," Meuser said. "Alive, strong churches are those whose people count on the promise that 'I will build my church,' and give God their lives to use them in the process."
"That church, God's Church, is not a little fearful remnant hiding from the big bad world, always bemoaning how bad things are, hanging on by their fingernails. Oh, no! That Church is a great company, from every land from times past and present and yet to come, with the mind of Christ in them and a Lord out in front of them who says, 'Follow me! I have overcome the world! I will build my church!"
"That promise," Meuser said, "is our heritage and hope. It's never been rescinded. Not even now." The assembly's theme is "Making Christ Known: Alive in Our Heritage and Hope."
Meuser, who has published widely on Martin Luther and American Lutheran History, was professor of church history at Trinity before becoming president in 1971. He was vice president of the former American Lutheran Church, one of the predecessor bodies of the ELCA, for six years.
The theme of unity pervaded the service, which opened with Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson leading worshipers in renewal of their baptismal vows. Ministers then used branches to sprinkle water from the baptismal font upon worshipers to remind them of their inclusion in the one, holy catholic and apostolic church. Anderson then led the worshipers in a prayer that God "grant us the perfect peace that overcomes all doubt."
The prayers of the people, offered by Dr. Addie J. Butler, a lay voting member from Philadelphia, included a petition that God "set in us respect for lives past, and set in us honor of generations yet to come."

For information contact:

Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html