Transcript for Episode 2

Ryan McDermott: Welcome. My guest today is Pastor Eric Andrae, chaplain for Lutheran Student Fellowship and International Student Ministry out of First Trinity Lutheran Church in Oakland/Shadyside in Pittsburgh and also member of the Advisory Council of the Beatrice Institute.

So Pastor Andrae, you are a campus minister. What does your life look like in a typical week and how has this week been different for you?

Pastor Andrae: Well, I've been doing campus ministry, Ryan, since February 2001, and I've yet to have a typical week. I don't know exactly what that is. I mean, obviously I say that a little bit tongue-in-cheek. Obviously, there are regularly reoccurring events in a typical week, so to speak.

I'm always focusing on connecting with the students in various ways. As part of a congregational setting, really what our life together is focused on is worship on Sunday mornings, the Divine Service, the Mass, and everything that flows out of that, including midweek student Bible study and dinner, where we close with evening prayer.

Once a month, we have something called Super Second Saturday where we usually gather at a parishioner's home or maybe one of the grad students’ apartments for a meal, some social time. Depending on, again, whose home it is, maybe we're doing some stuff outside.

And then we have other social events. We may go to a Pirate game or go bowling.

We do a lot of service, event service projects as well. We help out with the homeless ministry here at First Trinity, which has weekly lunch rounds on Sunday afternoons and quarterly distribution of clothing and toiletries. A lot of our students volunteer for that.

And I'm on campus a lot, mainly at Pitt and CMU, meeting with students, having coffee with students, lunch with students, just connecting with them, building community, building friendship. And a lot of pastoral care and counsel in those settings as well, out on campus, at lunch and also here in my study, here at First Trinity, dealing with all kinds of questions and issues that the students are confronting in their lives.

But because of that, like I said, no week is typical, because who I'm meeting with, what they're going through in their life varies from week to week, from month to month, from year to year. The personality, the student group varies as well.

Ryan McDermott: So, in all of those cases, you're meeting with people in person. I mean, this is very much a hands-on job, right?

Pastor Andrae: Definitely, definitely.

Ryan McDermott: And so how has that changed? For example, how's your congregation gathering together now? How are you connecting with students?

Pastor Andrae: Well, our last Sunday together as a worshiping congregation under more or less normal circumstances was March 22nd, which I think it was for most. Right now, as we're recording this, this is a couple weeks later. Since then, we have been live streaming our services via our Facebook page.

Now, like I said, that was the last gathering in person. Since then, I've been reaching out to my students via text, phone calls in some cases, doing some video, Skyping, sessions for our Bible study or catechesis. And in a way, I mean, thanks be to God for modern technology. For example, you and I are able to do something like this and I'm able to kind of meet with the students through those video sessions. We would not have been able to do that 20 or 30 years ago. But at the same time, it's no replacement for actual in-person facial expression, flesh to flesh contact. That's really irreplaceable.

And so I think for me, both in my pastoral M.O. and also in terms of my individual personality as an extrovert, as a social extrovert, it's been very challenging, I think very difficult. I think the students, by and large, as I've talked to them, are really dealing with it with a lot of calm. I don't sense that they are in crisis mode. I don't sense an overwhelming anxiety. Of course, there's concern and of course they'd rather have things be different. But there's a lot of calm. I think they truly have the “peace that passes all understanding in Christ Jesus.”

Ryan McDermott: And what about the homeless ministry that you mentioned? What’s happening with that?

Pastor Andrae: Yeah, we have had to put that on hiatus for the time being. I think we're thinking about: are there ways in which we can still continue that?  Different congregations, different churches have had different levels of shutdown, so to speak. And we've essentially stopped all person-to-person contact. And that's been a tough call. It's been a tough call.

So we have not continued those lunch rounds. I think our hope is that maybe with extra caution, maybe we can resume those at some point soon. But of course, just yesterday, I think the governor extended the stay-at-home edict and the closing of the businesses for another month.

So yeah, it's in a sense a fluid situation, right, and rapidly developing. And so, we revisit these questions, I think, at least on a weekly basis with the rest of the staff here, including the parish pastor, our vicar, and, and others.

Ryan McDermott: Yes, and I mean, presumably at some point every organization is going to be left to make a prudential judgment about how to most safely proceed and work their way back to normal, right?

Have you all been discussing any intermediate measures, what that would look like?

Pastor Andrae: It's interesting you mentioned that. Just yesterday I was emailing with one of our parishioners, and I mentioned that my students are not necessarily at this kind of crisis mode, that they have a certain calm and a certain peace. I think it's different for the elderly. It's different perhaps for single people. It's different for dysfunctional families that are now together a lot more than usual. So, as I said, I was just emailing with one of our parishioners who's really struggling in this situation. And I think we perhaps need to – and I know some churches have done this – find some sort of even video interactive format where it's not just a text here and there or a phone call once a week to see if you're okay, but where the parishioners and/or the students can interact with each other face-to-face as it were, even if not in person.

And so that's something that we're going to be discussing going forward here probably this week. I mean, we have Holy Week coming up next week. That's of course an extremely important time for the Church. And, yeah, so we're having ongoing conversations about how best to serve our people.

Ryan McDermott: So, yeah, and what are the theological resources that you have for this in biblical? I mean, how do Lutherans think about corporate worship?

Pastor Andrae: For the Lutheran Church, corporate worship is, I would say, the main aspect of our identity. It's who we are as the people gathered by God to be given his life-sustaining gifts.

The Lutheran Church is a sacramental church, and so to go without Communion, without the Lord's Supper, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Eucharist, to go without that, personally, I can say it's been difficult for me. And in a sense it's only been two weeks. Historically, the Lutheran church offers Communion at every Sunday Service and on feast days. For First Trinity, that's the case for us. And so I'm used to receiving at least once a week, and of course now it's been over two weeks. And the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren in person: the handshake, the hug, the look in the eye, the listening ear.

And I would say, although it's not very common practice in the Lutheran Church, we do offer private confession and absolution normally. That's something I regularly partake of. I'm the confessor: I hear confessions. But I also go to a Father Confessor, a fellow pastor myself. That's something I'm having to go without. So yeah, our life together of course, has been severely, detrimentally impacted.

The first Sunday that we had this livestream service without parishioners, without the Lord’s Supper, was what many call “Bread of Life Sunday,” “Laetare Sunday,” March 22nd, which means “rejoice,” right? “Rejoice, O Jerusalem.” And we heard the reading, the Gospel reading in both Matins and in the Chief Service were from John 6 about Christ feeding the masses and then also declaring that he is the Bread of Life.

And so we had Bread of Life Sunday, but in a sense, we didn't have the Bread of Life; we didn't have the Bread above all breads, of Communion. And that was not only paradoxical or ironic – whatever the English term is; you can tell me, Professor – but it was extremely difficult.

At the same time, the Lutheran Church, being a sacramental church, we don't only have one sacrament. We don't only have one, what we call, “means of grace.” The Lord also provides us with other means of grace, and that includes the Word itself, the written Scriptures. And so people can still hear those Scriptures proclaimed in preaching through the streaming service, and they can certainly gather in their homes and even with their friends on video, right? And read the scriptures and expound them and study them and pray from them. And I think a lot of people, as I've talked to them, have found that this has been a time, with roommates, with families, with spouses and children, to grow closer in that Word, to find more time together at the dinner table and after the dinner table in prayer and in the Word.

And hopefully that is something that can be extended onto whenever we come out of this pandemic, whenever that'll be, so…

Ryan McDermott: I'm a Roman Catholic. And in the Catholic tradition, there's this teaching on “spiritual communion.” This idea that, even if you can't receive in person in the actual species of the Body and Blood of Christ, that through desire, there's Communion by desire. How does that look in the Lutheran tradition?

Pastor Andrae: I don't know that we have that exact kind of codified teaching or that language, but there's certainly a sense of that, in terms of that faith clings to Christ and has access to Christ in and through, as I mentioned, the other means of grace. So even if we cannot feed on the Body and Blood of Christ, we are still united with him through our baptisms.

We still are united by him. Right, I mean, the mystery of the Lord's Supper is, at least from the Lutheran perspective, we don't talk about necessarily when the Presence, the Bodily and Bloody Presence of Christ, ends. So I think there's a sense of, “we commune two weeks ago, the Lord is still with me,” right? He's still with me even through that Communion, even though we of course strongly prefer to have it each week.

And again, united with him in baptism, united with him through the Word.  United with him in prayer. So each of the means of grace in Word and Sacrament has specific and unique benefits, but all of them, from the Lutheran perspective offer, us forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. So no one is going without the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation at this time. Christ is not absent. He has not left the world. He is still not only ruling at the right hand of the Father, but also still coming to us, as I said, through the Word and in our baptismal identity. And so I think maybe, even though we might not have that particular language of the communion of desire, there is still that union with Christ that we have through the sacraments as a whole and through those means of grace that are still available to us now.

And that can make us thirst and hunger for Communion even more. I mean, my hope – I mean, you know, Ryan, we don't know. This could go any – I guess it could go three ways. Whenever this returns to “normal,” maybe it'll, things will be just as they were before.

Or the negative would be if people have developed habits. You know, it takes, what do they say, three weeks to develop a habit. Well, people are not going to church now for about three weeks. Are some people, will that be a habit that will stay with them and they won't feel the need or the desire to go to church because they've developed a new habit?

I'm hoping, and I'm praying and I'm hopeful that it will be the opposite, that people will so thirst and hunger to be with their fellow Christians, to receive communion, to welcome and embrace each other, and I think hopefully there'll be an outpouring of that.

One of my heroes in the faith, if you will, one of my exemplars and mentors is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, undoubtedly familiar to many folks who'll be watching and listening to this. But his wonderful little book on Life Together, which he wrote out of a situation in World War II under the Third Reich, in which a lot of the gatherings that he wished to have and the ministry that he wished to exercise was curtailed or even outlawed. He talked about, in the beginning of that book, the hunger and thirst for the presence of a brother or sister in Christ that is even more exacerbated when you can't have it, and then how we rejoice again when that is returned to us. And that's my hope. That's my hope, that this will be a time for, in a sense, strengthening that desire.

Ryan McDermott: Yeah. One of the things, going back to the idea of habit that I've reflected on is that whatever we're doing, we're constantly forming habits. And we also need to be maintaining habits. And so during this time, an extra-deliberate focus on maintaining the habits that we had, that were good, that we're no longer able to carry on, is just as important as trying to maybe form new habits that are easier to form now.

I know that for my family, it's been easier to gather together as a family to say morning prayer and evening prayer every day because our life is just much less hectic. So we can form that. But at the same time, Sundays, we need to be deliberate about maintaining the habit of setting aside that time and sitting down for whenever that worship service is streaming, right?

Pastor Andrae: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Ryan McDermott: And so, and then with Bonhoeffer, the Psalms take pride of place in Life Together. Could you talk a bit about what the place of the Psalms is in our communal worship life?

Pastor Andrae: The Psalms is the prayer book of the Bible, the prayer book of Christ and the apostles, the prayer book of the Church, conveniently placed right in the middle, so they're easy to find, right in the middle of the Scriptures. And the Psalms, traditionally in the liturgy, the psalm in the introit, in the entrance, is the first thing that the Church prays, the first expression of the Church in its gathered worship on a Sunday morning. When we are praying the Psalms and the Lord's Prayer – which I think really the Psalms and the Lord's Prayer inform and shape one another and flow into and out of one another – when we pray those, we are joined to the Church of all ages and, obviously, the Church of today.

I think when we pray the Psalms, it's so helpful to understand and think about: how does this apply not just to me in my situation – although it's amazing, right, Ryan, how often we read the Psalms like, “Yeah, wow, this is exactly how I'm feeling. This is what I'm experiencing. This is what I'm going through.” – But then we can also think that Christ prays these Psalms. He prays them as the righteous one. He prays them also as the one who took upon himself the sin and guilt of the world, in the Penitential Psalms that are so commonly prayed in Lent. And the Church prays, the Body of Christ prays these.

So yeah, Bonhoeffer really expresses that very well in the book Life Together that I mentioned. And also in a really, excellent little book simply called Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, where he groups the Psalms together. He starts out with just a theology of prayer. The first few pages, I think honestly, is the best thing I've read on prayer, and it's, just like I said, three or four pages. And then he groups the Psalms together in terms of what they express about Creation or repentance. And very Christ-centered, very Christ-centric. That these are the Psalms, these are the prayers of our Lord as he praises them to his Father, for us, as our Intercessor and Mediator.

So yeah, I'm really glad you mentioned that, Ryan. If people have not yet discovered or rediscovered the Psalms for their daily prayer life, now is the time to do it.

Ryan McDermott: And this is actually especially poignant in Holy Week, which is coming up next week, where in the biblical narrative we find Jesus praying the Psalms with his disciples. We know at the Last Supper, they're praying the Psalms of Ascent. Is it 1:15 through 1:18? And so we can read these and be right with Jesus as he's going through his Passion.

Pastor Andrae: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. And then on Good Friday, from the Cross, he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?,” a direct citation from the beginning of Psalm 22. As a matter of fact, historians and biblical scholars say that often, when a Jew would speak the first verse, that was an indication, shorthand, for “I'm indicating the whole of the psalm,” and even that Christ might have said the whole of the psalm, and the Gospel writers are giving that abbreviation, “let the reader understand.”

So, that psalm, of course, think about how applicable and pertinent that is to our times today. There may be many people during this stay-at-home pandemic that feel forsaken. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Well, my friends, pray that psalm. Pray it with Christ. Pray it all the way through and see how in the end it turns into a glorious praise of a God who is still with us in Christ.

Ryan McDermott: So we've talked some in general about the challenges of this time, but are there particular practical challenges that your congregation faces as a congregation and that you see individuals facing during this time?

Pastor Andrae: Well, we talked about the formation of habits. Another aspect I think that all congregations will confront to some extent or another is financial realities. People give their offerings when they're in church and tend to, frankly, maybe not remember as often to give when they're not in church. So we are working here at First Trinity – I think it might even be set up as I speak – an online portal – a lot of churches have that already – but an on online portal for people's giving of their offerings and tithes. Because the work of the Church hasn't ended. It's just shifted. And priests and pastors and deacons and others still need to be supported, for their life and for their families.

I think a challenge going forward will be – for society at large as well as for the Church – will be what we might call “communal intimacy.” Again, will people be affected so much that… You know, I read something the other day about the handshake may have come to an end, permanently. Well, will that be the case? Or will it be something the opposite where again, people are so thirsting and hungering for that friendship and those expressions of intimacy, those expressions of greetings or what have you, hugs, or, like in my wife's Mexican culture where you kiss when you meet someone on the cheek and so on.

Those are going to be challenges. Are people going to be… It's strange. With this stay-at-home rule, we're still allowed to go out and exercise, right? So, my daughters and I go walk down the street – well, we had been going to the basketball court, now they're closing the basketball courts – but anyway, as we walk down the street, people come. I find not only are people trying to move six feet away, but it's interesting body language. They're not looking at each other or smiling anymore either, because I think what we do with our bodies affects the whole interaction.

So yeah, there's going to be challenges now and going forward for churches, for campus ministries, but for society as a whole. But again, the good thing is the Lord is the Lord not only of the Church: it's Christ's Church, but it's also his world.  He is the Creator and Redeemer also of this world. In every collect, if we have the full ending, the “full termination,” as it's called, in every prayer of the Church, we pray that “through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns.” Who lives and reigns. He is still ruling, he is still at the right hand of the Father. When things seem to be spinning out of control, we cannot always see or understand his ways. And that's a good thing because that would mean that we were God. And then if we were God, we'd mess things up. But God is God. The Lord is the Lord. He's in control. He will work all things ultimately in his time and in his way for the good of those whom he has called according to his purposes.

Ryan McDermott: And what present opportunities for good are you seeing? Can you identify particular practical benefits for the spiritual life right now?

Pastor Andrae: Sure. I think one is the one we've already been talking about a good deal and that is devotional time, prayer time, time with family. But also people reaching out and connecting with each other. Thinking maybe about that elderly person who's at home, thinking about that family that had been going through struggles and maybe thinking about them more often and actually doing something about it. Reaching out with a phone call, with a video chat, maybe dropping off groceries on their front door. There may actually be more contact, even if it's not in person, but more contact overall for those people who are really thinking of others who are struggling in this midst.

We can see heroes in the medical community and politicians, frankly, who are stepping out and doing what's necessary, in many cases, even in a sense, laying their life on the line to serve us. I think we can see acts of heroism and selflessness that can be inspiring for us going forward. So there are opportunities for good in the midst of this, for people to grow closer and to reach out more and be more intentional about checking up on people who otherwise they might not check up on.

Ryan McDermott: Speaking of leadership in plague time, I know Martin Luther was alive during at least one wave of the bubonic plague. The bubonic plague, which I've been talking about a good bit recently, broke out first smack in the middle of the 14th century, and then returned in upwards of 30 waves over 200 years, depending where you were in Europe. So, it was just, yeah. So, what would Luther do in a time of plague?

Pastor Andrae: Yeah. 1527, the bubonic plague hit Wittenberg, which was his hometown, and he wrote a letter to one of the pastors there who had written him for advice. And then this letter became kind of an open letter to the broader community. And, amazing how contemporary really the letter is. And people can look it up online and find the whole thing. It's about maybe, I don’t know, five or six pages.

But he advises: take care of your neighbor where it's your calling and vocation. So, for example, family, or if you're in the medical community, and pastors to serve their people. But he also says: but avoid spreading the disease. Have the necessary caution.

So he really had a balance, that, I think, is what leaders are seeking today. You know, don't just throw up your hands and say, “Well, whatever happens. If I get sick, I'll get sick. It's all God's will” kind of thing. Well, God's will works through us. And we are not to seek to thwart his will, but act on that in terms of serving the neighbor, but doing so reasonably, cautiously. Staying and doing what we can, but at the same time, doing so with caution. And what he would say: what is our calling? What is our vocation?

Maybe I can just read a couple lines from that letter, Ryan, would that be alright?

Ryan McDermott: Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah.

Pastor Andrae: He says here… Let's see. I've marked it here in my book. Yeah, he says,

Use medicine. Take whatever may be helpful to you. Fumigate your house, yard and street. Avoid persons and places where you are not needed or where your neighbor has recovered. Act as one who would like to help put out a general fire. What is the pestilence after all, but a fire which consumes body and life instead of wood and straw? Meanwhile, think in this way. With God's permission, the enemy has sent poison and deadly dung among us, and so I will pray to God that he may be gracious and preserve us. Then I will fumigate to purify the air, give and take medicine, and avoid places and persons where I am not needed in order that I may not abuse myself and that through me, others may not be infected and inflamed with the result that I become the cause of their death through my negligence. If God wishes to take me, he will be able to find me. At least I have done what he gave me to do and am responsible neither for my own death, nor for the death of others. But if my neighbor needs me, I shall avoid neither person nor place, but feel free to visit and help him. Behold, this is a true and God-fearing faith, which is neither foolhardy nor rash, and does not tempt God.

Then he continues. Just a couple more lines here. He says,

If the people in a town conducted themselves that they were bold in their faith when the need of the neighbors required it: careful when there was no need and helpful to one another in counteracting the poison whenever possible, then death would indeed be light in such a town. But when it happens that some of the people are too fearful and flee from their neighbors in time of need, while others are so foolhardy that they do not help to counteract the disease, but rather spread it, then the devil will take advantage of the situation and the mortality will certainly be high. Both are very injurious to God and man, the former by fearfulness and the latter by tempting God.

Ryan McDermott: Wow, it sounds like a made-up meme that you would see on the internet, that like, “Oh sure, Martin Luther said these things” that everybody's talking about now. But he actually did, and it makes me think that… You know, the epidemiologists, they talk these days about 19th century solutions, that actually, we don't have any 21st century solutions available to us, no DNA-based vaccines or tests – and very little testing. So we're back to 19th century solutions. Right. They aren't even 19th century; they are 16th century solutions.

Pastor Andrae: Right, right, right.

Ryan McDermott: These go way back.

Pastor Andrae: Yeah. Again, I just, I urge people to check out the whole thing. Just a couple more lines, Ryan, if I can.

Ryan McDermott: Yeah.

Pastor Andrae: He says, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” of course, quoting Scripture:

Here, you hear the command to love your neighbor. And that is like unto the first that we should love God. And what you do or omit doing to your neighbor means as much as that you have done or failed to do it to God himself. If then you administer to and wait upon Christ, behold you have a sick neighbor before you. Go to him and minister to him and you will assuredly find Christ in him, not according to the person, but in his Word.

But then he says, on the other hand,

Some sin too much and are too daring and foolhardy. They tempt God. They neglect all the things with which they ought to protect themselves against pestilence or death. They scorn the use of medicine. They do not avoid the places they shouldn't go. They drink and play with such persons. And in this way, they try to demonstrate their good cheer and they say, “Oh, it's God's punishment. If he wishes to protect me from it, he will do so without medicine and any effort on my part.” But this is not trusting God,

says, Luther, “this is tempting God, for God created medicine and gave us our reason in order that we may so manage and care for our bodies to be well and to live.”

So yeah, it continues with that theme. So not foolhardy on one side, but not unloving on the either. I think a balance.

So reading that, to me, has been helpful. That's the theory from the 16th century that Luther put into practice. Now, how do we put that into practice now in the 21st century? That's something that I think all of us, all churches and all leaders are discussing in this very fluid situation.

Ryan McDermott: Well, so what have you been reading or watching or listening to during this time, or, just even if things you've read in the past, that you would recommend for others?

Pastor Andrae: Yeah. Can you see this pretty well? Alright.

Ryan McDermott: Yeah.

Pastor Andrae: This is Augustine's Confessions. I'm a big sports fan and March Madness – this is a time where we usually have March Madness with the college basketball tournament. Well, obviously that's not happening this year.

But I stumbled across from a few years ago – and honestly, I can't remember the exact website. I think it was something from InterVarsity, InterVarsity Press. – But they had a 64-book tournament of the greatest Christian books of all time. And it was really ingenious.

So they had four regions, not Northeast, Southwest, and West, but they had, like, Spirituality was one region. Doctrine and Apologetics was another region. Autobiographical or Biographical was another region. Oh, and Fiction. Fiction was another region.

In the final four, I think it was C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity defeated Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship, or it might have been Life Together. I think it was Cost of Discipleship. And in the other semi-final, Augustine's Confessions defeated Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and yeah.

Ryan McDermott: [Laughter] Oh. That's an opposition that should never, never have happened.

Pastor Andrae: I know, I know.

Ryan McDermott: It's sad that one must defeat the other.

Pastor Andrae: There must be a winner, I guess.

And Augustine defeated C.S. Lewis in the final and inspired me to pick it up, “to pick up and read.” “Tolle lege: to pick up and read.” And I tell you what, it is, again, incredible how contemporary – Now he does not write from the context of a pestilence or plague or anything like that, an epidemic. But he writes from the context of his conversion story, as many of you know, who have read it. – And it's so incredibly contemporary what he says about his own struggles and about the struggles of the society around him. Very contemplative, very prayerful. Indeed the whole book is, in essence, a prayer to God, a confession to God, and it's been very spiritually nourishing for me. I've been reading that.

I've also been reading this devotional book, To Live with Christ through the Church here, with Christ, written by a contemporary theologian, 20th century, Bo Giertz, who was a Lutheran Bishop in the Church of Sweden. He follows the Church here. He follows the lectionary and for each day Scripture, reading, devotion and very heartfelt prayers. And again, that's what I've been reading for my morning and/or evening devotions when I pray.

Ryan McDermott: So two great books that you're reading for your own personal devotion. What else?

Pastor Andrae: Well, I'm praying… As I read the devotional book To Live with Christ, by Bo Giertz, I use that sometimes in the context of Compline. And for those of you unfamiliar with that, that is one of the traditional prayer offices that grew out of the understanding of prayer in the Psalms and then in the monasteries, and then into our churches, and even into our homes.

And so most of the hymnals from liturgical churches – Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran – most of the hymnals will include Compline. You can find it online.

The one I use, actually – Ryan, as you know, I'm originally from Sweden – I use this prayer app that's from Sweden, so that won't help most of you. But it has Compline, and that's often the last thing I look at as I go to bed. Because of course, the first thing we look at and the last thing we look at every day is our phones, right? For most of you. Admit it, right? So I got my phone there. I'm looking at my emails and texts. – I’m trying to get out of that habit, frankly, but  I'm still in that habit. – But then, I turn to my prayer app and, and I pray Compline. And Compline begins usually with a confession of sin and a statement of God's forgiveness of us. It includes one or more, several, psalms. It includes the beautiful “Nunc Dimittis” at the end, Simeon's prayer when he held the Christ Child in his arms in the temple and said, “Now I may depart in peace.” Simeon could depart this life in peace because he had held the Lord. We can depart this day in peace because we have now heard again of God's mercy upon us. We have again heard his word.

And the collects of Compline – and maybe remind me, Ryan, before we close, maybe I'll close with one of those collects – but the collects of Compline are beautiful as well. And it's a very peaceful prayer, and that's what we all need right now. I mentioned the “peace that passes all in us all understanding in Christ.” Compline really speaks to that peace and gives us that rest. So, yeah, I've been praying Compline. Yeah.

Ryan McDermott: And you mentioned those very pragmatic uses of the phone. And I too, the phone is the first thing I pick up, the last thing I put down. And I have found that if I observe the discipline of in the morning, only opening my morning prayer app and saying that before anything else, then it sets my whole day on a better course. And then when I actually do get into email and looking at the news, I do it much more efficiently.

Pastor Andrae: Yeah. Oh, I find, honestly, if I can get up and not only not use the phone and not even use the prayer app on the phone, but I actually turn to a prayer book, that then I'm not even tempted to check the notifications and stuff and start thinking about them. That will find its place and time, and we may get interrupted anyway, and then those interruptions can be prayer, petitions and intercessions. But yeah, I find if I can turn to the book and have my prayers from the prayer book, the hymnal, the devotional book, and my own personal prayers, then…

Because if I start with the other things, frankly, that I think are so important and must get done right now, it's so often that then it doesn't start, and before I know it, then I've missed morning prayer. So, yeah.

Ryan McDermott: What you allow to be important first thing in the morning is actually just going to expand to fill up all of your morning.

Pastor Andrae: Yep. indeed.

Ryan McDermott: Well, so could you close us with one of those collects?

Pastor Andrae: Yes. And let me just say one other tool that I've been using, and it's an online one: Lutheran Student Fellowship, of which I’m the chaplain, as Ryan mentioned, we just developed a very simple prayer app, prayer page on the web. And it's prayer.lsfpgh.com. Lutheran Student Fellowship, Pittsburgh.

And it just has daily prayer based on the noontime prayer from the Lutheran Service book and the Book of Common Prayer, Anglican book. It's based on that, built around the Psalms and Scripture reading; the Lord's Prayer, the Kyrie, the “Lord have mercy.”

And it's very simple and straightforward, and that's, I think, part of the strength of it. Because with a lot of prayer apps or prayer books, you kind of need to turn here and there and have two or three things. This one, everything is there on one page and, and it's just all there for you. So if I just get a plug in for that.

Ryan McDermott: Yeah, we'll put a link to it in the show notes.

Pastor Andrae: Great. Thank you.

Yeah. I would love to close our time together with maybe a couple of these collects, a couple of these prayers, from Compline, so:

Let us pray. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Oh Lord, support us all the day long of this troubled life. Until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over and our work is done. Then Lord in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging and a holy rest, and peace at the last through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let us pray. Be present, merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of life may find our rest in your eternal steadfastness. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.

Ryan McDermott: Amen.

Pastor Eric Andrae, thank you very much for taking the time to be with us.

Pastor Andrae: Thank you so much, Ryan. It's great to be with you.