Bible Bowl trophy

This past Saturday, March 28, was the Minnesota State Bible Bowl. LCMS Churches throughout the State of Minnesota sent 34 teams to Concordia University, St. Paul, to show off their knowledge of this year's topic, the Gospel of John, and compete for the top six individual and team trophies.

My own church sent a team for the third year in a row, each year improving, and this year coming home with the sixth place team trophy. Congratulations! In fact, we were the only church from the Minnesota North District to get a trophy this year.

We went down on Friday night and spent the night all sleeping on mats at University Lutheran Chapel's library. For fun on Friday night, we walked over to Mariucci Arena where the University of Minnesota--Duluth's hockey team was playing in the NCAA Division 1 tournament, so we were there when UMD scored two times in the last 40 seconds, sending the game into overtime and eventually winning in OT. Wow.

On Saturday morning, we had to get up pretty early, and the kids had been up late playing games and studying. Josef roused us all with the words, "Arise, take up your mat, and walk."

Love is an Active Thing

There was a great interview with Robert Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice, on Issues Etc. back on March 4. There was much in that interview, but what struck me was a quote from Augustine.

Gagnon pointed out that someone opposing his point of view and arguing for a more open point of view towards homosexual practice was quoting Augustine as saying "Love, and do what you want." However, Augustine uses this quote in the immediate context of rejecting homosexual behavior, and in fact shows the need for us as Christians to speak up and be more active in rejecting all immoral behavior. True love for the neighbor must not be lazy and let the neighbor do whatever, but must be active in helping that neighbor be what God wants him to be.

Here is more from Augustine: "If any of you perhaps wish to maintain love, brethren, above all things do not imagine it to be an abject and sluggish thing; nor that love is to be preserved by a sort of gentleness, nay not gentleness, but tameness and listlessness. Not so is it preserved. Do not imagine that . . . you then love your son when you do not give him discipline, or that you then love your neighbor when you do not rebuke him. This is not love, but mere feebleness. Let love be fervent to correct, to amend. . . . Love not in the person his error, but the person; for the person God made, the error the person himself made."

That's sometimes hard to live out. It is so much easier to say nothing. But that's not real love, either. I'm not sure who coined the phrase, "Hate the sin and love the sinner," but this quote from Augustine comes awfully close.

St Urho's Day

Happy St. Urho's Day everyone.

Here is my favorite St. Urho's Day poem:

The Legend of St. Urho
By Linda Johnson
(Published in The Finnish American Reporter)

There once was a boy, a Finlander fair
with sky-bright blue eyes and sunshine blond hair.
He came from up where the summer days
last twenty-four hours. From tough stock he came.
The Finns call it Sisu, it's courage and strength.
He was born in the sauna with sweat and steam.
One look at his face, and his mother just laughed.
Wrinkled and red, the babe looked like his dad.
"We'll call him Urho," his mother proclaimed.
"He's a strong boy, he needs a strong name."
Weaned on black coffee, hardtack and toast
he loved cardamon bread and ate more than most.
Urho grew like a weed; a typical boy.
The farm was his home, the land was his toy.
Urho's dad grew grapes to ferment over time
to make the Lutheran's communion wine.
At church the sacrament of body and blood
was Urho's dad's wine and cardamon bread.
Urho worked on the farm with his dad and his mom,
doing chores with a whistle, filling the sauna with song.
One Sunday at church Urho heard pastor say
"Dear folks we need Sisu and we all need to pray.
The grasshoppers are here and they're eating the vines,
Without any grapes we won't have our wine."
Urho snuck out of church and ran home that day
as fast as he could while the pastor prayed.
Urho rushed to the field where the grasshoppers ate.
Did he make it in time? Or was he too late?
Urho cried out aloud with all of his might.
His voice echoed like thunder and made day turn to night.
Heinasirkka, Heinasirkka, mene taalta Hilteen!
and with his fierce words the green plague was beaten.
Translated these words in English say
"Grasshopper, grasshopper, please go away."
The ugly beasts flew away into the night
and the darkness changed from shadow to light.
As Finland was freed from the insects so vile,
they pronounced Urho a saint and not just a child.
The legend has grown and spread through the years
of a brave Finnish boy without any fear.
Now each March 16 we celebrate this way:
wearing purple and green for St. Urho's Day.