Coffee: the neo-mission of the LCMS?

*Update*

Another of My Facebook friends pointed me to the website of the congregation referenced in the article.  It seems as though this particular effort is different from this one or even this one.  First, their website, unlike the article, makes it clear that they are a church first.  The Sacrament and Divine Service are clearly given a priority on the site, so I assume the same is true in their practice.  The coffee and lounge area are set up at other times, perhaps like any other congregation.  So for my implicit accusation that the Sacraments of Christ are diminished in favor of coffee, I repent.

The second difference I noticed on their website, for which I commend Holy Cross, is the offering of real Lutheran reference materials in their bookstore.  They even promote Issues, Etc. 

My perplexity remains, however, at why coffee is the new method to hook people onto the Church.  Is it because it's mildly addictive? 

The original post is below.

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It's almost like a bad joke.  I've heard in Lutheran circles on several occasions that little riff that coffee is the third sacrament (or fourth or fifth, depending on how you number them).  Lutherans love their coffee, and they love their coffee hour.*  So, in a caffeine-crazed zeal for mission, the thought has permeated our churches that putting in a coffee shop is the premier way to reach out to those who so desperately need to hear the Gospel, with a side of mocha.

This trend came to my attention again in an article recently posted by one of my Facebook friends. "Storefront church: Holy Cross Lutheran offers coffee shop atmosphere."  The article could be in reference to any number of Ablaze! (TM) funded shots at hooking an unsuspecting public on our particular brand of caffeine, then our particular brand of church, then our particular brand of Gospel.  It seems as though if you want to do mission, coffee must be included.

Besides blatantly showing that the targeted demographic is suburban, white, upper-middle class, Gen-X (or Y) hipsters (the ones who hang out in these kind of places and who, coincidentally, stand the best chance of giving significant amounts of their money that they don't spend on coffee to a congregation who will spend it on coffee), the article itself reveals one of the particular problems about such a set-up.

The only restriction the church has, because of limited parking, is no weddings or funerals; those would be held at one of the other LCMS churches, he said.

I'm sure it's only because of parking that no one wants to have their wedding or funeral in a place where the abrasive sound of steaming milk is heard more often than the singing of the Psalms.  Coffee houses are for coffee, eating, reading, relaxing, surfing the web, reading this blog, and meeting with friends.  They aren't for weddings and funerals.

So, tell me, what makes a coffee house appropriate for celebrating the wedding Feast of the Lamb and His Bride?  What proclaims His death better, sipping on a latte or on His blood in the Supper?  If this is truly contextual ministry, what kind of context is established by elevating your love of coffee not even to the level of sacrament, but above it?  After all, you probably drink your daily cup of java, but daily (or even weekly) communion seems excessive.

Let's get back to Jesus' way of doing missions.  It's not hard to figure out or to do.  He tells us Himself in the plainest language: preach the Gospel, Baptize, Absolve, and feed the Lord's Supper.  We only have to be prepared that most people will want nothing to do with that.  Just like most people wanted nothing to do with Jesus while He walked the earth. 

*Except my congregation.  Coffee is seldom found at our functions.  We actually just started a coffee hour this year, but it's not attended too heavily.  They use pre-ground Maxwell house and our water is so hard that it comes out of the tap more like dampened limestone pebbles than anything resembling a liquid.  That may have something to do with it.

Sermon for Judica (Lent 5)

John 8:46-59
Lent 5—3/21/10
Emmanuel Lutheran Church—Dwight, IL
River of Life Lutheran Church—Channahon, IL

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ story follows a pattern of Jewish feasts. In most every story, Jesus is either going to, coming from, or in the midst of a feast of the Jews. Today’s Gospel finds Jesus in Jerusalem following the Feast of Tabernacles, or the Feast of Booths, which commemorated Israel’s wandering for forty years in the wilderness.

Thus, the Jews Jesus encounters in today’s Gospel were most likely the temple Jews—Sadducees and priests. These Jews were different from others (like the fundamentalist Pharisees) in that they were the liberal elite of their day. The Sadducees were functionally atheist, or at best agnostic, because they did not believe that God—if He existed—was involved with His creation at all.[1] One of the chief characteristics of their system of beliefs arose because of the influences of earlier Greek philosophy—they completely rejected the resurrection of the body.

It was this particular teaching of Jesus, along with His identification with the Father, that made the Jews thirst for blood. The reason why is that the resurrection of the body offended their common spiritual assumptions.

As I said, these Jews were influenced by Greek philosophy, which taught that reality is divided into two realms—a lower and a higher; a physical and a spiritual. Of these two realms, the spiritual is the ideal, the good, the blessed. Things that are physical, things that are carnal are bad. When Jesus reveals that the physical bodies of those who keep His Word will not see death (v 51), the false faith of the Jews causes murderous thoughts to darken their souls.

It’s just a few chapters later when Jesus gives a sign of the general resurrection by raising His dear friend Lazarus after he had been dead four days. But the Pharisees who saw this sign brought word to the chief priests and the Council (the temple Jews) and from that point on they began to plot together about how to kill Jesus. Jesus’ death was because He taught the resurrection.

There is also quite a bit of Sadducaism in the Christian Church today. The heirs of the Sadducees in today’s Church are the liberalizing mainline Protestant denominations, functionally atheist, or at best agnostic Christians, who reject more and more of the Lord’s Word each year. Yet, the error of the Sadducees is not found strictly in those churches.  In fact, it's a trait that's shared with the morally conservative, fundamentalist Christian right.  It’s found also in ours. For many Christians, like those Jewish elite, tend to spiritualize Christianity, and in so doing, effectually deny the resurrection of the body.

Evidence of this “Sadducaical” spiritualization of Christianity is found most clearly in two places: beliefs regarding the Lord’s Supper and about what happens after death.

One of the most malicious works of the devil in the Church today is the attack on Christ’s Word that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper only represent a spiritual body and blood. So the Supper is only a meal of remembrance and nothing more. Yet such a belief is a failure to keep our Lord’s Word, which most clearly says more than once, “this is My body; this is My blood.”

Another common misconception found among Christians that we must do our best to battle against is that after death, we will spend eternity in a spiritual heaven, floating around in some sort of a-physical bliss. But our Lord Jesus Christ rose in His body and He promises to raise each one of us in our bodies. It is as St. Paul writes, if there is no resurrection, then “your faith is in vain.”

B.

So when Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death” (v 51), it the Jews listening to him are quite irritated. Now, unfortunately, the English translation isn’t quite accurate and doesn't show why the Jews were so worked up. A better translation of what Jesus says is, “If anyone keeps My Word, he will certainly not see death for eternity."  

These Jews, however, who deny the resurrection of the dead, misunderstand Jesus to say, “If anyone keeps My Word, He will certainly not taste death forever” (v 52, translation mine). They scoffed at the thought that Jesus could insulate His hearers from death’s bitter tang.

In a way, the Jews are right to be shocked. After all, one does not have to live for long before the taste of death sours the soul. Every time an illness strikes, every time an injury afflicts the body, you get just a little taste of death. Even bitterer is the taste of death that comes when a loved one is laid to rest. And as surely as the sun sets each day, each of us will taste death when our bodies are lowered into the grave.

The curse of sin is that all will taste death. But Jesus doesn’t promise that we will not taste death. In fact, to taste death is precisely why He came into the flesh.

JESUS CAME INTO OUR FLESH TO TASTE DEATH SO THAT WE MIGHT NOT SEE DEATH FOR ETERNITY

B'.

The taste of death was with Jesus often. Especially in the years of His public ministry, He was almost always found among the sick, the suffering, and the distressed. He was found among the dead. Jesus did not flee the dregs of society to set up a holy commune removed from the sufferings of the common man to live a victorious life. He touched the sick, spoke peace to the suffering, and raised the dead. He left life in His wake, and took death into Himself. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,” the prophet writes (Is 53:4).
And then our Lord fully tasted death by allowing Himself to be taken into the hands of ruthless men, beaten, mocked, and hung upon a cross. The bitterness of death echoes in our Lord’s dying words, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mk 15:34). For Jesus didn’t just suffer the pain of physical death on the cross— which is the separation of the soul from the body—but He also suffered the pain of eternal death—which is the separation of both soul and body from God.

This is the glorification of which Jesus speaks to the Jews. “Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge,” “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’” (vv 50, 54). In a short time, Jesus will also speak to some Gentiles, and when He does, He says, “‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’…‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (Jn 12:23, 32-33).

Jesus crucifixion is His glorification by the Father, for it is in His crucifixion that we see His true nature of love. He loved us all to the point of tasting our death, joining us in our curse, and accepting the punishment that God does not desire that anyone receive. So He gave it to His only-begotten Son on behalf of all. Behold the glory of God in a dying man.

A'.

The Jews misunderstood Jesus and so they failed to grasp the promise He offered to them. Jesus says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, if ever anyone keeps My Word, he will most certainly not see death for eternity” (v 51, translation mine). Here in Jesus’ Word is a promise of resurrection for those who would believe. And He seals His Word by allowing us to taste His death through the blessed Sacraments.

In the waters of Holy Baptism, we are baptized into His death (Rom 6:3). Just as Jesus was buried in the tomb, so also are we, with all our sins and evil lusts, buried in the waters of Baptism.

And in the Holy Sacrament of His body and blood, our tongues taste bread and wine, but our faith tastes His flesh and blood which were given over into death and poured out for the forgiveness our sins.

Thus if you are searching for the glory of God, look no farther than the Sacraments, for they are where Christ delivers His crucifixion.

The promise Jesus gives us is not that we will not taste death in our lives, if we keep His Word. In fact, quite the contrary. He promises that there will be suffering and trials in this life—even death of the flesh. But St. Paul explains that sufferings are where we daily taste Christ’s death. “For I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Gal 6:17b). Suffering become for the Christian, God’s sign that you are in Christ.

And what awaits the one who suffers is the fulfillment of Jesus’ Word and promise. Though we will all taste death in this life, we will most certainly not see death forever. “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom 6:5). This means both that we are given new, righteous life here on earth, and also that there is life for eternity awaiting us in God’s kingdom which is yet to come.

So rejoice with Abraham that you have seen the day of the Lord, the day when His glory has been revealed on Calvary. And be glad that you are also given a foretaste of the feast to come in the Holy Supper of our Lord, where you sit at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. O taste and see that the Lord is good.

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.


Rev. Jacob Ehrhard
VD+MA

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[1] TDNT, VII:46.