Dispatch #33
Friday, October 11
Clinton, Iowa

Nearly 2 pm. I spoke with clergy from the Clinton area this morning. A few, together with a few lay people. Yesterday, in Cedar Rapids I spoke with clergy too. There the attendance was near 30 individuals; here, 9.

Although I may be sorry to miss speaking with some of my colleagues, I never begrudge the numbers, since to talk at all has been my goal from the beginning. I enjoy taking the pulse of local pastors and parishioners; to discover where they think Church exists, takes place, functions; to ask what they think of the Churchwide administration, whether it is in touch with their own ministries, their sentiments and spiritual commitments, or whether it seems a distant entity after all.

For how would I--could I--serve broadly throughout the Church by means of this radio ministry if I never came out of my tiny booth to shake hands with, to ask the trenchant question of, to listen with my head bowed, fully attentive, to those who smile and think and answer my question with a fierce and faithful honesty? How could I represent them universally, except I listen one by one to each?

I am still of the rather more congregational bent which finds one's authority to preach the Word and to administer the Sacraments in the faithful people who assemble in their holy place for worship. As long as I was the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Evansville, I honored the congregation. From the very beginning it was right that I treat them honorably, first for this: that in them rested the authority for my ministry; that what I did in the name of Jesus Christ had been given me to do by the people when they issued a personal call to me, and when I personally accepted their call (again in the name of Jesus), and when I was installed before them, making my vows for God to them to serve in faith and purity.

Lutheran Vespers is somewhat different. Radio is connected to no single place, nor is it ever the grant of a certain people. Nevertheless, I believe my preaching even under these circumstances to be at the behest of them that listen; and I believe that, before the lonely who listen, before those who know no affiliation with a congregation, I do represent those who are faithful and who by their prayers and their gifts support this ministry over the air-ways. Upon that representation I preach; upon that representation it has behooved me to sally forth (as it were) meeting and greeting these listeners, shaking their hands, asking them questions, answering their questions in return. And when it is clergy I share a morning with, then we ask one another broadly: how goes the ministry in this place? What relationship does your particular ministry experience with the churchwide leadership. Lay-folk: are you acknowledged? When are you and the larger Church at one together? When do your loyalties turn toward the local congregation alone? Why? What do you seek of Church? What does Church seek of you?

Are we? Are we really in close communion together? Are we one community?

+ + +

But I have seen the larger Church joyfully exalting in true unity!

When I have spoken for the conventions of the Women of the ELCA, their easy laughter has lifted me off my feet! I know when a huge group of people is filled with the sense of sweet communion together. I can hear it. The Spirit (the "Breath," the "wind," the "life force") makes itself manifest in the breathings of a large group, the sighs, the groanings, the sudden shocks of hilarity. And when in Minneapolis I spoke to you, women, your laughter was quicker than thunder after the lightning's flash. You liked one another. You rejoiced in the mere presence of so many sisters together. And when I lowered my voice to a more serious note, you swiftly entered the depths with me. No speaker does that; rather, it is granted the speaker by the group, by the trust and expectations of a pliable group, as a gift and a context for his/her speaking.

And when my sons and I spoke to the Lutheran Men in Mission in Denver four years ago, both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Body of Christ (blessed community!) were blowing hard in that place: blowing and knowing the names of all, and no one felt exempt and alien; all were part of that convention's pie.

And when I spoke to the great gathering of our Church's youth in New Orleans (tens of thousands of people filling full the massive stadium), I felt upon my own flesh the weight of the faithful, and the glory of the young for whom the cross of Christ is symbol enough for life and lives and dyings and service.

When we gather together!

When administration administers these huger gatherings, and then steps back to allow the gathered themselves to create mood and joy and song and presence, there is Christ among us, and then do we know the treasure of a large Church spread largely across this nation.

What do you make of that?

It isn't paper and reports that catch our relational fancies and hook us into glad associations. And studies are necessary, and congregations might pay attention to them. And churchwide publications may make something common of the news and the ministries administered from Chicago; but they are actually read one person at a time, page to person, not person to person.

So what do you think?

Oh, good people, let us gather!

Periodically, let us worship largely together!

The musicians of the Lutheran Churches gather and worship--and their time is struck sun-brilliant by faithfulness and craft together.

Every synod gathers for hard work--and for worship, too.

Everywhere there are camps for our families and our children

Gather!--but in order to return home, to our local congregations, no longer to feel (or else to choose to be) heroes of loneliness, upholding this parish first and foremost.

Gather!--but also to hold our leaders responsible to the congregations.

Gather!--to offer our chosen leaders (in person) both our caution and our authority and our favor for the completion (with us!--in the names of our various congregations!) of their administrative duties. Leaders that follow are leaders indeed. But leaders that will neither listen to nor honor the views of the followers may never know (having never turned around) that the paths behind are as empty as the paths in front of them.

+ + +

And in our own way, Lutheran Vespers offers you a way to gather with us.

On the weekend of March 28, 29 and 30 we will hold a Lutheran Vespers Rally in Charleston, South Carolina. Ken Medema (my true friend of the last 15 years) will come down to play for us on Saturday the 29th. It is my hope that we will in joy worship the Lord--and will take the opportunity to organize nationwide support for the ministry itself. So many of you already labor to keep LV on the air in your personal regions. Now it's time for you all to share notes, to discuss the best ways you have found to maintain LV, to learn what others do, to establish a network of communications that no one needs to feel alone in this partnership with us in Radio Ministry.

Come. Let's gather.

Walt