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Hosanna!  April 5, 2020; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

This is not how I expected to be spending Holy Week.  I thought Steve and I would be watching the crowds thronging to the beaches.  Today, Palm Sunday, I expected the ladies in the Spanish Speaking Congregation of Iglesia Cristiana Congregacional de Mazatlan to have beautifully decorated the sanctuary with Palm Branches.  Daniel, Steve and Rich would be playing the opening strains of All Glory Laud and Honor, the trumpet’s clear sound rising over the voices of the English Speaking congregation.  I was looking forward to the first (hopefully annual) Palm Sunday brunch potluck at Linda Hannawalt’s lovely home on Libertad Street.  As the season wound down, we would try to fit in as many farewell -for this- year dinners at our favorite restaurants with friends.  The warmer weather would mean morning coffee on the patio watching the hummingbirds flit between my neighbor Sylvia’s azalea tree, the hibiscus plants and her feeders.  We had plans.  We thought we knew what to expect. 

Jesus’ followers had expectations too.  He was headed to Jerusalem, the seat of religious and political power, for Passover.  Special meals and rituals would recall the ancient plagues and God’s liberating power to save the people.  Their hopes were pinned on this unlikely man, Jesus.  Centuries of longing were going to be fulfilled in this Messiah.  They waved their cloaks and whatever they could find along the dusty roads, palm branches held high in acclamation with cheers of Hosanna!

Hoshiya-na, Hosanna in Hebrew, means Save, Please!  Like a failing swimmer’s cry for help as they struggled to make it to shore, Ayudame!– the word changed over the years.  It came to mean, Salvation! in the sense that even before a call for help was uttered, help arrived.  No longer a victim’s plea, it became an exclamation of praise bubbling from the heart of the endangered as the lifeguard could be seen racing through the turbulent waves to save the drowning. 

The story of the faithful follows a repeating pattern: threats come and then salvation, disaster and restoration, death and rebirth. We know this from studying the scriptures, from reading history.  This too shall pass.  God is good, all the time.  We know this from our own lives too—when we have felt the strength of the community, the support of prayer, the presence of God carrying us through difficult times.  But this global pandemic—this is not what any of us (except maybe the doomsday preppers) know or expected.

We are asked or commanded, as the case may be, to stay safe at home.  Shopping and restaurant parking lots are empty.  Even the beaches in Mazatlan during Semana Santa, normally the busiest time of the year, are vacant for the very first time.  Social isolation means even the faithful are sleeping in on Sunday mornings, or watching hastily prepared video broadcasts of preachers proclaiming to empty sanctuaries.  On this first Sunday in April pastors everywhere are consecrating the elements for the Eucharist via YouTube.  Communicants are individually partaking of their own bread and cup, simultaneously in dispersion.  Not in anyone’s wildest dreams would this be so!

It is a drab morning here in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.  I write this from my desk in the loft of our home, looking out our floor to ceiling window.  A dozen deer are silently making their way through the grey and dormant landscape, avoiding the icy patches in the shade they nibble on our brush pile and the tender shoots of my rhubarb plants.  If I close my eyes I can seen the congregation now scattered: a few still in Mazatlan.  Are Rich and Wendy, Keith and Sylvia sipping coffee or tea, watching the waves crash on the empty beaches on either side of the Casa del Marino? Are Chuck and Katy, Bob and Cheryl, Kirk and Carol hunkered down in the Pacific Northwest, one of the hotspots of this silent, invisible threat—the coronavirus?  Are our friends from Alberta wearing wool socks and fuzzy robes warming their feet by a blazing woodstove?  Surely in all these places and more, masks and gloves and sanitizer are ready by the doorways for any essential excursions. 

Like Jesus’ first followers our expectations have not been met.  We face mortality in a new way, the future uncertain. But unlike those palm waving crowds we know the ending of the story.  We know that the betrayal, denial, suffering and injustice of Holy Week was followed by God’s ultimate salvation—resurrection.  We know through the witness of Mary and Peter and others that God has more in store for the world than we can even imagine.  The nationalistic dream of a restored Israel with Jesus on the throne of David was too small a hope.  God’s holy plan is bigger and bolder.  The prophets tried to tell them.  “Behold I am doing a new thing!” (Isaiah 43.19)

Paul proclaimed it for the early church, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation h as come!  The old is gone and the new is here!”  (2Corinthians 5:17)  Each year the cycle repeats, the message is proclaimed.  Each year our hopes and dreams are too small.  This year, 2020, the whole earth finds itself at a standstill during Holy Week.  We wait for what we cannot know, crying Hosanna!  Save us!  Ayudame! 

Surely our dreams and hopes are too small.  We may long for a return to the old normal: palm branches waving, a potluck brunch complete with baked ham and green bean casserole in Grandma’s china dishes, friends and family around the laden table, every chair in the house crowded to fit, the freedom to shake hands, hug, and kiss cheeks.  But this grand pause can direct our attention to the One who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine! (Ephesians 3: 20)  And so, we are called to open our hearts to trust God’s repeating pattern of salvation. 

Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us the faith to go out (or stay home!) with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  (Martin Luther’s evening prayer.)

Steve has a section of this blog called Cop Out and About. Take a minute to read his latest writing .

March 15, 2020, One Body—Living Water; ICCM; John 4: 5-42; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

There is a hymn for holy communion called One Bread, One Body that goes like this.  One bread, one body, one Lord of all; one cup of blessing which we bless, and we though many throughout the earth we are one body in this one Lord.  Gentile or Jew, servant or free, woman or man, no more.  Many the gifts, many the works, one in the Lord of all. 

We are One Body, the Body of Christ, with various gifts and talents, interdependently entwined.  Our gathering for worship today feels poignant to me.  We come here as the Psalmist said, to sing, to make a joyful noise, to give thanks and praise, to bow down and bend the knee.  It is so good to be together.  This is our lifeblood—our community, a place to give, to serve, to support, to grow, to be held in prayer and Christian love. 

The decision to suspend our services for this season is hard.  We will miss this sharing of physical presence with each other. Some may think this is a premature overreaction. I hope they are right and this whole mess does not materialize as the scientists and mathematicians are predicting, and as has happened in Europe, China, Korea, and as is happening in the United States and Canada already.  But I think that is wishful thinking. 

I believe the decision will contribute to a greater good.  Those of us who are here may be healthy.  If we contract the virus it may be no more than something like the common cold.  But we are acting as the Body, linked together with all of God’s creation, with those who are very old, with those who are frail, with those whose underlying health conditions put them at greater risk.  We are acting to protect the medical workers who will be overtaxed as the outbreak happens and community transmission begins. We are acting on behalf of those we may never meet.  We all need this pandemic to move slowly enough for our collective medical systems to hold the very ill so that all of the very ill can be taken care of. Hospitals, doctors, nurses, and orderlies are a precious and limited resource.  We are protecting them in our action.

Perhaps you’ve seen this story online.  I read it again this week and thought it most appropriate for today.   

A man was asked to paint a boat. He brought his paint and brushes and began to paint the boat a bright red, as the owner asked him.  While painting, he noticed a small hole in the hull, and quietly repaired it. When he finished painting, he received his money and left.

The next day, the owner of the boat came to the painter and presented him with a nice check, much higher than the payment for painting.  The painter was surprised and said “You’ve already paid me for painting the boat Sir!”

“But this is not for the paint job. It’s for repairing the hole in the boat.”

“Ah! But it was such a small service… certainly it’s not worth paying me such a high amount for something so insignificant.”

“My dear friend, you do not understand. Let me tell you what happened:

“When I asked you to paint the boat, I forgot to mention the hole.

“When the boat dried, my kids took the boat and went on a fishing trip.

“They did not know that there was a hole. I was not at home at that time.

“When I returned and noticed they had taken the boat, I was desperate because I remembered that the boat had a hole.

“Imagine my relief and joy when I saw them returning from fishing.

“Then, I examined the boat and found that you had repaired the hole!

“You see, now, what you did? You saved the life of my children! I do not have enough money to pay your ‘small’ good deed.”

The careful decisions we and others make for the sake of those in need may be like repairing all the ‘leaks’ we find. We may never know who we are protecting.

Most of the time when we think about how we are the Body of Christ, we think of it in terms of our own congregations or families.  This pandemic offers us an opportunity to see how truly connected all of God’s world is.  China, to Italy, to Mexico, or Canada or the US. We are all one body, interdependent and in relationship, even when we can’t see that connection or feel it. 

In our gospel today Jesus is alone in the desert. He encounters a woman and has his longest recorded conversation in all of the gospels. The woman, whose name is never revealed, is out in the heat of noonday because she has been ostracized and shunned, and is on her own to provide for her most basic needs. No father, husband, brother or son is around to look after her. And there is no group of women to share her story, wipe her tears or help her to laugh.

Jesus needs to drink fresh water to live. The woman also needs a drink: she needs the fresh, living water of grace and truth only Jesus can provide to drink deep of healing and wholeness and a new life. And in their various needs, these two affirm their mutual humanity. They share in the holy Source of Life that transcends all boundary, custom, hatred, fear and scarcity.

In the desert at noon, with all distraction stripped away, all shadows erased, the light shines bright enough for these two strangers to discover that they need each other. As they are transfigured in the light of the noonday sun, each enemy sees the face of a friend. Distance dissolves into relationship. Enmity melts into mutuality. They glimpse a spiritual wholeness, a new healing reality.

Jesus models a barrier-breaking relationship of mutuality and compassion. The woman is bold enough to both remind Jesus of what separates them—he a Jew and she a Samaritan—and of what connects them—their ancestor Jacob. She is audacious and spars verbally with this strange man. In their truth-telling, she experiences him as prophet and in turn she is acclaimed for speaking the word.

To this day, the Samaritan woman is honored in many cultures. In southern Mexico, La Samaritana is remembered on the fourth Friday in Lent, this week in fact.  Aguas flavored with chilacoyota, tamarindo, jamaica and horchata are given to commemorate her gift of water to Jesus. The Orthodox know her as St. Photini, or Svetlana in Russian. Her name means “equal to the apostles,” and she is honored as apostle and martyr on the Feast of the Samaritan Woman.

The gospel witnesses to the gift of God for all God’s children. In the vulnerability of an interdependent community, in the insistence upon relationship, in the breaking down of barriers. Jesus shows us a new way to learn about one another, learn the truth of one another, and learn that we need one another. True worship takes place not at a sacred mountain or even a shared ancestral well, but in a relationship with the person of Christ, who is the wellspring and mountaintop of hope and peace.

On another day, also about noon, Jesus will face death and again confess his thirst. On that day, only vinegar will be offered—in mockery. The gift of his living water will not be apparent to the one holding that sour sponge. But today, when Jesus and the Samaritan woman meet, they conspire to bring life out of death. The water they offer each other, water that quenches the thirst of body and soul, holds the gift of life for all.

ICCM; March 8, 2020; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson Steve and I have been taking tango lessons for two years now.  This weekend we went to a workshop with a guest instructor.  We worked on giros for over an hour on Friday.  To do this particular move one must keep the weight on the ball of the foot in order to pivot forward and then backward.  It is important to focus visually in the distance to avoid dizziness.  If you look at the floor or right in front of you, you lose your balance.  How we live our lives can be something like the whirl of a turn. As we twist and turn through our calendars, we can lose our focus by looking away from what orients our life: our faith. With the psalmist, we lift our eyes to the hills—or to the streets, churches, workplaces, malls, or smartphones—but we lose our balance and our steps fail, because the hills are not a reliable source of strength. The psalmist knows where to focus and it’s not the hills, not other people, and not even one’s self. Our help comes from the Lord. God can ground us, clear our vision, and help us move without reeling. The Lord will not let our foot be moved. The Lord will keep us; the Lord will watch over our going out and coming in. Like the psalmist, we can choose to focus on the Lord. No one wants to be dizzy or nauseous (except young children who like to spin around and around and then attempt to walk without falling). We don’t want to feel helpless, at the mercy of the whirling world around us, so we locate our focus where it belongs. We look to the Lord. We keep our gaze steady and hold our sight. God doesn’t stop the spinning, but instead offers a spot to give our turning focus. In John 3, Jesus offers Nicodemus a new spot. Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the night, awhirl with questions about the deeds of power that he and his fellow Pharisees have witnessed Jesus performing. He wonders, “How can these things be?” Jesus uses conversation to facilitate a new focal point in Nicodemus’s life. John’s Gospel features many such conversations, in which Jesus takes time to talk face to face with seekers. He is not afraid to make eye contact and to offer the nearness of the kingdom of God as a counterpoint to the demands of the world. Jesus welcomes these talks that often create genuine relationship and open up a space for conversion. Behavioral economist Jonathan Haidt writes in The Righteous Mind that one of the most potent and effective ways to enact personal change is through relationship. Transformation is made possible when affection forces us to entertain thoughts that differ from our own opinions. For most humans, the only way we change our mind about an issue or a person is to lean toward someone we love who thinks differently. In looking to them, we suspend our own opinions and see the world through their eyes. We change our focus. Nicodemus leans toward the Lord and entertains a new vision of faith. The psalmist leans toward the Lord and shifts the gaze from the hills to the creator and sustainer of life. In love, we too are invited to lean toward Christ.

It’s repeatedly surprising to me that even those of us who have spent our whole lives knowing God’s love for us still live many of our days somewhere between verse one and verse two of Psalm 121. “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come?” “My help comes from the Lord.” Whenever we read or recited this psalm, I think there should be a big pause between those two sentences.  I lift my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come?  Pause.  Pause long enough to consider where we are looking for help, then and only them move on to My Help comes from the Lord.” The pause is important.  It’s like the word Selah that we looked at last week.  We pause to consider our own needs, our limitedness and our failings.  Then we look to God and discover the help we need.

It is so easy to get distracted by the worries and the activities of our days or by the irritations or inconveniences.  We forget our focus and we lose our balance.

The Jewish people have a practice that helps them remember who they are and to whom they belong.  They post on their doorposts a Mezuzah- it is a touchstone marked with the Hebrew letter Shin- which is the first letter of the word Shaddai— a word that means the Most High or God. Inside the Mezuzah are the words of the Shema, from Deuteronomy 6: 4-9

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates”

The idea is that whenever they enter or leave their home, they remember that God will keep them, no matter what. They touch it to remind themselves to love the Lord God with all their heart, soul and mind.  Sometimes the Mezuzah is also decorated with the words from our Psalm, The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.  It’s something like wearing a cross necklace, or carrying a token in a pocket to remind oneself what is important, or making the sign of the cross over one’s self.  It’s not a good luck charm or a superstition, but a way of keeping our focus.

After that first section, the rest of Psalm 121 seems very assured, like a great hymn of trust in God. But, it can also be seen as a suspense-filled drama in which the story of God’s faithfulness is at great risk. This is a daring love song that is sung in the face of all the other choices we could make. It is not so much philosophical certitude but passionate love for God.

² My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

³ The Lord will not let your foot be moved;   your keeper will not slumber.
⁴ Israel’s keeper will neither slumber nor sleep.
⁵ The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
⁶ The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil; The Lord will keep your life.
⁸ The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in  from this time on and for evermore.

The key word is this psalm is keep/keeper, from the Hebrew word shamar. Who is God? God is a keeper. God’s identity is to protect, shield, watch over, guard, keep. God does this like a watchman keeping guard over a city (130:8) or a bird shielding its young in the shelter of his wings (91:4). What does God promise to do? God promises to keep you. God will guard you as you go on your journey of life, and as you return home. As you go out and come in. As you face the dangers of the day and of the night.

The list of promises here is not meant to suggest that those who walk in the shelter of God will face no harm or that nothing ill will befall them. They are characteristic promises — these are the sort of things that the Lord does for those who turn to the Lord. The words of blessing and promise evoke God’s protection and our awareness of it. 

I recommend memorizing this psalm, recite it when you rise in the morning and at night before you sleep. You could even post it by your doorway to remind you where to look for help.  It can be a touchstone to ward off the doubt and disbelief that pulls us from God like an unseen magnetic force.

The psalms were the songbook for the Jewish people, let the words of this great hymn ring in your mind like the words of your favorite hymn—like Amazing Grace, or the one we’re going to sing right now.  

Let us pray.  O Lord, you are our Keeper, in the morning when we rise, at dark midnight when we cry, just about the break of day, and when we come to die, and when we want to sing.  Focus our sight on Jesus, help us keep our balance and be our help.  Amen.

Selah; 3.1.20; ICCM; Psalm 32; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Noel Coward, the famous playwright, once pulled an interesting prank. He sent an identical note to twenty of the most famous men in London. The anonymous note read: “Everybody has found out what you are doing. If I were you I would get out of town.” Supposedly, all twenty men actually left town.

What if you opened your mail one day and found such a note? What would race through your mind? The income you failed to report on your tax return? The time you spent on the internet watching questionable sites? The lies you told about an honest, hardworking individual?

Guilt is the dread of the past; a pain that wells up within our heart because we committed an offense or failed to do something right. It is a phantom pain. You know, like amputees experience after a limb has been removed. A part of the body that does not exist screams for attention.  The memory of some sin committed years ago can cripple the enjoyment of life, any devotional life, and relationships with others. People live in fear that someone will discover their past. They work overtime trying to prove to God they’re truly repentant. They erect barriers against the enveloping, loving grace of God.

Guilt performs an important function. It is like an electric fence that gives us a jolt when we begin to stray beyond our boundaries. It sends an alarm to wake us up that something needs our attention. Like pain, guilt tells us when something is wrong. When you feel it, you don’t just sit there, you do something about it.

The problem comes when we keep our failings secret, holding them inside.  12 Step program participants know the value of confession.  They have a saying—We’re only as sick as our secrets. The steps include making a searching and fearless moral inventory and admitting those things to the self, to another and to God. 

Lent is a time for confessing our shortcomings.  It’s a time to pause, to rest, to reflect.  Today we read about the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden and Jesus’ testing in the wilderness.  Those seem to fit the theme of Lent—but our Psalm for today is full of happy words.  Psalm 32 begins with happiness and ends with being glad, rejoicing, and shouting for Joy.  According to the psalm, it isn’t revelry and parties that brings happiness, but forgiveness. 

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. While I kept silence by body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength dried up as by the heat of summer.  We all know the truth of that.  Consider an argument with a loved one, a really sticky one, the kind that has you pursing your lips and crossing your arms in defiant self-righteousness and silence. When we hold on to the anger, rehearse our woundedness, and savor the injustice we do waste away.  The groaning drowns out all joy.  Harboring anger, hurt and sadness can take up all the space there is, drying up our strength and leaving us feeling the weight of it all like a heavy hand pressing us down.

In our psalm there’s a mysterious little word, Selah, whose meaning has been debated for centuries. Most scholars think that it means stop, dwell, think, or consider. This Hebrew word occurs 71 times in 39 of the Psalms and three times in Habakkuk. Most of the psalms that include the word selah are titled, “to the choirmaster.” The prophetic book of Habakkuk, like the Psalms, is a book of poetry. In the third chapter is a prayer in the form of a song where we find the word selah. It is probably something like a stage direction in a play that was known and understood by musicians and even those who were just singing along. 

We have Bibles written in English because the overwhelming majority of the original Hebrew and Greek words can be translated into English. However, there are a handful of words in the Bible that are not, or cannot, be translated. When this happens, what we read is not a translation, but a transliteration.

A translation is when a Hebrew word is translated into an English word that means the same thing. For example, the Hebrew word erets is translated to earth, because they have the same meaning, so we English speakers just read ‘earth’. 

A transliteration is when a Hebrew word is simply sounded out to English so we can read and pronounce it. An example is Hallelujah. Hallelujah is a transliteration of a Hebrew word that literally means, Praise God (Hallel=praise, Jah =God). Instead of being translated as “Praise God,” this word has been left for us to sound out as it would be in the original Hebrew and continues to be a powerful expression of praise.

Like hallelujah, the fact that selah is transliterated and not translated signifies that when we read selah, we are pronouncing the word generally the same way it would have been pronounced thousands of years ago by those who originally wrote and read it. This little word invites us to pause and consider what God may be saying even when we don’t fully understand. It gives us an opportunity to take a moment away from this crazy, busy, life we all tend to live and consider the immense mysteries and wonders of God. It’s a good reminder of what Lent is supposed to be all about.

It’s after a pause, a reflection on our sin, that we can move to the next stage—Then I acknowledge my sin and did not hide my iniquity.  I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin.  Selah. And the pause is offered again, moving the psalmist and the reader to reflect on how all can pray to God in distress. In that turning to God the floods will not overwhelm.  God will be a hiding place, preserving us and surrounding us with glad shouts of deliverance.  Selah.  Then the psalm continues by telling us not to be like a mule in need of bridling. Be open to instruction and counsel. Be glad in God and rejoice, shout for joy. 

What is it that makes us Happy? How can Lent be a time for rejoicing?  Well, this Psalm about confession and the little word Selah give us a clue.  We acknowledge our sin, confess, and we are forgiven.  We pause, we rest, we trust in God.  We take time to breathe into the grace of God that surrounds, preserves and hides us. 

The late Dr. F.E. Marsh was preaching about the importance of confession of sin and, wherever possible, restitution for wrong done to others. After the service a young man, came up to him with a troubled look on his face. “Pastor,” he explained, “you have put me in a sad fix. I have wronged another and I am ashamed to confess it or to try to put it right. You see, I am a boat builder and the man I work for is an unbeliever. I have talked to him often about Christ and urged him to come and hear you preach, but he scoffs and ridicules it all. Now, I have been guilty of something that, if I should acknowledge it to him, will ruin my testimony forever.”

He explained that he was building a boat for himself in his own yard. In this work expensive copper nails are used because they do not rust. The young man had been pocketing the nails  to use on his own boat. He knew it was stealing, but he tried to ease his conscience be telling himself that the master had so many he would never miss them and besides he was not being paid all that he thought he deserved. But this sermon had brought him to face the fact that he was just a common thief, for whose dishonest actions there was no excuse.

“But,” said he, “I cannot go to my boss and tell him what I have done or offer to pay for those I have used and return the rest. If I do, he will think I am just a hypocrite. And yet those copper mails are digging into my conscience and I know I shall never have peace until I put this matter right.”

For weeks the struggle went on. Then one night he came to Dr. Marsh and said, “I’ve settled for the copper nails and my conscience is clear at last.”

“What happened?” asked the pastor.

“Oh,” he answered, “My boss looked at me a bit odd, then said, ‘George, I always did think you were just a hypocrite, but now I begin to feel there’s something in this Christianity after all. Any religion that would make a dishonest workman come back and confess that he had been stealing copper nails and offer to settle for them, must be worth having.’”

Dr. Marsh asked if he might use the story and was granted permission. Sometime afterwards, he told it in another city. The next day a lady came up and said, “Doctor, I have had ‘copper nails’ on my conscience too.” “Surely, you are not a boat builder!” “No, but I am a book-lover and I have stolen a number of books from a friend of mine who gets far more that I could ever afford. I decided last night I must get rid of the ‘copper nails,’ so I took them all back to her today and confessed my sin. I can’t tell you how relieved I am. She forgave me, and God has forgiven me. I am so thankful the ‘copper mails’ are not digging into my conscience anymore.”

Happy are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Amen.

Strict Discipline; 2.16.20; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Once a long time ago, there was a devout man who thought he wanted to be a monk.  He asked to be accepted as a postulant in a Cistercian Order known for their severe asceticism. He followed the pattern of monastic life, including the manual labor, the seven hours of daily prayer, and even the discipline of strict silence.  After the first year he was invited to meet with the Abbot who reviewed his progress and asked him if he wanted to speak the two words he was allowed to say each year.  The man said, “Food Bad”.  With that the monk shuffled down the unheated stone hallways. The next year, when the Abbot asked him for his two-word comment the would-be monk said with a scowl, “Bed Hard!” The Abbot sent him back to his duties.  When the Abbot summoned him after another year and asked for his two words, he responded, “I Quit.”  “You might as well,” the Abbot replied, “Since you got here, all you’ve done is complain.” 

Christian monasticism originated in the third and fourth centuries, when a group of Christians now known as the desert fathers withdrew from the cities of the Roman Empire to the deserts of Syria and Egypt. They renounced their possessions, their social status, the prospect of marriage and family. They believed that money and their comfortable houses and their lives of general ease were interfering with their friendship with God. So they renounced all those things and went to the desert to fast and live quietly.

When they got there, they were distressed to find that although they had left all those things back in the city, they were now afflicted by thoughts about them–thoughts about loneliness, thoughts about love, thoughts about safety. They were haunted by memories of the fine meals and beautiful homes they had left in Alexandria and plagued by thoughts about how their fellow monk in the hut down the road had a better view and a more comfortable mat. The desert monks had escaped the things themselves, but they had not escaped their own imaginations. And so, they began to retrain their thoughts.

The pattern these desert monks developed for that retraining boils down to three steps – notice, quarantine, and replace. That is: before you can stop thinking a thought, first you must notice it. You must notice that you are indeed stuck in thoughts of anger or lust or envy or gloom. Then, the next step is to intentionally set the thought aside.

Let us say hypothetically that you are totally occupied by thinking about an adult child back home, or a grandchild who’s gone off the rails. It keeps you up at night, your stomach is churning, you roll the thoughts around in your head like marbles, “if only she would listen to me, what he needs to do is…, how can I get in touch with her?”

In this example – you might notice that you are imagining the worst case scenario, then having noticed, you might set the thought aside, maybe just for 10 minutes; you might say–“I’m just not going to think that thought right now, I can come back to it in a half hour if I want to, but for right now, I’m walking away from it.” Notice. Quarantine. And then – step 3 – replace the thought with a prayer. Disciplining of our imaginations is not undertaken simply for the sake of discipline. It is for the sake of truer self-knowledge, and of living more in reality instead of living in distraction, and all of that is in turn for the sake of creating space to attend to God

(This account of desert practice draws on, inter alia, Mary Margaret Funk, Thoughts Matter: The Practice of the Spiritual Life (Continuum, 1988), especially chapter one.)

“You have heard it said, ‘You shall not murder’…But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.” “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery … in his heart”

Jesus sounds somewhat extreme here. What might it mean to take seriously the idea that your thoughts and emotions matter? What if your thoughts and emotions can themselves be sin?

Historical precedent suggests that when you take that notion seriously, you get ridiculed. It was 1976 when then-candidate Jimmy Carter agreed to an ill-fated interview with Playboy magazine.  After the umpteenth question about whether his firmly held Baptist religious convictions would unduly influence his policy decisions in the White House, Carter began opining about grace, and about sin, and he quoted this morning’s Gospel reading:

I try not to commit a deliberate sin. I recognize that I’m going to do it anyhow, because I’m human and I’m tempted. And Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. Christ said, ‘I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery.’ I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do–and I have done it–and God forgives me for it.

Carter had a big lead before this interview, but when choice quotations leaked to the press, even before the interview was published, he dropped 15 points in the polls. Evangelicals and feminists were, for different reasons, horrified that Carter had spoken to Playboy in the first place, and everyone else, especially Northerners mocked him for his piety and his lame attempt to sound like he was connecting with the common man by admitting the lust in his heart.

Political cartoonists had a field day. Instead of making him seem like an average Joe, the governor’s comments about lust and adultery actually reinforced people’s opinion that Carter was way too pious and way too priggish and took Jesus way too seriously – I mean, really, confessing that you have lustful thoughts as though it were a sin – a serious sin, on par with actually having an affair? Please.

Surely, we are not supposed to take these hyperbolic and demanding things Jesus is saying about murder and lust and false witness at face value. Surely it cannot be that thinking a mean thought about someone is the equivalent of murdering her. Surely our thoughts–the thoughts we keep to ourselves and never even speak of, much less act on—surely those thoughts are less important than our actions. And in addition to being less important than actions, surely also thoughts are less controllable than actions: I can prevent myself from sleeping with someone besides my spouse, but I can’t reasonably be held responsible for daydreaming about doing so.

Jesus, and Jimmy Carter – and I pair the two together in the least partisan way possible – Jesus and Jimmy Carter seem to suggest something different.

Underneath the specifics of murder and adultery and bearing false witness, Jesus seems to be suggesting that we are capable of disciplining our thoughts, at least as capable as we are of disciplining our bodies; and Jesus seems to be suggesting that what happens in our thoughts and imaginations matters.

Perhaps today’s Gospel passage is inviting each of us to give up a thought. Consider renouncing the anxiety about family members back home. Consider renouncing the jealous thoughts about the person with more health or wealth or whatever. Renounce those thoughts, because Jesus told us that they are the equivalent of murder and theft. Renounce them to make a different kind of space in your brain for God, for charity, for love, for whatever wonderful thing you might uncover when you set aside the anger and the anxiety and the envy.

I don’t know how this renouncing will work out for you, but I want you to try it before you toss it aside on the pile we all keep, that pile called “things Jesus says to do but we know no one possibly could.”

Our thoughts about our fears or anger are really just expressions of another underlying belief: that we are alone, that our lives are not enough, that we know best. Those thoughts – those alone thoughts, those isolate-from-my-neighbors thoughts – those thoughts are the opposite of Christianity because in the Christian faith we love one another and we have brothers and sisters and we don’t isolate ourselves. For Christians, the kind of isolation that follows from our fearful, self-pitying, self-justifying, or judgmental thinking is frankly just not allowed.

The hardest thing about Jesus’ words in today’s passage is not that they set a high standard, or that they feel moralistic. The hardest thing about these words is that they are simple – so simple as to feel threatening and strange. Jesus is simply telling us that it is not just our good deeds but even our thoughts that somehow contribute to the Kingdom of God. To think a loving thought is to bring about the Kingdom of God, and to think an angry thought is not.

This seems mysterious to me – It seems as mysterious as God sending Jesus to show us the way. It seems as mysterious as God reaching out and making a community from outsiders, as mysterious as the sending of the Spirit to teach us and lead us in holiness. It seems as mysterious as God feeding us the bread and cup, and making us his body, and giving us his peace. Amen.

Matthew 5: 13-20; “We are Salt and Light” ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Let us pray.  Most loving God, you show us yourself in the body—the body of Christ.  You show us yourself in Jesus, our brother, our friend, our servant, our savior.  We want to see you more clearly.  Most loving God, you show yourself to us in the body of Christ, it the flesh, in each other, and in ourselves.  You identify us as your body in the world.  We want to see ourselves more clearly, as Salt and Light.  Amen.

Who are we?  We answer that question in many ways.  When asked who I am I usually answer with my name or one of my roles. I am Rebecca, or I am a pastor, or Steve’s wife, or Cora and Kelsey and Peter’s mom. 

Today we look at one of the ways Jesus described his followers.  The bible uses a variety of images to describe us.  We are the Body of Christ. 

In today’s gospel Jesus was seated by the Sea of Galilee, teaching the crowds.  He was a body, flesh and blood, a man who knew and felt all that we are.  Jesus was certainly more than just the one who died on the cross though.  He was also the living, serving, teaching, laughing, loving, growing body—the friend of Mary and Martha, of James and John. 

And even that is not all.  He is also the risen body, the one who rose from death victorious and promises us that resurrection life too. The one who sent the Spirit to lead us into all knowledge.  When we say we are the Body of Christ we proclaim that we are connected to all of that.  We are joined to Christ in life and death and resurrection.  There is nothing that we experience that is far away from God. 

We’ve been reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  In chapter12, verses13-27 is the main place where he describes who we are using the image of Christ’s body.  It answers the question, who are we? with a collective answer.  We are part of the whole, we are part of the living changing organism that is the church.  Each part is important.  Not only are we connected to Christ, we are connected to each other and serve as little Christ’s to each other and together we, the church, serve as Christ to the world.  God is counting on us to be his body. 

Images are helpful.  They help us to understand things that mere words cannot.  In the sermon on the mount Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  He says, This is what we are, not what we will be or what we are supposed to be.   It is what we are. 

Today these are common, ordinary, inexpensive items.  In Jesus’ day they were not common or ordinary or cheap. 

Salt is essential for life.  Without it our bodies stop functioning.  We are literally salt, blood and bodily fluids are salty.  So, this image tells us we are absolutely necessary.  The church is needed for the life and the health of the world, just as salt is needed for life.  Even in our modern sophisticated world, what is perhaps the most common treatment in a hospital—Intravenous saline?  

Salt was especially valuable in biblical times.  Today we buy it for a few cents, or get it for free in fast food stores.  We have so much that some of us limit our salt intake for health reasons.  But in Jesus’ day it was mined.  It was not as pure as it is today.  Salt was mined or derived from natural sources, like sea water.  Purified salt was so valuable, in fact, that it was used in many religious ceremonies.  It was used as currency.  People were often paid in salt—hence the word salary.

Last year Steve and I went to the city of Comala in the Mexican State of Colima for a few days.  There we bought sea salt, naturally harvested and prized for its excellent quality.  I thought salt was salt—I grew up on the Morton Salt, the one in the round box with the girl with an umbrella on it.  But I discovered that there’s salt, and then there’s SALT!  I gained a new appreciation for this image of who we are in Christ.

Salt is useful, as a preservative, a purifier, an antiseptic.  Jesus says we are salt, that which heals, cleanses, saves, preserves. 

Salt also, obviously, adds flavor.  If I pour salt in water, the two mingle together and the salt permeates the liquid.  Once it is added to food the food is changed and the salt cannot be removed or separated.   Salt adds flavor to the whole dish.  On the shelf in the kitchen it cannot affect a dish’s flavor.  It has to be added.  As salt, we can permeate the world and improve its character.

Light is everywhere these days.  At the flip of a switch or the striking of a match we can illumine our lives.  Not so in Jesus’ day.  Little lamps filled with costly oils gave the only produced light.  The sun and the moon and the stars were the only other source of light.  It’s hard to even imagine such a dark world.  Maybe we can experience that in some remote places, like the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, or the far reaches of the Quetico, or in the middle of the ocean, but today we have nearly the opposite experience.  Like salt, even a tiny bit of light can completely change its environment. 

Light gives hope; everything seems scarier in the dark.  Light can expose what we fear and make it manageable.  As the church we bring the light of hope to others.  Light makes things understandable.  As the people of God our presence can do the same for another.  Light can be beautiful, it can give sparkle, even to a rock.  We can bring out the sparkle in the world, exposing for others the beauty in them and around them.  Light gives safety.  When life is dangerous the church can offer a refuge and a safe place. 

Who are we?  We are the body of Christ.  We may feel fear or loneliness or a lack of purpose.  We may not feel worthy.  But Jesus says we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  He does not say we can be these things or that we should be.  We are.  We are valuable, useful, essential.  We add health, flavor, hope, beauty, and safety to the world.  We do not do this all by ourselves.  We do it as the community of God.  The Body whose members are all important parts of the whole. 

Let us pray.  You have named us and claimed us as Salt and Light.  Send us out like rays of light or grains of salt to bring you into all the world.  Amen.

What Does God Want?  2.2.20; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

One of my favorite classes in Seminary was called Old Testament Pericopes.  A pericope is a selected passage of scripture assigned to be read on one of the Sundays of the church year. Dr. Frank Benz taught the class. We were assigned a passage of the Hebrew Scriptures to translate for each class.  Dr. Benz taught us so much more than Hebrew verb forms. He taught us how to read the texts for preaching. 

• He said, the first thing is always to pray for God to open the text to us, to guide our minds and to be with us as we study.
• Next, read the text, silently, then aloud, then in another translation or a bible story book.  
• Then for those of us in Seminary the next step was to make a translation of the text from the Hebrew—paying special attention to the key words, any irregularities or unusual words. 
• Context comes next—identify what time period it was written in—what was happening then, who wrote it, in what style—is it poetry, wisdom literature, prophecy, or is it a story?
• Only after that part of the study could we turn to what others wrote about the text. 
• At last we were to reflect on it, what might God have been saying to the original writer, his audience, What about other hearers of the text?  How would Jesus or Paul have understood a text by Micah from the 8^th Century BC?  What might God be saying to me now, to my congregation? 
• And finally we were to pray again—thanking God for the opportunity to learn. 

Today’s text from the prophet Micah was one of those pericopes in Dr. Benz’s class.  The Old Testament is difficult for many people to study. It can be overwhelming to bridge the cultural gap of 2800 years.  But, it’s worth the effort.  Today’s text speaks a word of blessing to the people of Micah’s time even as he recounts the many blessings of God throughout their past.  Long before the time that the prophet Micah lived, God made a covenant with the people –a sort of contract for a permanent relationship.  Simply put it went like this– I will be your God and you will be my people.  Or put another way– I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other God’s before me.  God promised to provide all they needed and more.  The role of the people was to worship God and accept God’s gifts. 

God was faithful to the covenant– God brought them out of Egypt, freed them from slavery, sent leaders and prophets, blessed them when they deserved curses, gave them safe passage through deserts and against attacking enemies.  “Remember all of that” God says through the prophet Micah, “and know the saving acts of the Lord.”  

God is NOT saying…see all I have done for you…shame on you for forgetting…boy, oh, boy, do you ever owe me now!

With God there is no tallying up.  Micah lists all the blessings granted to the people in order to show that God’s love knows no end.  God’s love will never stop.  God is saying–come back to me so I can love you some more! 

Micah’s message is written in a specific pattern.  It is a metaphor of sorts.  This passage is staged as a sort of court case between God and the people.  In this lawsuit God is the one who has been cheated on, wronged.  Yet it is God who calls the partner back, not to get a payback or to punish but to love some more.

It is hard for anyone to imagine such love.  We live under covenants of our own, even if we don’t call them covenants.  Marriage is one of the best examples.  On a wedding day promises are made to live in good relationship, to share and give and love through whatever comes.  The promises reflect the ideal arrangement.  Even in the best marriages though, the love is not perfect or pure. 

The parent/child relationship is another sort of covenant.  If we have children, we take on the responsibility of loving and caring for them.  But, no matter how good the intentions, no parent can love perfectly.  As children we are born into a relationship over which we have no control.  We can accept the love given us.  We can respond with our own love.  But no child loves perfectly either.  It is hard to imagine such unconditional love.

The imaginary defendant in today’s pericope cannot imagine the depth or length of God’s love.  Instead of hearing God’s words as an invitation back into God’s loving care, as an offer of more free gifts, the defendant expects punishment and asks what penalty will be demanded for faithlessness. 

The defendant starts modestly enough.  How about a burnt offering, a calf, perhaps.  No, it must be more?  It’s kind of like—how badly did I screw up?  Do I have to get flowers and chocolate?  How about a thousand rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil?  That would still not be enough?  What about my firstborn child? In ancient times other nations offered child sacrifices.  Is that what you require from your faithless covenant partner?  All the questions hold the message: nothing I can offer will be enough so what do you want from me? 

How easy it is to turn the marvelous grace of God into a list of dos and don’ts, the invitation to blessing into a challenge for good works. The response from the prophet, the one who brought this whole courtroom scene to order is to bang the gavel and say. “God has told you what is good, O mortal, and what God requires of you– do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.  Those are three ways of saying–keep the covenant–be God’s people–trust God’s love and live in that grace.  Just open yourself to God’s love.  That’s all.  Live touched and transformed by grace day after day and let that lead you to live a life of blessing.

Today’s text is a recap of what God wants for us—It’s like one of those things we should be sure to focus on because it so beautifully summarizes the story of God and God’s people.  God reaches out, calls us by name, invites us into covenant, and then fixes our messes when we fall away, over and over again…  We don’t earn our way into God’s grace by sacrifices- we live in God’s grace by humbly aligning ourselves with justice, kindness.

Justice is one of the key words in this passage.  It is a central theme of biblical life. Justice is identified with the very nature of God.  It is a transformative virtue that restores community while balancing personal and common good.  In our Modern Western Culture we tend to think of Justice more in terms of judgements, laws, punishment for wrongdoing, or vindication for victims.  Justice in the conventional wisdom of the world is when people get what they’ve got coming to them.  Fairness.  But that’s just a tiny bit of what the Hebrew word means. 

In the Old Testament there are three basic types of justice—Commutative justice—which focuses on the relationships of people within a community.  The law wasn’t separated from the community—justice had to work for all the people.  The second kind of justice is distributive justice—which ensured the equitable distribution of resources, goods, benefits and burdens.  There is no justice without sharing—without equity, without mutual suffering and benefit.  And finally, the third understanding is what we call social justice—the work of justice that means systems of oppression need to change. 

What does the Lord require—that we do justice.  It can seem daunting—How do we know where to start?  Well, we can start by asking how Jesus did justice.  What did he say in the gospel—he announces what it is to be blessed—to live in God’s kingdom. He’s not telling people to be blessed, he’s saying they are already.  He pronounces a blessing to all the people who have come to hear him. His blessing invites them to think differently about the way the world works because of what he says.

This was a new teaching. In the ancient world, just like today, many people believed strongly in cause and effect. They believed that if they were good people who followed God’s commandments, worked hard, and tried to do their best in all circumstances, then God would reward them with good health, food to eat, stable jobs, happy families, and prosperity. Likewise, they believed that God punished the sinful with illness, poverty, imprisonment, blindness, divorce, and other personal tragedy. Many believed that God even punished entire sinful populations through war, famine, droughts, and other disasters.

If a man was sick, or mourning, or poor in spirit, or starving, or persecuted, it was his own fault for sinning. A woman who suffered did so as the consequence of her own bad behavior because suffering was understood as punishment for sin.

But Jesus flips things on their head.  It doesn’t work like that in the kingdom of God. Jesus blesses everyone who had gathered, no matter who they were and no matter what they had done. God’s blessing in Christ is not just for the righteous ones. God’s blessing is not just for certain religious groups, or certain genders, or certain sexual orientations, or certain cultural or racial groups. God’s blessing is not just for those who are pure, who go to church and give to charities and treat people with kindness. And God’s blessing is not evidenced by a big bank account or a fancy title or a luxury home.

In this new kingdom that Jesus is showing us, God blesses the saints and sinners alike. Jesus offers a blessing on the poor in wallet and the poor in spirit. He blesses the blind, the lame, the imprisoned, the outcast. He blesses the leper and the prostitute. He blesses the murderer and the thief and the adulterer. He blesses the Jews and the Gentiles.  Today who would he bless? the Muslims and the Hindus, the Buddhists and the Ba’hai, the Mexicans and the Canadians, the Syrians and the Russians, the people of Ghana and Brazil. In Christ, God’s blessing does not discriminate. God’s blessing is for all. God’s blessing is for you. God’s blessing is for me.

That’s good news, don’t you think?  It’s commutative and distributive and social justice.  It means that no matter who you are or what you have done, you are blessed and you are welcomed into God’s family, and there is nothing you can do, ever, to lose God’s love, affirmation, and blessing.

Blessed is our identity, blessed is our condition, blessed is who we are because of God’s saving love shown in Jesus Christ.  So in this first teaching for his followers, his disciples, in his first teaching for you and for me, Jesus is telling us as clearly as he can that these people—”look around you,” he says to his disciples—these people in the crowd that gathered that day near the shores of the Galilean lake—these people who drive loud razors under your window at night, these people who whose political views differ from ours, these people who are in jail for dealing drugs, these people who got pregnant out of wedlock and now want an abortion, these people who are members of a gang, these people who are members of a white supremacist group, these people who sit in judgment, these people who carry guns, these people who are crazy feminists, these people who are pro-life, these people who are pro-choice. . .well, you get the idea. Jesus his telling his disciples that ALL THESE PEOPLE are blessed.

And we who call ourselves disciples, followers of Jesus Christ, get to not just understand this, but we get to live it out by our words and our actions. What does the Lord require—to do justice, to love kindness to walk humbly with God.  We are blessed and we can be a blessing to others.

1.26.20; One in Christ; Epiphany 3A; Pastor Rebecca  Ellenson; ICCM

The story goes… A young rabbi found a serious problem in his new congregation. During the Friday service, half the congregation stood for the prayers and half remained seated, and each side shouted at the other, insisting that theirs was the true tradition. Nothing the rabbi said or did moved toward solving the impasse.

Finally, in desperation, the young rabbi sought out the synagogue’s 99-year-old founder. He met the old rabbi in the nursing home and poured out his troubles. “So tell me,” he pleaded, “was it the tradition for the congregation to stand during the prayers?”

“No,” answered the old rabbi.

“Ah,” responded the younger man, “then it was the tradition to sit during the prayers?”

“No,” answered the old rabbi.

“Well,” the young rabbi responded, “what we have is complete chaos! Half the people stand and shout, and the other half sit and scream.”

“Ah,” said the old man, “that was the tradition.”

When two or more are gathered, factions lurk in the midst of them, as Paul discovered. One of my best friends is a professional interim ministry, specializing in resolving conflict in congregations. It isn’t my cup of tea! There are steps to follow, profiles to complete, interviews to take, goals to establish. It’s a serious business.

Jesus didn’t seem to worry about any of it. When he said, “Follow me,” he apparently wasn’t concerned that these followers might not turn out to be model disciples. Indeed, they were often dense and hard to teach, and on the rare occasions when they did understand him they would usually try to talk him out of his ideas. They squabbled about who was greatest. One of them betrayed him. And no one stuck around when the going got tough.

Jesus simply said, “Follow me,” and something in the way he said it pointed to God so clearly that two, then four, then 12 decided that whatever Jesus had to offer was worth leaving their old lives for. And as far as Jesus was concerned, their willingness to get up and follow was credentials enough. He would make his community out of this diverse, contentious dozen.

Of course, Jesus had to live with this makeshift community of disciples for only three years. And whenever they wandered off course, he was right there to set them straight. The real problems began when he was gone, and they had to make decisions for the long haul. How do we admit the gentiles? What about those who teach a different gospel? Who is really in charge? Do we have to make a break with Judaism? The apostles held meetings, drew lots and trusted in the Holy Spirit’s lead. The infant church grew.

The Acts of the Apostles tells the story of that initial stage of the church.  In the early 40’s Paul stayed with Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth, fellow handworkers. They lived in the small factory-shops alongside the other laborers. It was from that hardworking pagan community that Paul’s first converts were made.  They were tough, poor, uncouth people. 

When Paul tried to preach to the Jews in the synagogues he usually got thrown out.  But in Corinth he was somewhat successful with that crowd, at least among the God worshippers.  They were people who were not Jewish by birth but Gentiles who attached themselves by varying degrees to a synagogue. Paul converted a wealthy God-worshipper named Gaius Titius Justus, and a synagogue patron Crispus.  By the time he wrote his letters to the church in Corinth 10 years later, there was another Jewish patron, Sosthenes. 

The original poor, pagan, laborer converts were eating meals with the high-status wealthy people and their households. Ancient society was marked by great wealth disparity. The top 1.5% has over 20% of the resources, the next 10% consumed another 20%, leaving the bottom part of society living in constant hunger.

Spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues factored into the disarray too- as they were apparently praying so enthusiastically that their clothing would get disheveled and offend others’ sense of propriety.  Some were shaming their spouses publicly, others were bringing lavish meals and gorging themselves while others were left hungry.  It was a mess.

The congregation quarreled about class divisions, ethical issues and the qualifications for spiritual leadership, not to mention such daily concerns as what foods to eat. Paul struggled to get them back in agreement, offering specific advice when necessary. Most of all, though, he tried to knit them back together into a whole. They didn’t have Jesus’ physical presence with them. They themselves had to be the body of Christ now. The only way they could manage was to keep their eyes on the cross and love, love, love.

You are the people who walked in darkness and have seen a great light! You are the saved, the ransomed, baptized in the Lord Jesus! Don’t overshadow the glory of the gospel with divisions and quarrels!

“You are the light of the world,” Jesus told his followers. Unfortunately, the church doesn’t always act like the light of the world. There’s nothing quite like a church fight.  We all know of places and times where conflicts split churches. But there are also moments when the fractures heal and the light shines through, times when together we accomplish far more than we could ever have managed alone. There are times, between and within our congregations, when we are truly more than the sum of our parts. The Spirit breathes through us and warms the darkening world. The light of Christ breaks forth like the dawn. We are caught up in some power beyond our individual selves, and we become the Body we are meant to be. 

It’s only normal to label and draw boundaries.  In childhood we form our identities by doing so—these are my people, my family, my tribe, my sect, my place.  I am a Minnesotan of Norwegian descent, I am white, I am educated, I am Christian.  We learn the power of naming and then we learn its perils.  This sorting and separating is as old as humanity itself.  Look at how strongly the naming part of the story figures in Genesis 2 and 3.  It’s part of human development to name and claim our identity—the rub comes when we name one kind as blessed and elect while others become by default, pagan or savage, deluded or damned.  

One of the real beauties of this congregation is the fact that we come from all over and we are used to certain ways of doing things wherever home has been.  Here, we get to sing unfamiliar songs that are someone elses’ favorite one week and sing our own favorite songs another week.  We focus on Christ—not on our particular doctrinal backgrounds.  It’s a real treat to be here leading this very diverse congregation.

It’s quite liberating to not have a strict doctrinal standard here.  Some sophisticated believers whose approach to faith incorporates astute thinking about psychology, theology, history or philosophy have room to grow when it comes to the practices of compassion and generosity. Others who approach faith more simply and from the heart have room to grow when it comes to depth in thinking critically.  Some see faith as getting things right intellectually, others see faith as submission and surrender.  The ways we read the scriptures differ, our views on Communion or Baptism may vary slightly.  That’s ok.

Paul’s message was the same, in Ephesus, in Philippi, in Galatia and in Corinth:  we are neither Jews nor Greeks, male nor female, slaves nor free, rich nor poor.  We are all God’s children and heirs to the kingdom, sharing as we do a kinship of gifts, neither earned nor deserved, but ours all the same. No matter who we are or where we come from, no matter where we are in the journey of faith, we are all welcome.  Praise be to God.

Let us pray,  O great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us.  May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings.  Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens and the weight of glory.  Listen to our hearts’ longing for the healing of our world.  Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in Jesus’ name. amen.