Author: Rebecca

I want to start today with a story written by Judy Parker from New Zealand and is titled simply, “The Hat.”

A minister looked up from the Bible on the lectern, cast his eyes over all the hats bowed before him: feathered, frilled, felt hats in rows like faces.  But there was one head at the end of the row that was different. What was she thinking, a head without hat?  It was like a cat without fur. Or a bird without wings. 

That won’t fly here, not in the church. The voices danced in song with the colors of the windows.  Red light played along the aisle, blue light over the white corsage of Missus Dewsbury, green on the pages of the Bible, reflecting up on the face of the minister. He spoke to the young lady afterwards:  “You must wear a hat and gloves in the House of God. It is not seemly otherwise.”

The lady flushed, raised her chin, and strode out. “That’s the last we’ll see of her,” said the usher.

Later, another day:  The organ rang out; the minister raised his eyes to the rose window.  He didn’t see the woman in hat and gloves advancing down the aisle as though she were a bride. The hat, enormous, such as one might wear to the races. Gloves, black lace, such as one might wear to meet a duchess.  Shoes, high-heeled, such as one might wear on a catwalk in Paris.    And nothing else.

What do you think about that story?  I have two questions: Is it true?  And Did it happen? I would say that this story is absolutely true!  But I doubt it really happened.  The power of a story resides in the ability of its metaphor to convey truth. Metaphor literally means:  beyond words. The story’s metaphor points beyond itself to truth.  In this case “The Hat” points us to buck-naked truths about church traditions, worldly power, and how the church just gets it wrong sometimes.  It doesn’t matter whether or not it actually happened. What matters is what we can learn about ourselves and our life from the story. The heroine in The Hat shows up in a way that guarantees she will be seen. The metaphor asks: How important is a hat and gloves, or any other tradition that divides and excludes? Her walk down that aisle puts the tight little religious boxes of any time or place on display, declaring boldly that the Spirit of God is out of the box and wearing a hat.  

The story of Pentecost should be just as provocative as the story, The Hat.  But often we manage to domesticate it by literalizing it and insisting that it actually happened, just as it is described in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. 

What makes something true? Truth is as elusive as it is blatantly obvious and yet we continue to try to deny the paradox of truth. Truth is as colorful as the rainbows that stretch across the sky and yet we continue to try to limit the truth to the simplicity of black and white. All too often truth’s refusal to fit into our neat little boxes causes us to favor a domesticated truth of our own making.

The story of Pentecost is a case in point. For decades historians, New Testament Scholars, and theologians have been telling us that the story of Pentecost is not history. Like all sorts of stories about the origins of things, the story of the church’s birthday is shrouded in myth and legend. That doesn’t make the story of the church’s beginning at Pentecost any less true, it just means that it isn’t history. 

A few years ago I was reading a piece written by William Willimon, a professor from Duke University, when I learned that the long list of nationalities represented on that first Pentecost is not only a very diverse ethnic gathering—Medes, Persians, Elamites, Cappadocians, Phrygians—but it is also a historically impossible gathering. 

The Medes would have had a tough time getting to Jerusalem from Mesopotmia, not just because they would have had to travel a few hundred miles, but because they would have had to travel a few hundred years as well.  You see, the Ancient Median Empire entered into a political alliance with Babylon way back during the Exile.  The Medes were absorbed within the Babylonian culture.  They had been extinct, long gone from the face of the earth, for over five hundred years. 

And those Elamites, they were mentioned back in Ezra 2.  But they were also lost in the past, wiped out by the Assyrians, in 640 BC.  We are told the story of a gathering of people not only from the north and the south and from all over, but also from the past and the present, from the living and the dead, from all times. 

If we were to put Acts 2 into today’s language, we would say something like, “You should have been there with us on Pentecost.  The church was packed.  Some were from Montana, others from Georgia.  There were people from Mexico, and from Nova Scotia, not to mention a whole longboat of Vikings, a couple of Pilgrims, and a nice little Aboriginal couple who asked to be baptized.” 

This strange, playful story is a way of saying that, when God’s Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, it was poured out not just on a few but on all… to people of every century and place.  The story of Pentecost breaks apart divisions caused by ethnic identity and weakens sectarianism and separation. The vision of God’s inclusive realm goes way beyond nationalities and even beyond time. The Spirit’s rush was greater than any had expected. Peter proclaimed it: God’s Spirit shall be poured out upon all flesh and everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. It is a universal vision of restoration for all people from all places and times.

The story of Pentecost points to the truth. Jesus had radical ideas about a loving God.  The early followers had a new understanding of faith. Empowered by the way Jesus fully embodied love, they felt compelled to share their experience. Faith did not have to be lived out in fear and isolation, even in the face of death. Being faithful was not about being exclusive or tribal, for love knows no boundaries. It wasn’t even about religion or about purity.  It was about compassion, healing, justice and an awareness that all of creation is an interconnected web.

The Judaism of the first century was full of boundaries, order, and uniformity. The faithful were encouraged to live within strict rules. Religion defined who was friend and who was foe. It played on their fear of those who were not like them and firmly grounded those fears and their exclusiveness in righteousness. Religion gave people an illusion of living in an orderly and predictable world.

That’s not so different from modern expressions of religion, is it?  Has there ever, in all of history, been a time when religious differences haven’t been the cause of wars?  What’s been happening in the Middle East right now? Our own nation is as fractured as it has ever been, politically, racially, economically, religiously. We are divided in so many ways. Listening and understanding seem in very short supply.

It’s not the wind or the fire that amazes me about that first Pentecost.  It’s the understanding that captures my attention. Those who were gathered together that day were able to speak and listen clearly, across barriers and differences.  If there is a lesson for us today in this text that must be it.  The Spirit can empower us to set aside our tight little boxes and come together, listen and speak our truth and seek to understand. 

The story of Pentecost displays the Spirit of God at work. The followers of Jesus were calling their communities out of the constraints of the religious practices of their day.  The Pentecost story reflected the early Christian understanding of Jesus as a leader who didn’t just address the Chosen People but who engaged the Syrophoenician woman, the Centurion, and the Samaritan leper alike.  Jesus had inspired a religion that included the poor and the powerless. Christianity was as radical, provocative and outrageous as a woman who wore a hat, gloves, shoes but nothing else. 

Pentecost challenges us to welcome the Spirit of God that doesn’t conform to our expectations.  Pentecost invites us to see beyond the boxes we make.  The Pentecost story reminded those first Christians of Jesus’ call to diversity. The early church was challenged to think beyond tribalism, to dream dreams and see visions. 

We are called to a similar awakening.  

I think it’s ironically beautiful that we are here today, freed from some of the constraints we have been under since the Pandemic began. We are cautiously singing together again.  The fears of this past year are receding.  There’s a new wind blowing, finally!  What a shame it would be if we just tried to go back to the old ways, fit back into our old boxes.  God is continually calling the Church to new things. The Spirit always blows forward not back. 

So, what is this wild, provocative God of ours calling us to do?  Imagine a Pentecost where we begin to listen to those who we’ve failed to understand before.  Imagine having the courage to strip ourselves of the trappings of what has always been, of preconceived expectations and venture out into the world free of the taboos of tradition. 

I’m excited to be a part of this congregation and to see where the Spirit is leading this community of faith next.  There will be an annual planning process in June.  You’ll be getting an invitation to respond with your ideas and visions in writing or in person.  I can’t wait to see where we go, what we can accomplish and who we’re going to meet and understand along the way.  The Spirit is ready to blow through us here.  That’s the promise of Pentecost. 

Let us pray:  Come Holy Spirit—fill us with your love, empower us to listen and to understand.  Show us the needs around and within us so that, filled with your loving presence, we can be your body in this world.  Amen.

What is to Prevent Me?  May 1, 2021; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; Acts 8: 26-40;

In Acts chapter 8 it was still early days for the Christians.  Peter was preaching. The Holy Spirit had filled the people at Pentecost. There had been imprisonments and releases. Conversions were happening left and right. The believers were being baptized and they were pooling their resources to live communally, sharing as each had need.  Leaders were being designated. Stephen had just been martyred. Saul was persecuting the church.

One day Philip was led by the Spirit to a wilderness road.  There he encountered a man of position, an Ethiopian eunuch, a member of Queen Candace’s court and entrusted with charge of all her treasury. When Philip approached the man’s chariot he heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah, indicating not only the wealth of the man but also his higher learning.  The eunuch invites Philip to sit beside him and begins to explain the passage:

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him.  Who can describe this generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.

He asks, “About whom does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 

The Ethiopian is an outsider in many ways, even with all his power and wealth.  As a eunuch this man was not allowed to participate in the religious life of the Jewish people.  Debie Thomas puts it this way,

He is a man interested enough in Israel’s God to make a pilgrimage from Ethiopia to Jerusalem, but according to Hebrew law, he is not free to practice his faith in the Temple (Deuteronomy 23:1).  It’s possible that he is a Jew, but in Philip’s eyes, he is a foreigner, a Black man from Africa.  He is a man of rank and privilege, a royal official in charge of his queen’s treasury, but he is also a powerless outsider — a queer man who doesn’t fit into the social and sexual paradigms of his time and place.  He is wealthy enough to possess a scroll of Isaiah, and literate enough to read it, but he lacks the knowledge, context, and experience to understand what he’s reading.

In other words, the unnamed eunuch occupies an in-between space, a liminal space, a space of reversal and surprise that stubbornly resists our tidy categories of belonging and non-belonging.  What kind of person, after all, earnestly seeks after a God whose laws prohibit his bodily presence in the Temple?  What kind of wealthy, high-ranking official humbly asks a stranger on the road for help with his spiritual life?  What kind of long-rejected religious outcast sees a body of water and stops in his tracks because he recognizes first — before Philip, the supposed Christian “expert” — that God is issuing him a gorgeous, unconditional, and irresistible invitation?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Philip finds the eunuch reading Isaiah’s description of a silent, suffering lamb.  The Word, after all, finds us where we are.  It resonates in the deepest, most authentic, and most tender places in our lives.  The eunuch lingers over the story of a sheep who is led to slaughter, a lamb who is silent before its shearer, a creature who is humiliated and denied justice as “his life is taken away from the earth.”  Perhaps this story calls to him precisely because it describes something of the complexities of his own life, his own religious, sexual, and racial difference, his own vulnerability.  What I respect most about Philip in this moment is not that he “evangelizes” the eunuch in some programmatic way — it is that he meets the eunuch exactly where he is, and gently, with the guidance of the Spirit, shows him how his story of silence and resilience, suffering and rejection, belongs squarely within the Story of Jesus.     https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2995

Until I read Debie’s column this week, I had seen Philip as the key actor in this story and the Ethiopian eunuch as the target of his proselytizing.  But after careful examination it seems that both Philip and the Ethiopian man are changed in this story.  The man is active in his search for God.  It is he, after all, who suggests the baptism that takes place.

 “’Look, here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized?’ He commanded the chariot to stop and both of them, Philip and the Eunuch, went down into the water.” 

Again from Debie Thomas’ blog, Journey with Jesus:

Yes, the Ethiopian eunuch hears the good news of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, and decides to become a follower of Christ.  That is true and it is wonderful.  But consider for a moment the amazing question he asks Philip in return: “Look, here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized?”  Sit with this for a while as a real question — as a zinger of a question.  Ponder it as a dilemma Philip must grapple with as strenuously and as seriously as the eunuch grapples with the life-altering implications of the Gospel.

“What is to prevent me?”  What is to prevent me from belonging to the family of God?  What is to prevent me from being welcomed as Christ’s own?  What is to prevent me from full participation in the risen life and community of Jesus?  What is to prevent me from breaking down the entrenched barriers, fences, walls, and obstacles that have kept me at an agonizing arm’s length from the God I yearn for?  What is to prevent me from becoming, not merely a hearer of the Good News, but an integral part of the Good News of resurrection?

I love the resounding silence that follows the eunuch’s question.  Because the silence speaks what words cannot.  The silence is thundering, and gorgeous, and seismic, and right.  Because the answer to the question is silence.  The answer — the only answer — is “nothing.”  In the post-resurrection world, in the world where the Spirit of God moves where and how she will, drawing all of creation to herself, in the world where the Word lives to defeat death, alienation, isolation, and fear, there is nothing to prevent a beloved image-bearer of God from entering into the fullness of Christ’s salvation.  Nothing whatsoever. 

Jesus welcomed all, without partiality.  The early church was radical in its inclusiveness.  In fact, much of the book of Acts has to do with how the early believers had to struggle with the social and class and race distinctions of their day.  The response of the religious establishment was critical of their open boundaries. 

Hymn 641 in the Evangelical Lutheran Worship Hymnal proclaims it beautifully:

Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live, a place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive. Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace; here the love of Christ shall end divisions: All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.

Let us build a house where all are named, their songs and visions heard and loved and treasured, taught and claimed as words within the Word. Built of tears and cries and laughter, prayers of faith and songs of grace, let this house proclaim from floor to rafter: All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.

May it be so!

Every year when the Good Shepherd Sunday rolls around I remember my first years in ministry.  The organist at that church was also a good shepherd.  He would do the children’s sermon on those Sundays, sometimes bringing a real live little lamb in as a prop.  Thirty years ago, our young families spent a great deal of time together; we were best friends.  You know how it is when you just “click” with someone.  We spent lots of time together.  My husband helped them with lambing and haying.  I never thought we would ever lose touch with each other.  Yet, it happened.

At Christmas time this year I received a newsy, hand-written greeting from that old friend, filling me in on all the years since we had been in contact.  They quit farming many years ago and he became a music teacher, his wife a nurse.  I wrote back filling them in on all the changes in my life over the years.  There is something wonderful about old-fashioned letters; they connect us in a tangible way. We have since connected virtually through Facebook too and that has been good too.  Nothing new can break the bind of true friendship.  It is a gift from God.

Today’s lessons are about the love of the Good Shepherd for us, about being known and abiding in love.  One of the lessons is 1 John 3:16–24:

16 We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17 How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 19 And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20 whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

In the gospel lesson for today Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd who lives in union with the sheep and with the Father who sent him. He zeroes in on the idea of knowing and being known. 

John 10: 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. 

Later in the same gospel Jesus says:

John 15:15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

I think that last passage about being called friends by Christ is one of the best images for what it means to be “in Christ.”  We are the friends of Christ.  Wow!  Think about that for a minute.  Who are your best friends?  What do they mean to you?  What do you mean to them?  What would life be like without best friends? 

So much of what makes friendship important is simply spending time together.  I’m reminding of a song from the 70’s by Michael Johnson. You can listen to it by clicking this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJHe6pXix1w

The lyrics go like this:

I’ve troubled for you from time to time
That’s why nothing new can break the bind
It’s the time you waste for them
That makes a friend a friend
Unique in all the world until the end

We’ve traveled for years through mindless miles
And shared us some tears through aimless trials
And though you’re old and worn
You’re the only home I’ve known
Through memories stretched beyond so many dawns

I find it hard to believe that time brings change
Now all of my friends are broken with age
But what’s essential you cannot see
I’m responsible for my friends and they for me

I’ve troubled for you from time to time
That’s why nothing new can break the bind
It’s the time you waste for them
That makes a friend a friend
Unique in all the world until the end.

This past year has physically separated us from so many of our friends and loved ones and forced us to connect in new ways.  Steve and I are fully vaccinated now and past the two-week waiting period.  We travelled to Arizona to spend time with my parents.  I am writing this from their patio right now.  How amazing it is to be together again, to play Bridge together, to hug and breathe the same air! 

How wonderful it will be when we can gather in worship together again, to sing and pray and share together.  Until then may we make the most of our time, find new ways to reach out and care for one another as friends in Christ.  Amen

I’ve adopted a saying from the United Church of Christ in the ritual welcome to the Lord’s table that I offer whenever I preside at Holy Communion.

I say, “No matter who you are or where you are on faith’s journey, you are welcome at this table and in the community of faith!”

Faith is a journey and there are times when that journey leads us into a place of deep questions as it did for the disciple Thomas just a week after Jesus’ first post-resurrection appearance to the women and the rest of the disciples. The faith journey of Thomas may have been stuck in grief or fear. He had been absent for the first appearance of Christ. Maybe he needed some time alone to process the events of the past week. We don’t know where he was, just that he missed out.

Over 20 years ago I was sitting with a family at a mortuary, planning the funeral for their son who had been killed in an accident. The parents were close friends of mine and members of the congregation I served. The funeral director said something to all of us that made a deep impression on me. He urged the family to be gentle, loving, and understanding with each other, telling them that grief is a process that moves at individualized rates. It’s like riding an elevator. Some of you may have to stay at first floor longer than others. Another may move through the stages quicker than others. Remember that it’s ok for each one of you to be where you are. It takes time. One day you may think you’ve reached the next floor, and the next day find yourself in the basement again. It’s ok. “No matter who you are or where you are on faith’s journey, you are welcome in the community of faith and at the Lord’s Table.”

That was true for the disciple Thomas, too. Although we don’t know the whole story, what we see in the gospel is that the community of faith welcomed him back, doubts and all. Wherever he had gone to grieve, to be alone, to process in his own way, when he returned he was allowed to question. It was there, in the safety of a welcoming community that he got the answers he needed to move along.

This year we’ve had to find new ways of creating and maintaining Christian Community. I created a Facebook group for members of the Blue Church in Mazatlan. My son created a weekly family Zoom call that has been a real blessing. We’ve made use of the phone and email more than ever.

Yesterday I got a phone call from a friend in Mazatlan who wanted to make sure I knew that a mutual friend’s mother had died of Covid this week. My husband and I already knew that as our mutual friend had reached out to us for prayer support earlier in the week. Yet, the phone call was another reminder that Christian Community is such an important part of who we are. We need each other and the open arms of the church can comfort us, or challenge us, or offer us an opportunity to learn, serve and grow.

So, if you’re in a good place right now I encourage you to reach out to someone whose elevator car might be stuck in the basement, whose journey of faith has led them into a place of isolation, fear, grief, or loneliness. Be gentle, loving and understanding. Share the good news that God’s love enfolds us all, all the time.

Stripped-Down Easter; 2021; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson;

The women who brought their spices to the tomb at daybreak were the same women who stayed at the cross until the very end. We can imagine their grief and exhaustion. They were preoccupied with a very practical matter, would roll away the big heavy stone for them.  They went to anoint the body.  It was a practice done, actually, to aid in the decay process. The spices were to help with the smell, but also to accelerate the decomposition. Bodies would lie in the tomb for a year and then the family would go and collect the bones and put them in a box, called an ossuary, that would be stored in a different section of the tomb. So, when Joseph of Arimathea loaned his family’s tomb to the family of Jesus, it was only supposed to be temporary. But little did he know how temporary it would be.

The women encountered a situation beyond anything they could have expected. The stone wasn’t their problem.  Jesus, who had been crucified, was risen and was not there.  They fled, in terror, and amazement. 

It is strangely fitting that we have this stripped-down Easter gospel in this stripped-down year.  Mark didn’t add any extras to his account like Matthew, Luke or John did.  No, there are no post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in this ending of the gospel. The silence of the women reverberates like an unresolved chord, jangling like an unanswered question? 

The opening of Mark’s gospel is likewise stripped-down. There is no a birth narrative or even a genealogy. Instead, Mark immediately plunges midstream into Jesus’ life with his baptism by John.  Throughout his bare 16 chapters, Mark presents disciples who blunder along, continually misunderstanding Jesus.  Mark’s sentences are short and tight. It is a no-frills masterpiece of writing.  The whole of the gospel can be seen as a sort of parable that asks an open-ended question:  will we flee in terror and amazement too?  Will we fail to grasp the mystery of Jesus like the women and the disciples did? 

This whole year has been stripped-down.  We have lived with the limits of the pandemic and Easter is no exception.  This service, like so much this year, is limited.  There is no resounding response of “He is risen Indeed!” in this sanctuary today to my “Christ is Risen!”  You can’t smell the strong scent of Easter lilies over the internet. There will be no large family gathering around feast-laden tables today.  There have been no easter egg hunts, no festival Easter brunch.  We have not been able to stand, jam-packed into the sanctuary, to raise the rafters with the strains of “Jesus Christ is Risen Today!” 

This strange year is giving us an opportunity —to focus our attention not on all the extras since they’re not available to us this year anyway, but to focus on the main subject, the concise gospel that Jesus is risen and goes ahead of us.  All the extras are just the background, not the essentials, after all.  Easter isn’t about eggs, or peeps or tulips, or lilies, or music or even ham dinners with family.  The focal point is Jesus, risen and leading us forward, transformed.

I’m a novice painter.  When we spend our winters in Mexico, I take weekly oil painting lessons. This year I’ve been learning to paint with watercolor by taking online courses and reading books on my own.  Last week I read a book about color theory and the big impact a background can make for the subject of a painting. The color of the background actually changes the way we see the main subject. The greater the contrast the more the main subject or focal point of a composition will show up. 

The mystery and power of the resurrection stands in stark contrast this year, against a background of 2.7 million people lost to covid worldwide.  Our central focus today on the empty tomb shows up with a different tone when placed against a backdrop of two more mass shootings, chaos at the Border, unemployment and food insecurity.  We turn our attention to the resurrection today and our view is changed by the context of pandemic-induced loneliness, anxiety and depression.  The bright light of Easter stands out against the dim and uncertain character of these times. 

The women came to the tomb at the crack of dawn after the resurrection had happened—in the dark of night, in secret, unseen.  They didn’t actually see him rise, they saw the empty tomb.  All the accounts of the resurrection agree that the most important event in history happened in total darkness.  Before the sun rose on that Sunday morning two thousand years ago, a great mystery took place in secret.  No sunlight illuminated the event.  No human being witnessed it.   And ever since, even now, no human narrative can contain it.  We can’t define it any more than the women could. It is a mystery known only to God.  The resurrection claims us and compels us even as it rests in holy darkness, shielded from our eyes. God was able to bring life out of death.  Out of the dark night, from the heart of loss and misery, God brought salvation.

It was incomprehensible to them.  Of course it was!  They needed the reassurance they got:  Do not be alarmed.  They came to prepare a body for decomposition, but there was no body. They were given a new task- to go and tell.  Yes, they fled in fear, but obviously they got over that and they did tell the others-or we wouldn’t know about it.  The mystery of resurrection had to soak in and resonate with them, as it does with us too.

Yes, we miss the traditions of Easter this year, the extras. But maybe it can be even easier to focus on the key point without the clutter of peeps and easter bonnets and baskets. When it’s all stripped down, we are left with trusting the story itself to do its work.

Resurrection doesn’t need lilies and rousing choruses of Alleluia sung by the faithful.  Easter doesn’t depend on the religious performance or the spiritual stamina of flailing human beings.  It doesn’t really matter if the women were frightened and silent at first.  The tomb is empty.  Death can not hold him, or us.  Jesus lives.  Period.  We are not in charge of Easter; God is.

We know from history that the fear those three women felt subsided, the found their nerve, and the went and told the others.  Together, following the risen Christ they chose hope. As they made the story their own it spread and grew.  Joy came.  Faith came.  Peace came.  Love came.  The glorious truth of a conquered grave and a risen Messiah made its way from their emboldened lips to every corner of the world.  The story didn’t depend on them.  But it changed them, and as they changed, the world around them changed, too.

Each year we come to the tomb and like the women, we grow in understanding as we follow Christ who goes ahead of us.  This year, against the background of death, with a future that feels uncertain, we need this word of life.  The good news of Resurrection is just what we need to hear right now.  So hold on to it, let it change you.  You don’t have to be able to take in all of its goodness right away; it is trustworthy, and it will wait for you.

But when you can, as you can, hear it again: “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell that he is going ahead of you.  You will see him, just as he told you.”

Christ is risen, the grave is empty, love is eternal, and death’s defeat is sure.  Whether or not you can bear this great truth right now isn’t the important thing.  Christ has given this truth to you.  It is yours.  He is risen, Alleluia!

We know the stories by heart and we order our patterns by the sacred calendar.  It’s Palm Sunday and we should be gathering in a sanctuary adorned with palms.  The opening hymn should be All Glory Laud and Honor, with trumpet sounding.  Those of us who normally arrive early for worship at the Blue Church would see the annual palm procession of Mexican worshippers in their parade through the streets of El Centro.  Our worship would begin with the recitation of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a colt and would proceed through the reading of his Passion, from trial through betrayal all the way to the cross. 

There is an element of theater to corporate worship.  Attention is paid to lighting, music, staging and the like.  The energy builds and recedes on cue and our emotions are elicited.  We channel our thoughts and feelings through the script.  The orchestration of worship is intentional, meant to reinforce beliefs and strengthen faith as well as motivate the congregation to live after the example of Christ throughout the week.  Oh, how I miss that!  We are still safe at home though, for a second Holy Week, eagerly awaiting vaccines and the herd immunity that will allow us to gather again. 

So, this year, I invite you to spend some time reading the narrative for yourself.  As you read, let the drama of Holy Week live in you.  Hosanna!

Click on the link below to read the Passion Narrative from Mark’s gospel:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+14-15&version=NRSV

Models of God; March 7, 2021; YLLC: Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

If you close your eyes, what images come to mind when I say, “The 10 Commandments?”  If you were a pastor, like me, you might see in your mind’s eye the line of confirmands, through the years of ministry, who sat in front of you, reciting their memory work from Luther’s Small Catechism on the commandments. “What does this mean? We are to fear love and trust in God above all things.” 

Depending on your age you might see the scene from the 1956 Cecil B. De Mille production of The Ten Commandments, the one on the mountain top, Moses with his white hair and a long beard, a flowing rusty orange and black striped robe. You may see the movie set of craggy mountains with the swirling orange pillar of fire burning the words into the tablets of stone as the deep stern voice of God speaks the words of the law.

Or, if you’re like my husband, you might think instead of the scene from the 1981 movie called, The History of the World, Part 1, where Mel Brooks emerges from the crevice in the rocks, a replica of the other movie set, dressed in a copy of the robe Charlton Heston wore, juggling in his arms three apparently heavy stone tablets, saying, “Lord, I shall give these laws unto thy people.”  As he makes his way forward, he declares to the people below in a loud voice “Hear me, O hear me. All take heed. The Lord Jehovah hath given unto you these fifteen…” and he trips on the hem of his robe, dropping one of the tablets, “Oi” he mutters, looking down at the broken stone at his feet.  Shifting the remaining two more comfortably he goes on, “these Ten, Ten Commandments for all to obey.” 

One of the most basic images of God rises out of our Old Testament lesson for today.  While ideas like those in Luther’s catechism or teachings in modern theological books can influence our thinking about God, our beliefs and convictions are mostly carried in images not ideas. Oh, we may recite creeds that convey concepts about God and about doctrines. But how we see the character of God comes mostly from the images we hold in our minds and hearts. The scriptures provide us with so many images or metaphors: God is a King, a rock, a judge, a shepherd, a father, occasionally a mother, a lover, a potter, a warrior, an eagle, a mother hen just to name a few.

Sallie McFague, wrote an excellent book called, Models of God in 1987.  In that book she defined a model of God as a sort of grouping of metaphors or images, a kind of constellation of pictures that has real staying power. She identified two primary models of God that have dominated Jewish and Christian traditions through the years and showed how the various biblical images gravitate toward one model or the other.  Both models have been present throughout history and both are alive in the church today.  They are so different from one another, however, that they practically create two separate religions even as they use the same language. 

The most widely held model of God is strongly linked to our Old Testament lesson for today. Dr. McFague calls it the Monarchical Model. In this view, people see God through the lens of Mt. Sinai–God as the law-giver, the King, the Judge. In this view, God loves creation but is powerful, far-off, all booming deep voice and swirling orange pillar of fire. Many of us grew up with that model. It is probably the most common view. God sits as judge on a throne and will hold all people to account for their actions. Oh, God loves God’s people, but people aren’t very good at keeping the law, so in the Old Testament there were accommodations available. Sacrifices and offerings could be made to satisfy the law. There were cleansings and rituals and practices to maintain the relationship with God. Then, in New Testament times God sent Jesus to be the once and for all sacrifice, to forgive our sins, to stand in our place, to take the judgment for the world. 

The Old Testament lessons during this Lenten season move us through several stories of God making Covenants with God’s people. God makes promises and invites a response from Noah, from Abraham, from Moses and the Israelites, and through the prophet Jeremiah promises a new covenant written not in stone but in the people’s hearts. Each of these stories follow the pattern for covenants or contracts in the ancient world. God’s part of these agreements follows the pattern for a king’s or an emperor’s part of a covenant. The people’s part of these agreement follows the pattern for a vassal or a lesser partner.  Let me explain. 

Let’s say the Pharoah in Egypt conquered a small tribe or nation.  He would make an agreement saying, I am the emperor, here’s my offer.  I will be your protector and you will offer me tribute. In these biblical covenant passages God is the king, and the people are the subjects.  God says, I will be your God, here’s what I will do for you: To Noah: I will put my bow in the sky and promise not to destroy you; or to Abraham: I will make you a great nation and give you a land and descendants; or to Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness I brought you out of bondage in Egypt, fed you and cared for you, and give you laws to guide you.  You will be my people.  Then God, the ruler, the king, the judge outlines the expectations in response. As I said, God loves God’s people, but there are expectations. 

When we are in relationship to God the lawgiver and judge what is our role?  We are the defendant, the subject. Our life is about getting it right and doing what is expected of us. That might mean holding the right belief or performing the right behavior or a mixture of both those things.  This model of God suggests that the life of faith is about measuring up, doing or believing what is expected of us, confessing and receiving forgiveness when we don’t.

This way of understanding God leads to an insider and outsider distinction. The people who ask you if you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal savior or if you’ve been saved are asking from this perspective.

This model carries the idea of punishment or reward- judgment day looms either after death or at a second coming. 

Rather than freeing us from our self-absorption to focus on loving others this model zeros in on our own salvation—on making sure we have been forgiven and done or believed or prayed the right way.

I think most of us can recognize this model of God as something we heard, seen or believed.  It’s a sort of lens through which we can see and understand the scriptures and our own lives.

But there is another model too. The other model images God’s character as the Divine Lover. This way of seeing is also deeply rooted in scripture. We find it in the prophets and in the poetry of the Bible.  The prophets often speak of God’s loving kindness, tender compassion, mercy.  Isaiah 43 for example portrays God speaking with gentle love saying, “You are precious in my eyes and honored and I love you. Do not be afraid.”  The Song of Solomon depicts God as the Lover and God’s people as the Beloved.

And we see this model in the figure of Jesus Christ.  John 3: 16 says what?  God so loved the world!  Jesus is the embodiment of divine love. 

As the Father has loved me, so I love you, love one another. 

I call you friends.

The law and the prophets are summed up in this, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. 

There was a man who had two sons, that father ran with joy to welcome the prodigal home. 

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Those who love not, know not God for GOD IS LOVE.  Beloved, let us love one another! 

Roberta Bondi, a theologian at Emory University says that “God is besotted with us!”  Isn’t that marvelous?  What would it mean for you to really know that?  God is head over heels in love with you!  God yearns for you, wants to shower you with cherishing love. 

It’s quite a different model from the Monarchical view isn’t it?  God as judge, king, and law-giver puts us on guard, outlines the rewards and punishments.  God the Divine Lover isn’t the one we are obligated to, the one whose expectations we must meet with good deeds, repentance and belief.  God the lover is passionate about us, each of us, and calls us to love extravagantly after the model of Christ.

As I said, both models of God are firmly grounded in Scripture. The difference comes in the perspective we bring to the texts.  For example, we can look at the Ten Commandments from either perspective. It’s easy to see which lens Cecil B DeMille used in that classic movie that shaped so many Americans through it’s annual broadcast on TV on the Saturday before Easter. God the Law-Giver is firmly etched into our brains thanks in part to Hollywood.  But, if we turn to the pages of Scripture instead of the silver screen we can see the other model of God speaking to us. 

Which model do you suppose the psalmist had when our psalm for today, Psalm 19, was written?  The law of the Lord is perfect reviving the heart. The decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine Gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. 

We can choose to see God as the stern Father, the Disciplinarian who brings the whole nation of Israel out into the wilderness for a time out, to teach them a lesson. We can envision the wag of the divine finger and deep booming voice of disappointment and the threat of punishment.  We can believe these ten words were given because the people of God proved unworthy, fell short of the ideal of who they could be, who they were intended to be. The law of the Lord can be read as restriction. Take your medicine, you won’t like it, but it’ll be good for you in the long run.

Or is there something else going on here? What if we come from the Divine Lover model? We can see the law as more to be desired than much fine gold and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.  The context of the giving of the law is God’s liberation of a nation of slaves, God’s deliverance and provision.  The Jewish people see the law as a gift, not as limitations but as definitions. We can looked at this moment in the history of the people of God not as punishment for less than stellar behavior, but as a gift because of a greater than imagined love.

The ten words are not so much commandments that we ought to follow reluctantly or else, as they are descriptions of the kind of people we can choose to be. We can define ourselves by them as Jesus did, as the people who love God and who love neighbor. One Hebrew language teacher said we should retranslate them not as “Thou shall” or “Thou shall not” but as description, “You are the people who have one God” and “You are not the people who kill and steal and bear false witness.” That is just who we are and who we are not. God doesn’t say, “Jump through these hoops and I will love you.” Instead, God says, “My love for you will shape you into these kinds of people, this kind of community.”

I choose to operate from the Divine Lover model of God, following the Christ who summed up the law this way, Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul strength and mind and your neighbor as yourself.  That frees us from fear and empowers us to live for others, to let love be our guide. As we embrace our identity as the ones God is besotted with we start to view each and every part of God’s creation as cherished.  Our call is to love this earth, to love other people, and to love God extravagantly, freely, knowing that God is love, that in loving we are born of God and know God, for God is love.  Beloved, let us love one another.  Amen.

Oh, Taste and See That the Lord is Good!

This morning we awoke to 5 inches of new fluffy snow with more falling, blanketing our world in quiet clean. The wind is calm and the temperature a comfortable 29 degrees. So, we made plans to go downhill skiing tomorrow before the predicted warm-up arrives on Tuesday.

Steve and I each started skiing at the age of 4. The first time we skied together was a delight, neither of us had to wait for the other. Both of us volunteered as instructors and we traveled to the mountains as often as we could. Not being able to ski has been one of the few downsides of spending our winters in Mazatlan. There is such beauty in fresh powdery snow. The feeling of swooshing down the slopes rivals any other experience for its freedom. Just anticipating that sensation makes me smile.  Floating in the ocean, the waves rocking and suspending my body so that I am part of the vast movement is strangely a similar feeling. There is a oneness with the world, a flow that reveals my smallness in the scope of creation. The rhythmic waves and the softer sound of the sand’s movement when my ears are underwater express both the power and the gentleness of the sea.

When I was in high school my pastor at the time introduced me to a practice of biblical reflection that involved reading a text a few times and then re-writing it for myself as a prayer. He suggested starting with the psalms. It is a practice I have used for 40 years and has helped me claim the scripture for myself. Recently I discovered a wonderful book, Psalms for Praying, by Nan C. Merrill that seems to have originated in just that practice. The book is not a translation or even a paraphrase of the psalms, but a personal and evocative reworking of them for contemplation. I share with you her version of Psalm 34: 4-8.

When I searched for Love, the Beloved answered within my heart, and all my fears flew away.

Look to the Beloved, and your emptiness will be filled, your face will radiate Love.

For when you cry, the Beloved hears and comes to you, your troubles disappear.

The Beloved sends angels to those who call on Love to awaken them from their fears.

O taste and see! The Beloved is within you! Happy are all who dwell in the Beloved’s heart.

Psalms For Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness, Nan C. Merrill. (c) 1996 by Nan C. Merrill

May you open your senses to the Creator who blesses us with such majesty and wonder. 

2.21.2021; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; Genesis 9; Yellow Lake Lutheran Church, Danbury WI

“Never again!  I will never again use my hands to strike my child,” he declared, as he came down the stairs, after administering a spanking to his 3-year-old son.  “Never again! All I ever learned from corporal punishment was to fear my father and to do whatever I could not to get caught.  We will find another way to raise our child.  I will not be that kind of a dad.  Never again!”  It was a sort of covenant he made and kept, a promise that was unconditional.  No matter what his son would do, that father vowed to use his hands for love, to build up and to teach not to hurt or tear down. 

Whenever I read or hear the story of the end of the flood, I remember that day, now 31 years ago when my son’s father changed, when he proclaimed, “never again!”  In today’s lesson about the end of the flood we hear God’s declaration of those same words, three times.   Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.  Never again.

Even the non-religious know something about the story of the flood, the animals coming two by two, the building of the divinely commissioned ark.  The story comes from the first section of Genesis, the pre-historical part where we find the cosmic stories of creation, the garden, the tower of babel, the great flood, and the mingling with the giants in the earth.  These fantastic stories speak to the nature of reality.  Nearly every culture has them, stories of origin and identity.  Instead of being literal history, they provide archetypes; they describe a world view.

Many countries have their flood stories. For example, the Babylonian flood story that circulated in the ancient world at about the same time had many of the same elements.  But that story explained why life is filled with tragic loss and depicts gods whose actions are whimsical and capricious, whose disregard for human beings demonstrates a great expanse between gods and their creation. 

The story of the great flood may start the same, with destruction, but it ends in a completely different way.  Several of the stories in this first part of Genesis work this way.  They mimic the surrounding cultures’ patterns by using the same structures but then put a totally new twist on the portrayal of God and the purpose of life. 

In the story of Noah’s Ark, the unconditional and unending promise of God is displayed for all the world to see by the sign of the rainbow.  Even though the problem of sin survived the flood, God’s response would never again be total destruction. God’s weapon, the bow, is put aside forever.  Never again!  Instead, like a loving father, God’s response to sin will be forgiveness and restoration.

I know a thing or two about floods.  I grew up in Moorhead, MN, on the banks of the Red River.  Perhaps you know that the Red River flows north past Winnipeg where the snow melts later.  The forces of nature work against the drainage of that fertile valley.  So, every year the whole community copes with the rising waters.  My family’s home was just two blocks from the river.  I remember a wet basement in the spring. I remember getting excused from high school to help fill sandbags.  There were road and bridge closures. The damp dirty smell of melting snow and ice led to the even wetter, dirtier smell of rotten sheetrock and saturated insulation left in piles on the boulevards.  In fact, one of my first real jobs was working for the parks and recreation board, on a post-flood clean-up crew.  Yuck. 

Floods are destructive and devastating. Their filthy aftermath lasts a long time. I’ve always thought it strange that Noah’s Ark is a popular theme in Sunday School and children’s books.  It’s not a children’s story, after all.  No, the destruction of all life, except for what fit on the ark is a theme for mature audiences.  Gustave Dore captured the chilling horror of the flood in his 19^th century engravings called The Deluge or The Great Flood.  A lone rock, the tip of a high mountain is the only land that rises above the heaving waves, with frantic and fearful bodies clinging and climbing over each other to grasp a final moment of solid earth. 

I think the story is motivated not by anger but out of exasperation that “every inclination of humankind’s heart was evil, continually. The story relates the 40 days of rain, the 40 days of flooding, the 150 days of continuing flooding and then the months and months of waiting for the destruction to drain away.  After the water was gone, the debris and the stinking damp soils the whole world and God says Never Again!  I will not be that God.  I will relate to my creation with only love and restoration! 

God unconditional covenant with the whole earth is marked by the rainbow, a reminder, not just to humanity and creation, but to God’s own self—that love is the way, healing and rebuilding are the divine intention. 

The repeating pattern spirals through the scriptures, and through our lives too. 

We see it in the garden stories.  God creates a good thing, humanity messes it up, breaking the rules, lying and hiding.  Then God creates a solution and restores the relationship broken by sin.  And life goes on.  I think of it as a sort of spiral, like a slinky turned on its side.  Life is good at the top, human action starts a sinking spin.  Then at the bottom God reaches out—God hears the cries, sees the suffering and acts with gracious concern and life goes on. 

It happened with Cain and Abel, it happened in Noah’s day, it happened in Babel.  The pattern continued with Sarah and Abraham and their descendants.  Over and over again, God steps in to fix the muddle created by God’s people.  When Abraham passes Sarah off as his sister, when Hagar is cast out into the desert, when Isaac is almost slaughtered, when Jacob cheats Esau, when Laban cheats Jacob, when Joseph is sold into slavery… Each time God restores the situation. 

Right there is the gospel.  The story of the flood and God’s promise of Never Again, symbolized by the rainbow, sets the pattern.  Destruction and devastation threaten each and every generation, not just in biblical times, and not from God’s own command.  Humanity is fully capable of bringing about its own wreckage.  The good news is that God’s continuing commitment is found in those repeated words:  Never Again.  God’s perpetual gaze toward the rainbow restores our spiral of ruin, time and again.

You can see it if you look.  Consider our world at the moment.  Oh, how God’s heart must still break that the inclination of our hearts is still evil, perpetually.  Social and economic injustice and racial disparity continue.  Displaced persons and refugees are at global all-time highs. Hunger ravages the lives of over 2 million children starving from famines in 7 countries. 111 people have suffered with covid leaving 2.5 million dead.  Unchecked ecological damage is catching up to us with weather extremes.  Civil unrest and the rise of nationalism threaten our social stability.  I don’t need to go on.

The causes for divine despair continue.  Sin cannot be wished away or washed away or even drowned.  It just comes back.  Shortly after the water receded what did Noah do?  He planted a vineyard and then got wasted, passed out drunk, naked and exposed.  He wound up cursing his son Ham into slavery for leaving him uncovered.  Then that story was used to justify human slavery through the generations. 

What did God survey after the flood?  Not a newly washed world, pristine and ready for a new beginning, as anyone who has lived through a flood can attest.  No, it would have been a flood-ravaged world, with stinking piles of soggy, sodden debris and the aftermath of wreckage.  As I said, it is an adult themed story.

The good news comes in the change that happened in God’s heart, the commitment to grace and forgiveness, the promise of Never Again!  People still cheat and steal and kill and make wrong decisions and fail.  The spiral continues, and thanks be to God, the rainbow still proclaims God’s promise. 

God keeps forgiving, showing mercy, offering second chances, pointing humanity in the right direction, renewing, restoring, loving.  God’s grace made its first big debut after the flood in an unconditional covenant with all people and all creation.  That spiral of love continues through the cross to the resurrection. It is repeated in the promises of baptism where we are named for the one who keeps making all things new.

Let us pray.  Holy God of the rainbow, God of Easter morning, God of constant grace, you claim us in the waters of baptism.  May we remember with every raindrop, every flake of snow, every prism of light, every sip of water, every splash that you can transform you creation with love and forgiveness.  Open us to your truth, that only love redeems.  Amen.

1 John 4: 7-16

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

¹³ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. ¹⁶ So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

Thank you, Michaela for reading today. God’s love lived in your Grandma, and her love lives in you, just as it lives in all her grandchildren.

The words you read tell us that “God is love, and those who live in love, live in God and God lives in them.” Truer words were never spoken.

Wendy loved so much. Each one of us gathered here today knew Wendy’s love. It has been heartwarming to read the outpourings of love that have been scrolling endlessly on Facebook for the last 10 days recounting memories of this classy lady. Her gentle and strong spirit reached so many people. Who knows how far and wide this service is being streamed right now? Certainly, Wendy’s love is being felt and remembered in Mazatlan right now. And we can be sure that it is God’s love and your love, and our love that filled Wendy’s life with purpose and joy.

So, we gather today to remember Wendy. Thank you, Wally, for sharing your words today. What we are doing today is an important thing. Telling stories, looking at photos, praying together- this is a holy thing we do. It will be important to keep on with this process, even if that means finding new ways to do that because of the pandemic.

On the very evening that Wendy died, I was watching a show on Netflix when one of the characters recited a poem that caught my attention. I stopped the video and replayed it several times so that I could write down the words of the poem so that I could share it with you all today. It is called ‘Tis a Fearful Thing’ and it was written about a thousand years ago by a Jewish man in Spain named Judah Halevi. He was a philosopher and a physician.

‘Tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to be—
to be,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing
A holy thing
to love.
For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.

It is a fearful, holy, important thing we do, to remember the painful joy of loving Wendy, painful only because death has come. Obviously today is just the beginning of naming the feelings, or recounting the memories, of crying and laughing and holding each other through the process of grief. Those feelings will shift and change as time moves on. What we do today is a start.

At times like this we turn to poetry, whether through the words of scripture or the lyrics of songs. I suppose we do that because it is hard to capture, in normal language, the hopes and dreams and love that feed our lives.

Mary Oliver captured the mystery of what we’re doing now when she wrote:

To live in this world

You must be able
To do three things:
To love what is mortal;

To hold it
against your own bones knowing
Your own life depends on it;

And, when the time comes to
Let it go,

To let it go.

Oh, how true those words are! Wendy loved deeply. Anyone who ever saw Rich and Wendy together, whether that was on a dance floor, or walking on the Malecon, or even in a professionally filmed advertisement for a condo, could see the deep love they shared. Anyone who ever heard Wendy talk about her children and grandchildren knew how deeply she loved you. Even those of us who simply counted Wendy as a cherished friend felt her loving care, her welcoming hospitality, her generous spirit.

A few weeks ago, when Wendy transitioned to hospice care and Rich asked if I would officiate at her memorial service when the time came, I knew right away that my words would be focused on love.

The words from the Song of Solomon, chapter 8: verses 6-7 came to mind. I know it may be unusual to choose a passage from the love poetry of scripture for a memorial service, but in this case I think it is just perfect. As you listen to these words consider the power of the love that filled and flowed from Wendy’s life.

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
As a seal upon your arm;
For love is strong as death,
Passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
A raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
All the wealth of one’s house,
It would be utterly scorned.

Those words ring with an honest truth. Today, we stand in the shadow of death. There can be no doubt that death is fierce and strong. Sorrow can threaten to quench our spirits. There have been and will be days when tears flood our hearts.

But, love is equally strong. Its flashes are of a raging flame that not even death can quench or drown. When it comes right down to it—none of us who have known real love would ever trade even all the wealth in the world for love.

A few days before Wendy died, I was able to administer Holy Communion to Rich and Wendy, via the telephone. I read to them the poetic imagery from the 21st chapter of Revelation about the place that Jesus went to prepare for her and for us.

“God will be with them; God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”

It’s impossible for any of us to describe the next place literally. So we turn to images and poetry to express our faith and hope. We say she’s in the arms of the angels. Or she’s somewhere over the rainbow, where troubles melt like lemon drops. We turn to the eternal truths: that in God’s eternal care there will not be the suffering that she endured here. There will not be the mourning you feel now after her death. There will not be any tears or pain or death.

It is a holy thing to love. To live in this world, we must love what is mortal, knowing our life depends on that love. And when the time comes to let go, even that is love, because we trust that love is strong as death and nothing can quench love.

St. Paul put it this way. “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38-39)

Wendy’s pain is gone, and she is now held in the love of God, who is love. And Wendy’s love will continue to abide in each of us. And that is a holy thing. Thanks be to God. Amen.

(Wendy’s obituary and the livestream broadcast of her service can be accessed by clicking the link below.)

Wendy Gregerson 02/03/2021