The Upload
Posted on May 30, 2014 by
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray that you’ve had a blessed week.
You know, as a Lutheran pastor, I am often asked about what Lutherans believe. In our congregation, we have many people who are not life-long Lutherans, and so they have heard differing thoughts and interpretations of scripture before, and now they want to know what they “should” believe. I understand the need to want to know more about Lutheran teachings. I was raised in the Roman Catholic faith tradition, and I remember the days when I was starved to learn more about the Lutheran teachings. Over the years, though, I have come to worry much less about the differences in the various traditions and have come to seek more about what we all have in common.
For example, a popular question I get, particularly from ex-Catholics, is, Why is it that only Catholics believe in the Virgin Mary and why do they pray to her? Well, to be honest, Lutherans believe in the Virgin Mary, too. Actually, all Christians who subscribe to the creeds believe in the Virgin Mary. Most non-Roman Catholics, however, do not pray to Mary to ask her to intercede with God on their behalf. Lutherans do profess that Mary is “Theotokos” (Greek for “God-bearer”), and that she was special because of her model of faithfulness and obedience, but we do not pray to her because we don’t find scriptural support for that notion. So even though we do not venerate Mary as the Roman Catholics do, we Lutherans do hold her in high esteem and we do honor her for her willingness to allow herself to become part of God’s work in the world.
And that is the common denominator in all the various Christian traditions. Whether or not we pray to Mary is not what is important; the important thing to understand about Mary is that, by looking at what little we know about her life, she modeled faithfulness for us. Mary willing accepted God’s call for her whole life, and she did it with joy (see Luke 1:46-56).
As Christians, we are all called to accept God’s claim upon our lives. God has granted us his grace and he gives it to us freely, and in response, with the joy of Mary, God desires we accept his call upon our lives. This is not an easy response, but whether we are Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist… makes no difference to God.
My prayer this week, as we enter the final week of the Easter season, is that we might take to heart Jesus’ prayer that we all might be one (read John 17:1-11). Instead of focusing on our differences, may we focus on Jesus, the one ALL of us call our Savior, and may we not let our differences keep us from working together to bring about God’s mission to reconcile the world to himself.
Have a blessed week!
Shalom,
Pastor Dave