This Sunday we celebrated Luther’s Mass. We use this Mass, or should, on
important religious festivals.
This Sunday we commemorated the Baptism of Christ and I have a lot to
say about that occasion but I don’t have a mind for theology; I only have a
heart for Jesus. Chaos Bean wasn’t
excited about the prospect of Mass, having been warned yesterday while making
lunch for a church group that the Mass wasn’t going to go well because of the
music and songs we were going to sing with it. I wasn't either. I leaned over to her and said, “Don’t worry, Katherine von
Bora,” Martin Luther’s wife, “didn’t like this Mass either.” Chaos Bean and Katherine von Bora were
trained by the same order of Benedictine Sisters subsequently they are armchair
experts on each other. What I said
about Katherine von Bora isn’t true: I have no idea her opinion of Luther’s
Mass. What I do know, and what
Chaos Bean knows, is that von Bora would have brought it to Luther if he needed
it. Rightly translated her name would be Chaos von Bora in English.
Katherine von Bora is used as the model for the wives of the clergy and members of the laity. We have a pastor’s wife in our congregation who we use as a gauge for our behavior. Lois is the model of piety, service to others, and good behavior in church. If Lois is doing it, we should do it too. If Lois isn’t doing it, you won’t catch Chaos Bean or I doing it either. This comes in especially handy when we sing the few hymns we haven’t translated well into English and she closes her hymnbook and waits for the others to plod through the song. Mass wasn’t horrible and had the choir practiced it the Mass it would have been fantastic. I can’t help but wonder how it would have gone if Candace of Jurchen, Emily, or Leah Monster had been in church to lead us through it; or had we sung it in German - at least then the angels wouldn't have had to translate our worship for God.
The little I do know about Katherine von Bora, again, is that she’d have called Luther to the carpet when he was wrong, made fun of him when he was ridiculous, and overlooked the former when in the latter he was right. I have a coworker who, while selling a car that Hitler had a hand in making, will criticize me for being Lutheran because at the end of Luther’s life he went batshitcrazy during his prolonged, painful death and said some awful things about the Jews that the Nazis revived to make the case for their hatred. He seeks to ignore the important contributions Luther made to the Christian faith or to the secular culture of the West to hang his hat on something the Nazis did to every German thinker, writer, and composer. Under his analysis we can’t accept anything anyone has ever done if at some point they did something rather nasty. If I applied his thinking I would have to disregard Lutheranism and (officially) become a Methodist (until I found something about the Wesley brothers that was dastardly).
Should Republicans reject their entire program because George W. Bush has said a thing or seventeen that were not exactly well thought or grammatically correct? Should I abandon Progressive thought once Obama slips up? Should we remember Senator Kennedy for Chappaquiddick or should we think about all the legislation he’s shepherded through the Senate that made our Republic and world a better place? I think, and I think most people would agree, that people – being human – make mistakes but that doesn’t mean we should disregard their positive contributions. I know I’d rather be remembered for the good I did as a teacher in total rather than the havoc that I created.
Instead, what I will do is follow the example of Katherine von Bora and craft a new resolution for living: I will hold people to the same standards I hold myself. I will judge other people the way I judge myself. Please, don’t think you’re getting off easy. I am harder on myself than I am on anyone else. However, I learned a while ago at Valerie’s church that we judge ourselves by our motives (do it, Luther wanted you to!) and we judge others by their actions. Katherine called out Martin when he was wrong, made fun of him when he was ridiculous, and supported the old lug when he was right. I am going to continue to do that, but I am going to be careful about it. Certainly I’m not going to thank Hitler for the Autobahn and ignore the Shoah; but I can’t look at Luther and the contributions of standardizing language through translating the Bible into the vernacular of the people, reforming the Church, and prompting the Legal system to focus on motive instead of action because he wrote something crazy when he was crazy. I'm going to follow Katherine's example the way I would follow Lois', you should too.
At no point in this entry did I state or imply that anyone who trained me in anyway resembled either Luther in thought, word, deed, or appearance. It was really just the hat. Anyone would look like him in that hat.
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