As a baptized Lutheran Christian, I have received the general call to faith in Christ and participation in the church. Because of this call, this movement of God toward me, I faithfully believe in the triune God who exists as love and shows us perfect community; I believe that God creates and sustains creation, and that we can see and witness to God’s creative work as it occurs before our very eyes; I believe that Christ’s life, death, and resurrection hold for humanity the hope and assurance of liberation from sin and ultimate unity with God and the other in the new life of the reign of God; I also believe that the Holy Spirit is at work in God’s church as it guides us to live within the reign of God by existing with and for the other all for God’s sake. This general call is to more than intellectual assent to the creeds and doctrines of the church. In baptism we are called to discipleship. We are called to follow the living truth in love for the neighbor and all of God’s creation. Martin Luther puts it more plainly when he writes in his “Introduction to St. Paul’s Letter of the Romans,” “[I]t is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire.” In confirmation we affirm this faith that we receive in baptism, and promise our participation in the community of faith.
For me, living faithfully thus means seeking and working for justice for the oppressed, weeping with the sorrowful, hurting with the broken, and rejoicing with the joyful. In church, we confess Christ so that we can live this faithful life in our homes, our workplaces, at the capital, in the hospital, and any other place we might find ourselves. In this way, I can say confidently that I have not only been called to the ministry of teaching, preaching, and confessing, but that I have also been called to my relationship with my wife Pippi, to loving and respecting my parents and family, to my friendships and all other relationships; I have been called to Luther Seminary to study, to working with children in camp settings, to urban ministry, and to economic and hunger justice ministries. Through personal and communal discernment that has been confirmed by the corporate body of Christ, I have been called to these places to confess Christ to the world and to meet Christ in the world.
