Month: April 2020

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.

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.)

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