LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 346

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346 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

tion’s budget should be devoted to activities that demonstrate “faith
working in love.” They argue that too large a percentage of the con-
gregation’s resources are going simply to the provision of ministry

‘to the members. They want to see vigorous attention paid to local
social concerns and to LCMS World Relief.

Others in the congregation argue that, if the congregation can
afford to free up half of its financial resources, the money would be
better spent on direct support of mission activities such as the the-
ological education of indigenous pastors in developing countries
and support of ministry in the military and on college campuses.

What do you think?

These seven scenarios illustrate the kinds of questions that tend
to arise when Christians “reflect on the role of Christian care in the
overall life of the Christian community.” At the end of this report
we return to the scenarios. At this point we turn to detailed theo-
logical reflection as a basis for further discussion.

A THEOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

The 1995 CTCR report Render Unto Caesar... and Unto God:
A Lutheran View of Church and State alerts us to a “fundamental
ambiguity in the term ‘church’” (65). We find in this observation
the helpful insight that the one church can be seen from several dif-
ferent vantage points.

Article VII of the Augsburg Confession teaches that the church
is created by the Word and sacraments. This article, therefore, de-
scribes the church as “the assembly of all believers among whom
the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are ad-
ministered according to the Gospel” (AC VII, 1). The church is
here defined theologically according to its central and constitutive
dimension. We recognize without compromise that “the primary
concern of the church must always be the Gospel of the forgive-
ness of sins, for Christ’s sake, through faith alone” (Render, 91).

The church, thus defined, organizes itself for service in a variety
of ways. Its primary focus is on Word and sacrament ministry, but
the faith of the members manifests itself both in a diversity of so-
cial structures and in a diversity of daily vocations of the believ-
ers. As emphasized earlier, the question we are addressing concerns
how a Christian congregation organizes to help its members ex-
press the energetic love and hope that accompany a true living
faith. This requires that we reflect both on the daily lives of believ-
ers and on the variety of social structures that foster Christian ser-
vice. Two related, but distinguishable, aspects of the church’s life
are identified:

1, From one vantage point we can speak of a vocational
dimension of the church’s life, the daily work of all
believers. “The church, as body of Christ, involves the
daily work of all believers as they engage in the many
occupalions that, 1ogether, constitute human communilies
and meet human needs. The church reaches out with the
love of God for a suffering world primarily through the
words and deeds of its members” (Render, 91).

2. From another vantage point we can speak of a communal
dimension of the church’s life: organizing for loving
service. The primary ministry of Word and sacraments
inevilably involves the gathering of a community of 1wo or
more in Christ’s name (Matt. 18:20). Communities brought
logether by Word and sacrament can also be instruments
for facilitating ways that Christians express the love and
hope that accompany a true living faith. In this way the
church appears lo the resi of the world as one more
“institution of the society in which il exists” (Render, 92).

For example, “it has a legal existence and is directly
affected by a wide variety of civil legislation” (Render,
92). This community has always organized first for the
central task of Word and sacrament ministry. Slill, as
organized social structures churches facilitale a wide
variety of serving activities thal flow from the
proclamation of the Gospel. (Consider the picture of the

2001 Convention Workbook

early church provided by Acts 6 as discussed below on
page 19)
Recognition of the vocational and communal dimensions of the
church’s life can help us better “reflect on the role of Christian care
in the overall life of the Christian community.”

The Vocational Dimension of the Church’s Life:
Daily Work of All Believers

We begin with the vocational dimension of the church's life.
All agree that the active love and hope that accompany a true living
faith will appear in the daily life and work of all believers. Luther-
ans are well taught by their tradition to recognize that this is the
primary way the church reaches out with the love of God for a suf-
fering world.

Lutherans understand Christian vocation or calling to indicate
the places where God has located the Christian for living out his or
her faith. God has placed Christians into families of origin with
parents, siblings, and others. He has situated them in jobs and ca-
reers with fellow workers, employers and employees. They live in
specific neighborhoods and communities with identifiable neigh-
bors. They owe earthly obedience to particular governments. They
create new families in marriage and through the procreation of chil-
dren. In all of these callings Christians live out the active love that
flows from living faith.

In each of these situations God has given Christians different
assignments or responsibilities. For instance, the home is the place
in which spouses care for each other and their children. Occupa-
tional situations are the settings for the exercise of economic re-
sponsibilities for other people. Through government God arranges
for the maintenance of human justice by punishing evildoers and
by promoting the good.

When God’s Word guides us to pay special attention to the
humble, daily round of duties, we will not give in to the tempta-
tion to sacrifice the needs of neighbors near at hand to grand causes
that appear to the world to be more worthy. When our understand-
ing of Christian callings is rooted in Scripture, we are protected
against narrow worldly definitions of what “real care” would mean.
The Apology of the Augsburg Confession alerts us to the tempta-
tion to substitute human works for Scripture’s account of our call-
ings and says: “The commandments of God are obscured; for when
men regard these works as perfect and spiritual, they will vastly
prefer them to the works that God commands, like the tasks of
one’s calling, the administration of public affairs, the administra-
tion of the household, married life, and the rearing of children” (Ap
XV, 25).

In our own time the Cambridge historian Edward Norman illu-
minates the same temptation to denigrate simple everyday works
while pursuing worldly ideals of generosity. He argues that some
Christian leaders are “liable to absorb seemingly any account of
world conditions which exploits their generosity,” and he asks
“what will happen to Christianity as its content is drained away into
the great pool of secular idealism.’*

The following poem vividly captures the significance of the be-
liever’s daily work:

Lord of all pots and pans and things, since I’ve no time to be

A saint by doing lovely things, or watching late with Thee,

Or dreaming in the dawn-light, or storming Heaven’s gates,

Make me a saint by getting meals and washing up the plates.

Although I must have Martha’s hands, I have a Mary mind,

And when I black the boots and shoes, Thy sandals, Lord, I find.

I think of how they trod the earth, what time I scrub the floor:

Accept this meditation, Lord, I haven’t time for more.

Warm all the kitchen with Thy love, and light it with Thy
peace;

Forgive me all my worrying, and make my grumbling cease.

Thou who didst love to give men food, in room or by the sea,

Accept this service that I do — I do it unto Thee.®