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One night during my sophomore year at a small Lutheran liberal arts college, I was taking what I thought would be a shortcut through the Student Center, up a short flight of stairs and through what was normally an empty lounge area. But, that night, it was full of people listening to two women singing. I was in a hurry, and thought about turning around and taking another route, but one of the singers was my cousin, Dorthy. I stopped to listen as they sang, Part the Waters. I’m so glad I did—it’s a song that 40 years later still sounds in my head with its comforting words.  You can listen to it by clicking the link below: 

The lyrics go like this:

When I think I’m going under, part the waters, Lord
When I feel the waves around me, calm the sea
When I cry for help, oh hear me Lord
And hold out Your hand
Touch my life
Still the raging storm in me

Knowing You love me
Through the burdens I must bear
Hearing Your footsteps
Let’s me know I’m in Your care
And in the night of my life
You bring the promise of day
Here is my hand
Show me the way

When I think I’m goin’ under
Part the waters Lord
When I feel the waves around me, calm the sea
When I cry for help, oh hear me Lord
And hold out Your hand
Touch my life
Still the raging storm in me

Knowing You love me
Helps me face another day
Hearing Your footsteps
Drives the clouds and fears away
And in the tears of my life
I see the sorrow You bore
Here is my pain
Heal it once more

When I think I’m goin’ under
Part the waters Lord
When I feel the waves around me, calm the sea
When I cry for help, oh hear me Lord
And hold out Your hand
Touch my life
Still the raging storm in meTouch my life
Still the raging storm in me

I always associate that song with the text for today:

But now thus says YHWH, the one who created you, O Jacob, the one who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have vindicated you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am YHWH, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.

Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “give them up,” and to the south, “do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth- everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Isaiah 43: 1-7

This is one of my go-to scriptures. I use it with people when they are in a bad way, when they are suffering, or dying, or losing a loved one, or so low they think they’ll never smile again. I call on it myself when I’m feeling overwhelmed or discouraged or afraid. When I hear this text and imagine what it would sound like to hear the voice of God speak these words to me, I hear it in my mother’s fiercely protective, familiar and loving voice. She was always able to comfort me, to calm the raging storm in me, to encourage me. I know how blessed I have been to have known the love of a close and healthy family. It’s easy for me to make a step from knowing I am loved by my family, to knowing God loves me.

I understand that for some who haven’t known that unconditional parental love may struggle with the image of God as a parent who loves so extravagantly. Yet that is the message Isaiah proclaimed: God will be with us and will protect us. God created us, formed us, named us, called us, and says we belong to God, that we are created for God’s glory.

As a mother myself I resonate with this text—for I named my children. They were formed and made inside me- they are mine, they are precious in my sight, honored, loved. I would give whole nations in exchange for them if I had nations to give. I want to encourage them and build them up and instill in them the belief that love will see them through the mightiest floods or fires, that what matters most cannot be touched by rivers of water or flames.

This image of God that I hold is reinforced in the previous chapter of Isaiah where the prophet tells us that God says, “I am YHWH, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you…For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant.”  Isaiah 42: 6 and 14. We see God as a mother taking her children by the hand and keeping them safe, having labored to bring them to life. Throughout this whole section of the prophet Isaiah, called the Book of Comfort, we find the love of God expressed passionately, assuring the people of God’s fathomless, fierce and tender, gentle and strong commitment and devotion.

God’s estimation of us as beloved, cherished, named and claimed as children of God can be difficult to take to heart. Such an identity can take time to be believed and absorbed.  May we take the time to soak in the love of God and live from the sense of self that comes from knowing God is with us, in all things.  Amen.

January 2, 2022; ICCM; Praises Be!; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Last Tuesday Steve and I took some friends to Las Labradas, the archeological north of Mazatlan, located right on the Tropic of Cancer. We’ve been there many times and every time it impresses us. Between the waves and the sand lies a quarter of a mile long stretch of volcanic boulders on which were carved over 600 drawings. There are geometric shapes: circles, spirals, crosses; human figures in various poses: hunting, raising their hands to the sun, even giving birth; animals and plants as well as depictions of an eclipse and a comet. And there are pictures that defy explanation.  Most of the carvings are dated to the Aztatlán Period from 750 to 1250 AD but some were made as long ago as 3000 BC. Each time I am there I am astounded by the way the petroglyphs speak across the ages, communicating what the people experienced so long ago. The cover image on my blog features a photo I took the first time we were there.

Well, last Tuesday was even more spectacular than any other visit. We were just about to leave when we spotted two whales frolicking in the waves about 200 yards from shore. They breached and surfaced, they slapped the water with their glorious tails and rolled side to side, displaying their flippers—for 30 minutes! There we were, literally standing on ancient communication, watching, with mouths agape, a very present demonstration of the living mystery of the cosmos. We were dwarfed by time, and size and beauty. I have tried to describe it to you, but explanations fail. I felt so alive and aware.

The psalm we read responsively in worship last Sunday has been rolling through my mind since that encounter on the beach. Psalm 148 instructs all creation to praise God.

Praise God, from heaven—all angels, sun, moon, and stars for God made it all!

Praise God from earth—sea monsters, all deeps, fire, wind, hail, snow, frost, mountains, hills, fruit trees, cedars, wild animals, cattle, creeping things, flying birds!

Praise God you kings, all peoples, princes, all rulers, young men and women, old and young alike, Praise the Lord!

There on the shoreline, the whales, the rocks, the sunshine and the waves all demonstrated the glory of God. The loud booms of sound from the whales’ tails announced the grandeur of creation. The people scattered across the rocks, young and old, men and women, locals and tourists stood with mouths agape for a half an hour, exclaiming at the marvel of life itself. The water stretched to the horizon so far that the curvature of the earth was visible. No wonder the ancient people of that place carved their praise on the rocks!

Like the psalm from last Sunday, today’s readings sing the praises of God in poetic form. Eugene Peterson, who wrote the biblical paraphrase called The Message, points out that about 60% of the bible is poetry. He says, “poets tell us what our eyes, blurred by too much gawking and our ears, dulled by too much chatter, miss around and within us. Poets use words to drag us into the depth of reality itself. They do it not by reporting on how life is, but by pushing-pulling us into the middle of it. Poetry grabs for the jugular. Far from being cosmetic language it is intestinal. It is root language. Poetry doesn’t so much tell us something we never knew as bring into recognition what is latent, overlooked, or suppressed. Poetry forces us to slow down.”

Today’s readings are dense, written with exquisite artistry and care, each word carefully chosen to convey the overwhelming love of God for all creation. Both texts announce the same message, that the Christ is the pattern of existence. Christ was present with God before the cosmos began, fully revealed in Jesus, and continues to be revealed in the us, the children of God who live in Christ.

I slowed down to spend some time with these poetic this week in their original Greek. Those of you who’ve heard me preach before know that I’m a bible nerd. I could spend years studying these texts and never exhaust the depth. I’m going to try to share some of that fascination with you today in a manageable way.

Biblical poetry is different from what we normally think of as poetry in the western modern world. I printed the texts out for you in a different format. Let’s start with the gospel.  Let’s read it responsively.  This side is going to read the left-hand column and this side is going to read the right-hand column. Look for parallelism, a thought presented once and then repeated a little differently for emphasis and deeper meaning.  Look for how Christ is portrayed, as one with God, and one with us from before time began, as the pattern of life and light.

1 In the beginning was the Word,             and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.                          ² He was in the beginning with God.

³ All things came into being through him,      and without him not one thing came into being.

What has come into being ⁴ in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 

⁵ The light shines in the darkness,   and the darkness did not overcome it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 

⁸ He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.^[b]

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 

¹¹ He came to what was his own,^[c] and his own people did not accept him. 

¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 

¹³ who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and lived among us,

and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,^[d] full of grace and truth. 

¹⁵ (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 

¹⁶ From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 

¹⁷ The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 

¹⁸ No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son,^[e] who is close to the Father’s heart,^[f] who has made him known.

John 1 is not doctrine so much as it is a doxology. In the last few years, I’ve been fascinated by these New Testament hymn to Christ. They distill the beliefs of the early church, proclaiming the incarnation as the very goal of creation itself. Another one of these hymns is found in Colossians chapter 1

“Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him, all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

These texts express that deep mystery of God in Christ, and Christ in us, and God revealed in the cosmos. In them we hear echoes of the poetry of Genesis, when God spoke the world into being. They tell us that the Incarnation of Christ in Jesus is not a fall-back plan made necessary by sin, but actually is the very purpose of creation. 

The great thinker Albert Einstein put it this way:

There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is LOVE.

When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force. Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it. Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others. Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals. For love we live and die. Love is God and God is Love.

God laid the foundation of existence so that it reveals God’s own love and goodness. God is within all that God has made, wooing us, whispering to us to choose in our freedom the most beautiful future intended by God’s own self.  Jesus called that future the kingdom of God, a world in which love, justice and equality would reign.  There’s a line in the Talmud that says, “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers: “Grow, grow”. That’s how God relates to us, always alluring us to grow in the direction of love.

Jesus is our exemplar for this life lived in the image of God. The Word, the Logos, is the mind of God- what the Old Testament referred to as Wisdom and that Word is working through all creation, through the Tropic of Cancer and the crashing waves, through the slapping tails of whales, or the birth of a child.

Ilia Delio puts it this way “The Incarnation represents not a divine response to a human need for salvation but instead the divine intention from all eternity to raise human nature to the highest point of glory by uniting it with divine nature.” God is perfect love and wills according to the perfection of that love. Since perfect love cannot will anything less than the perfection of love, Christ would have come in the highest glory in creation even if there was no sin and thus no need for redemption.

Jesus said, “anyone who sees me has seen the Father.” If we want to see what the divine looks like when fully aligned with the human form we just need to look to Jesus. Paul says in Romans 11, “for from him and through him and to him are all things.”

Salvation is not just deliverance from sin but fulfillment of who God is in Christ for all creation. If we reduce Jesus to just helping us get rid of sin, we lose fulfilment of Gods purposes for all of creation in Christ and in the church as a continuation of incarnation. Certainly, salvation is the overcoming of sin, but the fullness of redemption is the completion of creation’s purpose. The outworking of the love as we see in Jesus is the very essence of God. The whole point of who God is and what God does is summed up in the incarnate Christ.  That’s what we find expressed in our reading from Ephesians.

Let’s turn the handout over now.  These 14 verses have been called the most monstrous sentence conglomeration ever seen in the Greek language.  When it is translated as prose it becomes a 200 word mess of subordinate clauses and phrases. As I said earlier, I’m a bible nerd.  I spent some time studying this passage this week, looking at it in Greek for clues to its structure.  I wound up learning that it follows a Greek poetic form of lyric poetry called and Ode, intended to stir the listener’s emotive response through rhythm and musical accompaniment.  So I examined it as if it were a song, looking for recurrent phrases and patterns. 

I didn’t have time to figure out how to make it sound like poetry in English, to include the alliteration present in the original language, for example.  But I think I was able to show you a little of it by using the formatting of the text.  As I read this poem, follow along and look for the ideas I just told you about:  how in Jesus the Christ the blessing of God is carried out, and how we and all believers are included in that belonging.  Note the refrain that God’s plan is for us to live to the praise of God’s grace and glory.  Note that nearly every line ends with “in him” or some equivalent of that phrase.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

The one who has blessed us

with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ

As God chose us in him

Before the foundation of the cosmos, to be holy and unblemished before him

Predestining us to God’s self, through adoption as children through Jesus Christ

According to the good pleasure of the will of him

To the praise of the glory of the grace of him

Through which he has freely given to us in the Beloved

In whom we have redemption through the blood of him

The forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of the grace of him

Which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery will of him

According to the good pleasure of him

Which he purposed in him

As a plan for the fullness of time, to gather together all things in Christ

Things of heaven and on the earth in him

In whom we also were chosen as heirs, predestined according to the purpose of him

The one who accomplishes all things according to the will of him

So that we should be to the praise of the glory of him

We who had previously hoped in Christ, and you also,

hearing the word of truth, and believing the gospel of your salvation

You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance

until the redemption of those who are God’s possession

To the praise of the glory of him.

Christ is more than just a historical person who walked this earth for 33 years, though he is that. He is more than a great teacher, marvelous miracle-worker, and extraordinary moral-exemplar, though he is that too. Indeed, Christ is even more than the God- man who died for our sins and rose from the dead, though that is a crucial part of his identity. Christ, the scriptures tell us, is also someone and something within the very structure of the cosmos itself, the pattern on which the universe was conceived, is built, and is now developing.

Last week’s lesson from Paul’s the letter to the Colossians says this: “Christ is the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created … all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together.”

In addition to these great passages of scriptures, we have some other texts from the earliest days of the church too, that outline this idea.  In the second century there was a man named Irenaeus who left us some amazing writing. He was born in Smyrna (modern day Turkey) and  studied under another writer, Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John. That’s amazing isn’t it, that we have these messages that endure across the ages. Irenaeus became the Bishop of Lyon, in what is now Southern France. In about the year 185 he wrote the first systematic exposition of the Christian faith, called “Against Heresies.”  In it he says something that seems to be based on these hymns we’ve been looking at.  He said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive. The life of humanity is the vision of God.”

I love that! When we are fully alive, we display the glory of God. As we follow Christ we become more alive. What can we say but, Praise God! 

Let us pray– come into our hearts Lord Jesus, come in today, come in to stay.  Fill us with the wonder of your love.  Amen.

When my son was about 6 years old he asked me if God hides from us.  Then, without missing a beat he told me God must be like The Flash, a superhero from comic books who can zip from one place to another before you can see he’s gone.   

Understanding who God is or what God is like can be very hard.  Children know that and so does anyone else who has tried to explain God to a child.  Children learn that God can hear their prayers and the prayers of all other people at the same time. Children learn that God is with us all the time and with everyone else too.  Understanding God can be hard. 

It can seem like God is hiding from us even when we grow up.  But, because of Jesus we don’t’ not have to guess about God any more– God came out of hiding, so to speak.  We see who God is when we see Christ.  All we need to know about God is in Jesus.  That is something even a child can understand. 

When my daughter was about 6 years old she was sitting at the kitchen table coloring in an Advent/Christmas coloring book—because that’s what preacher’s kids do—sometimes.  She started to tell me about the picture.  She pointed to the manger and said, “That’s Jesus lying there.”  She pointed to the woman kneeling by the mange rand said, “That’s his mother Mary.”  Then she pointed to the man standing next to Mary and said, “That’s God.” 

I corrected her, “No, that’s Joseph.”

“But I thought God was Jesus’ father… If that’s not God then who is God?”

“Well, God isn’t a man like Joseph,” I said.  “God isn’t a person at all.”   I thought to myself, so much for all my training.  How do you explain God to a 6 year old.  I said something like, “God created everything and can’t be seen like Joseph could.  God is power and truth.”  I could see her puzzling over what I said.  I think I tried to explain saying something like, “The bible says that the Spirit of God is like the wind that blows where it wills…”

She interrupted me with a roll of her eyes and something like, “Well, that doesn’t make any sense at all!”

So I started over, once again.  “The bible also says that God shows us all we need to know about God in Jesus.” 

Relief and understanding came back into the conversation. “Yeah,” she said, “God sent Jesus to show us what God is like. That’s right.”

All we need to know about God can be found in Jesus.  Paul said it this way, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. He is the image of the invisible God.”  In Hebrews 1, v. 3 we find a similar verse—“He is the reflection of God’s glory and is the exact imprint of Gods very being.” Those are some of my favorite bible verses.  They direct me, like a child, back to Christ as all I really need to know about God. 

There is a wonder to this season that draws out the child in each of us and answers the longings and questions of us all.  Something about little babies captivates us all– from the toughest and oldest to the youngest and sweetest.  Toddlers who are just learning to talk learn “baby” as one of their first words.  New parents can watch their newborns for long stretches of time.  Respectable, dignified, reasonable adults become gibbering fools when their grandchildren are born.  Maybe it is the helpless dependence of children that captivates us.  Maybe it is the miracle of birth and life itself.  Add to all of that natural appreciation of babies the fact that in Jesus we have God the child and we have the childlike wonder of Christmas. 

Today’s gospel presents us with Jesus at the age of twelve. But, you’ll pardon me if, on the day after Christmas, I stick with the baby Jesus and the child in all of us for today. 

I recall my childhood memories of Christmas.  It seemed almost a magical time– a time when anything could happen.  I remember shopping with my mom and sister and wanting to linger in front of a particular store window in Fargo that had a display each year of moving dolls.  I remember thinking that they were real, and that they only lived at Christmas time.  There were special decorations brought out of wrapping and handled with care.  There were candles.  Christmas, too, was a season of secrets and surprises. 

Certainly, the traditions are not the main point of Christmas.  They are like the accompaniment to a melody.  The traditions can become like the squiggles of a doodle.  Everyone knows how to doodle, during a long boring class or meeting you start by making a shape, say a circle or a star, then you add other shapes around the original one, expanding and spreading all over the paper.  Before you know it you can’t see where you started, the simple beginning is swallowed up in adornment. 

Christmas too, started simply.  And because it is special, we have adorned our celebrations with countless wonderful decorations and traditions– shopping, presents, parties, trees, twinkling lights, stockings, carols, concerts, foods, candlelight  and so on.  We have to be careful not to lose sight of the simple truth from which it all began. 

You have not come here today for the beauty of the sanctuary as it is decorated for Christmas. You come here week after week, and year after year, to hear again the story of God come close to us in Jesus.  There is a hunger in our souls, a hunger we are often not even aware of, that draws us to hear the story of the Child born so that we may be free, united with God, and so that we may learn to love one another. 

Christmas is a time for all of us, no matter what our situation.  Within each of us is someone who needs love and comfort and security.  There is a child in each of us, no matter how old, who wants loving arms to rush into when we are hurt or sad or lonely.  Who doesn’t want a gift?  Not everyone has happy memories of Christmases.  Some come from non-beleiving homes, or from homes that were scarred by a host of problems.  Some people carry with them memories of significant losses that happened near Christmas time.  If we did not get the love we needed as children, or if we’re nogetting the love we need now it can be even more important to hear the message of Christmas.  No matter who else has let us down, no matter what hurts we carry, the message of Christmas is that God has come out of hiding and will never fail us. 

I heard Dr. Jim Nestingen, from Luther Seminary, tell a story once about a pastor he knew and respected named Edmund Smits.  Visitation to a psychiatric hospital was a regular part of Pastor Smit’s ministry.  One of the people he visited there was a woman in a catatonic state.  She did not have a physical reason to be paralyzed but she did not move and did not respond to any contact or communication.  This pastor went in to see her regularly, even though the staff did not think it would do any good.  He spoke to her and read to her and prayed with her.  Before he left her, he would repeat these words,  “No matter who else let you down, Jesus never will.”  He did this for 70 days straight.  Finally she responded.  The Christmas gospel can reach through even the toughest barriers.  God has come out of hiding.  In Jesus and his love we are shown just what God is like. 

The gospel is as simple as Christmas–simple enough for a child, for the child in each of us. For God so loved the world that a savior was born to an unknown couple in a faraway place. Jesus was born, like all the rest of us.  God took on our lives and transforms them. 

The Christ child comes to us, asking us to receive him as a child with wonder and awe and trust and to welcome others with grace and love, as we should welcome children.  This little child grew up to tell the people

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. 

Let us pray.  Your little ones dear Lord are we, and come your lowly bed to see, enlighten every soul and mind, that we the way to you may find.  Oh draw us wholly to you Lord, and to us all your grace accord, true faith and love to us impart, that we may hold you in our heart.  Amen.

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