M A G A Z I N E O F T H E LUT H E R A N C H URC H O F A US T R A LI A & N E W Z E AL A N D
JUNE 2022
I confessed a nd you forgav e me! All my gu ilt is gone!
VOL 56 No 5
Print Post Approved PP100003514
PS AL M 32 :5
The of
BURDEN my GUILT
Finding freedom
LUTHERAN
CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA
EDITORIAL
Editor Lisa McIntosh p 08 8267 7300 m 0409 281 703 e lisa.mcintosh@lca.org.au Executive Editor Linda Macqueen p 08 8267 7300 e linda.macqueen@lca.org.au
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Out of the mouths of babes
Piper Nelson says she loves looking at the pictures in The Lutheran, Lutheran, especially ones of children – so the cover of the April edition caught her eye recently. The photo was taken by her grandma, Tania Nelson, who is a member at St Paul Blair Athol in South Australia.
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LUTHERAN
CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA
The Lutheran informs the members of the LCANZ about the church’s teaching, life, mission and people, helping them to grow in faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. The Lutheran also provides a forum for a range of opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor or the policies of the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand.
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Send us a photograph featuring a recent copy of The Lutheran and it may appear on page 2 of a future issue and on our website at www.thelutheran.com.au
People like YOU bring love to life Gaylia Mitcham Rockingham Mandurah Lutheran Church WA Retired Lutheran school principal Most treasured Bible text: Psalm 119:105 ‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.’
Jacob Traeger Immanuel Lutheran Church Woden Valley ACT Mission Facilitator and Church Planting Leader Most treasured Bible text: Romans 6:4,5 ‘We have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.’
Meighan Mills St John’s Lutheran Church Perth WA Registered nurse, wife of Danny, mother of three Most treasured Bible text: Proverbs 3:5,6 ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.’ Let the light of someone you know shine through their photo being featured in The Lutheran and LCA Facebook. With their permission, send us a good quality photo, their name and details (congregation, occupation and most treasured text in these difficult times) and your contact details.
June Special features EDITOR'S
let ter
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Growing up, I naively thought guilt was the preserve and exclusive domain of Catholicism. After all, when Martin Luther saw the light about justification by faith alone, particularly through Romans 1:17, the impact of that other ‘G’ word, grace, came to the fore. How often haven’t we thought of our Lutheran understanding of salvation in terms of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians – ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no-one can boast’ (Ephesians 2:8,9)? I thought that was it for guilt, as far as we Lutherans were concerned. There was no need to be beating yourself up – emotionally, spiritually and physically – over your sins. Jesus had taken the beating for us and banished sin, death and guilt forever. Or so I thought …
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But as is often the case when it comes to understanding the tension between faith and doubt, righteousness and sin, I was wrong. Guilt tends to be an ever-present fiend in times of trouble. And it can be destructive if we leave it to fester untreated. It can cause shame, which takes over our whole being with feelings of unworthiness.
In this edition, we are blessed to share a range of voices from around our LCANZ as we explore the workings and impact of guilt – and how we can find freedom from it. While we are by no means promising a comprehensive analysis of a complex topic, I hope you will find blessing in these pages, as I have.
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Unfinished business
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Understanding guilt: Its purpose and power and the one panacea
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Shame, guilt, regret and 10 the path to repentance Reconciled to God
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PNG evangelist carries on 50-year mission
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Regulars Because we bear your name: Bishop Paul’s letter
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But guilt is more than a burden that can damage our relationships with God and with others. Of course, whatever has given rise to that guilt is the real underlying cause of relationship breakdowns. Guilt is the symptom or by-product of sin. So rather than simply being destructive in all cases, guilt can be instructive,, providing a mirror that alerts us to the wrong we’ve instructive done and the good we’ve failed to do. It can also be constructive constructive,, in that it encourages us to turn around, to repent and to change our ways.
Gospel provides great comfort
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Dwelling in God’s word
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Go and Grow
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Church@Home
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The inside story
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Directory
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Your voice
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Sudoku
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Prayer calendar
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As always, our churchwide magazine includes faith-life resources, uplifting stories and news of what’s been happening around the church, including essential information regarding the upcoming inperson sessions of General Synod early next year. And, as a further bonus for our print subscribers, you’ll find inside Australian Lutheran College’s annual Saints Alive publication. Digital subscribers can access the same content by heading to ALC’s website at www.alc.edu.au/connect/publications/saints-alive May God bless your reading,
Lisa
Our cover: iStock.com Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following pages may contain images of people who have died. The Lutheran J U N E 2 0 2 2
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Because we bear your name I am not much of a gardener. I have seen a long line of pot plants sadly wither and die. Thankfully, I married a farmer’s daughter who watches, waters and nurtures plants. It is a joy to observe my wife, Heidi, watering her garden. She focuses with genuine love for each plant or flower, and she is doubly annoyed when some pest has been eating the leaves.
BISHOP PAUL’S LE T TER RE V PAUL SMITH Bishop, Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand
our human reason eagerly wants to translate growth into numbers. When you look at our declining church numbers, our reason then supposes that, if we cannot see progress, then God must not be giving ‘the growth’ or we quickly find someone to blame for the decline. We can also overlook the language of the activities of ‘planting’ and ‘watering’ in the cause of the gospel. The apostle Paul begins with the presumption that the people of God are caught up in active hands-on evangelical work in the church. This is the same message that Dr Martin Luther shared in reflection on his own witness. He wrote, ‘I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s word; otherwise, I did nothing. And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf … the Word did everything’.
God is a great gardener, and not simply with respect to God’s wonderful work in creating and preserving all that exists in creation. God is a great gardener of ‘the church’. In 1 Corinthians 3:5–9, the apostle Paul writes: ‘What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives WE SEE TH E HAN D OF the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a GOD ACTIVELY AT WORK common purpose, and each will ... TH ROUG H WO M EN receive wages according to the labour of each. For we are God’s AN D M EN ... ‘G ROWI NG servants, working together; you are TH E CH U RCH ’. God’s field, God’s building.’ This text cultivates the image of you and me and all the church as ‘God’s field’ where there is planting and watering going on. Did you notice that twice this scripture talks about God and ‘the growth’? The first time it speaks of growth is in the past tense. ‘God gave the growth’ or ‘God was giving the growth’. We look back on our journey as church from the moment those early disciples ran from the empty tomb, and we see the hand of God actively at work in an ongoing way through women and men in the various places of the world ‘growing the church’. The second time that the apostle Paul writes about ‘the growth’ in this passage from 1 Corinthians, it is present tense, describing the hand of God at work among us in and through us today. This is a tremendous promise for all seasons of life. When we hear the promise that God gives the growth, we are tempted to complain to God, ‘Well, where is it?’. As we are hammered by economic projections day after day with percentages and forecasts,
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Our scripture from 1 Corinthians 3, directs our attention away from ourselves and from our human reason’s evaluation of growth to our gracious God. The apostle writes, ‘So, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth’. It is important to remember that the letter to the Corinthians was written to a congregation conflicted with dispute and disagreement. Sisters and brothers in Christ were not giving proper regard for their common faith and unity in the work of the gospel as ‘God’s field’. So, the apostle Paul directs our eyes to look for God’s hand at work in each other for we are ‘fellow labourers’ in God’s field. This includes the people we don’t get on with. And God gives the growth, tenderly watching and watering with abundant grace. In the Small Catechism we were taught to acknowledge God’s ‘daily’ continuous, loving gardening work in the church. ‘Daily in this Christian church, the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins – mine and those of all believers’ (Explanation to the Third Article of the Creed). In Christ,
Paul
Lord Jesus, we
belong to you,
live in us, we live in you; work for you – because we bear your name
you
we live and
One bite isn't enough, is it?
Here's how to get the whoe appe.
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