rebeccaellenson.com

Dec 19, 2021; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; The Visitation

Who is “your person?” You know, the one you turn to when you need to process an experience or share a concern?  If you’re married it may be your spouse, but it might not be too. A sibling or a parent perhaps, someone who “gets” you.  Maybe you’re even able to count more than one such confidant. As a raging extrovert I’ve never quite understood people who can process internally, …just saying.  If you’re like me, a person who hardly knows what she’s thinking until she’s talked about it out loud with someone, you are sure to have a variety of people to turn to. 

My mom was “my person”. When she was dying this summer, I wound up turning to my cousin Jean who had already travelled that difficult journey with her mom, my Aunt Carole. Jean is exactly 6 months younger than I am, but she’s always been an old soul.  She was born on her mother’s birthday, exactly 6 months, to the day, after I was born, on my mom’s birthday. Like me, Jean is the younger of two girls. Her mom was my mom’s big sister and they were so close.

Jean and I have spent our lives in parallel steps, from the weeks in our childhood when my sister and I went to their dairy farm and when she and her sister came to our lake home, to our weddings just a few months apart, to the last prayer she prayed with us around my mom’s beside the day mom died, Jean has always been there for me.

I’m not sure how I would have gotten through some of those days this year without her. I didn’t have to explain a thing, she just knew.  In recent decades we haven’t seen each other often, but that doesn’t matter. She was there for me when I lost my first pregnancy, when my first marriage ended.  We’ve prayed over our children together.  Some days, the first text I find on my phone in the morning is a prayer she’s written in her morning prayer practice lifting me up to God because I’ve been on her heart. I feel safe and loved and known in her care. I count that connection as a God given blessing of immeasurable worth.

Evidently Mary had a cousin like that too, Elizabeth.  Elizabeth was older to be sure, a generation older it seems, but the connection was strong. As soon as Mary learns of her daunting role, certainly before the angel’s message had fully sunk in even, she left with haste for the hill country, some 80 miles away to her cousin’s house. 

The text tells us that Elizabeth had been pondering her own impossible pregnancy for 6 months already. It was Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, that received the angel’s message about the role their son John would play, but he had been left mute all through his wife’s pregnancy.  The text tells us Elizabeth had been in seclusion for the first 5 months, until Mary’s visit. We’re left wondering which of these two mothers to be is more unlikely the aged childless one, or the young inexperienced maiden.  Mary greets Elizabeth and must have told her all about the angel’s visit for when Elizabeth hears the greeting, the child leaps for joy within her. 

Luke’s telling of these intertwined stories is full of prophetic words and the fulfillment of the hopes of centuries of waiting.  This interpreted history shows how and where God is acting to bring justice and salvation.  The stories ring with similarity to the well-known Jewish history of unexpected pregnancies, Hannah, Sarah, Hagar, and so many songs of praise reverberate in the telling of this song of Mary. 

The story of Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth is so familiar that we have come to expect hearing this story and may have lost the unlikelihood of it all.  Think about it—the Messiah’s coming is proclaimed not by the high priest or the rulers, not even by Zechariah who is mute, but by two marginalized pregnant women. 

As I read this text this year, I found myself imagining how it could play out in theater. With all these songs in Luke’s gospel it might be best portrayed as a musical, with cool special effects happening then the angel Gabriel appears.  Sometimes its good to let our imaginations fill in the blanks—Mary: young, poor, unwed, and filled with joy and willingness, Elizabeth, by all accounts too old to conceive—grey hair perhaps, suffering from ankles swollen from pregnancy and varicose veins too perhaps, Zechariah, normally full of words, like any clergyperson now strangely silenced, unable to preach, unable to man-splain. Personally, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be unable to speak for 9 months! Maybe some of you don’t know that Brent has starred in many musicals back in Canada.  What would it be like for you to play that role?  Would that be fun Brent, to figure out how to express yourself only with facial expressions and gestures? You might be just the right age and character to be cast in that role.  Carol could play Elizabeth. She’s warm and hospitable, I know that from experience. She has welcomed my phone calls and visits this year, both back home in Wisconsin and here in Mazatlan. Like Mary, I’ve run to her to share my thoughts and feelings, finding a listening ear and a loving heart, I’m sure a young pregnant girl would find the same reception. To find the right demographic for Mary, we’d need to call on Daniel’s daughter Grace who’s been running our sound and video board.  Can you begin to see the ludicrousness of this text?  The coming of the Savior is in the hands of the most unlikely cast of characters imaginable and they keep breaking out it song, like in a musical. 

Back in medieval and early modern European times they put on plays, called it the Feast of Fools. As early as the 9^th century in Constantinople there is a record of such an event to portray God’s inclination to topple human power structures and raise up the downtrodden.  A young boy was cast as a mock Patriarch, the Eastern Church’s equivalent of a Pope, and this young boy, dressed as the highest ruling figure in the church was paraded through the city, now Istanbul, riding on an ass. 

These celebration days fell right after Christmas and acted out the reversals outlined in Mary’s song, the lofty torn down from their thrones and the humble lifted up, the rich sent away empty and the poor feasted and filled with good things.  They continued and became more farcical until the last known record of them in 1685 in a Franciscan church in Antibes.  Lay brothers and servants put on vestments inside out, held their books upside down, wore spectacles filled with orange peels instead of lenses and blew smelly incense in each other’s faces while chanting offkey and in gibberish.  There were cross-dressing, masking up as animals and other methods to mock the conventional pretentiousness of the church. 

Mary was willing to have her life turned upside down. Elizabeth too.  Don’t you wonder what they talked about and shared together during those three months as Elizabeth grew as big as a house and Mary started to feel her own child move inside her?  I think Mary found a welcome with “her person” and learned what she could expect as the time passed and the baby grew.  Was she there at the birth of John?  Did she in turn help Elizabeth deliver the child? 

Medieval theologian Meister Eckhart once asked, “What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God, 1,400 years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God.” 

I just love how earthy and fleshy this text really is.  When we spend the time filling in the backstory, the plot, the characters then we can see how preposterous this God of ours is.  This story is rooted in contrasts of age and class. We can make room in our lives to care for those we know and those we don’t to practice hospitality like Elizabeth did and attentiveness like Mary did.  In doing so we go beyond the politeness and sentimentality that so often crowds out the radical character of Jesus coming as the son of Mary. 

Mary heard the angel say she had found favor with God, that God was with her.  She wondered how it could be and heard that all things are possible. She responded with Let it be to me.  That’s quite a pattern that we can follow. 

Where and when have you found favor with God?  What were or are your questions? Who do you run to, to share your thoughts and find connection and community?  What are the times that God is working through you?  What is your role in the drama of God? What song will you sing?  How will you bear Christ into the world?

God comes to each of us, not in our moments of triumph and accomplishment as much as in the struggles we must overcome, the wrong turns we make and the closed doors we encounter. The people in our lives help us to understand how and when God is working through us. We find our role in relationship. It is as true for us as it was for Mary and Elizabeth and Zechariah: God is with us, all things are possible when we listen to God’s claim on us and respond as she did, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your Word.”

Worship has resumed for the English Speaking Congregation in Mazatlan at the Christian Congregational Church on Cinco de Mayo in El Centro. We are gathering cautiously, with safety measures because of the pandemic. You can watch our services on YouTube.

Here is the service for 12.12.21. The first portion of the service didn’t broadcast, evidently. The service starts in the middle of the gospel reading.

Second Sunday in Advent; Dec 5, 2021; ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

The Word of the Lord comes in many ways, through prophets, through scriptures, through music, through our loved ones. The United Church of Christ says it this way:  God is still Speaking! 

We heard the word of the Lord at through at least four prophets today, speaking to their own people in their own times about God’s coming: Baruch, Malachi, Zechariah and John.  Each told the people to get ready because God was about to do something amazing. It’s not just those four though. The Scriptures are, actually, quite repetitive, from Abraham and Sarah, through the Old Testament prophets, in the time between the old and new testaments, in the life of Jesus and the early church, and carrying on through the centuries of Christian life the Word of God speaks its repeating spiral of grace, on and on and on. 

We see it writ large over the centuries of history and writ small and personally, in our own life stories. Award winning author and social activist, L.R. Knost says it this way:  “Life is amazing.  And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again.  And in between the amazing and awful it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary.  That’s just living: heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life.  And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.”

Luke places his account of John’s prophecy firmly in history, starting with a string of historic references to power.  In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor in Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitus and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah in the wilderness. John, plain John who gave up his inherited place in the priesthood, stands in stark contrast to the powerful figures mentioned.  Gods shows up in plain sight—in the ordinary and specific lives of God’s ordinary people.

As you heard, we have two readings from Luke today, just a few verses apart in the gospel but describing events about 30 years apart in time.  Luke, again, places the story firmly in historyL In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah.  Luke sets the scene for us—contrasting the height of power—King Herod, with little old Zechariah. In grand biblical style, the angel Gabriel announces to the priest that his wife, Elizabeth, will bear a son who shall be named John and who will lead many to God.  But, Zechariah doesn’t believe it. They are an old, childless couple.  So, the pastor is left mute for the next many months, until after the baby’s birth.  That’s where we find Zechariah in today’s reading, on the baby’s naming day when Zechariah’s tongue is finally set free and he speaks his prophecy. 

Remember, Zechariah wasn’t anybody important.  He was just a priest in the hill country of Judea.  Yet, something amazing was happening in that little out of the way place, among those ordinary people.  Having had months of silence to think over what he learned and what it might mean—Zechariah’s song of hope still rings out across the centuries.  It was indeed an amazing time.

You my child shall be called the prophet of the most high, to go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give the people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

I wonder what we might discover about the Word of the Lord coming among us if we were struck mute for months at a time.  How would we see the world?  The angel came and told the priest what to expect.  His job was to shut up and listen, to Wake Up to God’s Presence. What if we approached our world that way?  What if we saw the people around us as gifts from God? 

Of course, Luke tells us about the birth of Jesus, too.  Again, he grounds the story with historical power figures.  The decree went out from none other than The Emperor Augustus.  It was while Quirinius was Governor of Syria.  There may have been powerful people in powerful places by the world’s standards, but, again, the real action was happening in the nowhere of Nazareth. 

Mighty powerful things were happening in the world around Malachi and Baruch, too.  The Word of the Lord came to them, two of the most obscure prophets.  Malachi wrote after the exile, about 430 BC.  His is the last book in the Old Testament.  Malachi is both a name and a word that means messenger or angel, the one who announces the coming of God.  He wrote at a time when the people had come back from Babylon but were still struggling.  They had rebuilt the temple, their homes and their lives– but it wasn’t amazing it was awful.  It was a time to hold on. He said the coming of God would be like the purifying fire of a smelter.  The prophet reminds them to hold on through the heartbreaking time. It was a specific word for a certain time through unknown Malachi. 

I’m guessing that many of you haven’t even heard of our other lesson today.  What is Baruch, you may ask? It’s one of the books of the Apocrypha, the books written in the 400-year span between the Old and the New Testament.  Those books were considered part of the scriptures until Martin Luther took objection to them in the 16^th Century.  Catholic and Orthodox Christians still include them.  God was still speaking then and is still speaking now—for those of us awake enough to listen.

During those 400 years the Persians, then the Greeks, then the Hasmoneans and finally the Romans took over the ancient world. No matter which part of that time Baruch was writing, the Israelites were a dominated people.  They were moved around by the world powers like pawns on a chess board. It was not an amazing time, and it may not have been an awful time either.  It may have been one of those mundane times.

I love the images the prophet Baruch uses to speak to the people.  He invites them to take off the sorrow and affliction they have been wearing like a garment and to, instead, put on forever the beauty of the glory from God, the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; the jeweled crown of the glory of the Everlasting, so God will be able to show their splendor everywhere.  They are to stand on the high point where Jerusalem sits and look out to the East and West and to see how God has and will repeatedly restore them.  No obstacle will be left to impede God’s actions—the high mountain and the everlasting hills will be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that God’s people may walk safely in the glory of God.

Oh, it can be so easy to wear our sorrow or pain like a cloak, to drape our afflictions all over the rest of who we are.  When I’m feeling overwhelmed, when I grieve, it can feel like a heavy blanket dragging me down.  The prophet acknowledges the sorrow, the affliction and invites the mourner to take off that garment and put on the beauty of the glory of God, the robe of righteousness!

That clear word of God comes across the centuries right into our advent ears today—There has been sorrow and affliction.  Oh yes.  We have lost loved ones, we have experienced difficulties there have awful times when we’ve just had to hold on.  The season of Advent calls to prepare, to set aside, like Zechariah—to shut up and listen so that we can open our eyes to the opportunities in front of us each day to be a part of what God is doing here and now.  These prophetic voices call us to wake up!

This morning we heard an arrangement of a cantata by Bach, as our prelude. Wachet Auf is often translated Sleepers Awake!  It’s one of my favorite pieces.  Thank you Kirk, for your arrangement and performance of that piece today.  I thought it was particularly fitting for today, given our lessons and what I heard in them this week.  Bach composed the chorale cantata in 1731 based on a hymn by the same name written by Phillip Nicolai who was the pastor of a town called Unna, near the German city of Dortmund.

Think of it this way:  It was during the reign of Rudolf the II, the Holy Roman Emperor in 1598 when the word of the lord came to Phillip Nicolai. The pastor had just taken the job in 1598, when the town was hit with a terrible plague. By the end, almost half of Unna had succumbed. For Nicolai, whose parsonage overlooked the cemetery and who had to perform countless funerals, it must have felt like the apocalypse. It was an awful time—a time to just hold on.  Pastor Nicolai consoled himself by writing a collection of meditations to, “comfort other sufferers visited by the pestilence,” He called this collection his “Mirror of Joy,” a hopeful light shining in the midst of terrible darkness. And to round it off, he included two original hymns, one of which was Wachet Auf.

On top of the plague’s devastation, a Spanish military invasion came through the area, putting down the protestant movement that had grown up there.  The words of the hymn speak of a bright light coming in the middle of the night, and the first verse tells believers to wake up from their sleep and hold up their lamps. Rather than preparing for some new awful thing, the hymn is saying to be prepared for joy by sharing your light. Nicolai’s lamp was his faith and his hope for a brighter future, and Wachet Auf was his way of shining that lamp for his congregation.

That message of hope and joy, written in the middle of profound tragedy, made Wachet Auf a popular hymn among Lutherans and the formed the basis, over a century later, for Bach’s cantata. Bach starts his own melody first, dancing over the bassline. Then, he brings in Nicolai’s hymn as a slow, insistent counterpoint. The two melodies intertwine in a cross-century collaboration between an almost unknown pastor and one of the greatest composers of all time.  Its message is as universal as any of our prophetic texts today. We don’t know what will happen next, but we do know that we can and will get through it. What we can do now is be prepared, hold up our lamps, and bring light to each other’s lives.

So, hear the Word of the Lord: 

In the third year of the presidency of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, while Joe Biden was president of the United States and Justin Trudeau was in his 6^th year as prime minister of Canada, when Pope Francis was seated in Rome and the Rev. Elizabeth Eaton presided as Bishop over the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the word of the Lord came to Rebecca, daughter of Ed and Ann, and guest preacher for the English Speaking Congregation of the Christian Congregational church in Mazatlan, known as the Blue Church, located on the corner of Melchor Ocampo and Cinco de Mayo in El Centro.

We are invited to shut up and listen.  To Wake Up to the Word of the Lord in our ordinary lives, to welcome the coming of God among us.  Amen.

12 Pentecost B, August 8, 2021; YLLC, Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; 1 Kings 19: 4-8

Elijah had had it. He was saying “It is enough!  Just let me die now!  I can’t go one more step or do one more thing!”  It was a hard time to be a prophet for God.  After the death of Solomon, the nation of Israel was split in two, and both kingdoms had been led by a series of mostly bad kings who forgot or ignored the fact that they were meant to follow God’s lead. 

Elijah’s purpose was to bring King Ahab back from worshipping other gods. But Ahab was fully under the sway of his wife, Queen Jezebel.  Elijah had already warned the King that because he had deserted God there would be a famine.  Sure enough, the famine had come and Elijah, fearing for his life took off on the run.  Now, after three years of drought, Elijah came back. He proposed a grand contest between God and the god and goddesses of the Canaanites, Baal and Asherah.  It’s a sort of biblical smack down and it’s one of the most spectacular stories in all of Scripture. 

Elijah says to the prophets and priests of Baal:  “I’ll build an altar over here- you build an altar over there. I’ll get a bull- you get a bull.  I’ll cut my bull in half and lay him on my altar- you cut your bull in half and lay him on your altar. Then we’ll each pray to our God, and whichever God can send a flame first, wins!”

The 950 prophets of Baal and Asherah agree.  The Canaanites start calling on their gods… and calling on their gods…. and calling on their gods… and after a few hours of cheerleading and chanting and singing and praying… there is still no fire.  

Elijah, sitting on the ground with his back leaned up against his altar, watching this spectacle like he is at a Saturday afternoon matinee, starts heckling…  “Hey, is your God asleep?  Is Baal on vacation?”  Eventually, Elijah says: “Enough! Come Close… Watch this.”  

In a stunning act of showmanship Elijah has his attendants soak his altar with water… and then he has them soak it with more water…. and then even more water!  And then he stands back. Of course, the altar goes up in flames.  Before the day is through all the prophets and priests of Baal and Asherah are slaughtered.  Another stunning day in the life of a prophet comes to a close…  and then the rains begin to fall signaling the end of the famine. 

Any sense of triumph or glory was brought to a sudden and dramatic end when word comes that Queen Jezebel, the Baal follower, has cursed Elijah. Because he killed all of her priests, she is going kill him within the next 24 hours! She’s furious and sends people out to find and kill Elijah.  That is how we find Elijah in our reading for today, fleeing for his life, collapsing of fear and exhaustion, and frustration, under the shade of a solitary broom tree. This same Elijah, who just the day before had a spectacular day with God loses it and runs off into the wilderness again.  What a difference a day makes! 

Have you ever been like Elijah?  Oh, I don’t mean have you had such a monumental public thing to do as Elijah did?  I mean, have you ever been under your own solitary broom tree, crying out to God over the conditions you face?  Ever said, “Why me?”   Why do I have these issues in my marriage or in my work?  Why did my get this terrible disease? Ever played the comparison game?  My sister or my friend doesn’t have to face what I do!  Ever doubt that God has any power?  Ever want to just watch Netflix and eat ice cream and make the questions go away for a while?  Ever wanted to yell at God– Where are you in this?  Why don’t you fix this mess, it is too much!  I’ve had it. 

We can’t be too hard on old Elijah, can we?  We have had confidence in God one day, and then the next day we’re questioning, and scared, and running away.  All the things we know about God don’t seem to register. It happens. We’ve been there, and so we understand why he runs into the wilderness.  He’s tired, thirsty, scared, and hopeless, feeling sorry for himself, pitiful really, saying to God, “Take my life. I’m done.” And he cries himself to sleep… a great hard sleep… it’s the only peace he can find, and he takes it.

But God doesn’t leave him there. God doesn’t say, “Oh Elijah, rest, rest. Sleep my child, you’ve had a hard day.” No. Instead, God sends a messenger to wake him up and say, “Get Up!  Eat Something!”   Elijah does get up, and he does eat the bread and drink the water that the messenger gives him. But he’s not quite done with his pity party yet. When he finishes eating, he lays right back down.  Again, the messenger speaks.  “Come on Elijah, get up. Get up and eat.”  You see, Elijah wasn’t done yet. His journey with God wasn’t over, and he would need strength to continue.

It’s important to notice a few things here:

First, a word about messengers: sometimes that word is translated as angel, but it just means a messenger from God.  These Old Testament messengers aren’t supernatural beings with wings and all that.  When the scriptures are referring to that kind of angel another word is used, like seraphim or cherubim.  I think that’s an important thing to know—because I can think of a couple of times when in my life when I felt like I was under the broom tree of self-pity and despair and someone spoke a word of grace to me and helped me get up and keep going.  And I know I’ve played that role for others too. 

Secondly, God didn’t send a messenger to yell at Elijah, or to tell him that he shouldn’t feel scared, or to say, “Hey, don’t you trust God?  Weren’t you paying attention yesterday with the water and the fire? Where’s your faith?”   Thank God that we never get to hear a “tsk, tsk” of disappointment from God when we are afraid and fall short of God’s design for us.  When we’re called on to be messengers of grace for others it’s important to remember that.  Our job in those times is to help them get up and eat, to get moving forward. 

God sent the messenger to show Elijah that God was still present with him and would supply Elijah with everything he needed for what would come next.  Elijah wasn’t alone.  Whatever Jezebel had planned for him- God would faithfully see him through.  It’s a powerful thing to experience, a messenger of grace who brings God’s presence and call and power close to us.

Once when I was as low as I’ve ever been a friend of mine, named Norma, spoke such a word of grace to me.  I talked with her on the phone and she encouraged me.  It was enough to get me going that day.  Then the real gift came a few days later.  She sent me a small package with a note on the top that read.  I wish I could be there to wrap my arms around you and tell you in person that you are strong enough to get through this.  Since I can’t be there, put this on and feel my love holding you.  I pulled back the tissue paper and there was her robe, this robe.  I have to say that the gift was like the food the angel gave Elijah—it had enough strength in it to keep me going for a long time. 

Reading the Old Testament can be a real challenge.  It can be hard to make the leap across nearly 3000 years of cultural and historical differences.  The idea of a contest of gods, complete with sacrificial altars and such can put us off from even trying to understand what in the world these texts might have to say to us.  When we’re reading these ancient texts it’s important to focus on the message God was speaking to the original listeners without getting all tied up on the cultural differences between their time and ours. 

One of the things I just love about the Scriptures is that no matter what we’re feeling, there’s a passage that describes that experience.  When we’re full of praise and rejoicing we can turn to dozens of psalms. When all our feeble voices can croak out is a complaint, then there are plenty of examples of leaders and prophets facing the same despair. 

Elijah wasn’t given any explanations of the hard things facing him. Through a messenger he was given what he needed to get through it. He was also given a commission to keep going.  His work wasn’t done.  God doesn’t strike him down for complaining, but neither is he allowed to wallow in self-pity and pointless comparisons.  It’s as if he was allowed to get it off his chest. Then, freed from it he was able to get past the obstacles to the ordinary, everyday work of doing the will of God. 

Elijah had just been part of a grand display of God’s power.  He might have thought that if God could do that then surely God would take care of Jezebel and her threats too.  But the point is never about what tricks God can do, but who God is.  Miracles aren’t just there for show or even for the results they produce. Biblical miracle stories always point to the power of God. God doesn’t perform them on demand according to our expectations.  Elijah didn’t get another grand gesture from God.  All he got was a messenger who appeared and provided rest and nourishment. God offered what was needed.  God gave food strong enough to keep him going for a long time.  Giving up and ending his life was not the answer.  It never is. 

God provides what we need.  But we often don’t see it as what we need or recognize it as from God.  Elijah went on from the broom tree to Mt. Horeb where he proceeded to whine and complain again.  You know what?  God didn’t scold him that time either.  God can handle our complaints and will give us what we need whether we see it and are open to it or not.  Sometimes we can only see God’s hand leading and guiding and providing long after the fact.

We can come to a place in our journey where things don’t look like we had hoped they would.  We can have one version of what our future is supposed to look like, but sometimes God has another.  God has placed a call on our lives, and when we say “yes” to that call, then as long as we live on this earth, we’ll never be done. Our call isn’t over until God says it’s over and takes us home.  Until then, all of us, no matter what our age, or health, or ability level, or energy level have vital, vibrant ministry to do.  All of us, have something unique to add to the kingdom.  Does that mean that we’ll never be afraid or worried or tired or want to just crawl under the covers and say, “I’m done, God!”?  No, it just means that life and ministry isn’t always what we plan.

Our journey with God sometimes calls us to do things and be things that we may not want to do, or didn’t ever see ourselves doing.  There might be times when things get scary. When the road gets hard that it’s ok to be afraid, or worried, or frustrated;  it’s even ok to feel like giving up. The response will be a command like the one given to the prophet: “Get up and eat.”  It might not seem like enough, but that’s all for now. You don’t have to take on the whole world.  Just get up and eat.  God had more plans for Elijah, and more plans for you and me, I expect.  The bread will come, God will sustain, and we will live anew.  When you can’t take one more step, God can and will send messengers to minister to you. 

On Friday my parents looked out the window to see 5 such messengers. My mother will be starting chemo tomorrow. She doesn’t have the strength she once had. They live on a lake and there’s a nice big sandy beach that my mom has kept up faithfully, clearing the weeds that wash in. In recent years my parents have hired a neighbor’s adult son to help them with chores and maintenance. Ryan is a teacher with summers available for such work. He mows their lawn, does any heavy lifting, stains their house and so forth. Well, on Friday he brought his wife and their 3 children along. They had shovels and rakes and buckets on the beach.  Mom and dad went outside to say hello and Ryan said, “This day is on us and I brought reinforcements.”  The kids were cheerful and worked alongside their parents for a long time.  When they left they gave mom a card and a small plaque which reads:  Cancer can’t prevent Love, conquer the Spirit, take away Memories, weaken Faith, silence Courage, or defeat Hope.

Inside the card they wrote:  Ann, Our family has been thinking about you so much lately. Bravery and courage are two of your greatest assets and we admire you greatly because of that. Our prayer is for you to feel at peace and to know how much you are loved. We hope to put a smile on your face by watching our family clean up your beach, something we know you did with great joy.  Love Ryan, Abby, Alivia, Reggie and Alaina. 

God offers nourishment in so many ways.  No matter how things feel, or what we’ve lost, or what we’re dreading, or what we’ve done, God has a plan for us and never abandons us.  To claim the power of resurrection is to trust that even when we’re under the broom tree of self-pity and fear we will live again.  May we have the wisdom to recognize the messengers God sends to us, and may we have the courage and the grace to be such messengers for others. 

My husband, Steve, and I are dancers.  Our first real date was a ballroom dance lesson.  Steve likes to say he grew up on the MN iron range where polka is a full contact sport.  We take tango lessons in Mexico and typically jump at any chance to dance.  We’re both really looking forward to post pandemic dancing to live music again. I love how alive I feel when we’re dancing.  I love the “flow” of dance, the way the brain stops analyzing and the body and the music meld.

If you have ever been to a music in the park event you might have seen a dancer or two.  Oh, I know, it is usually a sedate crowd, mostly older people well settled into their collapsible lawn chairs.  But the audience is often punctuated by a few young children and even an aging hippie or two, who, like the children, still feel free to dance.  Unimpeded by self-consciousness they move to the music, twirl, lift their hands and shake their booty to the beat. 

I agree with Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th century philosopher who said, “Without music, life would be a mistake… I would only believe in a God who knew how to dance.” Snoopy put it more simply, “To live is to dance, to dance is to live.”  It would be simplistic though to just encourage one to dance, at all times.  Ecclesiastes 3: 4 tells us, “There is a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.”

We see that contrast in today’s first lesson.  The scene is the moving of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, complete with a description of King David cavorting and dancing with all his might, dressed in only a linen ephod, a sort of apron like garment.  From a distance, Queen Michal, looks on with disdain. At first glance it seems that Michal, David’s first wife and the younger daughter of David’s rival, Saul, is scandalized by David’s public dancing.

In the next passage they have a big fight in which they speak caustically to each other, as any estranged spouses might.  I’d love to go on a long diversion here and tell you all about the way Michal had been mistreated over and over, used as a pawn between two power-hungry men.  But that would be another sermon.  I invite you to read 1^st and 2^nd Samuel from start to finish if you haven’t already.  It’s juicier than any TV mini series you’ve ever seen. 

My point in bringing up the contrasting attitudes of David and Michal, though, is to show how shaped by our own perspectives we all are.  We think of David as the successful and bright king of Israel whose close connection to God guided him through his reign, even though the bumpy patches caused by David’s very evident flaws. In today’s text he is jubilant, fully alive and rejoicing, dancing his heart out. 

On the other side of this story is Michal, the rightfully disdainful victim of a lifetime of violation. Any one of us might be scowling from a window, too, if we had been so treated. We come at life from our own particular experiences. Our circumstances play a huge role in whether we dance with all our might or scowl, looking on with resentment and loss. 

This past week I was feeling good—I had my sermon done early.  It was all about praise and rejoicing.  I was going to encourage you to dance like children in the park, to find a way to loosen up and feel the grace of God.  But, then my circumstances changed. 

My mother had been having some apparently manageable medical concerns.  She had a surgery scheduled for a week from tomorrow.  My sister and I had it all worked out who was going to be with her when throughout her recovery. Then in the pre-op physical they found some disturbing results. We all wound up in St. Cloud on Weds through Friday as my mom underwent an urgent and unsuccessful procedure to open her bile duct. She has since been referred to the University of Minnesota hospital for a more complicated procedure, hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday.

All of a sudden, my happy and light sermon didn’t seem to cut it.  That’s how it goes.  Sometimes we’re David, sometimes Michal.  Sometimes we can dance with joy and at other times the music is somber, filled with anxiety or loss. 

As I stood with my dad by my mom’s bedside on Thursday, as she was coming out of the anesthesia the doctor told us about the cancer they found.  A few hours later the Doctor returned to reassure us that the malignancy seems to be localized and small and may be resect-able.

Later, as the Doctor was telling us about the referral to a larger hospital he said, “Don’t worry, I will not abandon you.”  And I heard the comforting words of Jesus to his friends in John 14: 18, sometimes translated I will not leave you comfortless, or orphaned, or abandoned.  Those words were like music to me.  Although I still didn’t feel anything like dancing, I knew that my mother and father and I, my sister and her family, my husband and my kids–and all of us, are held in the gracious embrace of God’s love.  No matter what, we will not be abandoned.  I was so grateful that I could hear the voice of God in that moment. 

Over a quick bite to eat later in the day my dad said something like:  “We’re on a new path, we don’t know where it’s going, but we just need to follow the path.”  And again, through those words I heard the gospel.  One of the blessings of being a pastor is that I have so many prayers memorized from the various liturgies I’ve led over the years.  As my dad spoke I heard Luther’s evening prayer… 

O 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 faith to go out with good courage, not knowing were we go, but only that your hand is leading us, and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

My mom and dad are staying with my sister in the cities right now.  Pastor Doug was ready to step in and lead the service today. But I knew it would be good to be here in this gathering today, even if it meant re-writing my sermon.  I know that message I bring to you today has a deeper meaning than the one I had previously prepared. 

There is a song that’s not in the Lutheran hymnal, but many of you may have heard it.  It’s called “Lord of the Dance” and it was written by English songwriter Sydney Carter in 1963. The melody is from the American Shaker song “Simple Gifts”.  It follows the idea of the traditional English carol, “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day,” which tells the gospel in the first person voice of Jesus, portraying Jesus’ life and mission as a dance.

Carter was inspired partly by Jesus, but also by a statue of the dancing Hindu deity Shiva which sat on his desk. He “did not think the churches would like it at all. … Carter saw Christ as the incarnation of the piper who is calling us, who dances that shape and pattern which is at the heart of our reality.”

If I had figured this out earlier in the week we could have sung this song today, but since I just finished this sermon last night you’ll just have to put up with the words as my closing today. 

I danced in the morning
When the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon
And the stars and the sun,
And I came down from heaven
And I danced on the earth,
At Bethlehem
I had my birth.

Dance, then, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the Dance, said he

I danced for the scribe
And the pharisee,
But they would not dance
And they wouldn’t follow me.
I danced for the fishermen,
For James and John
They came with me
And the Dance went on.

I danced on the Sabbath
And I cured the lame;
The holy people
Said it was a shame.
They whipped and they stripped
And they hung me on high,
And they left me there
On a Cross to die.

I danced on a Friday
When the sky turned black
It’s hard to dance
With the devil on your back.
They buried my body
And they thought I’d gone,
But I am the Dance,
And I still go on.

Dance, then, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the Dance, said he

They cut me down
And I leapt up high;
I am the life
That’ll never, never die;
I’ll live in you
If you’ll live in me –
I am the Lord
Of the Dance, said he.

2nd Pentecost B, June 6, 2021; 2 Corinthians 4: 7- 5:1

Pastor Rebecca Ellenson, YLLC, Treasure in Clay Jars

There is a prayer in the Lutheran service of confirmation during which the pastor, the parents and the sponsors customarily place their hands on the confirmands head.  It goes like this:

Father in heaven, for Jesus’ sake, stir up in Serena, in Jalynn, the gift of your Holy Spirit.  Confirm her faith, guide her life, empower her in her serving, give her patience in suffering and bring her to ever lasting life.

I have know idea how many times I’ve been a part of that invocation of blessing.  Like today, when we prayed over these graduates, each of those confirmation services have been times of celebration.  Proud mothers wipe tears from their eyes.  Fathers even look vulnerable as they gaze down at their child, remembering I’m sure, holding them as newborns, wondering where the years have gone. 

Every time I’ve spoken those words I’ve stumbled, in my mind at least, over the suffering part of the benediction.  On such a bright and hopeful days, the mention of suffering repeatedly jolts me back to reality. It never seems like the day to look a young person’s pain squarely in the eye.  But, none of us experience healing or are a part of the healing of the hurts around us without that stark honesty, without recognizing the inevitablility of weakness, the universality of suffering, and the certainty of human need. 

Paul’s words today point us in that direction too:   So we do not lose heart.  Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 

A few verses earlier Paul spells it out even more clearly.  We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.  For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.

As we age we start to understand those words.  As we experience suffering, destruction, affliction we look to the eternal with hope.  This week I’ve been talking with good friend of ours who is struggling right now, just released from the hospital.  He has been fighting a chronic form of blood cancer for over 15 years. Thanks to modern medicine he has lived a fairly normal life up until now, but as his bone marrow fails his illness takes a greater toll.  He’s a retired pastor and has lived a giving life, adopting three boys, educating them and providing a loving and stable home.  They are now caring for him. 

It will come to us all… in some form or another.  We are mortal flesh.  This year we have seen so clearly the limits of this life.  Another friend of ours adheres to the principles of a book called Younger Next Year, eating right and exercising enthusiastically.  Yet, he suffered this year through the effects of an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning incident.  He has slowly recovered and he and those close around him have learned the excruciating lesson that controlling our future is only an illusion.  We are not younger next year.

When I was in high school a friend gave me a precious moments style button to wear that showed a little child holding a little lamb.  The words read, “He is my gentle shepherd.”  The button touched something in me.  I felt comforted, as if life with God was meant to be nice, like a precious moments picture.  

I wore that button for years, on a down vest of mine, until one day I saw a painting that changed my understanding of God and my relationship with God. 

          *The painting showed a shepherd climbing down a rugged cliff. 

          *With one hand he gripped a rock and with the other he reached down to a sheep that had fallen to a ledge below. 

          *The painter portrayed the danger and the promised rescue, the mixture of terror and trust for the lost sheep. 

          *A bird of prey circled overhead. 

          *The shepherd’s face showed the strain, his arm muscles knotted with the exertion, hands and arms were gashed by thorns. 

          *The shepherd’s garment was torn in the steep descent. 

That painting of the savior was so different from the button I had and from the typical picture of the shepherd in a spotless white robe strolling along a grassy level path, carrying an equally spotless and placid lamb. 

I remember standing in front of that painting of the sheep in danger and knowing that Jesus spent all his energy to heal, hold, reach, and lift people to life.  Compassion, strength, concentration, and determination are the condition of God.  Our condition is need.  The button touched something in me, that I believe exists in each of us– a longing for tranquility and security, a longing for the brokenness of life to be gone.  On a confirmation day, or a celebration of graduation, or at the end of a pandemic we want pure celebration. 

That rugged painting reached way into me, touching the deep reality of the human condition, and showing me that God does not erase the difficulties but enters them and helps us through them.

The painting is like Paul’s words about being weak vessels– afflicted, perplexed, and struck down. They ring true.  They match the world we live in, not a precious moments world of pastel colors but a world that includes raging hunger and starvation, a pandemic, the senseless killing of warfare, oppression, violence and… on and on it goes. 

Here we are, on the first Sunday in June, the beginning of summer, a weekend of graduation parties. An easing of covid restrictions. It is a hopeful, happy time. What do we hear today? Paul’s honest appraisal of life in Christ in a broken world.  We may long for a precious moments gospel that paints life in pastel colors and makes us feel nice and secure,  But all the positive thinking in the world will never be powerful enough to meet the needs of the world. 

Paul said, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.    For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.  So, death is at work in us, but life in you. 

With Christ the full message is there, life through death.  There is no denial of reality but a call to fully embrace all of existence with the kind of compassionate commitment of Jesus.  For the life of Jesus to be made visible in , we have to carry the death of Jesus in our bodies as well. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany.  He was part of a failed assassination attempt on Hitler.  For his part in that plot, he was jailed.  From prison he sent letters to close friends.  Those letters contain some of the best theology ever written, I believe. 

          “Like Christ,” he wrote, “Christians must drink the earthly cup to the dregs, and only in doing so is the crucified and risen Lord with them, and they crucified and risen with Christ.” 

Christ was not some aloof God who came to earth from on high to intervene and do some miracles and then leave untouched by the world’s harshness.  In Christ, God does not offer some glib answer to the agonizing problems of life.  God chooses to suffer with those who suffer.

Bonhoeffer preached an Advent sermon during the war in which he said,

          Christians are faced with the shocking reality:  Jesus stands at the door and knocks, in complete reality.  He asks you for help in the form of a beggar, in the form of a ruined human being in torn clothing.  He confronts you in every person that you meet.  Christ walks on the earth as your neighbor, as long as there are people. 

The life of Jesus lives in us when we are little Christs to those in need.  The life of Jesus lives in us when we open our eyes to the affliction, perplexity, and persecution within and around us. Only then can the light shine out of the darkness.  Only then can the real extraordinary power of God heal, and hold, and reach and lift the lost back to life. 

Paul says we are like clay jars holding a treasure.  In modern language I guess we might say we are like styrofoam cups or cardboard boxes.  We are made for use where needed.  Our only value comes from what we carry, a treasure, the extraordinary power of God for a world in great need.  AMEN

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.