“Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is…a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly.” (Chodron, Pema. When Things Fall Apart (Shambhala Classics) (p. 15). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.)

Having the gift of cheerfulness is truly a gift. It doesn’t matter when you have lived, whether it was in times of prosperity or depression, in times of good or bad, “dust bowl” or “roaring twenties”, there have always been the cheerful – the truly cheerful people who could always find the good and always felt the need to share their happiness.

I have tried in my life to be cheerful – but it is difficult to always be cheerful. But as Pema Chodron says above, if we live only to avoid pain, we live a life of eventual suffering – because no one can always be cheerful. It truly is a gift to be cheerful in many aspects of living, but it is not a continual state of being. Cheerfulness can only be looked at as a gift – one that we cannot hoard but should share with others when we are experiencing that gift. As people who have received an abundance of blessings from G-d, why shouldn’t we be cheerful? We have every reason to live with joy in our hearts, smiles on our faces, and words of praise on our lips. But life is not that simple — relationships go bad, jobs cause us stress, families face troubles. Let me end with a quote on cheerfulness that I like:

“Cheerfulness is among the most laudable virtues. It gains you the good will and friendship of others. It blesses those who practice it and those upon whom it is bestowed.” ― B.C. Forbes

I think that says it all.

Pastor Dave

February 26, 2021 — The Smalcald Articles

Martin Luther was ill for much of his later years. He died in 1546 on the 18^th of February at the age of 63. It was 1555 and the Peace of Augsburg that officially ended the religious struggle and allowed a permanent and legal division of Protestant and Catholic areas of Germany within the Holy Roman Empire. However, Pope Paul III had previously, in June 1536, called for a general council to meet in Mantua in May 1537, and launched a diplomatic offensive to bring German princes and their theologians to that council. The opening of the council was delayed until December 1545, when it was convened in the episcopal city of Trent. 

The Saxon elector, John Frederick, had wanted Martin Luther to put into writing a sort of doctrinal “last will and testament”, a clear statement of his positions on the critical issues of the time. Thus began the writing of what would be called the Smalcald Articles. The document was structured to present Luther’s teaching to the council. The Smalcald Articles were presented to Lutheran princes in February 1537, at the meeting of the defensive league they had organized in Smalcald in 1531. Ultimately they decided to use the Augsburg Confession and its Apology as the basis of their presentation at the council rather than Luther’s Articles.

Luther wrote a preface outlining his program for reform the following year (1538), and the Articles were printed, with a translation of Melanchthon‘s “Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope” attached.  During the 1550s the Articles were used increasingly as an authoritative confessional document, and so they were to be included in the Book of Concord (1580).

What makes the Smalcald Articles so important to me are the mention of what Luther called the 5 “means of Grace”. 

[4.] Concerning the Gospel: We now want to return to the gospel, which gives guidance and help against sin in more than one way, because God is extravagantly rich in his grace: first, through the spoken word, in which the forgiveness of sins is preached to the whole world (which is the proper function of the gospel); second, through baptism; third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar; fourth, through the power of the keys and also (fifth) through the mutual conversation and consolation of brothers and sisters.

Again, it is important to know the confessional writings of our Lutheran faith, even the more obscure ones – obscure but still vital to our Lutheran understanding of G-d’s Grace.

Pastor Dave

“…generosity, the journey of learning how to give. When we feel inadequate and unworthy, we hoard things. We are so afraid—afraid of losing, afraid of feeling even more poverty-stricken than we do already. This stinginess is extremely sad. We could look into it and shed a tear that we grasp and cling so fearfully. This holding on causes us to suffer greatly. We wish for comfort, but instead we reinforce aversion, the sense of sin, and the feeling that we are a hopeless case. The causes of aggression and fear begin to dissolve by themselves when we move past the poverty of holding back. So the basic idea of generosity is to train in thinking bigger, to do ourselves the world’s biggest favor and stop cultivating our own scheme. The more we experience fundamental richness, the more we can loosen our grip.” (Chodron, Pema. When Things Fall Apart (Shambhala Classics) (p. 130). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.)

How would you define generosity?  Would you define it only in monetary terms? Or would you include other areas of giving, like time, talents, and gifts? To have a generous heart is to be willing to give – in many areas of your life, in many different expressions of your life – and not just in monetary terms.

I preach at a lot of funerals. One of the consistent themes I hear from families as they talk about their loved ones, is that the deceased was “generous”. What does that mean? I have determined they mean many things by that word generous. Some mean that the person would help out anyone in the family who needed something – including giving them money or being there to help them if they were moving. Other times being generous meant they would help out the poor, give money to the homeless who asked, donated money to the church and other charities. Other times they meant that someone was generous with their time – if someone needed someone to talk to, they would be there, or they went to visit shut-ins or other family who might be in a nursing home. 

Showing generosity can manifest itself in so many ways. But for the person who has the gift of generosity, they have a heart to always be generous. And this is why it is a gift. We all have moments when we are generous, but we pick and choose our places and times. Having a heart of generosity, having the gift of generosity means living to be generous, or as Pema Chodron says, we “walk the journey of learning how to give.”  I believe this is one of the gifts we can live into – that everyone can learn how to develop a heart of generosity.

Pastor Dave