So I am having my operatic debut in a few weeks.  My wife runs an opera company for high school and college students entitled Opera ala Carte.  It’s a fantastic program.  Of course, I am bias.

Any who, so my wife, Kathryn has conscripted me to play Alcindoro in their production of La bohème. Alcindoro is the frumpy old man on Musetta’s arm in Act II, the famous scene at the cafe.

It’s not much in the way of singing, but it is surprisingly difficult.  It switches from 9/8 to 3/4 with lots of off beat entrances and the like.

So stay tuned!  I may have a whole new side career in the making here…

-LL

Here is a link to a sermon I preached at Kramer Chapel in Fort Wayne last week.  Enjoy!

The following is the letter that I asked to be read at Immanuel Lutheran Church this morning:

June 29, 2008

Mr. Wayne Schroeder, President
Immanuel Lutheran Church and School
Alexandria, Virginia

Dear Mr. Schroeder,

Greetings in Christ!  I pray that this day finds you well and in good spirits, as we await the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am writing to inform you that after much prayer and consideration, I am returning the call to serve as associate pastor and principal of Immanuel Lutheran Church and School.  The members of Immanuel have been very kind to us, and clearly have a deep love for the Lutheran faith and for the children of Immanuel Lutheran School.  It is my hope that the Lord will answer your prayers soon.

I will be announcing this at my congregation on the morning of June 29th.

With the kindest regards, I am
In Christ,

Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Trinity 6 (June 29, 2008)
Matthew 5:20-26 and Romans 6:3-11

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “You are who Christ is”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for today is the Gospel lesson just read concerning how Christ fulfills the Law, and what that means for you and I today.  Dearly baptized,

One of the great tactics of children everywhere is what we might call the delayed request.  If a child asks for something and the answer is no, the child waits.  Sometimes they don’t wait very long, but they wait.  Then they ask again.  And again.  And again.  The hope is that somehow the answer will be different each time.  Albert Einstein put it this way: Insanity (is) doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

This is how we by nature view God’s Law.  If we don’t like the Law, we ask again.  Or look for a different interpretation or a different book.  We hunt and peck and search and whine and dig and do anything we can to try and find a loophole or an exception, so that we can get what we want.  It is the American way.  If you don’t like the rules, change the rules or throw out the rule-book.  It is the human way since Adam and Eve, asking with the serpent if God really said what He said.  It is your way, every time you try to wiggle out of what you know is right and true and good, and seek the easy way, the less painful way, the way that gets you what you want.

God knows this about you and I, of course.  He has always known this, and so that there will be no mistaking His holy intent and purpose, God delivered His Law to the hands of Moses on Mount Sinai.  There is no variation or change in God’s Law.  It is consistent.  It is good.  As the hymnist wrote:

You have this Law to see therein
That you have not been free from sin
But also that you clearly see
How pure toward God life should be.
Have mercy, Lord! (LSB 581:11)

God delivers His Law to you in His Holy Word.  This Law is what is best for you.  Always.  There is never a time when God’s Law will be bad for you.  It is always good, always holy, always perfect.  It is always best for you.

But like the Israelites before us, we don’t accept this basic reality.  We believe, like that four year old, that if we keep asking God long enough, that we’ll get the answer we want.  It is the insanity of unbelief, to think that God will give us what is bad for us simply because we ask it of Him.

This is what Jesus speaks of when He tells His disciples: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20 ESV)  In order to gain heaven, your righteousness must be greater than any righteousness on earth, any righteousness ever known in the history of the world.  In order to gain heaven, your righteousness must exceed all expectations.  It must be perfect.

And it is.  Oh to be sure, this righteousness of yours does not come from you.  Left to your own devices, you will never attain heaven.  The holiness of God is too high to attain of your own accord.  But you do not attain it yourself.  Hear again the words of St. Paul:

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3-4 ESV)

The key to your salvation lies in the Law, but not the Law you keep.  The key to your salvation lies in the Law which Jesus Christ our Lord, kept for you.  His righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees and indeed the whole world.  His righteousness is holy, perfect, complete in every way.  His righteousness is your righteousness, deliver to you in Holy Baptism.  You have been joined with Him at the font, so that now God’s righteousness is joined to you, and your unholiness and unrighteousness is left outside the gate, nailed to the cross of God’s Son.

What this means for you, dearly baptized, is that you are redeemed.  You are Christ’s.  You belong to Him, and He has given all things to you in His body and precious blood.  Rejoice and be glad, dearly beloved!  God’s Law, which we still do not fully understand this side of the grave, has been kept for you.  Jesus is your redeemer, your Law-keeper, your life-giver, and your righteousness.  Rejoice and be glad, for God’s plan for you is rich and deep.  He will deliver His gifts to you via His Word.  The Law is kept.  You are free in His sight.  Free, holy and beloved.  Believe it for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting.  Amen.

Sept. 29, 2008 at Redeemer, Ft. Wayne

Theme: Preaching in the Midst of Holy Things

Keynote Address: Dr. Fabrizius will lead the participants into a deeper appreciation of the rhythms, emphasis, and context of preaching in the midst of the Divine Service, with practical suggestions both about how to preach and how to hear.

Workshop One (Choose one on the Day of the conference)

Using the Historic Lectionary by Rev. Peperkorn
OR Resources for Preaching by Rev. Koch

Workshop Two (Choose one on the Day of the conference)

Gregorian Tones for Congregational Worship by Dr. Reuning OR Preaching without a Manuscript by Rev. Eckardt

Registration
The registration fee is $35 before September 15. Late registration is $50. Registration for seminary, college, and high school students is $15. Registration includes the cost of the conference, lunch, and Gemütlichkeit.

To register print off the brochure found by the link of the left and mail it with a check to the address listed, or send an e-mail with the same information to prdhpetersen AT gmail.com and arrange payment through Pay-Pal with the button at the bottom of this screen.

Schedule
8:00-9:00 Private Confession available w/ Rev. Petersen
8:30 am Registration
9:30 am Holy Communion
11:00 am Keynote Address
12:30 pm Sext (Noonday Prayer)
12:45 pm Lunch
1:45 pm Workshop One, Option A or B
2:30 pm Break
2:45 pm Workshop Two, Option A or B
3:30 pm Vespers
4:15 pm Gemütlichkeit

My friend and colleague, Rev. Dr. D. Richard Stuckwisch, wrote a post about a month ago that really deserves further consideration.  I would commend his thoughts to you on catechesis and early communion.  They largely echo my own:

Catechesis and First communion Redux

I had an interesting conversation with one of my parishioners this past week.  I had a funeral, and as is typical I sang a couple hymns at the graveside for the committal (Lord, Let at Last Thine Angels Come, etc.).  My parishioner, who pretty much comes to church every week, commented afterwards, “Pastor, I know your wife has a beatiful solo voice, but I never knew you did as well!”

At the time I found the comment very odd.  I mean, I chant pretty much everything in the divine service except the sermon and the announcements.  From my perspective, I’m singing ALL THE TIME.

But not from the perspective of the parishioner.  From their perspective (at least hers) the chanting is so transparent that she doesn’t even think of it as singing.

This is as it should be.

Chanting isn’t singing, at least not in a soloist sense of the terms.  Yes, many of the same principles of singing are in place (breathing, not pushing, coming at the note from the top, etc.), but it is really heightened speech.  The pacing should be pretty much the same pacing as conversation.  Maybe a little slower, but not that much.  It highlights the importants and beauty of the text.

It should be transparent.

What think ye?

This is one of my favorite pictures from college, when I was on choir tour with the A Cappella Choir of Concorda University, Seward, Nebraska.  Enjoy!

I love Latin. I won’t make any claims to be good at it. I’ve had a year of Latin, where we went through Wheelock and then read the Augustana. I’ve worked at it off and on the past fifteen years. But the relationship between Latin and western culture is such that any student of the West simply must know it. This only begins to speak to it’s benefit to Christianity. It is hard to imagine there being Christianity apart from Latin. Maybe that’s why I’m fairly immune to the Eastern Orthodox bug.

Anyway, a friend recently pointed this GREAT site out to me:

Retinenda - The Lutheran Latin Podcast

Basically the author of the site is providing audio of Lutheran works in Latin. He is currently working on Meditationes Sacrae, by Johann Gerhard. I love the idea. He provides the text on the web site, then also does a podcast of hearing it in audio.

Bravo! I look forward to making use of this regularly

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
June 19, 2008
Funeral Homily for Gloria Marie Rushing
John 14:1-6

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “The Way, the Truth and the Life”

Family and friends of Gloria, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Our text for today is from the Gospel of St. John chapter fourteen as follows, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6 ESV)

Gloria Marie Ricchio Rushing was born on September 12, 1932.  She was baptized into the Holy Christian Church at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Union Grove.  She was confirmed in that same Christian faith here at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church on February 28, 1965.  She joined Messiah Lutheran Church in 1969, where she remained a member until after her daughter, Debra, was confirmed.  Gloria died in Christ on June 13, 2008.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember the way things ought to be.  How does God intend the world to be?  No sin, no sickness, no disease, no family fighting, no Alzheimer’s or dementia. No   untimely deaths.  No divorce.  No pain.  But God’s intention isn’t that we just be without things.  No, our heavenly Father wants our joy to be full in Him.  He wants us to be in Him, and to live and rejoice in the salvation that God’s Son, Jesus, won for us on the cross and in the empty tomb.   God wants you to live and to rejoice in Him forever.

But of course, that isn’t life, is it?  Gloria had her fair share of trials in her life.  Sickness, especially a dreadful disease like Alzheimer’s, sucked much of the life out of her.  I won’t claim that I knew her well.  Most of the visits I had with Gloria over the years were, um, colorful.  Some were civil, but some were a lot darker than that.  Most people who knew Gloria over the past ten or more years would have said she was crabby at best, bitter and difficult to be around.  I can understand not wanting to go see her in the various nursing homes she resided in over the years.

Now I don’t bring this up to paint a dark and dreadful picture of Gloria.  I bring this up because we need to know who it is that Christ redeemed.  With some funerals, it is easy to get the impression that the person worked themselves into heaven.  They are in heaven, because they were so nice, did so many good deeds, or were always so kind and caring to everyone around them.  Thankfully, we have been spared any kind of false impressions or hopes today.

So how is a sinner like Gloria saved.  How is a sinner like you or I saved?  If we are honest, we a little better than her.  Where Gloria was crabby, we ignored her.  When she was sick, it was oh too easy to look the other way.  When she was dying, praying with her or for her seemed like too much work.  So when we ask the question, how could God save her, we are asking ourselves the same question: How can God save me?

So how does God save you?  He saves you through His Son.  When Jesus was preparing for His death on the cross, His disciples didn’t understand that He would die and rise again from the dead.  They were afraid that He was leaving them for good.  It is then that our Lord said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  (John 14:6 ESV)

Jesus is the road to heaven.  He is the truth, reality as God sees it.  He is life, real, eternal life.  Gloria is saved through Him, and only through Him.  She was baptized.  She confessed the Holy Christian faith at her confirmation in 1965.  While I wish that she had been more faithful in coming to God’s house to receive His gifts, God does not abandon His children.  I visited with her.  My elders visited with her.  Our choir sang to her.  I believe she put her faith and trust in our Lord, Jesus Christ.  That is how she is saved.  That is how you are saved.

There are no doubts that her life has been rough, and that it has been complicated and messy.  Life is like that.  But God’s love shines through.  When God looks at her, He sees Jesus.  She is holy, perfect, at peace in His holy presence.  She is not simply in a better place.  She is with Jesus, and at the Last Day, our Lord will raise up her and all the dead, and give eternal life to her and all believers in Christ.

This is our hope.  We grieve at her loss, but look forward to the day of resurrection.  Trust that the promises our Lord made at her Baptism are true.  I will never leave you nor forsake you, He says.  That is true for Gloria, and it is true for you.

So rest well, sister Gloria.  Rest well until we meet again in the arms of our Savior, even Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Believe it for the sake of Him who died and rose again, even Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.