Art Simon and the Ruth Simon Family

Art Simon, founder of Bread for the World, has died. Art was the son of our former church member Ruth Simon. Art worshiped here at Good Shepherd when visiting his mother. The whole family is full of interesting stories.

1. When Ruth was a newborn, she was left on the side of the road in Iowa. A Lutheran pastor found her and took her to an orphanage. Eventually they sent her to a Lutheran family in St. Louis. Her adoptive mother died, and Ruth was sent to another family. Ruth claimed the mother in this family tried to poison her. She firmly believed that Holy Cross Lutheran School, in St. Louis, saved her life by sustaining her faith in Jesus. To the end of her life, she was a strong advocate for Lutheran schools.

2. Ruth married Martin Simon, who went to China as a missionary for The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. During a rebellion in China, they were forced to return to the US. Together they published a Lutheran family magazine and wrote one of the most well-known children's devotional books in the Lutheran church: Little Visits with God. I grew up on this devotional book and still remember some of the stories. One story was about a gorilla in the zoo who hoarded all the food, but it was too much for him to eat himself. Another story was about a poor family who prayed to God for food. A rainstorm came up suddenly and washed the labels off some food cans that were displayed outside a grocery story. They ended up giving the cans of food to the poor family.

3. Paul Simon, their other son, dropped out of college and bought the Troy, Illinois newspaper. He started investigating the well-known Collinsville gangster Buster Wortman. Ruth claimed his work helped bring down the gangster and led Paul into politics. Paul became a senator from Illinois. When he ran for president, Ruth called every LCMS pastor in the state of Iowa before the Iowa Caucuses. Ruth was very pro-life, especially considering her "foundling" experience. However, she firmly believed to the end of her life that her son Paul was also "pro-life." Paul told me that he took the "I'm personally against abortion" approach. He believed that laws against abortion were like laws that forced people to attend church. In the end, they just wouldn't work. After Ruth died I lost contact with Paul. But I think his mother would have been disappointed with some of his writings about abortion.

4. I read Bread for the World in college and would agree with Art that evil politics plays a major role in the problem of hunger throughout the world. But underlying the politics are evil worldviews and cultural traditions. Advocating for better politics is good, and it is an important part of our vocation as citizens. But believing, living, and preaching the Gospel to all the world is the most important thing we can do to push back on evil. Ruth would have absolutely agreed with this.

5. Ruth was an incredibly servant minded person, a virtue that she passed on to her sons. She was worship and Bible study every Sunday. She personally called every acolyte the week before they were scheduled to serve in order to remind them. She often ran errands and gave rides to all the "older ladies" of the church. In most cases these ladies were younger than Ruth. I remember when Paul and Art came to take her car away from her. That was devastating for Ruth. But I encouraged her to keep serving by devoting the rest of her life to prayer. She did that, and finished the race well. She left a good legacy for all to follow.

Navigating the Bible with Law and Gospel

     In the Lutheran church you will often hear us talking about the importance of distinguishing between Law and Gospel. What do we mean by that?  

     One of the best ways to approach a complicated thing like the Bible is to begin with the simplest facts and work from there.  There are a lot of different teachings in the Bible, and we have to remember that it provides everything we need to know about God. On the one hand it can be easy enough for a child to understand. On the other hand it is so deep that no theologian will ever stop learning from it. But to begin, we start with some important basics.  

     Let's use a map as an example.  A map contains a lot of information. But one of the first things you have to do is to orient the map to the directions of the compass. You have to understand north and south!  If you've used a GPS, you know how frustrating this can be if you're not sure if north is the top or the bottom of the map?  If you don't know, then right could actually be left and left could be right!  

     Law and Gospel are like the north and south of the Bible.  They are the two different ways that the Bible speaks to us and point in two different directions.  By "Law" we are referring to the important passages of the Bible that show us the way God expects us to live.  This teaching is found throughout the Bible from the Ten Commandments to the Sermon on the Mount.  By "Gospel" we are referring to those passages that show us what God does for us to enable us to live according to His will. The Gospel begins with the creation but especially is found in the promises of salvation and the real salvation-work of Jesus: His birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and promised return.  

     So as we read the "map" of the Bible we need to "orient" everything we read in terms of Law and Gospel.  Take for example the account of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17). Goliath, a Philistine, mocks the God of Israel. He challenges anyone to a fight. The soldiers of Israel are afraid. This is all basically Law.  Sin is being illustrated in Goliath's unbelief, pride and willfulness to murder. David rises to the challenge and faces off with the giant. But before he slings the stone that "sank" into Goliath's head, he makes an important declaration. In contrast to Goliath's self-assurance, David says the "the battle belongs to the LORD."  This is the Gospel.  David is teaching us that God is the one who saves us and helps us.  This orients the story to our life. We walk away from it remembering that we need to repent of prideful self-assurance and avoid it. We also look at all our challenges in life and then look to God to help us. There's a lot more Gospel here, but we'll save that for later.  I hope you get the idea. 

     You can see the basic directions of Law and Gospel in the way Jesus preached.  At the beginning of His ministry the basics of His preaching are summed up with the words "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mat 4.17).  "Repent" is the teaching of the Law.  "The kingdom of heaven" is the gift of the Gospel.  At the end of His earthly ministry He commissioned the apostles and all pastors to proclaim "repentance and the remission of sins to all nations..." (Luke 24.47). St. Paul urged Timothy, one of the first pastors, to teach "rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2.15). We always keep these two teachings in mind whenever we read the Bible.  They will always guide us properly and keep us from misunderstanding God's word.

Red Chair Videos

In last week's Bible class I gave a little overview of the 2010 Convention of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Despite the structural changes and the election of a new president opposed to many of those changes, there were a number of important decisions. I appreciated, for example, the decision to speed up the process of declaring fellowship with emerging confessional churches. I liked the decision to continue the great work being done to combat malaria around the world. One of my favorite decisions was one encouraging family devotions. I'm a bit partial to that one because I helped write the resolution.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the convention for me was the Red Chair videos. Conventions need something to give delegates a little break from the concentrated focus on resolutions and debate. The Red Chair videos were stories of forgiveness told by the members of the Council of Presidents and the Synod President and Vice Presidents. I especially liked President Kieschnick's story about a school prank in which he was involved. These videos help capture the important theme of the convention: One People Forgiven. Despite the difficulties involved in all conventions, we can be eternally grateful that we are united in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.