Today is Reformation Sunday and, in honor of this afternoon’s performance of the play, Providence, on the life and legacy of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, I’d to preach about the struggle--the ongoing struggle--of being Lutheran in America.
Before there was a Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, before there was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or William Penn, Lutherans were already a part of the Delaware Valley. Fifty years before Penn, Swedish Lutherans had settled here, setting up trading posts along the Christiana and Delaware Rivers.
As we’re about to see, they brought with them their religion, their church, and its clergy!
Has anyone ever been to either this or the other Old Swede’s Church? Both, as the pastor said, are still--and always have been--in continuous use since their founding more than 370 years ago.
But, do you know what else? Despite the fact that both of those church have been in continuous use since their founding--since their founding as Lutheran churches--neither of them are Lutheran anymore.
What happened? Well, what happened to them was the struggle of being Lutheran in America (or, at least, of figuring out what it means to be Lutheran in America)! While they spoke Swedish, it was clear that their’s was a Swedish church. And, since their’s was a Swedish church, obviously (or so it seemed to them), theirs was a Lutheran church.
But what happens when they no longer speak Swedish? What kind of church are they, then?
When Gloria Dei, Old Swede’s Church, began to speak English, they chose to become an English church, with English clergy. In other words, as they are to this day, both congregations became Anglican (or Episcopal) churches.
This move--this change--made complete sense to them. And, what it indicates to us is that it has never been clear what it means to Lutheran in America.
Let’s go forward one hundred years or so. In 1742, a different Lutheran immigrant arrived on these shores and, ultimately, he came up with a significantly different definition of what it means to be Lutheran in America.
Henry Melchior Muhlenberg was one of forty German Lutheran pietists who answered the call to attend to the spiritual and religious needs of early German settlers in the colonies. While I’m content to let this afternoon’s play tell his story in some detail, suffice it to say that one of the most important things that Muhlenberg did for the Lutheran churches in America was his insistence that they become genuinely American Lutheran churches.
“Let the church be planted,” was one of his famous mottos. Let the Lutheran clergy in America be drawn from Americans and let them be trained in America! Let the congregations in America be governed from America and not from this or that European country or church.
“Let the church be planted,” and, some 250 years later, obviously, Muhlenberg was successful. But we’ll let this afternoon’s play tell the rest of that story!
But, just because Lutherans in America (Lutherans in Pennsylvania!) now had an American Lutheran Church, that did not mean that Lutherans in America understood what it meant to be Lutheran in America.
In fact, as we’re about to see, failure to come to terms with what it meant to be Lutheran in America, led to what we can call, the Second Battle of Gettysburg!
In 1826, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania became home to the first Lutheran seminary in America. Led by Professor Samuel Simon Schmucker, Gettysburg proudly taught its clergy what they described as truly American Lutheranism.
But, guess what? The kind of Lutheranism they taught modeled itself after the kind of Protestantism that could already be found in just about any village, hamlet, or city in the US at that time! Altar calls? You bet! “Sinners in the hands of an angry God”? Absolutely! Revival meetings and evangelistic hymns? Bring it on!
The Lutheran Church in America now had become planted in America, with its own church government and American-trained clergy. Thanks to Samuel Simon Schmucker, they had even come to terms with an understanding of what it meant to be Lutheran in America.
To be Lutheran in America meant that you were Protestant; of that there was no doubt. But, in terms of what kind of Protestant you were, frankly, you were just like everybody else in America! Nothing made you different. Nothing set you apart. And, by mid-century, that led to what can only be called, the Second Battle of Gettysburg!
Anybody know who this is? Charles Porterfield Krauth not only attended Gettysburg College and Seminary, but his father was president while he was there!
Nonetheless, Charles Porterfield Krauth was not happy--he was not satisfied--with the way Lutherans at that time understood Lutheranism. Was it really true that being Lutheran was just another way--another name--for being Protestant? Wasn’t there something--something distinctive--that made Lutherans in America, Lutheran?
Krauth thought so! And so, he rebelled from Gettysburg and joined with other rebels in forming a new Lutheran Seminary in Pennsylvania, this time in ...
Do you know where? Philadelphia! Located originally at what is today the end of the Ben Franklin bridge, the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia under Krauth began to define Lutheranism in America according to its founding documents, the Lutheran confessions.
It is in this understanding of what it means to be Lutheran that both Pastor Harkness and I were trained. It isn’t easy being Lutheran in America. All the struggles that I’ve described are still going on, in one form or another, in the hearts and souls of our people and congregations today.
Are we distinctive? Or is our voice little different than anyone else’s? These are ongoing questions and ongoing struggles.
But this much is clear, and certain. Good Shepherd Church is not a Lutheran Church because we--or our church--is of a certain ethnic heritage. Good Shepherd Church is not a Lutheran Church in the sense that, once upon a time, some people started this church and they just happened to be Lutheran.
No, Good Shepherd Church is a Lutheran Church in the sense that we believe that it means something to be Lutheran. That ours is a voice that, in American Protestantism and Christianity, is distinctive, and important, and one that contributes to the harmony and the beauty of the whole.
We’re not the choir, in other words, but we are an important voice in the choir. And what we sing is the extravagant grace of God; the unconditional love of God; and the unstoppable rescue mission of Jesus Christ to all the world.
