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December 13, 2020;  One In Christ; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; Yellow Lake Lutheran Church

Today, at Yellow Lake Lutheran Church we are doing one more thing in a crazy pandemic way.  We’re welcoming new members via the internet, “gathering” as a congregation virtually, and affirming our oneness in Christ through baptism even as we are isolated.

So much of what it means to be the church involves community, caring for each other, working together on service projects, singing in harmony, worshipping as a body by standing and sitting and responding with one voice.  Our primary symbols of faith involve physical elements, water, bread, wine, fire.  We don’t just believe doctrines we experience faith, in person.  We need each other.  Creation is interdependent.  We are made to be social.  What does it say in Genesis?  It is not good for us to be alone. 

It feels strange for me to preach through a camera to people I haven’t met, and I know it feels strange to tune in to church on the computer, to prepare your own elements for Holy Communion at home, and to speak the words of welcome to Keith and Karla, even though they can’t hear you.  But these strange times compel us to find new ways to be the Body.

Last Sunday as I walked my dog, Mikko, I listened to an amazing episode of The Daily, a podcast from the New York Times.  Its title was “The Social Life of Forests.”  Scientist Suzanne Simard’s research has revolutionized the traditional understanding of trees.  Instead of seeing the individual specimens of shrubs, plants, and trees as competing with each other for resources, crowding out other species, she discovered that the various trees in a forest are in fact connected and communicate through a subterranean network of fungi.  The trees cooperate by sharing resources of soil nutrients and water, the strong and healthy supporting the weak and struggling individuals so that the whole forest thrives. 

She used radioactive carbon to measure the flow and sharing of carbon between individual trees and across species and prove that birch and Douglas fir share carbon. Birch trees receive extra carbon from strong, well established Douglas firs that she sometimes calls Mother Trees because of their nurturing properties.  Then when the birch trees lose their leaves, they supply carbon to the smaller, weaker Douglas fir trees that are in the shade.  Evidently, it is not even good for trees to be alone. 

In this year of separation, I’ve gained a new appreciation for Paul’s writings.  He started many churches in his travels as a missionary, spreading the news about Jesus to non-Jews and broadening the reach of the gospel.  Then he wrote letters to those baby churches that he had started, addressing the issues they faced in a personal and pastoral way.  I can relate to his longing to be connected to the people he has been separated from.  He longed to see people face to face again.  We do too! 

The lesson for today is from the first letter Paul wrote was to the church in Thessalonica. Chronologically speaking, 1^st Thessalonians is the earliest part of the New Testament, written about 51 AD, just 18 years or so after Jesus’ death.  The early church was in its infancy and was just figuring out how to form themselves, how to live as followers of Jesus, how to relate to and support one another. 

In the book of Acts, we learn that Paul and Silas had preached in the Jewish synagogue there for only about 3 weeks.  It must have been an intense time to generate such a strong response both from the new followers of Jesus Christ and from the establishment who fiercely opposed the missionary work they were doing.  A riot occurred in the market.  Paul was fled for safety to the home of a man named Jason, one of the believers.  But Paul was dragged from there and brought before the Roman magistrates.  Paul and Silas had to flee the city in the night. 

The newly formed community needed encouragement.  Paul was like a Mother Tree providing support to the new sapling congregation, commending them on their work, praying for them, and offering advice.  He writes: (I’m reading this version from the paraphrase called The Message, by Eugene Peterson which expresses the text in current language.)

^2-5 Every time we think of you, we thank God for you. Day and night you’re in our prayers as we call to mind your work of faith, your labor of love, and your patience of hope in following our Master, Jesus Christ, before God our Father. It is clear to us, friends, that God not only loves you very much but also has put his hand on you for something special. When the Message we preached came to you, it wasn’t just words. Something happened in you. The Holy Spirit put steel in your convictions.

^5-6 You paid careful attention to the way we lived among you, and determined to live that way yourselves. In imitating us, you imitated the Master. Although great trouble accompanied the Word, you were able to take great joy from the Holy Spirit!—taking the trouble with the joy, the joy with the trouble.

^7-10 Do you know that all over the provinces of both Macedonia and Achaia believers look up to you? The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word, not only in the provinces but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even have to say anything anymore—you’re the message! People come up and tell us how you received us with open arms, how you deserted the dead idols of your old life so you could embrace and serve God, the true God. They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescued us from certain doom.

Paul applauds them for the way this newly sprouted group of believers was able to share its resources with others too.  Paul sent Timothy to be with them and to continue teaching and leading them.  The letter describes the tender care with which the ministry was undertaken, first by Paul and Silas, and then by Timothy.  It is evident that there is a strong and loving relationship within the new Christian community there.  There is also a great longing to be reunited and eager hope for the quick arrival of that time when they can be together again.

The model of the church we see in the New Testament times reveals an interdependence.  In some cases, they pooled their resources, taking care of each other and living together or at least gathering each week for a meal to tell stories and share thoughts and prayers and concerns.  Out of this weekly communal meal arose the tradition of Holy Communion. 

These days, when we are refraining from gathering in person out of love and concern for each other, I have become intensely aware of how meaningful this communal aspect of faith is.  Why is it that we are part of a church anyway?  It’s not just hearing the Word.  If it was as simple as learning the right doctrines then we wouldn’t need the church at all, we could get what we need in a class or a book.  The social aspect of the faith is crucial. 

Our reading for today is part of the closing chapter of Paul’s letter.  He’s giving them specific advice about how to carry on.  Evidently, they are tired of waiting for the return of Christ.  Perhaps our context is similar right now.  We’re longing for restoration too.  We’re longing for community and a better day.  He writes:  (again this is from version called The Message.}

^9-11 God didn’t set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we’re awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it.

… He tells them to get along and do their part, be patient and when they get on each other’s nerves not to snap at each other.  They should look for the best in each and rejoice and pray and thank God no matter what happens. And he tops it all off with this blessing:

^23-24 May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he’ll do it!

At the time that Paul wrote, the followers of Jesus were both spreading over the whole known world and like trees in a forest they were united, not through a subterranean network of fungi, but through prayer, through sharing their resources with those in need, and through a joint purpose of following the example of Jesus Christ.  Christian faith has always been about uniting people to become brothers and sisters in faith.  The Greek word for church is ekklesia and it simply means gathering or assembly.  The church gathers around a meal with one cup and one loaf, a chorus of voices that raises its praise and prayers out loud, a pooling of resources to meet common goals, a mutual support offered in hugs and handshakes, smiles and tears.  Christian faith is not just about believing the right things.  The experience of God’s love in Christ goes beyond knowing into doing and being and sharing. 

Today we recited the basic tenets of our faith, affirming our baptism together with our new members.  That’s one thing that unites us, our shared belief.  But knowing isn’t enough.  

The doing part of faith is harder now, with distance restrictions.  It is a challenge to find ways of serving others now.  It’s so much easier to care for others when we are able to see them and hug them on Sundays when we gather.  Those of us who are able to help distribute food have the reinforcement of doing good, seeing and feeling what it means to support others, to share like the early church did from our bounty for those in need.  We can write checks and send them to organizations that serve others, donate to Christmas for Kids, and to our own congregation to support the many ways we support others.  The spirit of this season is about giving, loving, and serving.  It’s more important than ever to write our own letters of encouragement now, to make phone calls of caring concern.  Why not find a way to reach out on the phone, in writing, in prayer.  Be the light that shines in someone else’s day! 

What hasn’t changed in this pandemic is the being part of faith.  We are the Body of Christ. We are members one of a another.  We are the communion of saints. Even now, when we cannot gather in the same place for worship, or physically eat from one loaf we are one body, joined with past, present and future disciples of Christ.  To use a modern image: we are the forest, interconnected by a web of faith and prayer and the God’s ever-flowing supply of love. 

Let us pray.  Knit us together, Lord, even in our isolation.  Teach us to use these quiet days to reach out in love, to pray for one another, to find ways to connect, to serve, to be your Body.  Amen.

12/6/2020; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Some things are best expressed in art, poetry, music, or through lived experience.  Explanation and analysis fall short when it comes to mystery and divinity.  I believe this is especially true at this time of year, as we prepare for the celebration of Christ’s coming. 

When the second Sunday in Advent in year B of the lectionary rolls around and we read the lessons, Isaiah 40: 1-11 and Mark 1: 1-8, I don’t hear just words.  I hear music.  I hear the first vocal movement of Handel’s Messiah resounding:

Comfort ye, Comfort ye my people, Saith your God

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, And cry unto her, That her warfare
Her warfare is accomplished, That her iniquity is pardoned

The voice of Him, That crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord
Make straight in the desert,  A highway for our God

What a gift the composer gave the world, to set this masterful piece of prophetic poetry to such grand music!  Part of my preparation for Christmas each year involves playing Handel’s Messiah as I decorate my home with an Advent wreath, lights, and manger scenes. 

Advent means choral music and art for me.  You see, I grew up in Moorhead, Minnesota, where my father worked at a Lutheran college, Concordia.  Eventually, I went on to study there and one of my children did too.  On the first weekend in December, for my first 21 years of life, I attended the Concordia College Christmas Concert.  During November each year, the college’s art department would create canvas panels stretching the entire height and width of the gymnasium which served as a backdrop for the risers where all of the members of the many choirs would stand.  The concert is a grand production combining art, music, and narration of the biblical message of God’s grace.

(This year, due to the pandemic, the concert will be broadcast virtually from December 18 through the 27^th.  You can register to watch/listen to it on this link.  https://continueatconcordiacollege.regfox.com/2020-concordia-christmas-concert)

The concert was a magical time for me as a young child.  When it was time for the concert to start, the lights would be darkened.  The rich deep voice of the narrator would boom over the loudspeakers to open the event, “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…”  I believed that I was hearing the voice of God.  Then the orchestra would play an overture as the choirs came streaming into the gymnasium from every entrance, their voices growing as they came together on the risers.  The art, music and message worked together each year, varying by theme.  But key elements remained constant, the audience participation in singing Christmas carols, the reading of the Christmas story from Luke’s gospel and the swelling strains of music. 

In recent years for me, Advent’s music has been simpler.  The Salvation Army Children’s Home residents’ joyful voices have marked the beginning of the season when they have visited the English Speaking Congregation’s worship service.  A few blocks from our apartment in Mazatlan, just below Icebox Hill, on the street called Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, the chapel of Guadalupe is decorated by the residents of the neighborhood.  Flowers, manger scenes and tinny recorded Christmas music proclaim the season.  And the repetitive song of the posada echoes in neighborhoods across the city.  The song is a dialogue between “Fuera” (Outside, sung by the Pilgrims) and “Dentro” (Inside, sung by the Innkeepers). The final section, “Entren, Santos Peregrinos” (“Enter, Enter, Holy Pilgrims”) can be sung by everyone as the pilgrims are finally invited in. 

I invite you to reminisce about what Advent and Christmas mean to you.  What traditions, experiences and memories make your heart full?  This year, when we are prevented from gathering with loved ones, when social gatherings are curtailed, when we won’t be standing in the dark, holding a candle and singing silent night, how will you celebrate the birth of Jesus?  Wherever you are, may your season be filled with the mystery of divine love. 

November 29, 2020; 1^st Sunday in Advent; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Here we are, still waiting, watching and wondering.  This whole year has been filled with watching and waiting and wondering.  Watching the movement of the pandemic, waiting for a vaccine or a cure or a semblance of “normal,” wondering what more can happen in this year.    

Now it’s Advent, a season before Christmas whose themes are watching and waiting and wondering, whose biblical readings begin with words of lament:

Tear open the heavens and come down, so the mountains would quake at your presence—as when fire kindles brushwood and fire causes water to boil. Isaiah 64: 1-2

O Lord God of hosts, how long will your anger fume when your people pray?  Ps. 80: 4

The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.  Mark 13: 24

These texts give us permission to tell the truth in this time of expectation and preparation.  We may decorate our homes with bright lights even as we long for social gatherings.  As winter closes our doors and windows in the North we may tire of isolation.  We fear for those exposed to risks, and we are sick of waiting. How long indeed!?! 

Our prayers may be as big and bold as those of Isaiah who wants a Big Thing to happen by a Big God who does Awesome Deeds.  Let’s be honest: aren’t our prayers similarly big?  Bring an end to this pandemic, that lives may be saved.  Protect the poor and vulnerable, the unemployed and hungry.  Uphold and strengthen health care workers.  Save us all!  In fact, our prayers may be even bigger than that.  End hunger.  Eradicate racism. Thwart greed.  Restore the health of our planet.  Stir up the Heavens O God and Come Down!!  Advent’s themes of watching, waiting, and wondering have never seemed more fitting.  Oh yes, we long for a mighty show of divine power to fix this broken world of ours.

Yet, when God comes, it is not with shaking mountains and devouring flame.  Our God comes to us in a baby, born in a poor place.  The salvation that comes is not the salvation we might hope for.  The Christ child comes humbly, emptied of all worldly might and glory. 

Even when we are tired of waiting, even when we lament the sorry state of things, even as we wonder what more can go wrong this year, even when we long for the heavens to open and the mighty power of God to save us all—the message of Advent may be just what we need to hear.  Watch, wait, wonder, and prepare to receive the One who Comes. 

Here we are.  Just where we are meant to be.  Welcome the watching and waiting.  Pray to be open to the Spirit’s leading.  Light a candle and patiently pray in the stillness.  Let your hopes rise and watch for salvation that is waiting to be born.  Amen.

You Did it to Me; November 22, 2020; Yellow Lake Lutheran Church; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Three years ago, my husband, Steve, took part in a workshop at our church in Mazatlan about legacy writing.  It is a process for distilling the lessons learned and the values held into letters for loved ones.  The self-examination and reflection on one’s own life experiences can result in spiritual growth and healing in addition to offering a blessing to one’s children or friends.

My mom did something like that for several years.  Each Christmas, when our kids were still at home, they would receive a compilation of my mom’s memories.  She put herself and her values into those collections of stories.  I’m not sure our kids fully appreciated them at the time.  After all, my mom is still going strong and she loves to tell stories.  But, in the years to come, in that inevitable time when we can no longer listen to her tell us stories in her living voice, I’m sure those Christmas Memories will take on even deeper meaning.

For the past several weeks our gospel readings have been from the section of Matthew’s gospel that covers Passion Week.  We can think of this whole section as a sort of legacy letter from Jesus to his disciples.  He is preparing them for his death.  In chapter 21 Jesus enters Jerusalem, humbly, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  He goes straight to the temple and turns over the money changers’ tables.  The next day he curses a fig tree.  The religious leaders confront and challenge him. 

Then he launches into the telling of three parables, the one about the two sons who were sent to the field but only one of them went, the parable of the wicked tenants who kill the landowner’s son, and the parable of the wedding banquet where the invited guests refuse to come.   In this parting message to his closest followers he it telling them to be ready for his return, even though they won’t know when or how that will happen.  He’s telling them that it’s not their words that matter but their actions.  It is after the parable about the landowner’s son being killed that the scribes and the pharisees figure out that he’s talking about them and they begin to make plans to arrest him.

That leads into a section where they challenge him.  Jesus and the leaders debate heatedly after which Jesus predicts drastic and dangerous things to come.  Finally we come to the final three parables, the 10 bridesmaids and their lamps, the parable of the talents, and today’s lesson about the sheep and the goats.  Jesus is undeterred by the threats and challenges.  In this second set of parables Jesus tells them again to be ready to greet the bridegroom when he arrives, to watch for him.  He makes it clear that they are to be busy while they wait, using their gifts and talents to multiply the impact of their resources.  Today’s lesson is the culmination of this neatly organized section.  Each of these 6 parables builds on the others and the meanings are found below the surface level.  Just like any other legacy letter or parting message, the disciples would have understood their meaning better after Jesus was gone.   

Today’s gospel is often called the Last Judgment, or the Judgment of the Nations.  The scene is grand with the Son of Man seated on the throne in glory, surrounded by angels, with all the nations at his feet.  The Italian renaissance painter, Michelangelo, painted his vision of this text on the alter wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.  The famous triptych by Hieronymus Bosch in the 1400s is an equally vivid depiction of Judgment Day on the middle panel with heaven and hell on either side.  Our minds have been filled with stark and severe images throughout Christian history.  It is no wonder that the church has preached a message of fear at times. 

Sometimes today’s gospel is boiled down so far that it becomes like a sticky, bitter goo in the bottom of a pan, with all the grace and compassion burned away leaving only a residue of moral superiority over others deemed as sinners.  We can slip into a reward and punishment attitude, thinking of judgment day involving some kind of tally sheet with sins on one side of the ledger and good deeds on the other side. Even those of us with the message of “Saved by Grace through Faith” engrained in our minds can be swayed by the cultural idea that “God’ll getcha for that!” 

As spectacular and artistic as Michelangelo’s painting may be let’s remember that this text is a parable, the culmination of 6 parables given by Jesus to prepare his disciples for his death, and his return and the show them how to watch for and see his coming.  It isn’t supposed to be a literal description of a specific day.  Nor is it a threat to frighten us into doing good deeds, or else. 

In 2013 a Canadian sculptor, Timothy Schmalz, unveiled his new work titled, “Homeless Jesus.”  It is a life size bronze of Jesus as a homeless man. He lies curled up in a blanket on a park bench.  The blanket is wrapped around his whole body, covering most of his head. Only his crucifixion-wounded feet are exposed to identify him.  The artist says the sculpture is a visual translation of our parable today.  As you can imagine, reactions have been mixed.  He intended the work to be provocative.  He offered the first casts to Cathedrals in Toronto and New York but both churches declined because appreciation “was not unanimous” and due to ongoing renovations. 

Eventually the first cast was installed at the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina. According to the Rev. David Buck, rector of St. Alban’s, “It gives authenticity to our church. This is a relatively affluent church, to be honest, and we need to be reminded ourselves that our faith expresses itself in active concern for the marginalized of society”. Buck welcomed discussion about the sculpture and considers it a “Bible lesson for those used to seeing Jesus depicted in traditional religious art as the Christ of glory, enthroned in finery.” Furthermore, he said in an interview, “We believe that that’s the kind of life Jesus had. He was, in essence, a homeless person.”   Some Davidson residents felt it was an “insulting depiction” of Jesus that “demeaned” the neighborhood. One resident called police the first time she saw it, mistaking the statue for a real homeless person. Another neighbor wrote a letter, saying it “[creeped] him out”. However, other residents are often seen sitting on the bench alongside the statue, resting their hands on Jesus and praying. By 2016 there were over 100 copies of the sculpture around the world, perhaps the most famous one outside the papal office of charities in Rome.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeless_Jesus#Copies

Today is the last day of the church year and was designated as Christ the King Sunday in 1925 by Pope Pius the 11^th.  It was during the aftermath of World War I and he intended to lift up the dominion of Christ over the destructive forces and totalitarian claims of the modern world:  secularism in the West, the rise of communism in Russia, fascism in Italy and Spain, and harbingers of Nazism soon to seize Germany.  It was a good idea, but I don’t think it has worked very well.  Nearly a hundred years later we oppose the same ideologies.  And, the image of Christ as King can obscure Jesus’ own words. When he was asked point blank by Pilate, “Are you a King?” Jesus tersely answered, “You say so.”  After that he did not respond. 

Our Lord emptied himself of all privilege.  Born in a stable, naked and squalling like every other infant. He traveled and taught and had “nowhere to lay his head.”  He entered Jerusalem not as king, but humbly.  He washed feet and died on a cross. 

In this parable, I believe Jesus is answering the questions about his return left hanging in the other 5 parables and in chapter 24 when his disciples asked him “When will this be?  What will be the sign of your coming?”  He comes in the least of these: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned.  Our faith calls us to ben our knee to Jesus, not the king on the throne in some otherworldly scene surrounded by angels, but to Jesus who can be seen in the lost and broken, the wounded and suffering. 

Amy Frykholm reviewed for the Christian Century magazine a strange book called The Spiritual Meadow, written by sixth-century wandering monk John Moschos. One of the last stories in the book seems to be a perfect way to end this sermon;

In the ancient city of Antioch, the church had various kinds of social services. “A man who was a friend of Christ” used to gather supplies and give them out to people in need.

Once he bought some linen undergarments from Egypt and was handing them out “in accordance with Matthew 25:36.” One particularly poor man came, stood in line and received his linen undergarments. Then he came a second time and got another set. He came a third time and, finally, on the fourth time, the man who was distributing the undergarments singled him out and said, “Look, you have received a garment a third and a fourth time and heard nothing from me. Do not do this again in the future, for there are others afflicted like you and in need of good works.” The poor man went away ashamed.

That night, the man distributing the garments had a dream. He saw Jesus descend from an icon. Jesus came toward him and took off the robe that he was wearing. Under it, he had on four pairs of linen undergarments that the man recognized. “Forgive me my faintheartedness,” the man said to Jesus. “For I reckoned this matter in human terms.” From then on, the story says, “he gave to all who asked with simplicity and joy.”

In her article, Frykholm reflects, “Recently, people at my church’s community meal complained because a certain person took two packages of donuts from the boxes of baked goods in the hallway. This is a common refrain. I wanted to make them feel like I was doing something about it, so I said, “Hey, Janelle, do you mind just taking one box of donuts and leaving one for someone else?”

Janelle looked at me and scowled a little. I have no idea if she did as I asked. But now I am picturing Jesus and Janelle sitting together sharing not one but two boxes of donuts, and I am wondering how to reckon donuts in spiritual terms. https://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2013-01/reading-weird-monk-joke-about-underwear

Our lives don’t tally up like some accounting balance.  What would be so amazing about that?  But when we encounter the grace and mercy of God, when we see Jesus’ radical extravagant love for all and the way he tore down systems that oppress, divide and diminish we are meant to follow him.  We are to look for him in the unpretty places, the places we’d like to speed through our ignore.  As we follow, as we watch, equipped with oil in our lamps and talents at the ready we can see the suffering and needs of others and respond with compassion.  It’s in the doing that the eyes of our heart become enlightened and we know what is the hope to which we have been called.  That is our inheritance among the saints, the immeasurable greatness of God’s power for us. 

Matthew 25: 14-30;  “You Knew, Did you?”  November 15, 2020; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Today we read yet another parable of the kingdom.  This time a master entrusts his servants with HUGE amounts of money.  A talent was worth many years’ worth of wages.  It would be an amount like winning the lottery.  The first two invest and multiply what has been entrusted to them and are met with approval and joy by the master and they are given even more to steward.  The third is afraid.  He sees this generous master as harsh.  He believes the opposite of what is demonstrated by what actually happened; thinking that the master reaps where he doesn’t sow and gathers where he doesn’t scatter.  

The master’s reply may be the whole key to unlocking this parable.  He says, “You knew, did you, that I reap where I do not sow and gather where I do not scatter?”  What do you suppose he meant by that, “You knew, did you?”  I think his question points out the flaw in the servant’s thinking.  After all, he has sown a huge amount in the man’s care.  He has scattered his wealth among his servants, ABUNDANTLY! 

What happens when we live expecting harshness from God, when we live in fear of doing something wrong?  Nothing except the hiding of our gifts and resources from the world.  Nothing but living with an expectation of doom hanging over our heads.  We live our lives in a scarcity mentality instead of the very real truth that we have been showered with gifts and resources beyond imagining.  We hide and hoard what we think of as ours instead of recognizing the riches we have been endowed with. 

I don’t really even think the servant needed to be cast out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  I think he’s already living in a hell of his own making, shaped by his “knowledge” of the harshness of God.  “You knew, did you?”  the master asked. 

Our beliefs shape our reality.  We see what we are looking for.  God is great, God is good!  Open your eyes and see the goodness of God.  Let go of your fears and stinginess.  Life is for living and loving and risking, trying new things and investing in possibilities. 

Perhaps you could ask yourself this week, “What do I know about God?”  “What gifts and resources do I have that can be put to use to build the kingdom of God, the Beloved Community, where all are welcome and all are fed?”  “Where in my life have I been hoarding and hiding out of a mistaken idea that there will not be enough?” 

Let’s enter into the joy of our God, with gratitude and confidence.  Amen.

November 8, 2020; Yellow Lake Lutheran Church; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Justice and Righteousness like Water

In 2006 I was working as the Executive Director of a non-profit organization in Duluth Mn called SOAR Career Solutions.  We helped people get jobs.  Our clients had a variety of challenges:  chemical dependencies, or mental health issues, a lack of education or training, negative work histories or criminal records.  We provided training and support to help them break out of the cycle of poverty.

One of our key staff members suggested that we specialize our services on the group of people with criminal histories. I had never imagined that I would find myself in that situation.  You see, I had been the victim of a violent crime when I was 17.  So, my first reaction was just outright rejection of the idea.  Someone else could do that but I couldn’t see myself leading such an effort. 

However, I couldn’t deny the considerable need and our capacity to meet that need.  So, SOAR created the Community Offender Reentry Program to assist people returning to Duluth from prison so that they could succeed and avoid re-offending.  Instead of what I think of as a catch and release model of criminal justice focused on punishment and incarceration, we adopted a restorative justice model of rebuilding lives and creating solid relationships.  I had to let go of my judgmental views and my fears.  The meaning of the word justice changed for me.

One of the volunteers who was instrumental in our program is Don Streufert, a psychologist who facilitated a weekly restorative justice group session for program participants.  But Don is much more than a psychologist.  In 1991 Don and his wife Mary’s 18-year-old daughter Carin was home from college for the summer.  They lived in Grand Rapids MN, a relatively small town where people generally felt safe.  Until the night Carin was abducted, raped, and murdered. 

Although her killers were caught, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for this brutal crime, Don and Mary didn’t feel closure.  They sought healing that the retributive criminal justice system didn’t provide.  They turned to restorative practices and forgiveness.  They founded an organization to reduce violence, held forgiveness workshops for other crime victims and even visited their daughter’s killers in prison.  They found a way forward without letting anger control them.

Amos spoke his prophetic words 2800 years ago contrasting outward displays of piety with what God really seeks—justice and righteousness, rolling and flowing unceasingly like waters. 

Today we hear calls for justice after a crime and the intent is usually a call for prosecution and conviction through the courts and criminal justice systems.  The George Floyd case comes quickly to mind.  But a guilty verdict won’t be enough.  We also hear the cries – No Justice, No Peace.  The deeper need is for the forging of restorative practices and the building of right relationships, for the formation of what Martin Luther King Jr called, the Beloved Community. 

Words from today’s Old Testament lesson are carved on Martin Luther King Jr.’s gravestone.  It was his most quoted passage of scripture and shaped his vision of the Beloved Community, a global vision in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth.  The Beloved Community is something we shape and form together, on earth as it is in heaven: where poverty and hunger and homelessness are not tolerated, where racism and discrimination, bigotry and prejudice are replaced by the all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood, where international conflicts are resolved by peaceful conflict resolutions and reconciliation instead of by wars.  Love and trust triumph over fear and hatred, peace and justice over war and conflict. 

Martin Luther King Jr quoted our text for today in his I Have a Dream speech in 1963.  Now, 57 years later, basically my whole lifetime, we live in a nation so divided, the tension in the air this week is palpable.  Fears of militia uprisings loom right alongside fears of riots and looting.  We are a broken nation right now.  Friendships and families are strained over red and blue lines.  The calls for No Justice/No Peace are not threats but a description of our reality.  After 2800 years the stark call of Amos rings as truly as it ever did. 

Justice and Righteousness are words with rich and deep meaning in Hebrew.  They do not mean law abiding adherence to any external standard as one might think.  No.  At the core, these words have to do with relationship, RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS.  These words are not one-size-fits-all concepts.  No. They instead describe the condition that occurs when each relationship is right, according to its own specific demands.  No one is free until everyone is free. 

Our biblical tradition teaches us that God’s desire is that we be a part of creating a community where all types and classes of people are assured access to what they need to live well.  The people of God are repeatedly called to provide for the poor, to break down systems of injustice, to let the oppressed go free, to support the widow and the orphan, to visit the sick and imprisoned because that is what it meant to be in right relationship, with them, and with God. 

Without true Justice and Righteousness all the offerings, prayers, hymns, vestments, and talk of God are of no use at all and not pleasing to God at all. 

I spoke to my son the other day.  He lives in Minneapolis near the Theodore Wirth Parkway.  He walks his dog there daily and he called me during his walk.  He told me there is a statue of Abraham Lincoln there that has become part of his new ritual.  When he feels anxious or weighed down by the conflicts and divisions in our culture he makes his way to Old Abe.  In Lincoln’s second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, he encouraged a divided nation with these words:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.   

One hundred and sixty-five years later those words speak still.  We are challenged to face others without malice, with love, and with a commitment to shaping the Beloved Community that God intends for this world. 

Today, after our worship service we will honor the veterans from our community in another ceremony.  This solemn recognition acknowledges the battles for freedom that have been waged by this country even as we pray for and work toward the day when such sacrifices will not be required. 

Let us pray. 

Gracious God, it is your will to hold both heaven and earth in a single peace.  Let the design of your great love shine on the waste of our wraths and sorrows, and give us peace, peace in our homes and our hearts, in our cities and rural communities, in our civic processes and our government.  In any conflicts help us to meet each other without hatred or bitterness, to listen for your voice amid competing claims and to work together toward the Beloved Community you envision.  In the holy name of Jesus, our Prince of Peace we pray.  Amen.

All Saints’ Day; Nov 1 2020; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Normally on All Saints Day, we would have the memory of the night before, Halloween, when we would have seen ghosts in white sheets floating down the driveway, devils with horns and pitchforks stomping through the dry leaves, skeletons dripping blood out of the sides of their mouths, werewolves, witches and wizards. There might have been a couple of supermen who were clinging to their moms’ legs with all that ghoulishness going on around them, a Cinderella looking a little overpowered.  It would have been a night that belonged to Zombies and Frankenstein and the grim reaper, who demanded candy or else.  As a pastor handing out treats, I might have thought to myself, “Hey, this looks and sounds a lot like the book of Revelation. This stuff is straight out of the Bible.”

Think about it… white robes, some wearing crowns, beasts and a couple of angels. Even if there weren’t any lambs, there might have been lions, bears, eagles.  Flashes of lightning and peals of thunder are part of the displays on some streets. Flaming torches. Bloody moons. Dragons with horns and a two-headed monster.  Such characters, straight out of the Revelation of John, fill Halloween night.

Normally I would be in Mexico at this time of year where the Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos is a fantastic event.  In Mazatlan there would be, in normal years, a parade of costumed skeletons.  There the pre Hispanic customs flavor the day with celebration.  Death isn’t creepy there.  The theme is about remembering their loved ones. 

Today is All Saints’ Day in the church.  It’s a time meant for celebrating God’s victory over death.  We can say to death, “You can howl at the moon if you want to, but we worship the risen Son. And he has already put you in your place among the tombstones and darkness. So you might scare us, but you will not defeat us.”

Halloween, All Saints’ Day and the Day of the Dead remind us in their own way who is in charge of life and death. They help us see God’s revelation.

There is a line between life and death, you know. A thin line. Most of us live as if it isn’t really there until we are confronted by it through our own health concerns or by the death of a loved one, the horror of a tragic accident, violence, brutality, war or this year a worldwide Pandemic. I think the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox believers may have a stronger sense of the thin veil than we rational Protestants. They never quit praying to the departed saints, because in a very real sense, in Christ, these saints are always with us. We can learn something from them, we Protestants. John the Revelator helps us to see it.

In his stunning apocalyptic vision, John blurs the lines between the daily grind and the evermore. He draws the future of God into the present of our lives. He brings heaven to earth and shows us in his fantastic symbolism how things are in God’s world, not the way we have come to think they are.

“Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.”  So begins the last book of the bible.  Peace is not, however, a word many people would associate with this fascinating book.  Fear, maybe.  Confusion, surely.  The Revelation of John is a widely interpreted book and given its image-rich language it is subject to all kinds of wild and often conflicting interpretations.  There is much in this book that is difficult to understand.  Sensational treatments of it can put us off from even trying to grasp its meaning for us but it is well worth making the effort to understand this powerful testimony of a man named John to the risen Christ. 

Let me begin today with a brief introduction to the book of Revelation as a whole.  The author tells us his name–John.  He wrote at about 90-96 AD.  So that means he is probably not the apostle John.  This man was a Christian who lived through the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero and wrote during the reign of the next Emperor, Domitian.  Both were notorious as rulers who harshly persecuted the Christians.  In those days the emperors of Rome considered themselves to be gods.  All people living in the Roman Empire had to publicly state their belief in the emperor as a god and worship him.  Perhaps because he refused to do so, or for some other action related to his faith, John was exiled to the island of Patmos.  His main message is that Ceasar is not God and that the true God, revealed in Jesus Christ is stronger than any government. 

Because of the tense relationship between the early church and the government John was not able to write openly and in direct language about Jesus Christ without facing further persecution and probable death.  So, he disguised his message in figurative language.  For example, he referred to the Roman government as a beast with seven heads and ten horns that had come up out of the sea.  One of the heads has received a mortal wound.  In other words, the first emperor, Nero, died.  The wound healed, suggesting another emperor, Domitian, began to rule. 

This style of writing flourished from about 200 years before Christ to about 100 years after his death, and is called apocalyptic literature.  The biblical book of Daniel is another example of apocalyptic literature written at the beginning of that period.  Like John, the writer of Daniel was being persecuted and wrote his message using highly symbolic language.  This kind of literature was written almost in code and was meant to be understandable only to insiders in the faith.  Books like these were written to give hope and encouragement to people who were having a very hard time.  There was usually a concrete political issue at stake.  The language, as I said, was full of symbols and numbers.  Sharp distinctions were made between this age and the age to come often with a message about the approaching end of all time.

The style of this writing accounts for much of the confusion often experienced when this book is read.  No one writes that way anymore.  When we try to read this book as if it were direct and literal writing without knowing the reference points for all the symbols we wind up with all kinds of crazy and fearful interpretations. 

John was harshly persecuted for his faith.  He was sent into exile, away from his home and family, and stripped of his rights as a citizen.  This was happening to many Christians throughout the Empire.  The government tried to silence all the witnesses to the God known through the crucified and risen Christ.  But nothing could stop people like John.  Through the apocalyptic language that is sometimes hard for us to understand but would have been clear to his contemporaries, John got his message out.  Not exile, not the threat of further persecution, nothing could stop him from telling about his Lord. 

Now comes the hard part.  What does all this mean for us today, in 2020 on All Saints’ Sunday? Unlike John or Peter or the other apostles, or Christians in other places today we are free to say what we want.  Prisons and threats of persecutions are certainly still a part of daily Christian life in this world, even if it is not something we ourselves have personally experienced.  For people resisting government oppression and boldly speaking a word of faith and truth in our time these lessons carry words of encouragement, comfort, and empowerment.  They still say loud and clear that no government can stop the power of God or the witness of Christians to that God.

I believe these texts speak a word of challenge to us here and now.  Prison and threats of persecution or exile are not stopping us from testifying to the astonishing power of God– so what is stopping us?  What makes us so silent as Christians?  Is it embarrassment?  or doubt like Thomas had momentarily?  Do we think we are too busy?  or Do we have the mistaken idea that everyone knows the grace and peace of God? 

These texts also speak a word of comfort to us.  After all, we live in a world full of hurting people.  The world needs faithful witnesses to the power and love of God as much now as ever.  The threats we face today may be more subtle than in the days of the Emperors Nero and Domitian.  John called the Roman government a seven headed monster.  We face a different sort of many headed monster. We face emptiness and lack of meaning.  We face a world full of rampant alienation and loneliness and poverty.  We face addictions and violence and fear of our neighbors.  We face our fear of our own mortality, the loss of our loved ones, the worry over friends and family with health concerns or financial troubles or broken relationships.  We in America face deep divisions and ideological factions that threaten to destroy us. The God who empowered the early disciples of Christ to spread the news of Christ’s resurrection and to write the books of the Bible can fill us with faith and a message and mission that cannot be contained, moving us out to meet today’s seven-headed monster head on.

You see, for those late-first-century and early-second-century Christians, it’s not that John the Revelator was offering pie in the sky by and by. Yes, he was extending the hope of glory. But even more, he was offering hope for the here and now.

Hope for those marginalized, impoverished, weak and starving communities that Rome was gobbling up. And John is saying, in this fantastic vision of a new earth and heaven, with all the tribes on the face of the earth gathered around the throne, John is saying, “Take heart. Be of good courage. That wild thing death — that thing running around your porches, slipping under your bed at night, hanging out in your hospitals, tormenting your cities, wrecking this good earth — that thing death, Jesus has already put a stake through his heart. We call that stake the cross. ”

The saints remind us, you see, that we live on the other side of death. As theologian Dorothee Soelle puts it, Christians are those whose death is already behind them. We are free to live in the victory scene of Revelation 7, because death cannot touch us, not really.

This year especially we see death ravaging. In addition to Cancer, Alzheimer’s, domestic violence, hunger in our cities and rural communities and in all parts of the globe, and the insanity of war, this year we’ve seen 45.8 million cases of Coronavirus and 1.1 million deaths worldwide as of Halloween with the numbers rising dramatically. Death has certainly not given up. But what John the Revelator is saying, what Paul the evangelist is saying, what Jesus the Christ is saying, is that the last enemy to be defeated is death, and the battle is engaged.

So we can live free from the gripping fear of all that ghastliness, because we know the real story. We live how we live and do what we do, as Kimberly Bracken Long says, “because the world envisioned by Scripture is the real world. The real world is not the one of suffering, and pain, and death. That world has been swallowed up in victory — the victory of Jesus Christ.”

So as we worship and live today, we can pray to God for all the saints, those living and dead from this earthly life, that their witness to Christ might embolden our witness to be the true church in these troubled times. A church that draws near to the poor, the hungry, the refugee, the imprisoned, the unemployed and the underemployed, and says, “Take, eat; this is my body, full of good news, my cup, full to overflowing.”

Matthew 22: 1-14; Yellow Lake Lutheran Church, Danbury, WI; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; 10.11.2020

Let us pray,

Open our minds and hearts O Spirit, to hear your word for us today.  Blow through us, so that we may know you more, and live in your loving grace.  Amen.

Well, this gospel is a fine how-do-you-do!  My first sermon text in this new setting turns out to be the hardest parable in the gospels.  A suspicious person might think this was a test!  In the year 1513 Martin Luther, when faced with this text, called it the “terrible gospel on which I hate to preach!”  Well, I accept the challenge.  Digging deep into the Scripture results in rich rewards.  So, let’s dig in.

This is the third parable in Matthew’s gospel addressed to the religious leaders of the day.  The setting is the temple, where Jesus has just turned over the money tables. They question his authority.  It is not a “peace that passes all understanding” sort of a time and place.  No, in fact the verses that come directly before this passage go like this:  When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.  Jesus tells an intense parable for a tense setting.

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king, who gave a wedding banquet for his son.  The king, in perfect story format, sends out his slaves three times.  The first time his slaves go to gather the invited they are ignored. The second time the invited brush it off and go their own way.  The intended guests are too busy.  Some of the invited, though, do more than reject the invitation.  They turn on the messengers seize them, mistreat them and murder them. 

From a story telling perspective, that’s a pretty big escalation. So, the king sends his soldiers out to kill the murderers and burn down the city.  But this stubborn king will be damned if he is going to give up. So, finally, he sends some more slaves into the burning city to invite anyone, good or bad, who will fill the banquet hall. 

Even then the king is not satisfied.  He scans the banquet hall and sees a man who has been dragged in, off the streets who isn’t dressed appropriately.  The King approaches him saying, “Friend, how did you get in without a wedding robe?”  The man is speechless. 

And if this were a movie the final lines of the drama would be spoken with horror music playing in the background.  “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen.”

What in the world do we do with a parable like this?! The most common way of interpreting this parable through the centuries has been to turn it into an allegory, where each character in the story stands for a character in the real world. In the typical allegorical interpretation, the king stands for God, Jesus is the son, the wedding feast is the banquet in the life to come.  The invited guests and murdered slaves are the Old Testament prophets and the Israelites, the guests who actually attend the banquet are the gentiles, us, and the servants who bring them in are the missionaries who bring people to the church.  There it is. A nice, neat package.  All said and done.   

But, Oh, how much terrible theology and bloody history has come from that allegorical interpretation!  This text was used by the church for centuries to persecute the Jewish people.  The crusades against Muslims were justified based on this text too.  It’s important to remember history’s lessons when we look for meaning this story.

It might be easy to understand why it has been understood this way.  The essence of faith has often been simplified to something like this: trust in Jesus to forgive your sins and you’ll get to go to heaven when you die. At some level I think we want it to be that clear. 

A cut and dried formula is so much more comfortable than the day to day practice of following Jesus, the challenge of loving our neighbor as our selves, the work of doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. It feels better to say the Jews got it all wrong and are therefore cut out of the kingdom.  They are replaced by the Christians. Whew!  We’re safe.  If we just say the right prayer, put on the robe of righteousness, we’ll be welcomed into the feast to come. 

But parables don’t work that way.  Allegorizing the text locks us into our own thinking and keeps us from really experiencing the change of heart that parables are meant to create.  If we tie up the parables in a neat little bundle, we miss the point.  We skip right over the violence, escalation and ridiculousness of the plot. In our attempt to wiggle out of the squirmy feeling that we get at the end of this parable we strip it of its power to change us.

You’ve probably heard the adage that religion is supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.  Well, parables fall into the latter category of afflicting the comfortable.  They are supposed to turn something on its head so completely that we see things in a new way. 

Debie Thomas, from St Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, California suggests on her blog, Journey with Jesus, that we reconsider this parable – letting it speak to us in all its provocative fullness.  Maybe Jesus is telling this parable in such an extreme and offensive way precisely because we actually DO believe in a God as hard as the king who turns his armies loose on his own people and we need the hyperbole in order to recognize it.   Perhaps Jesus tells this harsh story to the upright, self-righteous leaders of the Temple who insist on the right appearances of things because they don’t recognize him or his authority.  After all, they were looking for a king like Herod, a conqueror who would restore Israel’s might not a simple man riding into town on a donkey. 

She asks, Is it possible that Jesus is offering us a critical description of how God’s kingdom is often depicted by God’s own followers?  What if the king in the parable isn’t God at all? What if the king is what we project onto God?  What if the king embodies everything we’ve learned to associate with divine power and authority from watching other, all-too-human kings and rulers?  Kings like Herod.  Conquerors like the Romans in Jesus’ day.  Leaders in our own time and place who execute their authority in abusive, violent ways, compelling their followers to gleefully celebrate in circumstances that call for lament.

Her questions ring true for me.  I can’t begin to tell you how many people I have counseled over the years who have been wounded by brutal versions of religion, bludgeoned by a depiction of an angry God who demands the right prayer, the right confession of faith, the right sign of the spirit.  So many people have experienced the church as petty, stingy, and judgmental.

I grew up in a healthy church in Moorhead MN.  We had excellent pastors who preached God’s grace.  I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know the love of God was bigger and stronger and warmer than anything I could ever imagine.  I hope that’s true for all of you listening to or watching this broadcast.  But I know some of you still carry deep wounds from the years or decades you spent appeasing the King you mistook for God.  Sometimes God is presented to the world as easily offended, displeased, dishonored; whose power is unsearchable, unknowable, and must be submitted to; whose invitation has strings attached.

The opening line of this text says, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king… It doesn’t say as it does elsewhere the kingdom of heaven is like.  It says it can be compared to, suggesting that it’s not like that.  As followers of Jesus do we really believe God is a mean, petty, vengeful, hot-headed, thin-skinned ruler intent on getting even?  Does God burn down a city out of wounded pride? Is God like the capricious king who greets a stranger with a passive aggressive greeting, “Friend…” just before having him bound and thrown out into the outer darkness? 

Debie Thomas again suggests another possibility:  What if the God figure in the parable is the one guest who refuses to accept the terms of the tyrannical king?  The one guest who decides not the wear the robe of forced celebration and coerced hilarity?  There is a striking similarity between the one who is bound hand and foot and cast out into the outer darkness and the one who stood silent before Herod before his journey to Gethsemane, Calvary, the cross and the grave. 

The parables of Jesus are meant to afflict the comfortable and the show us who God is and maybe even who God isn’t.  We must remember that it is Jesus who tells this parable, the one who shows us all we need to know about God; whose unwavering love was always bigger, stronger, warmer than anything we could possibly compare it to.  Jesus the Christ is our banquet host. 

Isaiah foretold it:  The Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.  And he will destroy…the shroud that is cast over all peoples, and will swallow up death forever. 

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to that stubborn vindictive king’s wedding banquet—and if we hear the parable in its provocative fullness we might see that there is no comparison whatsoever. 

Let us pray.  Gracious God, let us hold on to your good news.  May we rejoice in you always. Show us how near you are to us.  And fill us with the peace that passes all understanding, guard and keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

Easter Sunday 2020; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Human life moves between two darknesses.  We begin life out of the darkness that surrounds us before we are born, and we end life with the darkness of death.  Life is what happens in between these two dark times.  All along the way, though, there are other dark times.  Given all the darkness that surrounds our lives, we might have a hard time living in the light, if it were not for the promises of God.  Brilliantly bright promises like those we celebrate today– hope, forgiveness, and new life.

But, even Easter is not all brightness and joy.  In fact Mary came to the tomb while it was still dark, the gloomy memories of the last few days shrouding her mind.  Her grief would have weighed down on her like a blanket of dark.  She was not going there to do a happy or pleasant thing.  She was going to put sweet smelling spices and oils on the corpse of her well-loved and well-known friend.  It was one final caring action she could do for his crucified body.

During the terrible days she had just experienced the one they had placed all their hopes on had been betrayed and denied by close friends, he had been falsely accused, tortured, mocked, and killed in a slow and painful way.  All but a few women had deserted him.  She must have felt alone and completely drained.  She might have thought that nothing else could possibly happen to disappoint her.  Then arriving, in the dark, she found the tomb empty.  Even his dead body was taken away from her.  She told Simon Peter and another disciple.  After they looked for him without success they left her alone again, without any answers, alone with her grief and doubts and loss. 

It was there, alone and without hope, as the light of day broke that Jesus, appeared to Mary and called her by name.  There in the place of death, life and hope shattered the darkness and gave Mary a reason to believe again, a reason to celebrate and share her news.  As a people living between life and death we too are called to believe and celebrate even when suffering or death are just a moment behind or ahead.  It is the dark story of Jesus suffering and death followed by the surprising bright dawn of Easter that makes it possible for us to celebrate life even in the face of death. 

A pastor I know of told a story about how she learned through ministering to one of her parishoners that it is the very darkness of Jesus’ suffering and death that gives the resurrection such bright power.  This pastor enjoyed a wonderful friendship with a family in her parish.  The parents in this family was about 50 and the wife and mother in the family had become a close friend of the pastor.  Their house was always full of good music and laughter.  Then their only child was killed in a car accident.  The pastor came to visit and found the parents avoiding each other and not talking.  After a few minutes the woman asked her pastor to leave saying she wanted to be alone.  People from a local grief group came to offer their support.  The woman kept saying she wanted to be alone.  The music fell silent in that house and the woman retreated to the dark quiet of the basement and paced the floor. 

Again the pastor came to visit.  She went into the basement with her and paced with her.  She sensed the anguish the woman felt, the sadness and anger and emptiness.  She silently paced with her and the woman began to share her pain.  She spoke of her despair and loneliness.  She tried to explain that she just had to be alone.  The pastor decided not to pray with her at that time.  She went out and prayed in her car as she left that grieving household. 

Some time later it came to her what to do.  She found a rough cross.  She typed selected words from Psalm 22, including the words Jesus quoted as he hung on the cross.  “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?  O my God I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night but find no rest.  I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.”  Then she added the words:  You are not alone.  Jesus is in union with all believers.

The pastor took the paper and the cross to the grieving woman with a request that she read it over and over again.  Then she left her alone as she had been asked to. 

Time went by.  The pastor continued to pray for her but left her alone.  Eventually the woman called and asked the pastor to come over.  They sat in the bright light at the kitchen table this time, not in the basement.  The woman looked different.  She quietly but steadily described her pacing and reading.  She set up the cross in the basement and let it be with her.  Then one day, as she paced and read the words typed on the paper she sensed that someone else was groaning within her, at first groaning the words of the psalm and then crying the words, “I’m gonna live.” 

As they shared Holy Communion at that kitchen table the woman told her pastor that it was through living with the dark pain of the cross that could see the hope of new life in Christ and could believe again.  Darkness and sadness and loss all by themselves are life-taking forces.  But illumined by the presence of the crucified and risen Lord they become bearable, even more than that those dark times can be opportunities to see the depth of God’s love and the promise of new life.

The resurrection with all its brilliance follows the agonizing hell of Great and Holy Saturday and turns a terrible Friday into Good Friday.  It is almost too bright to consider; it is like looking straight into the sun at high noon.  It shines with a light that breaks into all the dark spaces of our lives because it originates out of the darkness of death and sorrow and anguish. 

We live our lives between two darknesses and with dark times scattered all through our lives.  Easter does not remove the dark times.  Easter shines into them and speaks a word of light and hope.  “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” 

Maundy Thursday, April 9, 2020;

ICCM in Diaspora; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Washing and feeding, washing and feeding, it is a rhythm we are familiar with.  My mom used to instruct us to, “Wash up for dinner” and I did the same things when my kids were little.  Now during the Coronavirus we are especially familiar with washing and feeding.  How many times a day do we wash our hands?  I bet we are all eating so many more homecooked meals than we have in years.  Our awareness is heightened right now.

The chaplain of a Baptist Children’s home in Texas tells a story about one little boy who never wanted to wash up.  The housemother had to ask him four times one day to get washed up for dinner.  He stomped past her, muttering, “All I hear around this place day after day is ‘germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus.’  So far, I ain’t seen neither one!”

Washing and feeding… I remember when my children were newborns—it seemed like all I did was wash and feed, wash and feed those hungry little ones.  We begin our lives dependent on others, washed by other’s hands and fed the food that will sustain us.  Gradually we learn to do things for ourselves and then even to care for others.  Being washed and fed evolves into washing and feeding oneself.  Dependence develops into self-reliance.  And we come to live with the illusion of independence and self-sufficiency.  Right now we are tested by the isolation.  I know I am more aware of how much I need other people and how much I miss them when I am unable to gather with friends and family.

On Maundy Thursday, when we read the story of the last supper, complete with the story of Jesus washing his disciple’s feet I think of my great aunt named Rubye.  She and her husband Chuck lived in Moorhead, my hometown.  They didn’t have any children and lavished lots of love on me and my sister Betsy.  I was sick a lot as a little girl and when I had to miss school my mom would bring me either to my grandma’s house or to Rubye’s house when she went to work.  Rubye and Chuck were fun to be with—they played cards with me and fed me lots of treats.  Rubye was a big woman, very big.  She had arthritis and diabetes.

As she got older it got harder and harder for her to move about and care for herself.  Our roles changed some over time.  After I got my driver’s license I would visit them on my own.  I got allergy shots every week at a clinic near their house.  I stopped to see them nearly every week and we would play cards and visit.  I know how much they looked forward to those days.

Rubye and Chuck had a neighbor named Faith who also came to visit them every week.  She brought them groceries and she also provided some personal care for Rubye.  Faith would tend Rubye’s big, arthritic, and diabetic feet.  She washed her feet and trimmed her toenails and massaged her sore bones.  She took care of Rubye’s bunions and corns.  I expect that Rubye looked forward to Faith’s visits even more than my visits.  I expect it was hard for her to accept such intimate service, to be washed by someone else.   

Footwashing—it’s a personal thing, uncommon in our lives, handwashing we can relate to.  But for the disciples, washing up for dinner meant not hands but feet.  Footwashing was an absolute necessity in Palestine.  The road and pathways were packed-down soil.  During the dry seasons they were covered with dust.  In rainy weather they turned to mud.  Footwear consisted of cured leather sandals.  Before entering a home, feet had to be cleaned.  Large water jugs were put beside the door for that purpose.  Richer homes had foot-washing servants. 

Jesus and his disciples, like many people of his time, may not even have worn sandals.  If that was the case, then they really would have needed a foot washing that day.  Since they wouldn’t have had a servant to wash feet, the disciples probably took turns doing it for one another. 

On this one night, the night of the Passover, Jesus was the one who took up the task.  Maybe they had been bickering about whose turn it was.  It wouldn’t have been the first time they fought over status and who was the most important.  Over and over again the disciples showed a silly stubbornness, not unlike the kind of quibbling between siblings over whose turn it is to take out the garbage or wash the dishes. 

I imagine that Jesus ended the bickering by teaching a lesson with his actions.  He humbled himself and evidently embarrassed the disciples in the process, exposing their pettiness with his loving service.  He demonstrated powerfully that greatness is shown most of all in service.  His actions spoke louder than any words could.  Those actions said, ‘I love you.  I will serve you.  I send you to serve one another.”  Then, in case they didn’t get it through his example he told them. 

John 13: 12-17, 34-35: After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. ¹⁴So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶Very truly, I tell you, servants^* are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. ¹⁷If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them… ³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

Maundy Thursday brings us up to the threshold of this Most Holy Time.  It brings us right up to the betrayal of Jesus, to the cross, and to the tomb, reminding us that what matters most is not our independence and self-reliance, but those things that Christ does for us.  Today shows us that we need to be washed and fed by Christ. 

We cannot gather right now, so our entry into the dark agony of Jesus’ passion must be a solitary one, were in the quiet of our own homes we can consider how he was denied, mocked, whipped, killed and buried.  The one who came into the world with love and justice was pushed aside and hung on a cross to die. 

Part of me, and maybe part of you too, would rather turn away from this part of the story and from the nasty grisly parts of life.  If we can’t have Easter dinner, with all the trimmings, chairs crowed around a family table, if there will be no egg hunts this year, couldn’t we just move right through to resurrection? 

If we consider the cost of life and freedom in Christ we can glimpse the depth of God’s commitment to us, to justice, to love.  Even as Jesus was being plotted against and set up to die, he offered love and gentle personal service and a meal to his followers.  He offered himself as hope and truth and ultimate victory over the worst this world has to offer.

Washing and feeding.  I am hungry for the table of the Lord, hungry for the words, given and shed for you, in remembrance of Christ. I am hungry for community, for nourishment and strength, for forgiveness and peace and purpose.  Especially now, when danger is invisible, carried on human droplets, when our patterns are disrupted, when we worry for our loved ones who work in essential services or for those with underlying health risks.  We live covered in the dust and germs of this world’s struggle.  In the rituals of the church we are washed and fed. 

Jesus gave a command:  To love as he loved, to forgive as he forgave, to give as he gave, to pray as he prayed, to help as he helped, to do as he did.  And he provided the food we need for the tasks.  This year as we sit at our isolated tables, remind us that we are united in one Body, the Body of Christ.  As we eat whatever food we have and drink whatever drink we pour, remind us that Christ is our bread and blood. Christ supplies our needs, fills us with himself, gives us new life, new hope, and new strength we need to fulfill his command.  Amen.