An unlikely pair of voices spoke to me through their writings in the past week. The first is from one of my favorites, the first President of our Synod, C.F.W. Walther:
“For how is it that even now, after 1800 years, there are so many millions of blood-bought souls who will walk in pagan blindness? The reason is that the church and we have not done our full duty. Very clearly the Lord says through the prophet Jeremiah in the 23rd chapter of his book, 'If they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.' Therefore, we must think with terror on the Day of Judgment when all the millions of heathen who have died in their sins will arise against the Christians and say:
`O Holy God, Your judgment against us is indeed just; but here stand the Christians who should have proclaimed to us Your counsel for our salvation, or could have provided for it, but they did not do it. O Lord, judge between us and them.'
Dear brothers and sisters, let us think, really think of this today and humble
ourselves before the Lord, and denounce ourselves on account of our laziness and
lukewarmness in our concern for the world that is still lost. Let us also pray God
for forgiveness of this our sin of omission toward the poor fellow-redeemed
heathen, that our conscience, stained with the blood of their souls, may through
faith be washed clean in the blood of Christ. Then the Word will be fulfilled also
in us: “He that believeth on Him is not condemned” (John 3:18)” True Mission Society, p 23
For if the entire Christian church is the real mission society which God Himself
has established, then all those who ignore mission work and do not care anything
for it certainly are not true and living members of the church, that is, not true
Christians. They break the oath of allegiance which they have made to Christ at
their baptism. They want to carry the keys of the kingdom of heaven in their
hands and yet do not want to open heaven to those who are still outside. They
want to be spiritual priests and yet not do the work of a priest. They want to be
God’s wheat, and still are not fruitful grains of wheat. They want to have faith,
yet have no love. They have no compassion in their hearts for the distress of the
heathen, and thereby show that even though they are baptized, they still have a
heathenish heart and that they themselves are in darkness and the shadow of
death. They are brothers of Cain and say with him: “Am I my brother’s
keeper?” - True Mission Society, p. 23
Ouch. The second voice is a more unlikely one: former LCMS pastor-turned-Roman Catholic priest, Richard John Neuhaus:
“The present state of American Lutheranism is not just `not satisfactory.' It is a sickness unto death. The alternative is not beating the drums to revive flagging spirits, nor is it to move evangelism a few notches up on the bureaucratic agenda. The alternative is renewal – theological, pastoral, sacramental, catechetical. The alternative is to be something that others might have some reason to join. Church renewal is very difficult and, were it only up to us, impossible. Church renewal points us in directions almost exactly opposite to the directions pointed by the merger process, by Missouri's fascination with “church growth... There is no guarantee that that a Lutheran Church that is exciting and distinctively Lutheran would reverse the dismal membership figures, although there is good reason to believe that it might. But at least there would be more purpose and integrity in going down with the ship (Dec 1986).”
Ouch again. The season of repentance is upon us once more. If you were looking for something for which to pray in this regard, I submit that these two witnesses from our past provide us all with plenty.