LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 117

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2. Greetings of the President Emeritus
Reverend Chairman Kuhn, President-elect Kieschnick,
Dear Fellow-Travelers in the Missouri Caravan:
Thank you for your warm welcome and especially for the
honor and privilege of bringing you a few words of greeting
and comment. How good it is to see so many old friends and
to make some new ones, too, and to cheer all of you on as
you work together to find new and better ways “To Tell the
Good News about Jesus.” It’s a special privilege, too, to
share the stage this noon with old friends who lead some of
our many partner churches around the world and to hear
the greetings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America from a man who has been a trusted personal friend and
co-worker for Lutheran unity for at least thirty years, its
soon-to-retire-from-office Bishop H. George Anderson.
Long before the Convention Workbook was printed, a
District President friend of mine told a number of us about
an overture adopted by a congregation in his District which
they entitled “To Leave Things Alone.” They were tired of
hearing about reports and proposals from task forces and
committees and officials and just wanted to leave things
alone for a while. Their title was later changed in the Workbook editing process, but that sentiment lingers on for
many, if not most, of us from time to time. With everything
always changing, and changing so rapidly, in our surrounding culture, why can’t the church just leave things
alone? That plea is often so very important: the church’s
message of salvation in Jesus Christ, like our dependence
on the Word of God, dare not be tampered with or changed!
When that seems to be happening, we are right to cry out:
“Leave it alone! Conserve it with all your might!” But to do
precisely that, we cannot simply “leave things alone” in our
life together. Too many things are constantly changing in
the world where we carry out the mission God has given us!
Too many dimensions of our structure and organization are
no longer effective! Too many new hurts cry out for comfort
and healing! Too often the well-worn paths of the past have
simply become ruts in the road as we try to move forward
with the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Those who ask questions
about such things should not be ignored, let alone criticized,
as too often happens among us. Just leave things alone?
No, not really. In fact, sometimes we are reminded in a very
direct way that things cannot simply be left alone, as happened just a few months ago when God called President
Barry home to Himself in heaven. As we thank God for the
gifts He gave us through President Barry and for the stable
direction of President Kuhn that has followed, we also
thank and praise Him for now giving us President
Kieschnick and other leaders, not just to leave those things
alone that the Lord allows and perhaps even WANTS us to
change, but to help us move forward boldly and confidently
to carry out the mission He has given us.
Indeed, the concept of “moving forward” is closely related to what it means to be a so-called “synod,” a rather
strange word to many ears. But, taken literally, it simply
refers to people who are travelling together. In Luke 2, for
example, the word “synod” is used in a very evocative way.

When Mary and Joseph, on their way back home to
Nazareth after celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem,
could not find the twelve-year-old Jesus, they simply assumed He was where? “In the synod” (en te synodia), writes
St. Luke, or, as translators render it, in the “group or company or caravan of travelers,” the thousands of devout men,
women, and children travelling together on their homeward
way from Jerusalem after celebrating the Passover of their
great redeeming God.
My fellow travelers in the Missouri caravan, this is not
the time or the place for me to say what I think about all
that has transpired in this convention, especially since we
have seemed to follow, on more than one occasion, Yogi
Berra’s infamous advice: “When you come to a fork in the
road, take it!” (Such comments will no doubt come in another place, in another form.) Today, I simply want to give
three words of encouragement to all of us traveling together
in the Missouri caravan. The first word is that we need to
travel more QUICKLY if we really hope to tell everyone the
Good News about Jesus. So many times we remind ourselves that we are supposed to be “walking together.” Perhaps that’s one of our problems: we are WALKING together, or attempting to, when we should be running. I
believe it was a Missouri Synod prep school student years
ago who penned a parody of a popular hymn verse that goes
like this: “Like a lazy turtle, Moves the church of God;
Travelers, we are treading, Where we’ve always trod!” My
fellow Missouri travelers, the turtle ought not be the symbol of the church in mission! No, let’s encourage each other
to find better ways to go quickly and tell one and all that
Christ is risen. That’s a task that can never wait!
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200l Convention Proceedings