emm in sem

Clerics and knowing when the time is right

2013-05-18T18:12:00.002-05:00

From BuzzFeed

I don't wear a collar at my internship church.

Pastor Deb, when she was with us, didn't wear one -- I don't think I ever saw her in one. I asked about it, early on, when all my seminary colleagues were scrambling to get their hands on shirts and albs before they left. Deb said that when she was starting the church, the collar came up as a barrier -- people didn't like it. It felt too formal, too much like a line to cross, a boundary to the relationship. So Deb didn't wear a collar, and neither did I.

Our interim pastor, Hollie, wears a collar, for many reasons. Most of her Sunday best are collared shirts. And when she was new to the congregation, it was an easy way to identify her.

I haven't taken up the practice, because it just didn't feel like the right time. I will always be an Episcopalian at heart, with a sense for "the proper time" for formal things, and I never felt like there was a proper time for me to start wearing the collar, after I'd not been wearing one for so long.

Last week, I was slaving away at finals. I would write, between Monday and Thursday, twenty-four double-spaced pages of essays. I had been dismissed from most of my church duties in order to focus on my schoolwork.

In between notes on Finke and Stark's The Churching of America and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and Wolf's Lutherans in North America, I kept my eye on Twitter and Facebook, on the slow but constant stream of updates about the House vote on the same-sex marriage bill.

At 1:30pm, I declared: "This is ridiculous. I fought for this. I marched for this. I flash-mob-danced for this. I can't not be there."

And when I texted my friend Amy that I was on my way, hoping to make it there before they took the vote, she said, "Margaret and I are in our clericals."

Amy, as a pulpit supply preacher, has worn hers before. Margaret is an ordained ELCA pastor who wears hers when she hangs out at the Wellness Center in St. Paul. Mine hung in my closet, pressed, dusted with the cat hair that pervades my wardrobe no matter if I've worn it or not.

Until Monday.

Because it was the right time.

Because I took just my cell phone and my wallet (and my red chucks), but I carried so much more with me.

I carried with me the female priests and pastors who, since I was four years old at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, have modeled for me the graceful nature of female leadership in the face of Christians who claim we are not worthy.
I carried with me the memory of my uncle, Father Maynard, whose passing in November left his traveling companion Vern without his closest friend of forty years.
I carried with me the many words and hugs of Bruce Benson and Jennifer Koenig, my campus pastors at Olaf, as they guided me through my first steps toward candidacy and seminary.
I carried with me the pastors and lay leaders of the ELCA who have stood up, over and over and over again, for the ordination of people in "publicly accountable lifelong monogamous same-gender relationships". Including Jen Nagel and Jane McBride, and their brilliant and beautiful witness. And Anita Hill and her decades of work. And Margaret Kelly, my guide through the muddle of a queer life at Luther Seminary, and my mission partner and colleague and friend.
I carried with me my colleagues from Luther, the multitudes of women and men who have laid hands on my own call and affirmed it. I especially carried my dear friend Jill, who has been my seminary partner since our first week on campus and started the seminary LGBTQ & allied support and fellowship group with me. I carried with me her fiance Gretchen, and the beauty of their love, which I have been blessed to see blossom since CPE two years ago and now I will rejoice and dance my ass off for in August when they marry.
And in the best sense of a Lutheran pastor, who is called to serve in the office of pastor for a community, I carried with me everyone at Light of the World who has supported me in my openness and public ministry. I carried with me every stranger who has found my blog or my Tumblr and reached out to say "Yes. Yes. Me too." I carried with me my youth from Lutheran Church of Christ the Redeemer who have been raised in a church with a gay pastor and a gay youth minister and a gay organist and didn't blink twice at a gay children's education director.

One of the many groups of clergy at the capitol that day

My clerics have been broken in, in the dreams of so many who I carried and so many who have carried me. They have been baptized in sweat and exhaustion, in long hours leaning against the marble walls of the rotunda, in shouts of "Vote Yes!" and songs of praise and hope.

It was the right time.

Not a sliver left to hide behind: a rereading of Isaiah 30:12-22

2013-05-12T21:35:00.000-05:00

-----

“Let Go and Let God”
This slogan can be an antidote to the desire many of us have to control the uncontrollable. Instead of relying upon our ego or self-will to direct our lives and the lives of others, we draw upon the strength, wisdom, and compassion of a Power greater than ourselves.
- How Al-Anon Works for Families and Friends of Alcoholics

As long as I kept them trapped inside me, my feelings were painful and poisonous secrets. When I let them out, they became expressions of my vitality.
- Courage to Change, April 23

-----

Thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
Because you believed that appearance was more beautiful than vulnerability,
and put your trust in control rather than truth,
an honest word will shatter you,
and revelation will be like a crack in a high dam.
If you will not cede control, it will be wrested from you.
If you sacrifice your soul to protect a facade,
then God will free you
by shattering it beyond repair.
There will be no shield to give yourself cover,
not a sliver left to hide behind.
The only safety left for you will be in the shelter of God's wings.
Only in surrender will you find the power you have longed for;
only when you let go will you be strong.
If you try to run, the truth will follow you.
If you hide, you will find honesty still with you.
The cave where you conceal your heart
will be filled with light that searches you out.
But do not be afraid.
God is sitting like a dog at the door, waiting to love you.
The Lord is longing to rise like the sun
with a glow of mercy and grace.
God has promised to set all things right;
trust in the Lord, and on God's own timing.
On that day, your tears will cease.
In that hour, your weeping will be a siren in God's ear,
and the Lord will come swiftly to answer.
You may be given bread that leaves you hungry
and water that dries your tongue,
but when you eat and drink, you will see God face to face.
Your path will be illuminated with enough light to see by,
and you will be blinded to anything but justice and peace.
With each step, solid ground will rise to meet you,
and you will hear a voice behind your shoulder, saying,
"Yes. This is what you were made for."
Then all that you trusted in, every brightly polished veneer,
all the gold and silver of the lies you told yourself,
will look like water and waste.
And then in returning to yourself
and resting in your God
you shall be saved.
Your heart will be quiet,
your soul trusting,
and your whole life strong.

Sermon for May 12, 2013 on Acts 8:26-40: Lines, laws, and dangerous beauty

2013-05-12T21:17:00.000-05:00

Children's Message

I invited the kids forward to help share a "very important message." I passed out 8 1/2 x 11 pieces of paper, taped together with numbers on the outside -- 1, 2, 3, etc -- and letters on the inside.

I asked what kind of rules we needed to put these letters into a message. "Like a puzzle," I said. "You can't just put the pieces anywhere." So we started with person #1 in line, and then #2 next to them, making a straight line across the front of the room.

But then I said, "Maybe we need some more rules. To make sure we do this right. How about anyone under the age of four has to stand on the other side of the room?" My three-year-olds looked at me with confused wonder. "Okay. Under four years old, stay where you are. But how about if you're over ten? Then maybe you should move to the back."

One of my confirmation kids gave me that "This isn't going to work" kind of look.

"Okay. Anyone wearing pink should stand on a red line." More kids moved. The line was broken. "And anyone wearing blue should be on a blue line." At this point they were getting confused. Where were they supposed to be?

"Okay!" I said, with false bravado. "Show your letters!"

It was, of course, a jumble of chaos. We had too many rules.

So we got back into one line, and we lined up our letters, and one of our seven-year-olds couldn't get his right-side up, but it didn't matter because when the congregation got it, they got it:

We hung the letters on clothespins, and the kids went back to their seats.

---

Acts 8:26-40

Reader 1: An angel of the Lord said to Philip,

Reader 2: Get up and go towards the south to the wilderness road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

Reader 1: So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip,

Reader 2: Go over to this chariot and join it.

Reader 1: So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked,

Reader 3: Do you understand what you are reading?

Reader 1: He replied,

Reader 4: How can I, unless someone guides me?

Reader 1: And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:

Reader 5: 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 his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.

Reader 1: The eunuch asked Philip,

Reader 4: About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?

Reader 1: Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said,

Reader 4: Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?

Reader 1: He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

-----

Sermon

The Ethiopian eunuch doesn’t have a name. Did you notice that? He never gets a name. He’s just “the eunuch.” And this is the only time the Scriptures talk about him. We don’t know what happens or where he ends up. He’s a minor character, whose path crosses with Philip and then who “goes on his way rejoicing.” We don’t know what his life is like after this encounter. He could have started a church in Ethiopia. He could have cashed in his high-ranking job and come back to Jerusalem, bringing all his money to add to the growing new church. We don’t know. We never hear of him again. And we don’t even know his name.

It’s good to be curious when a character in the New Testament doesn’t have a name. After all, everyone has one. When a name gets forgotten, when it isn’t written down, the writers turn to descriptions instead. We do this too, right? “Do you know so-and-so? You know, they look like this, they work at this place...” When names don’t work, we have to describe. So this Ethiopian, a powerful man in charge of the entire treasury of the queen Candace, becomes just “the eunuch,” “the eunuch,” “the eunuch.”

But this is a good place to be curious, because being forced to call the eunuch just “the eunuch” would have sounded very different to the first readers and hearers of the book of Acts. For us, we get a little queasy. But for the first readers and hearers, the mention of a eunuch would have been shocking. It would have reminded them of a rule, of one of the lines clearly drawn in their religious life as Jews, in Deuteronomy 23:1: "No eunuch may enter the assembly of the LORD."

It was spelled out very clearly, in the Torah, in the books of the Law of the Jewish people. Eunuchs could not belong. So this Ethiopian eunuch has traveled hundreds of miles to Jerusalem to worship, but he can’t go inside the temple. He is truly an outsider.

He is one of what the New Testament calls "God-fearers" -- people who know of the Jewish god, people who pray to this God and travel to Jerusalem to worship and study the Jewish scriptures, but are still outsiders looking in. Because there are rules. There are lines. For good order, right? If we want to preach the message correctly, there have to be some rules.

And the Ethiopian eunuch is a rich and powerful man -- very different from Philip and the rest of the first disciples and believers, who were working-class, fishermen and tax collectors and tentmakers. Philip has just traveled about forty miles, most likely on foot. His sandals are caked with mud. His tunic is sweaty and smelly. The eunuch inviting Philip into his chariot is on the level of Hillary Clinton pulling over Air Force One and inviting one of us inside.

So when the Ethiopian eunuch asks, "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" the answer is everything. Race, and religion, and class, and his own body. Everything about him makes him an outsider from the people of God. There are so many lines between him and Philip. So many rules about what is allowed, what is appropriate, what is acceptable. Philip is looking over at this grand chariot and shaking his head, going, "Well, he's certainly not who I came for."

But the Spirit has already taken Philip forty miles south, traveling through desert and wilderness. And the Spirit says, "Go over to this chariot and join it."

See, I have this sneaking suspicion that God does not really care about a lot of our rules. That some of them are like sending ten year olds to only stand at the back, and kids wearing red to only stand on red lines. Some rules are good for getting the message across. But some rules just make it harder and harder to hear God's promise of grace. And God is on a mission to break through those rules and cross those lines to make sure the message is heard. God is on a mission to bring us into relationship, to break down walls and fears so that we can see and hear how very much we are loved.

We see this in the life of Jesus. Jesus, who was always doing what he shouldn’t. Jesus, who talked with women, even though it wasn’t socially proper; and with and Samaritans, even though they didn’t believe as he did. Jesus, who touched lepers and dead little girls, even though it made him ritually unclean. Jesus, who healed on the Sabbath, even though no work was supposed to be done. Jesus whose actions said, over and over again, “I will not let there be lines to cross to receive God’s grace. There are no rules to God's abundant love."

And now the Spirit is breathing into the disciples, inspiring them to "get up and go." Go south to the wilderness road. Go up to the chariot. Go into the water. Because God's message of grace is not just for the Jewish people. It's for the whole world.

God's message of grace is not just for people who look like us, who worship in the same temple, who stand on our side of the line.

This is beautiful. And this is dangerous.

The book of the Acts of the Apostles is full of stories of the Jewish people of God recognizing that the message is not just for them. The Holy Spirit is falling on the Gentiles as well as the Jews. These Gentiles, these pagans, who have long been called “not God’s people,” are receiving the Spirit and asking to be baptized and listening eagerly to the message of Jesus. Over and over in the book of Acts, the Jewish believers come together and say: These people are outsiders. They’re on the other side of the line, on the wrong side of the rules. But God is doing something among them. God is trying to draw them in. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe they shouldn’t be outsiders. Maybe they are God’s people too.

These are important stories -- not just for them, but for us. We are a people hungry for a taste of God, for a promise of grace, but so many of us have walked into churches -- and out of churches -- saying to ourselves, "That's not for me. I'm an outsider. I'm too selfish, too anxious, too depressed, too sick, too rich, too poor, too confident, too afraid, too independent, too dependent, too broken, too perfect. My kids are too loud. My faith is too weak. There are rules that say who's in, and I'm out. There are lines to be drawn, and I'm on the wrong side. People like me aren't welcome here. God's grace isn't for me."

And then God calls us into relationship. Then God brings someone like Philip into our lives, someone who says, “Do you understand what you are reading?” Someone who offers clarity, or prayer, or hope. Someone who can tell us a story that turns out to be about ourselves. Someone who looks across every line between the insiders and outsiders and says, “All are welcome. That means you.”

Because when Philip finds himself standing by a river, with an Ethiopian eunuch saying "What is there to prevent me from being baptized?" The answer is everything. And the answer is absolutely nothing. Because Philip's answer is to look past race and religion and class and the eunuch's very own body, and to get into the water with him and make him a part of the people of God. Something happened in that moment that meant the laws and rules and lines that Philip knew could be let go in order to preach the message of God's grace. The Spirit moved Philip to recognize the amazingness of God’s love. He could get into the chariot. He could have a conversation about Jesus with this man who was so very much unlike him. And he could see the look in the eunuch’s eyes when he felt the beauty of God’s grace.

This kind of relationship is beautiful. And this is dangerous.

When Philip listens to the Spirit, he ends up letting go of a lot of what he has known. When God is in charge of drawing the lines and making the rules, the people of God look a whole lot different. When “all are welcome” is where we start, we put ourselves in a beautiful danger. When we stop worrying about who’s in and who’s out, and learn what is deeply meaningful and powerful to the person sitting next to us, we risk being changed. We risk learning. We risk seeing an old situation in a new way. We risk changing our minds: about who we are, about who God is, about who’s in and who’s out. When “all are welcome” is our cry, we take a risk about who might show up. It’s dangerous. And it’s beautiful. Because we are changed.

And when “all are welcome” is where we start, that welcome isn’t just for outsiders. It’s for us, too. For us when we draw lines within ourselves. For us when we make rules, and fail to live up to them. For us when we think, “I’m not enough. I’m not worthy. I’m not OK. I’m not wanted. I’m not loved.” Every time we put up a boundary, every time we pull back and try to hide, every time we think we’ve broken the rules too much, God is reaching out across that line to say: I know you’re broken. Now let me show you that you’re loved. “All are welcome” means you too. And we are changed.

We’re made to be that love for each other. We are made for this. We are given mouths and ears and eyes and hands and hearts so that we can be that love to each other. The eunuch asks, “How can I understand, unless someone guides me?” How can I know who Jesus is, who God is, who I am unless someone is here to help me? We weren’t made to be alone. Philip wasn’t called to stay in Samaria alone. The eunuch wasn’t called to ride his chariot home alone. The Spirit drew them together so that they could both be transformed.

That kind of relationship is dangerous. You’re asked to know yourself. You’re asked to be honest. You’re asked to tell your story, to be vulnerable, to talk about your fears and your hopes. You’re asked to cross some lines and break some rules within yourself -- about what’s okay to say and share. You put yourself at risk -- at the risk of knowing yourself, at the risk of being hurt, at the risk of change. You’re asked to let yourself be known and loved.

That kind of relationship is scary. But I hope and I pray and I think that every one of us has experienced how beautiful it can be. To be known, deeply, lets us know ourselves. To be loved, openly, lets us love ourselves. And that knowing and loving opens up our past and present and future to something new and dangerous and beautiful.

This is where you’re invited today: to think about those dangerous and beautiful relationships. To think about where you’ve been given space to grow and change and be yourself. What in you is longing for that space now? What change are you hoping for?

Response

Partner up with someone you feel comfortable sharing with. It may be your spouse. It may be a friend. It may be a friendly looking stranger!

Think of a relationship that changed you -- that gave you space to grow and transform. Share that story.
* Who was that relationship with?
* What was beautiful about it?
* How were you changed?

Then, think about where you are now.
* Is there a change you are longing for in your life? If yes, what is it?
* What do you need (physically, emotionally, mentally) to start that change?
* Who can be a person that helps you start that change? Or, what kind of person do you need to help you start?

* Is there something in you that are you longing to offer to others?
* Like Philip, are you being "sent" somewhere? Where do you think it is?

Crossposted from the Ecumenicals: "What is the role of LGBTQ+ individuals within the church?"

2013-04-24T11:17:00.001-05:00

I write one or twice a month for a group called The Ecumenicals, a loosely affiliated bunch of young adults from various Christian (and non-Christian) faith walks who explore a particular topic around Christian faith and life each week.

This week's was:

What is the role of LGBTQ+ individuals within the church?

And this was my reply.

I cannot claim a special role in the church for myself or for my LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters. We’ve had one for long enough.

We have been isolated. We have been rejected. After we finally came to terms with the searing truth of ourselves, hard-wrought and heart-breaking, the truth we couldn’t stop facing after years of begging prayers and desperate hopes that it wasn’t true -- after we finally spoke the words, “I am gay,” “I am queer,” “I wasn’t born in the right body,” we have been told that our soul-shattering and world-opening truth was offensive to God. That we, laid bare before the Lord and before our brothers and sisters in Christ, were an abomination, and our best hope to escape eternal damnation was only if we locked up the truth about ourselves and lived a solitary half-life of self-hatred and pain.

We have been tortured, spiritually and psychologically and emotionally and physically. We have been subjected to psychologically traumatizing and medically disproven practices. We have been hung out on a fence in the middle of Wyoming and beaten to death with the butt of a gun. We wear bulletproof vests to our ordinations. We retire from our bishopric early after death threats dog us and our partners for years. “Good Christians” and their churches come forward at every turn to kill us. And so we leave the church, a mass exodus into a wilderness where the name of Jesus is a neon beacon of condemnation and terror.

So when you ask me, “What is the role of LGBTQ+ individuals within the church?”, I want to reply, “What more do you want from us?”

How many more times do you need us to tell our stories? How many more books and blogs and documentaries and It Gets Better videos do you require before you will listen? How much more ministry done, how many more food shelves and homeless shelters and compassionate care, how much more beautiful music and hand-crafted art, how many more volunteer hours and weekly tithes, all poured into an institution that gladly takes our time and money but still treats us as second-class?

How many more broken teens and young adults, and mid-life crises, and couples together for fifty years who only now can legally marry in a handful of states, do you require of us?

There are days when I would gladly offer that we might be like the Gentiles of the early church. That the role of LGBTQ+ individuals is to take up the wide-eyed exclamations of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, “How can I understand, unless someone guides me?” “Does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else?” “Look! Here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” There are days when I have likened me and my queer brothers and sisters to Cornelius in Acts 10, dedicating years to almsgiving and constant prayer, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Simon Peter and his declaration that “God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.” There are days when I have found our role in those early outcasts, the foreigners who were not welcome in the temple, the God-fearers who prayed fervently to the Lord.

But I am tired. I am tired of justifying my place in God’s tent. I am tired of dressing up the lives of LGBTQ+ people in biblical allegories in the desperate hope that the church will stop killing us.

I want to know what role the church is going to play in our lives. I want to know if the church is willing to put aside its selective biblical literalism. I want to know if the church is ready to see the visions and hear the voice of God, who sent Philip to the chariot and Peter to Cornelius’ house. I want to know if you are going to make a safe space for me and my people to speak our truth. Because I am tired of watching my queer brothers and sisters die while the church waits to decide what our “role” is.

The only role I’m willing to accept for LGBTQ+ people is “beloved children of God.”

Sermon for April 14, 2013, on Acts 9:1-20: Some running around, and some letting go.

2013-04-14T21:38:00.003-05:00

Children’s Message

[ I had the children (and, like I’ve said for years, “those who are, like me, a child at heart”) meet me in the back of the worship space / cafeteria-gymnasium -- in a wide space where there’s lots of room for running.

I asked: “Who here knows how to play Sharks and Minnows?” I knew most would -- we play it all the time. So we chose a Shark, aka Saul, and everyone else got to be Minnows, aka Christians.

Saul was played by the eight-year-old daughter of one of my internship committee members, and she managed to catch and imprison a good handful of Christians before I called an end to the game and sent them back to their seats. ]

Acts 9:1-20

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were travelling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”

This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Sermon

Welcome to the story of Saul.

Saul is a young man, a Jew in good standing in his local synagogue. He knows the Hebrew Scriptures, goes to worship faithfully on the Sabbath.

And just a chapter ago, in Acts 7 and 8, Saul listened as a disciple of Jesus, Stephen, proclaimed Jesus as the Son of Man, the Righteous One whose coming was foretold by the prophets. And then Saul watched as the religious leaders dragged Stephen from the city, threw him to the ground, and stoned him. The council laid their cloaks at Saul's feet and took up rocks to end Stephen's speech. Acts 8:1 says: "And Saul approved of their killing him."

Saul takes up the charge. He persecutes the believers in Jerusalem, entering house after house to drag both men and women off to prison. Now he has letters that send him to Damascus, a little over a hundred miles north and west, to persecute the church there. He is on his way to track down all those who belong to The Way.

The Way is the early name for the Christian church -- they won't be called Christians until Acts 11. The Way is this life among the Jewish believers, this little group that proclaims baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. In The Way, there is teaching, there is fellowship, there is communion, there are prayers. Those who belong to The Way share what they have with one another. They choose seven men of good standing to fairly distribute food to the poor and widowed -- seven men including Stephen.

Now Saul is on his way to hunt down all those who belong to the Way. To him, this group is a perversion of the Jewish faith. He will find them, he will bind them, and he will bring them to Jerusalem, to the Holy City, to be tried and imprisoned.

And then just outside the gates of Damascus, on the cusp of chasing down another group of believers, there is a blinding flash of light. Saul is knocked from his horse. He is struck blind. And he hears a voice: "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."

Then this same Jesus appears to the disciple Ananias, and says: "Get up and go find this man named Saul, and lay your hands on him to give him back his sight."

These are the kinds of visions that no one wants to see.

Saul is Ananias' enemy. He has come to Ananias' hometown to specifically track down disciples and send them off to prison in Jerusalem. His blindness is a lucky break for Ananias. He might be able to get out of the city, keep some of the others believers safe, while Saul can't see or do a thing.

So Jesus' invitation is more like a warrant than a welcome. He tells Ananias to put himself in danger, to put his hands on Saul knowing that Saul has come to put those hands in chains.

And Ananias goes.

See, both Saul and Ananias are told what they are to do. Ananias is called to lay hands in prayer on the man who wanted to lay hands on him in persecution. And Saul is called to bring the name of Jesus before Gentiles and kings and the people of Israel, to proclaim this very Christ he has been persecuting.

But before they can go what they are to do, they have to let go of what they know.

Ananias has to let go of his fear. His anxiety. His protests about Saul's evil and terrifying authority. His desire to protect himself and his own people against the persecution and hatred that Saul has brought to Damascus. The only way Ananias can do what he is to do is to let all that go.

And Saul -- Saul has to let go of everything. His religious beliefs. His prejudice. His hatred. His guilt, now, that not only has he persecuted people who were following a true Lord and Savior but that in persecuting them he was persecuting Jesus himself. Everything that Saul has known and staked his time and energy and reputation on stands in the way of belonging to The Way.

Saul and Ananias have to let go before they can do what they are to do. There has to be space made in the heart, and mind, and hands, before Jesus can fill it with something new. There has to be surrender, and trust, and some kind of crazy irresponsible hope that whatever they're letting go of is going to be replaced by something infinitely better.

And that hope means they don't do it alone. They do it because of a dream. A vision. A hope, not from their own hearts but from the Holy Spirit, that their world might be just a little bit better if they took a chance.

And so it is with us.

There are a hundred things that stand in our way of belonging to The Way. A hundred things that keep us from doing what we are to do. Fear. Guilt. Shame. Anger. Anxiety. Hatred. Prejudice. Our past. Our present. The infinite unknown of the future.

There are a hundred things that we have done, and I know that I at least am the kind of person that will cling to them till my fingers go numb because I need to know something is true.

And then the vision breaks in. Then hope shines a light. Then God shows up, rude and loud, and interrupts our life with hope and expectation and dreams of something better for us, and for the people we love, and for the whole world.

To do what we are to do, we have to let go. And to let go, there has to be a vision powerful enough to give us hope.

And the vision of what we are to do -- the vision of God's hope for us -- this crazy idea that we might be changed and restored and given the mercy and grace that we are dying for -- that just might be enough.

This crazy idea that you might be known by God. That you might be trusted. That you might be loved, just as you are. That everything that dies in you and your life might be raised like Jesus from the dead.

That just might be enough. That just might be enough hope to overcome whatever you are holding on to and whatever is holding you back.

So what is your vision? What is your hope?

And in that hope, what do you want to let go of?

There are two slips of paper at your chairs and tables. The colors don’t matter. Choose one for your hope, and one for what you need to let go of.

Take a moment. Write it down. When you’re ready, bring them to the baskets on the altar.

Offer your hope. Offer your fears. Everything is welcome in the light of the risen Christ.

Amen.

Everything Changes

When You come everything changes

When You speak even the darkness hides

When You step into our frailty, Jesus

You restore every broken life

Everything changes

Verse 1:

Mercy to the brokenhearted

Life for those who grieve

Joy to those whose dreams are stolen

Imprisoned souls released

Verse 2:

Blessing to the poor in spirit

Grace for all in need

Sight to those who live in darkness

Innocence redeemed

This is the Kingdom come

This is the Kingdom

This is the Kingdom come

This is the Kingdom

Everything changes

Holy Saturday

2013-03-30T09:58:00.001-05:00

It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.
- Luke 23:55-56

I grew up in an Episcopal household with Catholic roots, and our home life was liturgical. Things had a purpose, and a season, and a rhythm to them. We decorated the house on December 5th in preparation for St. Nicholas Day. A toy nativity was put in my hands and I was encouraged to tell, and re-tell, and re-re-tell the story of Jesus. Easter meant tatalluches, an Italian-family cookie recipe, and meat pie, but it also meant we'd be at church for four days: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday.

Holy Saturday. Not Easter Vigil, as we do in the Lutheran church, but Holy Saturday. We would re-read the story of the Crucifixion, and we would remember.

One year, my mother and I cleaned the house on Holy Saturday. And in my young mind, it was connected to the story. The women went home and prepared spices and ointments -- because what else could be done? The Messiah was dead. They had to find something to do, a way to keep their hands occupied, in the face of the crushing heaviness of their hearts. And so did we. In the face of Good Friday, we cleaned, because the grief was too much to sit with.

I know now that the women rested, on Saturday, because it was the Sabbath. But I did not know this, as a child, and to me the right and proper thing to do was clean.

Sometimes all that can be done is to tie back my hair and take up a towel, to fill my hands with something more than tears. To wash and dust and scrub and clean, in the desperate and impossible hope that something new might tomorrow come to fill the well-swept house.

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.
Luke 24:1-2

Poetry: Spring melt

2013-03-27T17:52:00.002-05:00

I can see where
the sidewalk ends
and mud begins.

A watery cavern weaves its way
through ice-crusted ground,
and grass blurs green beneath my feet.

Winter and Lent both took too long in hanging on.
But hope is worming up around storm drains and gutters
where small lakes form,
my sneakers' baptism.

And my heart so long heavy
has grown white and feathery wings.
She runs off down the sidewalk,
a kid in brand-new converse,
crashing through puddles in a streak of red.
I'm chasing her down,
the pounding of my feet echoing
in the cavern of my chest.

Spring peeks its head over the corner of a cave.
Something is coming,
made of ash and dust,
and mud,
and fresh-cut palms and grass.

Roll back the stone,
and see.

Sermon for Palm Sunday (March 24, 2013): Words that change our world

2013-03-24T09:43:00.004-05:00

Luke 19:28-40

After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” just say this: “The Lord needs it.” ’ So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’ Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’

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Isaiah 42:1-4

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

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Click here to listen along.

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Sermon

"After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem."

The tricky thing about the way we read the Scriptures in church is that we’re always starting in the middle of the story. “After he had said this.” Well, what’s this? And who’s he ahead of? And where’s he been before Jerusalem?

So here’s what Jesus has been up to, in the few chapters before today’s reading.

He’s been going from town to town, a wandering preacher and teacher and healer.

He’s told a story of a man attacked by robbers, left half dead on the side of the road, and how the religious leaders crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. But a Samaritan -- a racial and religious enemy of the Jews -- stops, and bandages his wounds, and loads him on his donkey and takes him to an inn.

Jesus has told parables of lost sheep and coins and sons. He’s taught the disciples how to pray, how to call God Father, how to ask for the coming of the kingdom, how to depend on God for daily bread.

He’s eaten with sinners and Pharisees. He's invited himself into the home of a dishonest tax collector named Zacchaeus, who then declared “Half of my possession I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone I will pay it back four times as much.”

Jesus has cast out demons, and given sight to the blind. He’s raised a little girl from the dead just by taking her hand. He’s healed a crippled woman, one who had been bent over for eighteen years. He’s cleansed ten lepers just by his words.

And now Jesus is on his way into Jerusalem, riding on the back of a borrowed colt with cloaks strewn along the road, and the disciples shouting “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” Verse 37 says: “The whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God with a loud voice for all the deeds of power they had seen.”

I was really struck by that: deeds of power. It’s actually just one word, in Greek: δυνάμεων (doo-NA-men-on). It literally means “powers.” And there’s power all over the gospel of Luke. When Jesus is touched by the bleeding woman, he feels power -- δύναμις -- go out from him. He’s surrounded by crowds who want to touch him because power -- δύναμις -- goes out from him and heals them. When he casts out demons the crowds marvel and say, “With authority and power -- δύναμις -- he commands unclean spirits.”

And when Jesus comes out of the desert -- after forty days of fasting and temptation, after meeting the devil face to face -- he returns to Galilee ready to begin his ministry, ready to teach and preach, and he is filled with the power -- δύναμις -- of the Holy Spirit.

When the disciples sing their praises of all the powers they have seen, what my mind goes to is the miracles. The exorcisms, the healings, the lepers cleansed, the woman straightened, the little girl raised from the dead. But when I look at the whole of the gospel, and everything that Jesus has been up to before Palm Sunday morning, I just can’t help but think there’s something more to the deeds of power.

I don’t think deeds of power are limited to miracles. I think Jesus’ deeds of power are just as much the stories he tells.

When Jesus picks up a mustard seed and says the kingdom of God starts that small, and can grow into a tree that becomes a home for every bird, that changes things. That takes this overwhelming and powerful and mighty concept of God and makes it very, very small, makes it touchable, makes it something that can roll around in the palm of your hand. And then that very, very small thing becomes something very, very big. Suddenly the kingdom of God is both tiny and huge, both something we can grasp and something we can rest in.

When Jesus says that God is like a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to go find one lost one -- or that God is like a woman sweeping her house from top to bottom looking for one lost coin -- or that God is like a father watching for his prodigal son to finally, finally, finally come home -- those aren’t miracles. But they are words that change things. They open up for the disciples and the crowds and the Pharisees -- and for us -- the amazing and abundant love of God. The sheer ridiculous extravagance of God’s mercy.

I don’t think deeds of power are limited to miracles. I think deeds of power are just as much about the words Jesus speaks.

Because words change things. Words change our reality. There are words that go straight to the heart of who we are, and slice us wide open like a lightning bolt. There are words that change our lives forever.

Like the first time your son or daughter looks at you and says “Mommy. Daddy.”

Like the first time you hear, “I love you.”

Like someone who hurt you saying, “I’m sorry.”

Like someone saying, “I forgive you.”

Like the moment when someone you love -- someone who has been hurting, and struggling, and fighting -- finally says, “I need help.” “I’m sick.” “I’m an alcoholic.” “I’m depressed.” Maybe like the moment when that someone was you. Like the words that finally bubble up from your heart and burst out your chest because you have been hurting for so long that you can’t hold them in any longer.

Like words that helped you let go of perfect and just be real and good and wonderful just where you were. Words that call you out of fear, and make it possible for you to speak your truth. Words that change reality because they change you.

I crowdsourced my sermon on Facebook and one of my dear friends from high school messaged me about a teacher we’d shared. She said, “In high school I was painfully shy, and not very confident in myself. One day our teacher stopped me after class and said something like, ‘I see you. You're really smart, but you never participate in class discussions. Why not?’ And my friend said, ‘I don't think I really have anything to say. What I say doesn't matter.’ And our teacher responded, ‘Yeah, but … nothing really matters. So you might as well speak up.’ ”

Words change our lives. They change our reality, because they change the way we see the world. And that’s a deed of power.

Like standing before God and each other and confessing, together, that we haven’t lived up to God’s hope for us.

Like hearing someone say, “In the name of Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven.”

Like someone holding up a hunk of bread and saying, “This -- this is the body of Christ. And it’s given for you.”

These are words that change our lives forever. Words change our world. Words are powerful, and they are the deeds of power that change our lives.

But words of power create tension.

Jesus won’t do any miracles in Jerusalem this week. Luke doesn’t tell stories of healings or multiplying loaves and fishes. Instead, he teaches. He speaks. And every time he speaks, the tension rises. Every time he tells a story, the religious leaders and teachers get more angry. He debates them about authority, and taxes, and life after death, until finally they no longer dare to ask him another question. They want to trap him in what he says, to lay hands on him, to kill him. It’s Jesus’ words, not his miracles, that get him into trouble. Words of power create tension.

Palm Sunday is an odd day, because we know the rest of the story. The disciples think this is a sign of what’s to come -- of glory, and honor, and more deeds of power. They think this is the start of an upswing in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, an upward trend that’s just going to continue. He’s on a rise to power. Some of the disciples and followers might have expected Jesus was on his way to becoming a political rebel. There had been prophecies of a Messiah who would cleanse Jerusalem of their oppressors. A militant leader, who would take up the sword. The Jewish people would finally be free of the Romans, who burdened them with taxes and crushed their spirits. They have been longing for someone to free them.

And now Jesus is riding into Jerusalem, celebrated by the people, heralded with cloaks on the road and the shouts of children -- just before Passover. Passover, the most important holiday of the Jewish people. Passover, when so many people journeyed to Jerusalem that it quadrupled in population. Passover, when the Jewish people celebrated God’s liberation of them from slavery and oppression. Jesus is marching into the midst of a people who are telling the story of freedom -- people who are longing for someone to restore the nation of Israel. They are whispering the words of Isaiah: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold; my chosen in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” It is, for the disciples, a glorious day.

But we know the rest of the story. We know that the bottom is about to drop out of the world. That this servant in whom God delights will soon be a man scorned. And the praises sung today will turn to shouts of anger and to Jesus’ cries of pain.

On Good Friday, the world goes silent. Even the stones do not cry out. The only deed of power is Jesus’ willingness to die.

See, deeds of power change lives, but deeds of power create tension. Words that change the world are also words that kill. There is something that always dies when truth is spoken.

If we admit that we are hurting, the illusion that everything is OK dies.

If we admit we need forgiveness, the illusion that we are perfect dies.

If we admit, like my high school friend, that it doesn’t matter, than our fear and our anxiety and our lack of self confidence has to die.

If we admit that we love and we hurt and we need help, then our self-reliance has to die.

When we hear the truth, when we speak words of power, then our lives are changed. And there is always tension in that. And there is always something that dies.

And when Jesus finally admits who he is, he has to die too. Not because he’s a political rebel who has to be silenced. Not because he’s a religious troublemaker. Because he came to give us words that free us, words that break us out of chains, words that stop whatever’s already killing us. He came to love us into wholeness and hope. He came to change our lives with deeds of power. The world wasn’t ready for that kind of change. The world says No to Jesus.

But we already know the end of the story. The world says no. But God? God says yes.

When we cry out for a king, it’s not for military power to crush our enemies. It’s not even, maybe, for miracles. It’s for a word that changes our lives. It’s for a king who gives us a kingdom small enough to hold in the palm of our hand. It’s for wholeness, and salvation, and grace. For someone to come and change us.

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Amen.

-------

Messiah

Someone's shouting from the desert.
Someone's shouting from the sea.
Someone's shouting from the mountain.
Someone's shouting from the valley.

Messiah, Come and be our King.
Messiah, Come and be our King.

Someone's shouting from the city:
I am young, I am cold.
Someone's shouting from the country:
I am lonely, I am old.

Messiah, Come and be our King.
Messiah, Come and be our King.

Someone's shouting I am broken.
Someone's shouting make me whole.
Someone's shouting come and change me.
Someone's shouting save my soul.

Messiah, Come and be our King.
Messiah, Come and be our King.

(Larry Olson, ©1989 Dakota Road Music)

Ecumenicals post 18: on the Eucharist

2013-03-17T19:36:00.000-05:00

My submission to the Ecumenicals for a collection of posts on the Eucharist.

What is your view of the Eucharist/The Lord's Supper? Given the differing views (transubstantiation / consubstantiation or sacramental union / symbolic presence) why do you hold to yours?

I belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which means that confessionally I believe in consubstantiation, or the “sacramental union” of bread / body and wine / blood. What Luther believed and taught, and what the Lutheran church has confessed, is that Christ is fully present in the bread and wine. The elements do not change physically or substantially (as in transubstantiation.) But Christ has promised to be with us in the breaking of the bread.

I believe this. And because I believe that Christ is fully present, I believe also this: that anyone can receive, anyone can distribute, and anyone can consecrate.

The last point might seem the most heretical, but it’s actually the most confessionally sound! Martin Luther affirmed early in his reform works that all baptized Christians are, through Christ, “priests and kings” (On the Freedom of A Christian). This Lutheran belief in “universal priesthood” continues to the present day. All baptized Christians are called to preach the Word, and all are capable of officiating the sacraments (baptism and communion). Luther also cautioned (and we continue this, as well) that “for good order,” we should prefer that those who are called and ordained to the specific office of priesthood are the ones to offer the sacraments. But any baptized Christian is capable of offering them “in an emergency.”

Following in the belief of a “universal priesthood,” Lutherans may allow any baptized Christian to distribute the consecrated sacraments. Certain denominations and congregations take different definitions of “for good order,” here, and some have requirements as far as who may serve: only adults, only the confirmed, only pastors or deacons, and so on. The congregation I presently serve allows anyone to serve communion -- including children. Last Sunday one of our beloved six-year-olds, Annie, served alongside her father. I stopped singing the communion hymn to watch her wide eyes and careful hands, and to hear her joyous chirp of “Jesus’ blood, shed for you”.

Growing up in the Episcopal church, I knew at an early age that I wanted to become a priest -- to preach and to preside over communion. But there were rules in my congregation (and perhaps in the whole denomination). Only adults could serve, and only adults that had been to a weekend training and received certification. By the time I was “of age,” I was off at college.

Six weeks into my life at Saint Olaf, I was attending the on-campus Lutheran service. It was homecoming weekend and the chapel was packed. A friend who served in the sacristy came and grabbed me during the Peace, explaining that they didn’t have enough servers and would I help? I followed her, thinking perhaps I could help distributing empty cups. Instead, the campus pastor (who was over six feet tall, thin as a rail, and had a beard and voice like a movie Moses) tried to put the plate of bread in my hands.

“I can’t serve,” I told him. “I haven’t been trained.”

“Do you know what to say?” he asked.

“I … ‘The body of Christ, given for you.’”

He let go of the plate and I felt its full weight in my hands. “There. You’ve been trained.”

And I served communion that day.

You see, Luther’s argument that Christ is fully present in the bread and wine does not just have philosophical ramifications. For me and for the churches I have served, it is a full embodiment of the Lutheran belief that the Lord’s Supper is a gift. It is not the ordained priest, nor the right words spoken, or the proper training, that turns the bread and wine into body and blood. It is only and totally Christ’s promise at the Last Supper, the promise that “This is my body; this is my blood.” When we eat the bread and drink of the cup, we confess that Christ is present with us, in the eating and drinking, just as much as he was with the disciples on that Passover night.

God is the one who does the work in the Eucharist; we only receive. It is Christ’s words, not ours, which bear the mystery of bread turned to body and wine to blood. It is unimportant, then, who is serving, because it is Christ who truly serves. This is (for me) the meaning of Christ’s full presence, the “sacramental union.”

My first point, that anyone can receive, is the one most likely to cause scandal. This is not a consistent practice in the Lutheran church. There are Lutheran denominations which limit communion only to those in that specific denomination, or members of that specific congregation. There are ELCA churches that limit communion to the confirmed, or to those who have been through a First Communion class. But the churches I have served in the past five years serve all. Everyone who comes forward and puts out a hand receives communion. Every toddler, who clings with one arm to Mom’s waist and with the other reaches for the bread, is fed. All that is required is an open palm.

What we recognize and teach is that Christ is fully present, and that Christ was given for all. Not only those of a certain age. Not only those of a certain congregation or denomination. Not even only those who are baptized. Christ was given for the world. If we believe that Jesus is fully present in the bread and wine, as a gift of grace from God for the work of salvation, then we have no power to limit it. It is God’s work, not ours -- Christ’s body and blood.

Seminary newspaper article: "Not the Internship I Signed Up For"

2013-03-13T18:48:00.000-05:00

This was published in the Concord, the seminary student newspaper, in March 2013, in an issue titled "At the Cross (Roads)."

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"Not the Internship I Signed Up For"

All my internship interviews had begun the same way: "So, tell me about yourself." By my fourth interview I walked into the room feeling solidly prepped on my mini-biography. Then this five-foot-nothing mission start pastor leaned forward, her fingers pressed into a point, and asked, as her first question, "So. What is the seed of hope that lies at the heart of Emmy?"

While I stammered through something resembling an answer, I thought, This woman is either crazy or brilliant. Forty-five minutes later I knew the answer to that question, and I also knew where I wanted to be for internship.

I felt almost immediately comfortable under Deb Stehlin's supervision at Light of the World. It's a mission start community in Apple Valley, just barely five years old when I started in September. Light of the World is a congregation built around radical relationship: a true welcome for everyone who walks in the door and a commitment to get to know each other, warts and all. We want to know people for who they are. As I fretted over this article, someone gently reminded me: "Let go of perfect. We want you to be real."

Deb told me when I came on that she saw in me the opportunity to be a leader and a partner. I learned leadership from a pastor who fully embodies her belief in the importance of God's grace for us and our love for each other. I saw how bringing people into relationship with each other transformed lives and spoke the Gospel into broken hearts. And then in early December we learned that Deb had been called to serve as the Director of Evangelical Mission for the Minneapolis Area Synod. Her last Sunday was January 6th, 2013.

Suddenly the "leader" aspect of Deb's vision for me took on a whole new meaning. I couldn't shadow her as she met with local pastors and national mission leaders. I couldn't turn to her with questions about worship or pastoral care or church history. I didn't have someone sitting next to me on Sundays, squeezing my elbow to say she was pleased with my sermon, offering me the Peace of Christ with a smile as wide as her arms.

This is not the internship I signed up for.

We have an interim pastor in place as of February -- Hollie Holt-Woehl, who brings her knowledge as pastoral care professor and experience as interim pastor at three previous congregations. It is likely that, since I am a concurrent intern, I will still be with Light of the World when they call their next pastor.

I've spent many nights in prayer and worry. But the message I've received is clear: I am going to learn a lot more, and a lot that I needed to learn, under three supervisors than under one. And while this is a lesson I'd much rather learn from a book, the leadership role Deb saw in me has come to better fruition now that I have to stand more on my own two feet. The changes and pains of transition force me to know better who I am and who I'm called to be. Where do I feel comfortable? Where do I feel stretched? When do I trust my gut, when do I listen to my heart, and when do I rely on my head? None of this would have been impossible to learn under one supervisor. But under three, it can be easier to learn what's true to me. Continual change forces me to know where my real self gravitates.

This is not the internship I signed up for. It's harder, and I feel more vulnerable and make more mistakes. But Deb didn't just leave behind a pastor-sized hole. She built a community that believes in loving each other where we're at. She organized a church that surrounds its people -- and its intern -- with a God-sized abundance of grace.

Maybe that's another lesson I can't learn from a book: that the church isn't just about the pastor. That when I signed up for partnership and weird questions, I also signed up for radical relationship and meaningful community. That I signed up to learn what it was like to be a leader, and a partner -- not just to the pastor or staff but to the whole congregation. And maybe I signed up to learn, not how to be perfect, but how to be real.

Heresy, my working theology of the crucifixion, or both.

2013-03-06T10:44:00.002-06:00

This is a response paper for my Lutheranism and Liberation class, on the chapters on modern critiques of the cross and epistemological questions in Vitor Westhelle's The Scandalous God. As I posted on Twitter last night: This is either entirely heretical, or my new revelation about how I can understand and live with the cross. Or, quite possibly, both.

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My primary interest in taking this course stemmed from reading Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker’s Proverbs of Ashes for Feminist Theologies my first year. The challenge they posed, of the crucifixion as “cosmic child abuse,” troubled me in the face of my understanding of Lutheran theology. We have centered ourselves around this God revealed in suffering, this justification wrought through substitutionary atonement. Is there any point for reconciliation between Lutheranism and liberation/feminist theologies on this point?

I felt that Westhelle gave a reasonable overview of the Enlightenment and Nietzschian critiques of the cross. Hegel’s speculative theology and Marx’s resurrection as insurrection were valuable contributions to the conversation (although I am not certain I fully understood the Hegelian proposal). I appreciated Westhelle’s shift to an epistemological frame over the more common moral or ontological questions about the cross, and the contributions from Prenter and Sobrino which followed. Westhelle seemed to give a brief but workable sketch of the existing critiques and ideas about the appropriate questions to ask of the cross.

I struggled a little with Westhelle’s presentation of Brock and of Parker on the crucifixion (66) in that little context was given for their rejection of the cross’ suffering as redemptive. Although I felt Westhelle presented them as objectively as possible, to quote them entirely out of their experience (in which they consider themselves deeply rooted) seemed problematic. How do you explain the horrors of “cosmic child abuse” when you neglect to state that these women had been abused, either as children or as wives? How does one reject suffering as redemptive without first hearing the voices of parishioners, battered victims told by Christian leaders to stay with their abusive partners and to “bear their cross silently” as Christ had done? I wondered what I would hear when I got to class on Wednesday, and if any of my classmates would have been horrified by Brock and Parker because they did not know their experiences. I wondered if C. S. Song, Joanna Carlson Brown, and Max Horkheimer (all unknown names to me) had similar experiences that led them to their rejection of suffering as redemptive.

Westhelle’s epistemic key of the parrhesia was an interesting conclusion to the reading. This “speaking of truth to power” is certainly a good summary of Jesus’ counter-cultural and -religious teachings and actions. I appreciated the understanding of the crucifixion as a result of Jesus’ life, not a cosmic plan for self- or child-sacrifice. It did seem to me like this understanding and application of parrhesia turned us back towards Enlightenment concepts of Christ’s “tragic death.” There, the miracles and prophecies were proof of Jesus’ validity as a teacher; here, it is his suffering death that proves his worth. If Jesus died because he “addressed his words to the suffering of the people” (89), that suggests to me that he was assassinated -- that his death was a result of his life. Both theories appear to center on Jesus’ life as more important than the crucifixion. This is not troubling to me personally, but I am struggling to reconcile it with a Lutheran way of thinking. We are a cross-centered people. We believe that justification was won for us through Christ’s death, do we not? Is the crucifixion not part of God's plan for redemption? Can this still be true if Christ’s death is understood as less a cosmic realignment of the balance of humanity’s righteousness, and more as the common human reaction (i.e. hatred and violence) to the presence of love among us?

I think it can. I think a Lutheran theology of the cross is not necessarily dependent on a substitutionary atonement belief of Christ saving us from our own wretchedness by his spilt blood. Our human willingness to crucify God, to destroy love and mercy and justice when it walks among us, is as condemning as the story of original sin (if not more so). The cross reveals our collective guilt in our unwillingness to accept grace as true. We fear that which would liberate others, and us. But the resurrection is “proof” (for those who believe) that this grace is real. We cannot destroy it or kill it. We are almost powerless to reject it. Here we return to ontological questions -- who am I in the face of the cross? We are sinners, fearful and ashamed, terrified by God in our midst. But God is here anyway. We are then returned to moral questions about the cross -- what are we meant to do because of it? Perhaps the resurrection is a sign that we are meant to accept that God’s mercy is greater than our hatred -- that life is finally greater than death. The cross remains part of God's plan for redemption, but rather than as a balancing of the cosmic scales of righteousness as a clear conviction of humanity's brokenness -- tied up with a clear redemption of the message of grace.

Sermon on Isaiah 55:1-11: Thirst, junk food, and why in the world God wants all of us

2013-03-03T11:25:00.000-06:00

(To get the full effect, participate in the children's sermon... I handed out crackers, grapes, and gummy bears, and we talked about good food, junk food, and what kinds of food God wants to feed us. So it's best if you're snacking on some Triscuits, seedless grapes, and gummy bears while you read.)

Isaiah 55:1-11 (The Message)

“All who are thirsty, come to the water!
Are you penniless? Come anyway—buy and eat!
Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk.
Buy without money—everything’s free!
Why do you spend your money on junk food,
your hard-earned cash on cotton candy?
Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best,
fill yourself with only the finest.
Pay attention, come close now,
listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words.
I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you,
the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love.
I set him up as a witness to the nations,
made him a prince and leader of the nations,
And now I’m doing it to you:
You’ll summon nations you’ve never heard of,
and nations who’ve never heard of you
will come running to you
Because of me, your God,
because The Holy of Israel has honored you.”
Seek God while he’s here to be found,
pray to him while he’s close at hand.
Let the wicked abandon their way of life
and the evil their way of thinking.
Let them come back to God, who is merciful,
come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.
“I don’t think the way you think.
The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
God’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
they’ll complete the assignment I gave them."

-------------------------------

We’re getting used to trilogies, aren’t we? They’re how we write books and make movies now. Star Wars. The Godfather. The Lord of the Rings. The Hunger Games. Even stories that weren’t originally trilogies are being written and made as them now: Christopher Nolan made Batman Begins, then The Dark Knight, then The Dark Knight Rises. Iron Man 3 will come out this year. Both reboots of Spiderman, the one with Tobey Maguire and the new one with Andrew Garfield, are trilogies. The Bond movies with Daniel Craig? Three of them. We’re telling stories in sets of three.

This isn’t new for us, as humans. We’ve had trilogies as far back as we’ve had written literature. Remember your high school English and the three Theban plays of Sophocles: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. There’s something about the structure of three that we like, the way things loop back, how certain themes get repeated, how the first part leans into the second and the second into the third, and the third wraps it up and solves questions from the first.

The book of Isaiah is a trilogy, set in Israel and Babylon. This is the three-part story of a people in exile. The Jewish people have lost the promised land; they forgot to trust God and to care for their neighbor. They lose the protection of God. They’re taken into Babylon in chains, away from their homes and the land they believed God gave them. And they turn to the prophet Isaiah to try to understand what’s happened to them and what’s coming next.

The first part of Isaiah, chapters 1-39, are the words of judgment -- the long list of how Israel has wandered away from God and from their promises. And then suddenly, in the first verse in chapter 40, everything changes. God tells Isaiah: “Comfort, o comfort my people.” This is what we sing at Christmas: “Comfort, comfort now my people.” Suddenly there are words of comfort and peace. There are promises of a coming servant. God speaks over and over again of a radical, abundant, merciful love for Israel. “Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. I’ve called your name. You’re mine.” Remember? “Do not be afraid, I am with you. I have called you each by name.” In the second part of Isaiah God says “No matter what has happened, I still love you. I still want you. I still know you and call you and hope for you. I will bring you back from captivity in Babylon. I will save you. I will free you. The promises of God are still true.”

And chapter 56 is where Isaiah will move from words of comfort to words of hope. God will reveal that this salvation and freedom and promise isn’t just for the people of Israel, but for the whole world. The third part of Isaiah is where God will declare, “My house shall be a house of prayer for all people.”

So today’s passage, chapter fifty-five, is leaning into that. When God says, “Pay attention, come close now,” we’re in the last three minutes of the second movie. We’re with Luke and Leia on the observation deck, planning to find and free Han Solo. We’re with Frodo and Sam, on their own as they start their journey toward Mordor. We’re with Katniss when she wakes up for the first time in District 13. The end of the second part of a trilogy is always leaning forward, pulling us into the third. There’s this feeling of incompleteness, this question of “But now what?”, this scrambled grab for the third book.

So when God speaks through Isaiah and says, “All who are thirsty, come!” we need to remember that it’s the last sentence of the second part of a trilogy. It is less of a lovely offer and more of a wake-up call. It’s that leaning in, that waiting, that not-quite-yet that pulls you into the final chapter.

* See what God says through Isaiah, in the middle of the first paragraph: “Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best, fill yourself with only the finest.” The beautiful thing is that in the original Hebrew, Isaiah says: Fill your soul with rich things. This cotton candy is not about what you’re feeding your stomach but about what you’re feeding your heart. God looks at Israel’s life and says: This is junk food. You’re feeding yourself on jealousy, and anger, and blame, and fear. You’re stuffing your soul with cheap carbohydrates. You’re spending your money on air.

* And instead, see what God wants to feed us with: the covenant with David. “I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you, the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love.” It was a covenant of peace, and a promise that a son of David would always be king over Israel. It sounds so lovely. But remember that the people first hearing this have seen David’s sons and grandsons and great-grandsons tear the kingdom apart. They were lousy leaders who forgot God and failed to take care of the people. The Israelites are being reminded, right here, of a promise that looks broken. This “sure, solid, enduring love” feels bitter, now, because it seems like that covenant is over. They’ve been dragged off to Babylon in chains. Everything around them suggests that God’s love is anything but sure.

* But God knows this. So then God says: “You’ll summon nations you’ve never heard of, and nations who’ve never heard of you will come running to you.” God says: You know that covenant? The one that looks broken? It’s still true. And now it’s going to be even bigger. I’m not just making promises to the people of Israel anymore. Yes, Israel will be restored. The Holy One will honor you. But you’re going to be restored to be a light to the world. Nations who’ve never heard of you, nations that you think are outside of God’s people, will come running. The wicked and evil will get a second chance. Because God is merciful. Because God is lavish with forgiveness.

* Because God doesn’t think the way we think, with vengeance and grudges and who’s in or who’s out. The covenant God made with Israel is being turned into this blessing for all nations because of the very nature of who God is. “For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work.” God’s way is far beyond and above our way. God’s way is about mercy, and forgiveness, and second and third and fiftieth chances. God has sent words, like rain and snow falling on dry earth, and those words are going to do the work they were sent to do.

And what are the words that God has sent? “All who are thirsty, come.” This isn’t a friendly invitation. This is a radical change. Last week we heard about Abraham and the covenant with God, that Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars. Now those stars are finding out they’re not the only lights in God’s galaxy. God’s got an eye not just on the nation of Israel but on the whole world. It no longer matters if you’re a descendant of Abraham. It doesn’t matter if you live in Israel or Babylon or anywhere in between. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, or young or old, or even holy or wicked. When God says “All who are thirsty” that means the only thing required to come to God is thirst. Is hunger. Is your soul longing for something more. All that’s required is for you to say “What I’ve been feeding my heart is junk food and cotton candy. I need something more.”

And here’s what I kept coming back to this week: why? Why everyone? Why me and you and us? And why the other nations, and why the evil and the wicked?

Surely the Israelites asked this too. After all, they heard thirty-nine chapters of judgment in Isaiah before they got to the comfort and hope. The whole point up until now is that we aren’t worthy of this. We sin. We make mistakes. We hurt each other. We forget to trust God. We have nothing to offer; we’re penniless. And the moment when we know that is the moment when God says “Come and buy without money -- everything’s free.” What is that about? Why is God so interested in bringing everyone to the table? It’s not just bringing everyone to God -- it’s getting us all in one place. We’re all drinking this milk and wine together. It’s not an individual call. God is hollering for every person, every family, every community to show up and eat, like a cosmic dinner bell. Even though we know through thousands of years of human history that wherever two or three are gathered there’s bound to be a mess.

And God is willing to take that risk. God wants everyone at the same table.

So here’s what I think:

God doesn’t just want us. God wants us for each other.

God knows that we need each other. That we need each other to laugh, and to hold on to, and to cry with. That we need each other to keep each other honest, and hopeful, and kind. We need each other so that every time we come together we remember that we’re a mess, that none of us are perfect, and every week we say, “Your sins are forgiven.” Every week we say, “Peace be with you.” Not just any peace but the kind that comes with knowing the end of the story. Knowing that no matter where you are in the trilogy, the end is full of promise -- the promise that you are a beloved child of God.

And we come back for that promise over and over again. We come to the table, penniless and without money, and find so much more than we could ever need. We take wine and bread from each other to remember that God wants to feed us with so much more than junk food. God wants to feed our souls.

Because God knows we are hungry. But God knows that my thirst might be your thirst, and that if we both ask, we might find some living water. God knows that maybe what I’m hungry for is what you’re hungry for, and if we come together we might build a table and a room and a community and a church that feeds each other.

And then all who are thirsty might come, and find something to feed their soul.

Amen.

Ecstasy in an open field

2013-02-26T18:23:00.003-06:00

After a week’s wandering in the woods, I break into the open.
The white unfiltered light reveals hard work, dirty hands,
my wretched exhaustion rent raw.
I have nothing to offer but the knots of my shoulders,
stooped back pressed down into the earth,
weary eyes blinking against the violence of pure sky and cloud.
The meadow is covered in golden dandelions,
and each puff of white seed bears in it
lightning, earthquake, and fire.
The field hums my heart-song.
The hammock bands of grass
wrap around my veins and pulse them
like a thousand microscopic defibrillator paddles.
I am jolted into life.
If I lay here long I would be consumed,
my veins aflame, my face aglow,
too long clothed in ecstasy.
Perhaps Moses covered his face
because after forty days before I AM
he could not bear the starkness of the earth,
the dust of the desert, the taste of quail and manna.
Peter, faced with a lightning Christ, wanted to build houses,
to mark and remember that Elijah had appeared again.
But Jesus led them back down the mountain.
Glory is not meant for glory alone.
We were not made to lie face-up, engulfed,
nor terrified and prostrate.
Better rather to rise
and feed a world hungry
for more than bread.

Giving up Lent for Lent

2013-02-20T22:09:00.003-06:00

Lent is my favorite church season.

I know this is odd, because Lent is depressing. But I learned to love Lent in the midst of my own lonely days and nights, as a teenager, when the idea of being isolated and exhausted and hungry for more than bread alone made a lot of sense. I liked the reality of Lent, in the face of American self-reliance. Not everything is butterflies and unicorns. Sometimes you need to take a good hard look at yourself and go, "I'm not entirely sure this is the life God had in mind."

So Lent was my favorite season. We started every Sunday service with a confession and forgiveness, and the sermons and prayers were about repentance and self-discipline and "returning to the Lord". We finally got to be honest about all that was ugly and painful and hurt inside ourselves. That we make mistakes. That we live in a broken world. That our best isn’t always what we want it to be.

But Lent has not really been what I longed for, this year. I felt burnt out on Lent, even before it started. And for the past eight or so days I have been doing this purposeless self-flagellation that I have not thought of a "good" Lenten discipline and stuck to it. Which, you know, is exactly why Jesus went into the desert for forty days to struggle with Satan. "On this, the fortieth day of my fast and exhaustion, as I lie in the desert sand utterly desolate in body and in spirit, my greatest hope is that two thousand years from now people will shame themselves for not giving up chocolate."

I asked God for help, yesterday, because I was feeling bad about my failure to Lent properly, and I got silence, which is sometimes better than an answer. I've found that I long for an answer to my "Help, help, help" prayers, even though the answer is usually "You do realize that more than half of this problem is you, right?" I should probably prefer silence. But I don't, and I got it anyway, yesterday, because sometimes I need to be reminded that I am the least patient person on the planet.

And today one of my favorite professors, who also happens to be one of my favorite spiritual advisors because she is funny and sarcastic and assigns Anne Lamott for preaching class, said, "I gave up Lent for Lent."

This makes perfect sense to me.

I have a new supervisor at my internship church, which is good, because she has experience with leading congregations through the interim process. But change is hard. And I am without the company of the women who have been my biggest support system for the past two years -- the seminary colleagues I shared classes and dinners and happy hours with, with whom I laughed and cried and fought and worked out our lives and struggles. We're scattered to the corners of the nation on internship. And we really miss each other and the continuity our interwoven lives gave.

And the seminary is, in bold honesty, in shambles. Last week we learned that faculty will be reduced by about a third over the next three years, and staff will be reduced by 30-35 employees in the next six months. Our professors are tense, their faces pulled tight at the eyes and mouths. Those with tenure look at their colleagues without it and wince. The seminary has been open in teaching us that the institutional church is dying; I think they just did not expect it to be dying today.

And of course in the face of all this I do the "pastor thing," which means my wrists are bound with the sinews of daily prayer -- for friends and congregation members who are sick, who are suffering, who are afraid, who need a new job, who long for new life, who struggle with addiction and disordered eating, who are in recovery, who are hanging on to recovery by a thin black thread.

On Ash Wednesday, our campus pastor Laura said, "We're already living in death and dust. We don't need to be reminded." And they marked our foreheads with ash and oil, and proclaimed, "Consider yourself dead to sin and alive in God through Christ Jesus."

This is what I need, right now. Not sackcloth and ashes. Not fasting and mourning. I have enough of that already. Not all of us do, perhaps, but I do -- I wake up and wince, even before I remember what season it is. My heart is heavy enough. It hates the added weight of Lent. And I wasn't made for grief. I wasn't saved for mourning. I was created for the glory of God, to be fully alive.

This year, this season, maybe just this week, I need to live not in Lent but in the promise of Easter. I need to be honest about the grief, the pain, the exhaustion, the hunger for bread and yet so much more than bread, everything that is already broken and deserted in my life. And then I need the promise of Easter, of grief replaced with amazement, with pain turned into joy, with exhaustion now excitement, with hunger satisfied at the table at Emmaus when the risen Christ is revealed in the breaking of the bread.

So tonight I turned up the bass on my car stereo until I could feel it in my heart, and I sang along all the way home.

Enough in me and my life is dead and barren, today.

Today, I'll give up Lent for Lent.

Sermon for February 3, 2013: A fire in our bones, for the light of the world

2013-02-03T15:08:00.001-06:00

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations."

Then I said,
"Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy."

But the Lord said to me,
"Do not say, 'I am only a boy';
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
says the Lord."

Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
"Now I have put my words in your mouth.
See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant."

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Click here to listen along.

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So this week at Bible study, we read this text. And then Barb Hansen turned to me and said, "So, does God have a plan for each of us?" And I said, "Well--" and she said, laughing but serious, "Yes or no?!"

This week I've been surrounded by plans. Normal plans, like the plan for the next semester of school, and plans for my summer, and plans for when I'll get around to doing my taxes. And in the midst of all that there are plans for Pastor Hollie's arrival and for the next steps in calling a long-term pastor for Light of the World. So I probably shouldn't have been surprised when Barb asked me "So. Does God have a plan for each of us?" And I can't blame her. Because I'd like to know. Is there something I was made for? Does God have a plan for everyone, even before they're born? Does God have a plan for Light of the World?

Well, yes. And no. But yes. But also no.

I should back up.

Here’s the background on Jeremiah. We don’t know how old Jeremiah was when he heard the voice of God. Our guess is between thirteen and seventeen. So it’s best if, when you think of Jeremiah, you visualize one of our confirmation kids.

So the word of God comes to the teenage Jeremiah and says, "You. I chose you before you even knew how to breathe. I made you to be a prophet to my people." Jeremiah says, “I can’t, I’m too young; I don’t know how to speak for you.” God says, “Don’t worry about this. I’ll be with you. Don’t be afraid.”

And then immediately follows that with: “You are going to be a destroyer of nations. You are going to pluck up and pull down; you will destroy and overthrow.”

Well, no wonder Jeremiah said no.

See, being called to be a prophet in Israel is not a good gig. This is not a multi-million-dollar salary, tour-the-world, meet the President, go on CNN kind of deal. Prophet is not a desired career path. A prophet in Israel is the bringer of bad news. A prophet is the one who stands up against religious leaders and kings, who says, “We’ve forgotten to trust God. We’ve forgotten to take care of each other. We’ve lost God’s protection, and we’ve lost the community. We are in serious, serious danger.”

Sound familiar? Isaiah was called to the same cry: “Israel! Stop. Stop putting your trust in idols and false gods. Stop oppressing the alien, and the orphan, and the widow. Act justly with one another. Remember what God has done for us.”

And this is painful. Jeremiah preaches this message for almost forty years, and it's forty years full of pain. His friends and family turn against him. The whole nation of Israel sees him as a false prophet. He is beaten by a priest. Locked up in the temple stocks. Threatened with death. Tossed into a water-tank full of mud and left there to starve. When he’s rescued, he watches the invading army of Babylon as they kill the king’s sons and destroy the holy city of Jerusalem. Jeremiah is then taken, against his will, to Egypt, away from his home, away from the promised land, away from almost all the other Israelites.

Being called to be a prophet is painful. And God knows this. God’s promise is: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you, to deliver you.” Not like a letter in a mailbox but like when we ask, every time we pray: "Deliver us from evil." Be with us. Keep us safe. Get us through. God knows that being a prophet is not an easy call. So when God appears to this teenage boy in Israel and says, “I’ve planned for you to be a prophet for a long time,” it’s no surprise that Jeremiah says, “God, please not me.”

But God insists that Jeremiah is called. When God says, “I consecrated you,” the root of “consecrate” is kadosh. It means “set apart, to make holy.” It’s the word for the seventh day of the week, in the story of creation: So God blessed the seventh day and kadoshed it -- made it holy.” It’s the same word when God calls to Moses from the burning bush: “Take off your sandals, for the place where you stand is kadosh -- it’s holy ground.” It’s set apart; it’s chosen.

And this is where the words of the Bible and the tradition of the Lutheran church can look like they’re butting heads. See, Martin Luther was pretty insistent that everyone had a calling. The Catholic Church, in the 16th century, only talked about a calling when they talked about priests and monks. People who were “set apart” from the rest of the regular world. But Luther thought that maybe, just maybe, talking about this Jesus thing isn’t just for Sundays, and maybe it isn't just for pastors. Maybe it’s for every part of our lives. This call to preach the word of God, to talk about forgiveness and grace and love -- maybe that is for everyone, all the time.

Which is a beautiful idea, until you get down into the details. Maybe it’s too easy for Martin Luther, and for me, to stand up as pastors and say: “Everyone’s called! Go and preach!” Martin Luther was a priest for the rest of his life. I’m preparing to be a pastor. The idea that our whole life is a calling doesn’t seem so strange. But what about when you’re a teacher, or a nurse, or a consultant, or an HR rep, or a postal worker, or a stay-at-home mom, or a retiree? See, Luther wanted to get away from the idea that the only time our lives are holy is when we’re doing something for the church. But if we say “Everything’s a calling!” then this amazing idea that we’re all called, no matter what, can start to feel watered down.

So we go back to Jeremiah. Because here is a guy who did not want to be called. In chapter 20 he turns to God and says, “You know what? I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. You’re the one who got me into this mess. I spend my days shouting ‘See the hatred! See the violence and destruction!’ And everyone laughs at me and hates me.”

Jeremiah did not want everything he did to be a call. He wanted out of this mess.

But then he says, “But if I say, ‘I will not mention God, or speak any more in the Lord’s name,’ then in me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones. I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” Jeremiah says: “I can’t not do this. Trying to hold it in makes me feel like my heart and my blood are in flames. It is physically painful to keep my mouth shut.”

Jeremiah’s life isn’t only about preaching the word of God. It’s about doing what he’s called to do. About being what he has been made to be. About forgetting what is easy or simple or financially sound or cost-effective and doing what makes him feel alive. It’s what fulfills him. It’s what satisfies a need, what quenches a thirst.

And see what he is called to do: to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant. This fire in his bones isn’t just for him. What is going to fulfill his hunger is something that will change everyone else. He’s called to stand up against religious and political powers, shouting, “Stop the oppression! Stop the hatred! Stop the confidence in yourselves! Remember God, and remember one another.” He is called to tear up everything that is already dead, to clear away the weeds in peoples’ hearts and minds that keep good seeds from growing. He is called to say, over and over, “Don’t you see how this is killing you?” in the hope that the whole nation or even just one person might turn away from worshipping money and power and success, from pride in their own abilities or a hidden shame about their own failings, from everything that keeps us from love of God and love of neighbor. Jeremiah’s heart burns because he sees the pain his people are in, and he wants to--he is made to tear it down and plant something new.

This is what he’s made for. This has been God’s plan from the beginning of his life -- that Jeremiah is to be a prophet to the nations. He can't not do it. He's called to this, chosen for it, set apart to be holy. But he's not called to something just for himself. He's called and fulfilled and set on fire for something that is meant for all the people.

See, God has a plan for Jeremiah, but God also has a plan for Israel. It's in chapter 29: "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future. Then when you call for me and come to me and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me. And I will restore everything you've lost, and gather you from all the places you've been driven, and I will bring you home."

This is God's plan, not just for Jeremiah but for everyone. Plans for growth, not for pain. Plans for hope, for a future. Plans to be known and heard and found and brought back home. It’s not an itinerary, or a manual, or even a map. It’s a promise. It's a promise from the very mouth of God that no matter who we are or what has happened, God wants you. God wants you home. God wants you to feel that fire in our bones, that excitement, that passion. God wants to give you something so deeply satisfying that it feeds all of your life. God wants to call you, to give you purpose, to give you hope, to give you a future. And not just you, not just Jeremiah, but every single one of God's beloved children. God has a plan, but it's not a step-by-step guideline or a PowerPoint presentation. It's a hope that someday everyone will have God's word written on their hearts, like a tattoo on every vein, so that each heartbeat is a cry for mercy and justice and love.

That's what Jeremiah longed for -- not for God's word but for a way to change people's lives. And that's how you can know your call. When your passion and hope becomes a gift to someone else. When your story becomes a source for another's healing. And that can happen anywhere, any time. You don't have to be a prophet, or a pastor, or anything -- not anything except the light of Christ that God has lit up in you. You will know your call when the fire in your bones becomes a light by which others can see. That fire isn't just to keep you warm. It's to light up the world.

And if you don’t have that -- let’s find it. Let's talk it over. Let's fight it out. Let's pluck up and tear down everything that keeps you from joy. Let's burn a fire in your bones till whatever holds you back is ashes and dust. And then let's plant something new. Something that will feed you, and then feed others. Something that will give you purpose and strength and hope. Let's be a community that does that for each other.

Because God wants nothing less for you than a fire in your bones that becomes a light to the world.

Amen.

The assistant's mic: more true now than ever

2013-01-27T17:36:00.001-06:00

My microphone, thank you very much, is labeled Assistant.

The first Sunday after Deb had left, it was suggested that I take the Pastor's mic, and leave the Assistant's for whoever else was helping with the service.

"No, thank you," I said, more than once, and smiling as best I could.

Even once the Pastor label was peeled away, leaving just a streak of white, I wanted my Assistant mic.

At first glance, this was mostly about my own comfort. The ordained office, to me, is very special. I will love the day when I am Pastor, but I am very cautious about taking it before my time.

When she was at Light of the World, Deb did not wear a collar, and so neither did I. I was envious of my colleagues at other internship sites, who posted shots of their first Sundays in clericals, but the tradition at LOTW was not to wear one, and so I did not.

Now it feels right. It would feel early, to wear it now. I am not yet called to the office of Word and Sacrament. I have no question that someday I will be, and so to look at the stoles and collared shirts in the back of my closet is only a reminder that I have a promise to walk towards.

I am fine just being Emmy, for now. I have no wish to be pastor, just yet.

But today I thought of how very true it is that I am an Assistant.

I am with the people of Light of the World on this new journey, through losing their mission starter, finding an interim, calling a new long-term pastor. I am with them, but not as one of them, because my time here is temporary.

(And this kills me, to remember that my time is limited. Deb commissioned me, when I began, to fall in love with the people. This was a painful request, because it was too damn easy to do, and will be so damn hard to leave.)

I am not a Pastor, and while I lead worship and plan music and make phone calls and lead Bible study, I am not the pastor.

I am the Assistant. I am the one who watches, who waits for a signal, who plans ahead. I wash the altar cloth. I ask for preachers and presiders. I write the prayers, teach the kids, hug the parents. I am the one who helps. I am Eve, pulled from Adam's side: "It is not good for Light of the World to be alone. I will give them a helper as a partner."

I am not a leader in all this. I am the helper. The community of Light of the World, in its two hundred and some members, will lead the way through this process. They are the ones who will ask the hard questions, who will challenge each other, who will stumble, who will rise. They will set their hands on their future next Pastor. And I will be their helper.

This -- this is a holy call, to be the Assistant.

May God make me worthy of it.

On losing Deb at Light of the World

2013-01-23T15:08:00.003-06:00

This is what Gina, a member of my internship congregation, wrote about losing our solo pastor Deb.

We have not been here from the very beginning. We didn’t get to experience the golf course days. We started in March of 2008. After we attended our first service, it was because of Pastor Deb that we came back. My guess is that you have felt it too…the feeling that what she is preaching about that week is meant for you, and only you. It’s like she knew what you were going through that week and wants to tell you about how she knows things are going to be ok because we have God on our side. Not only in her words but when she greets you on Sunday mornings with her big smile and open arms, it’s like she got up that day specifically to see YOU. Knowing her these 4 years, I see why she was called to be a pastor. God’s love flows from her heart. Her mind. Her soul.

It is because of these qualities that I have felt that Light of the World was not going to be the last stop on her journey. God has other plans for her. Great plans. I am thankful He has put her in my life. I wouldn't be the same person without her.

Now I would like to talk about all of you. I would like to tell you that, as the weeks and years have passed, Pastor Deb was not the only one we were coming to see on Sundays. Because of you, I have learned what a church really is. I have learned that it is more than just one person, and I want to remind you of that. Pastor Deb’s vision of what she wanted Light of the World to be has brought it together, but it is YOU who makes it stick.

It is you that brings me back every week. You who fills my cup and helps me get through the next six days until I can see you again. Look at the person to your right. I love that person. Look to your left. I love that person too. Whether you are one of the babies I grab for my baby fix, a young child for me to chat and laugh with, a confirmation student who is teaching me something new about life seen through your eyes or an adult that my extroverted self needs a hug from. You are my church. Wherever this journey takes us, I want to be with you. That is what matters to me. The person who leads and preaches is a piece of the puzzle, but that person can’t do a whole lot without us.

("My Church ... Light of the World")

Everything Gina says is spot-on true, and that truth is what makes me love this church more every week.

Sermon for January 13, 2013: Jesus' baptism and the danger of God's grace

2013-01-15T14:06:00.002-06:00

Hymn text: "You Are Mine" by David Haas

I will come to you in the silence
I will lift you from all your fear
You will hear My voice
I claim you as My choice
Be still, and know I am near

Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine

I am strength for all the despairing
Healing for the ones who dwell in shame
All the blind will see, the lame will all run free
And all will know My name

I am the Word that leads all to freedom
I am the peace the world cannot give
I will call your name, embracing all your pain
Stand up, now, walk, and live

Isaiah 43:1-7 (The Message)

But now, God’s Message,
the God who made you in the first place, Jacob,
the One who got you started, Israel:
“Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you.
I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re between a rock and a hard place,
it won’t be a dead end—
Because I am God, your personal God,
The Holy of Israel, your Savior.
I paid a huge price for you:
all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!
That’s how much you mean to me!
That’s how much I love you!
I’d sell off the whole world to get you back,
trade the creation just for you.
“So don’t be afraid: I’m with you.
I’ll round up all your scattered children,
pull them in from east and west.
I’ll send orders north and south:
‘Send them back.
Return my sons from distant lands,
my daughters from faraway places.
I want them back, every last one who bears my name,
every man, woman, and child
Whom I created for my glory,
yes, personally formed and made each one.’”

Luke 3:15-22 (NRSV)

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

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Sermon

This week I was asked why we baptize babies and children, when other churches and denominations insist that only adults can be baptized. And this is one of those questions where I can feel every seminary professor I’ve ever had waiting for my answer. I don't doubt that a few of them might try to go back and change my grades based on what I say. See, this was a big question in Martin Luther’s time, in the sixteenth century, and we’ve been talking about it ever since.

But really it’s not a question that just started four hundred years ago. And it’s not even a question that started two thousand years ago when John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness. This is a question that traces far back in our faith and its roots, back into the early life of the Jewish people in Israel. That’s why we read Isaiah today -- because the question of “What does our baptism mean?” goes back into the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament.

I should tell you that Isaiah isn’t one book. It’s actually three. And this trilogy was written while all the Jewish people were in exile. See, the Israelites had been given the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey -- but as part of that, they made promises to God and to each other. They promised to remember that God had delivered them from Egypt, that God had led them out of slavery with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. They promised to care for the poor and helpless among them. They promised to live in the freedom God had given them, and to be a light to the rest of the world.

And parents passed on the promise to their children, and those children to their children, and so on, for hundreds of years. But the longer they lived in the promised land, the further away the promise felt. They forgot to trust in God alone. They put their trust in their own abilities. And they forgot to care for the poor among them. They were so proud of all that they thought they had done themselves that they turned their backs on those who needed help.

So Isaiah 1-39 is the story of Isaiah the prophet, who has a vision of what will happen to Israel. The people and their leaders have wandered so far away from the heart of God -- from righteousness, and mercy, and justice -- that when danger comes, God will not be able to protect them. They have gone too far. And so the Israelites are conquered by Babylon, and they are taken far away from their homes and their promised land into exile and oppression. The people forgot the God who brought them out of slavery, and now they are back in it.

And then, after thirty-nine chapters of doom and pain and judgment, the story changes completely. The second part of Isaiah is the story not of the sadness of a people lost, but of love. “Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. I’ve called your name. You’re mine.” Isaiah writes, in the face of all that Israel has done, of God’s amazing, overabundant, merciful love. Despite everything that has happened -- despite how Israel has forgotten to trust God and to care for each other -- despite all of that, God wants them back. That mighty hand that delivered them from slavery in Egypt is now searching, reaching, clinging to them. Despite every way that Israel has wandered away from God’s longing for mercy and justice, God is still chasing them down.

And when Israel hears that kind of love, they respond the only way we all can. With hope. Hope for a return to the promised land. Hope for renewed righteousness -- for food for the hungry, for trust in God, for peace in the land. Isaiah 56-66 is about hope, because a God who can love this much is a God who can make anything possible. A God who can love this much is a God who can bring them out of exile and back home. And the hope isn’t just for Israel. It’s not just for the descendents of Abraham. It’s for everyone. The third part of Isaiah is about hope for a people who become an example to the whole world: a people chosen to live in love of God and love of neighbor. And everyone else is invited in.

Five hundred years later, John the Baptist appears in the wilderness. John offers a baptism of “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” He does the same things that Isaiah did. First, he calls out those who have forgotten the promise: the crowd for not living in righteousness, their ruler Herod for stealing his brother’s wife Herodias. He calls them out.

Then, he begs the people to restore justice in their lives. We read this part before Christmas: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” He asks them to live not in the confidence in themselves, but in the comfort of God’s care.

And then today, we hear how John gives the people a promise. He gives them hope. He gives them a chance to start fresh.

Now John’s baptism wasn’t quite like the way we baptize today. John’s baptism came from a long tradition in Judaism, a tradition of ritual bathing to purify the body. This bathing wasn’t so much about sin as it was about cleanliness. For the Jewish people, the body and the soul are very closely entwined. What happens to the body affects the soul. So to wash off dirt wasn’t just to get your hands clean, but to restore your spiritual cleanliness as well. And remember that these were a desert people -- they didn’t have a hot shower every morning or a bubble bath every night. They had the muddy rivers of Jordan, or water hauled by hand from deep wells. A full body immersion was a special occasion. It was a sign that whatever dirt or sweat or blood was clinging to your skin was washed away. You had a clean start, both physically and spiritually.

So John takes this washing out to the wilderness. He takes an old and important tradition into a new light. Now the washing isn’t about things that happen naturally in the course of a lifetime. Now it’s an outward sign of an inward desire to do life differently. It’s a way of saying: I want to turn around. I want to live in love and hope and justice. I want a fresh start. I want everything that is useless, everything that holds me back from loving God and neighbor, to be washed away from me.

This is the good news that John gives the crowd: you have the chance at a fresh start. Everything that has built up on your skin and in your heart? It can be washed away. This is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. It says “I’m sorry, and I want to make things right.”

But here’s the danger in the stories of Isaiah, and of John the Baptist, and of us. We can forget that God’s love is a gift. We can start to think that God loves us because we’re beautiful, or smart, or rich, or capable, or clean, or holy. We can start to think that we’re in control of God’s love. We can claim it for ourselves. And -- we can decide who else gets some, too. Israelites might say that they alone were the chosen people. John’s followers might say that their baptism made them the most holy. When God gives us love, out of nothing but sheer grace, there’s a danger that we think we earned it. We can narrow down the promises of God. It’s for us, not for them. It’s for me, not for you.

And then Jesus shows up on the shore of the Jordan. And he blows up everything that John has been teaching about baptism.

Our Christian tradition, looking back two thousand years, understands Jesus as sinless. He wouldn’t have needed repentance, because he didn’t have anything to repent from. And whether or not the whole crowd gathered for baptism believed that, there was definitely a sign that Jesus’ baptism was completely different. His baptism and prayer opened the heavens and sent down the Holy Spirit and a voice said: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

When the heavens open and a voice shakes the earth, it’s clear that Jesus is chosen, special, set apart in some way. All the promises get narrowed down to him. He is the Son, the Beloved. Of all the chosen people, he is the most chosen. Of all the baptized, he is the most important. But Jesus’ life shows that this narrowing isn’t just meant to be held onto. It’s a gift with shoes attached. His mission is to go into the world, to wander from town to town, to release people from their brokenness and sin and suffering into a new life. This is the kingdom of God: that God has one Son, the Beloved, whose mission is to draw everyone into God’s love.

Right into this chance at narrowing down what God can do and for whom, Jesus shows up. Jesus, who was always doing what he shouldn’t. Jesus, who talked with women, and Samaritans, and Gentiles; who touched lepers and dead little girls; who healed on the Sabbath; who said, over and over again, “I will not let there be boundaries to God’s grace. There are no limits to God's love."

God’s Son shows up right in the middle of everything, right in the thick of the danger of saying that we earned this love, and says: This is a gift.

Jesus doesn’t come for baptism for the forgiveness of his sins, but to say: This is how far God will go to bring everyone back. God will go right into the heart of sin and fear and brokenness. God will go chasing down everyone who has wandered.

When Jesus shows up for baptism, it is a fearsome declaration that God’s love is a gift. That the forgiveness offered in baptism is grace. We don’t earn it. We don’t work up to it. We don’t even choose it. Baptism is a sign that God has chosen us -- has chosen me -- has chosen you. It is a sign of the promise that God is already at work in our lives, chasing us down, calling us back. It is a sign of God’s hand on us from the very beginning of our lives, from our very first breath as a baby. It is a sign of God crying, over and over, “Trust me. Care for one another.” Baptism is the promise: “All are welcome -- no exceptions.”

It is God saying, “That’s how much you mean to me! That’s how much I love you!”

Amen.

A minister's inheritance

2013-01-03T20:54:00.003-06:00

My uncle Maynard passed away two months ago.

His longtime companion Vern, and his nurse Suzanne, sorted through his effects at the house in Arizona. Photos are being saved, journals preserved, items sent to friends and family.

Including three boxes to my parents' house, to the new reverend in the Kegler family.

It is an odd and weighty thing to receive what has been sent. There are sixty years of service in those boxes. I hope to chronicle them more and take photos as I go, but it is honestly overwhelming to open each box and find the history within.

I have inherited many chalices, including his personal chalice used for daily mass -- the silver worn from use, the brass base heavy and sturdy. Also a traveling communion kit, with full cup and plate, used by Catholic priests in German prisoner-of-war camps in America in WWII. To hold that is to hold a history that traces back thousands of years -- a thin line threading through centuries, a strand of love even for the enemy.

Most recently I am fascinated by this.

Dr. Thomas A. Dooley III

"In recognition of the public service to alleviate suffering among people of the world"

Dr. Thomas Anthony Dooley III, according to the foundation that bears his name:

Tom Dooley met his destiny in 1954 while serving as a young Navy Lieutenant assigned to caring for refugees in North Vietnam. From that experience his life took fire and was never to be the same again. Tom, who grew up in a comfortable suburb of St. Louis, was tormented by his new found realization that half the world goes to bed hungry every night, that half the world spends a lifetime without seeing a doctor – that half the world still suffers from the diseases of Biblical days.

The young physician was unable to ignore these realities of human existence. He was determined to bring to the other half of the world medical care, education and training for better health and a new quality of life. In 1958, he founded MEDICO, and in the three short years before his painful death from cancer in 1961, he established 17 medical programs in 14 countries. Tom Dooley captured the heart of America and became a legend in his own time.

In those few short years he became one of the world’s most admired men – honored by such notables as His Excellency the Pope, Albert Schweitzer, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Nixon, Dr. Charles Mayo and posthumously by a special medal authorized by the United States Congress. (dooleyintermed.com)

This medal, the Congressional Gold Medal, is the highest civilian award in America, and now I own a small replica.

I had never heard of Dr. Dooley before Father Maynard's death. It seems that Dr. Dooley and my uncle had met while they were both in St. Louis, and had become friends. (Of this I have no doubt, because my uncle was one of the kindest and friendliest people I knew.) After Dr. Dooley's early death at age thirty-four, he was championed for canonization in the Catholic church, with my uncle leading the charge. Ultimately the beatification process failed, but Dr. Dooley is still recognized for his humanitarian contributions, and the foundation that bears his name continues that work around the world.

Dooley wrote three books, Deliver Us From Evil, The Edge of Tomorrow, and The Night They Burned the Mountain. His biography, Promises to Keep, was written by his mother (who passed on many things to my uncle after Dooley's death in 1961). I'm hoping to read some in the next few weeks and come to better know the man my uncle so revered.

Big changes ahead

2013-01-03T18:19:00.003-06:00

Hello, dear blog! I have neglected you. My apologies. I've been a bit busy. :)

The semester is well over, and so far it appears I've passed all my classes (whew!). Things are going very well at my internship church, even as we're now 48 hours away from sending the original pastor, Deb Stehlin, on to her new role at the Minneapolis Area Synod. For the next few weeks, her day-to-day tasks -- pastoral care, worship planning, relationship building, community organizing, sermon writing -- fall to our mission coordinator, the intern pastor (me), some affiliated ordained pastors (to preside over communion), and a group of lay leaders who have increased their time commitments and stepped up to get a lot of very important things done. Hopefully, by the end of January, we'll have an interim pastor in place who will help us through the next steps in the call process.

I keep looking at this church with total amazement.

There is a rising group of families and individuals who have committed themselves wholeheartedly to Light of the World's mission -- to be a relational community that transforms its people and the world. They have said, "We're not leaving." They have said, "The mission continues." They have said, "The feeling of love and welcome that people get when they walk in the door the very first time -- that absolutely will not change."

It is amazing to watch. It is amazing to be part of a church that has truly bought in to what it says it is about. The grief at losing Deb is still palpable, but now it shows up arm-in-arm with hope and vision.

I have told many of my seminary friends that I have the best internship supervisor I could think of. Now I can say that I also have the best internship church.

I have so much hope, and feel so very lucky.

Sermon for December 16, 2012: Luke 3:1-18, Jesus and the Brood of Vipers

2012-12-16T00:06:00.002-06:00

Luke 3:1-18

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, 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. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ “

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

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Click here to listen along.

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I’m not really a big fan of John the Baptist.

I know he’s from the Bible. I know he’s related to Jesus, and his father was a priest, and his birth was announced by an angel. He’s supposed to be a holy guy. But he just kind of gives me the creeps sometimes.

Matthew and Mark’s gospels tell us he wore camel’s hair and a leather belt, and ate locusts and wild honey. He’s dressed in this oily cloak, with a rough belt, and basically eating what he can gather from the rocks and caves around the river. It’s gross. He’s out in the wilderness, away from civilization, shouting “Prepare ye the way of the Lord!” like the guys who stand outside the Twins stadium and declare that God is a vengeful God who hates all of us for our sin. When I think of John I think of the schizophrenic I met last summer in the hospital, who told me the whole world was divided into Cains and Abels -- good people and evil people, saved and unsaved, and if you were a Cain, there wasn’t a thing that could be done to save you. A very black-and-white way of looking at the world. There is chaff, and there is wheat.

I’ve never really liked that way of thinking, because after a while, it became clear to me that I was going to get that “sorted into chaff” someday. For not reading the Bible enough. For not praying hard enough. For not telling enough people about Jesus. There would be some valley in me that I’d forgotten to fill in, some hill I’d neglected to make low. Something crooked that wasn’t made straight.

So whenever John the Baptist Sunday comes up and he points his bony, dirty finger at the people to say “Even now the ax is lying at the foot of the tree,” I feel sick, because sometimes it feels like he’s pointing that finger at me.

And then I wake up in a world where twenty children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut, went to their elementary school on a regular Friday, and now will never come home.

Suddenly pointing a finger doesn't seem so hard. When unspeakable evil occurs, suddenly it is much easier to identify with the wheat, and to hate the chaff. In the face of horrible tragedy, of atrocious violence, I suddenly feel a lot less sick about drawing lines.

We want to draw lines between us and evil. We say, Adam Lanza was "not like us." He had a personality disorder, he was a goth, he was a nerd, he was a genius, he was a sociopath. There’s something that made him different from us. We’re on one side of the line, and he’s on the other. Chaff, and wheat.

But we don’t just do it to him. Even before we knew any details, broadcasters and politicians and commentators and people on Facebook took up their banners. More gun control! Get guns out of unsafe hands. Less gun control! Put more guns in citizens’ hands. Get prayer back in schools. We need to make mental health care easier to access. Homeschool your kids. Private school your kids. Don’t have kids at all -- the world is a mess. And everyone gets in a tussle at the dinner table or in the comments on Facebook, drawing lines and pointing at the “other side” and shouting, “You brood of vipers!”

And in the middle of it all, John the Baptist stands in his oily camelhair coat, with his bony, dirty finger outstretched.

But his finger is pointing to Jesus.

Because in that crowd that comes to be baptized, the crowd that John calls a brood of vipers, also stands the son of God.

See, Jesus was baptized by John, too. He came out with the crowds from Jerusalem. The promised powerful one, with the winnowing fork in his hand, is instead standing there alongside the river, getting his sandals muddy and his toes wet. Jesus came to John for baptism, for the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In Matthew’s gospel, John will try to turn him away -- “I should be baptized by you, Jesus, not the other way around.” But Jesus is baptized by John, in the same muddy river that the brood of vipers came to, in the same water that all the sinners were washed. Maybe when John looks at the crowd and cries, “You brood of vipers!” he looks at the sinners, and the evil ones. Maybe he looks at the Sandy Hook Elementary shooter. But he maybe also looks at us. And maybe he also looks at Jesus.

This is the audacity of Christmas -- that when we cry out for someone to separate the chaff from the wheat, God sends a tiny baby. When we look for the Messiah, we find him standing on the riverbank, shoulder to shoulder with us. Jesus comes to us, to be with us, to live with sinners and dine with tax collectors.

In Advent, we cry over and over again, “Come, Lord Jesus!” We remember his birth at Christmas, and we await his future coming in glory. But it is a dangerous waiting. Because when Jesus walked among us, he threw out every category we had, and crossed over every line we drew.

He argued with the religious leaders. He called sinners and tax collectors as his disciples. He touched lepers when it would make him spiritually “unclean”, and he healed on the Sabbath when no work could be done. He talked with women, with Gentiles, with centurions and demoniacs. All the people that the religious leaders and holy people wanted to be separate from are the people Jesus was found standing beside.

When we say “Come, Lord Jesus,” sometimes what we mean is “Come and sort out the chaff and wheat.” But what he hears is, “Come and turn our lives upside down. Come and cross all our carefully drawn lines. Come and be counted with the brood of vipers.”

That’s a whole different kind of Christmas than the one we’re getting ready for.

What should we do? How do we prepare for this kind of Messiah? How do we get ready for our lives to be turned upside down?

Like the crowds, we turn to John the Baptist for answers. What does our baptism mean? How do we live now? What kinds of trees are we? What fruit do our lives bear?

John does not have a complicated system for living into our salvation. There’s no step-by-step guide to becoming the very best tree with the very best fruit. John doesn’t say, “Prove your worthiness. Do even more. Wear yourself out. Dump everything you have into making sure your spot in heaven is secure.”

John’s answer is much more simple, and much more difficult.

Love.

Love your neighbor. Love the one who is cold, and needs a coat. Love the one who is hungry, and needs food. Give to them, out of your own abundance. Love the ones who have less than you -- love them, and care for them. Love the ones who have things you want. Love them, and don’t steal from them. Stop cheating others to benefit yourself. Act out of love, not out of fear.

Small steps, really. These are the kinds of things you learn in kindergarten: share your toys, play fair, don’t hit. But we get sold messages of greed and indulgence and “looking out for Number One,” and we forget. We keep our abundance for ourselves. We focus on our own needs. We let fear run our lives. And we draw lines in the sand, between Us and Them, between Good and Evil.

And John the Baptist stands by the bank of the river, with his bony finger pointed, crying out: Prepare the way of the Lord.

Maybe when John declares that the threshing-floor is ready, it isn’t about separating good from evil, innocent from killer, sinner from saint. Maybe it’s about the work that God does in us, every day.

Because getting ready for Jesus is not really something we can do alone. The real leveling work? The smoothing out of rough places, the difficult made easy? That’s the work that Jesus takes on for us. Preparing the way of the Lord. Notice the verbs? “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low.” They’re passive verbs. Something is being done to the valleys and the mountains. And Isaiah doesn’t say who’s doing it.

What if God is the one who works a way into our hearts? What if the first step in preparing the way of the Lord is to listen? To do what we already know is right, and to wait for the Messiah. To look among the brood of vipers for the One who comes in power. To wait for the One wants to clear everything useless -- everything that holds us back from love -- from our lives. To hear the Lord who longs to whisper words of comfort, of peace, of joy.

And so we wait, and listen.

Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

Amen.

Transition

2012-12-10T23:00:00.000-06:00

Last week, my internship church learned that our solo pastor has been called to a new position.

She will become the Director of Evangelical Mission for the Minneapolis area, and she will be amazing at it, and it will be deeply fulfilling for her. But there is grief. And I am grieving, too, for a community that will have to face a hard transition, and for the people who lose a beloved pastor. And in full honesty, I'm grieving for myself -- for losing what has been an essentially perfect supervisor-intern relationship.

Today we learned -- on the Monday of our finals week -- that our seminary president has resigned.

This comes on the heels of, just this semester: shutting down the textbook section of our campus bookstore, closing a major on-campus dorm due to unlivable conditions, our Dean of Students (who I love) leaving, our beloved professor of church music leaving, the Master of Sacred Music program going to temporary hold for review, the Augsburg Fortress portion of the bookstore closing, our VP of Finances abruptly leaving, and the interim Chief Financial Officer announcing that we are projected to lose $1.5-$2.5 million in this fiscal year.

It has not been an easy semester on the campus of Luther Seminary, and it has not been an easy week for my church. And in full honesty, it has not been an easy day for me.

But papers are due anyway, and for one class I had to reflect on some readings, offer a critique, and then state a reconstruction or resolution to the critique.

I concluded:

In this moment I have no choice but to depend entirely upon the mission of God. I have been taught that God makes promises, and keeps them. I have been taught, and have repeated, that God does not forget us. I have been taught and have repeated and believed, because my life has no meaning without it, that God is at work in us for greater things than what we imagine.

It is to this teaching that I must turn, at the end of a long semester, and it is in this promise that I must hope. It is appropriate to leave it here, unresolved, as we wait in Advent and turn our faces to the promise of an incarnate God come to carry out a mission of mercy and compassion. There is nowhere else to leave the broken world but at the side of the manger.

on the Church of England's vote today

2012-11-20T12:34:00.002-06:00

I am deeply disheartened by the Church of England’s failure to pass the measure to allow for women bishops. Doubly hurt that the vote failed in the house of laity — not the bishops or the priests, but the laity would not allow for women bishops.

I was raised Episcopal, so I have a heart for the church of England. They are the grandparents, in a way, of the church that raised me. But they will not call me. They will not call me priest because I am gay, and they will not call me bishop because I am a woman.

I had to sit through the Episcopal General Convention in 2003 when we fought over the ordination of openly gay priest Gene Robinson to bishop of New Hampshire.

I had to sit through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Churchwide Assembly in 2009 when we voted on the ordination of partnered gay and lesbian people.

I am so, so sick of sitting through votes on whether women and/or gay people can serve.

Today, I am totally done with this. There are children dying in Israel / Palestine. There are children starving all around the world. There are children abused and broken and hurt, and the church is complicit at least by its silence if not by its own acts of oppression.

I love working with people. I love seeing brokenness explored and wounds begin to heal. But I am so, so done (at least today) with people who think they have some sort of God-given right to perpetrate abuse and inequality in God’s own kingdom.

Sermon on Mark 13:1-13 -- "Are the promises of God still true?"

2012-11-19T11:06:00.002-06:00

This week's sermon was knitted up with the hymn of the day, so that text is included also.

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Canticle of the Turning verses 1 and 2
Text: Rory Cooney, b. 1952, based on the Magnificat
Tune: Star of County Down

1.
My soul cries out with a joyful shout

that the God of my heart is great,

and my spirit sings of the wondrous things

that you bring to the ones who wait.

You fixed your sight on your servant's plight,

and my weakness you did not spurn,

so from east to west shall my name be blest.

Could the world be about to turn?

Refrain

My heart shall sing of the day you bring.

Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,

and the world is about to turn.

2.
Though I am small, my God, my all,

you work great things in me,

and your mercy will last from the depths of the past

to the end of the age to be.

Your very name puts the proud to shame,

and to those who would for you yearn,

you will show your might, put the strong to flight,

for the world is about to turn. Refrain

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Text: Mark 13:1-13 (NRSV)

As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

“As for yourselves, beware; for they will hand you over to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them. And the good news must first be proclaimed to all nations. When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

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Click here to listen along.

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Sermon

I did something this week that I have not done in two and a half years: I read a book for fun.

I’m reading a book called The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail, and Some Don’t. It was written by Nate Silver. He’s a statistician, and you may recognize his name, because he’s the guy who last week correctly predicted the presidential winner in all fifty states. He’s a smart guy, and he understands a lot about predictions -- and also about humanity. In his introduction, he explains that our strength, as humans, comes not from being able to defend ourselves but being able to recognize and anticipate events. We can recognize patterns. We remember what happened in the past, and it helps explain our present and plan for our future.

But the problem, Silver explains, is that our ability to find patterns can make us find them where they don’t actually exist. We want the world to make sense, and so we look for signs that will explain it.

The first hearers of Mark’s gospel, in about 65 or 70 AD, were living in a time of struggle. Many of the early Christians were Jews. Their lives had been centered around the Temple, the great work of so many hands over history, a symbol of their struggle to be a people with a home where they could worship God. And in 70 A.D., the Temple was destroyed. All that remained was one of the great walls -- the Western Wall, as we know it today. Their home, and the house of God, was gone. It was taken over by Rome, the oppressing political power that made their lives and their faith a struggle every day. They asked each other, “What does this mean? Are the promises of God still true?”

And the early Christians, both Jews and Greeks, were struggling with their own individual lives. Family members turned against them. They were dragged before political authorities and church leaders and declared to be heretics and terrorists. They were trying to live out Jesus’ message of love, of peace, of hope, and they were condemned for it. So they wanted to know -- what does all this mean? Why does the kingdom of God feel so far away? Are the promises of God still true?

So they turned to one of the storytellers in their community, Mark. Now Mark, unlike Nate Silver, was not a statistician. He didn’t have a liberal arts degree in economics. Mark didn’t analyze the church’s struggles from the perspective of numbers. They turned to him because his job was to know and pass on the stories of Jesus. So he didn’t make a blog to predict changes in government. He wrote a gospel, to help his people see the patterns in Jesus’ life and death -- and to help them see the patterns in their own. And he wrote chapter 13, which we read today, in the style of apocalyptic literature.

Apocalypse is a Greek word -- two Greek words, actually. Apo and kalupto. Kalupto means "to cover", and apo means "away from", so together they mean: to uncover. To take the cover away. To reveal what has been hidden. Apocalypse is not destruction but revelation.

And in apocalyptic literature, revelation is about the unveiling of something much bigger than what we currently know. We're pulling back the curtain on something much larger than us. Apocalyptic writers believe that there is a link between everything happening on earth and the larger ongoing struggle between the forces of good and evil. Oppression and war and injustice on earth is not only human history but also a mirror of an invisible, spiritual battle. So apocalyptic writers look at earth now and understand it to have much bigger significance. Apocalyptic writers look to the future and anticipate a great and final battle between evil and good -- between hatred and compassion, between oppression and justice.

So apocalyptic writers see wars, and rumors of wars, and nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and they want to tell everyone: "This is what all this means. This war is a symbol of a much greater war that we can't see."

You see, apocalyptic writers are usually writing during times of great struggle. They are writing for communities who feel like they are living in the end of the world. They see wars and hear rumors of wars. They are living in famine, or struggling in the aftermath of an earthquake. They are believers whose family members turn against them, whose government refuses to believe in justice and love. They're the Catholic teenager in northwestern Minnesota, who supported the Vote No campaign on Facebook and was then denied confirmation and communion by his family priest. They’re the Palestinians in Gaza, watching as Israel’s three-day air strike turns their neighborhoods to rubble and fills their children with terror.

These are people who want to know what’s going on. And because they believe that there is more to life than the world we can see, they want to know where God is in all of it. They want to know, “In the face of all this, are the promises of God still true?”

Wars and rumors of wars have always been with us, from the time we realized we could kill one another. As long as there have been nations, they have been fighting. As long as we have known solid ground, we have known earthquakes. As long as we have known food, we have known famine. As long as we have had religion, we have had leaders who take it and try to gain power, who claim, “Follow me! I’m the one!”. And as long as we have had religious beliefs, we have fought over them, condemned each other, killed each other. We see all this struggle and war, in our sliver of human history, and we ask, “Are the promises of God still true?” And Jesus says: “This is not the end.”

This sliver of history where we live is a small part of a great span of time. We live at only a single point of the cloud of space and time that God has made. And into our sliver of history, God speaks through Jesus and says, “This is not the end. I can see the end. My promises are still true. Love and justice will reign.”

This is good, and yet it’s so hard. It's a condemnation of our desire to get a schedule, to try to know everything. We keep looking for patterns. We keep wanting statistical answers and firm dates. Peter and James and John and Andrew ask for us: "When will this happen?" We've been trying to answer that question for two thousand years. Will it happen with Haley's Comet? Is it the Y2K bug? What about May 21, 2011? What about December 21, 2012? What about now that Hostess is closing and there will be no more Twinkies?

Many have come in Jesus’ name and said, “I am he!” There are still wars, and rumors of wars. There are people dying in the Gaza strip. There are earthquakes, and hurricanes, and destruction we cannot prepare for. There are family members turning against each other. There are forces of evil that say “No”, over and over, to a message of compassion. It tells us instead to hate, to fear, to compete. To shoot and bomb the bad guys. To protect ourselves from each other. To earn more money and buy more stuff.

So we see lies, and oppression, and war with other countries and within ourselves. And our human brains, looking for patterns, want to know: Is this the end? When will the kingdom come? When will love and justice reign?

Maybe you’ve noticed that when the disciples ask Jesus questions, they don’t usually get a straight answer. And they don’t in today’s story, either. But they do eventually. Jesus predicts the coming destruction, all the struggles and pain, and then says in verse 32: “But about that day or hour, no one knows.”

God stands outside of time, and yet enters into our little sliver to promise: “I can’t tell you when we’ll be there. But we’ll be there. I already know the end.” We're drawn from our small point of experience into a much bigger picture, where God stands and looks at the whole of history and then says to us, "Don't be afraid."

Jesus says, “Let go of your worry. Let go of your fear. Let go of your need to know the schedule. Let go of your need to prepare. Be alert, but not afraid. Don’t look to buildings to house you, or institutions to protect you, or government to fight for you, or money to save you. The end of the story is that all of that will be gone. Not one of these stones will still be standing. Be alert, but not afraid. You already know what to look for: look for love. Look for love of God and love of neighbor. That is where the kingdom is already here.”

It’s a hard promise, really. That all of this will pass away. That none of the things the world offers will save us. That we will still have troubles, and trials, and hate. God did not say: You will never be troubled; you will never have difficulties; you will never be anxious. God said: you will never be overcome.

Jesus promises: all this will pass away. But the one who endures will be saved.

And we will not endure because of our fear, or our knowledge, or our preparations. We will not survive because of anything we have a grip on. We will be saved because of God’s grip on us. We will endure because the One who endures will save us.

The God who created all of time and space, who stands at a place where you can see the end and the beginning and everything in between, entered into a sliver of history to tell us just how much we are loved. How much we are wanted in the kingdom. How hungry God is for justice. How much the heart of God wants to see wars cease, oppressors fall, and peace reign.

In all of this, God holds us fast. The promises of God are true. The reign of love and justice is coming, brick by brick, heart by heart. The world is already turning, and the kingdom is here.
Amen.

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Canticle of the Turning verses 3 and 4

3.
From the halls of pow'r to the fortress tow'r,

not a stone will be left on stone.

Let the king beware for your justice tears

ev'ry tyrant from his throne.

The hungry poor shall weep no more,

for the food they can never earn;

there are tables spread, ev'ry mouth be fed,

for the world is about to turn.

Refrain

My heart shall sing of the day you bring.

Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,

and the world is about to turn.

4.
Though the nations rage from age to age,

we remember who holds us fast:

God's mercy must deliver us

from the conqueror's crushing grasp.

This saving word that our forebears heard

is the promise which holds us bound,

till the spear and rod can be crushed by God,

who is turning the world around. Refrain

A family eulogy, for my Uncle Maynard

2012-11-12T19:57:00.001-06:00

(I had the privilege and honor to offer the family eulogy for Father Maynard Kegler, Catholic priest and my uncle, at his funeral this morning.)

Remembrances have flooded in about Father Maynard’s life. One thing that has been mentioned over and over again was his loud, merry, infectious laugh. He was a man who brought joy to this world, from a source deep within.

And there is no question that that same laugh is ringing out now as he watches me stand here and speak. You see, I am Emmy Kegler, the youngest daughter of Father Maynard's brother Stan, and one of the many children of the Kegler family that Father Maynard baptized during his nearly sixty years of priesthood. And since I was one of those many children, Father took a special interest in my growth in the faith. One December when I was very young, when he called from Arizona, I got the chance to talk to him. “Do you know whose birthday we’re celebrating, Emmy?” he asked me in his patient voice. “It’s Jesus’ birthday,” I told him with four-year-old confidence. He responded, “Do you know where Jesus was born?” “Of course I do,” I said with exasperation. “In the hay.”

You could hear his laugh through the phone from across the room.

I am only one of the many children Father cared for throughout his life. So many of us in the Kegler family and in this room were baptized by him, married by him, had their children baptized and married by him. Many of us in the family had the privilege to call him not formally Father Kegler, but Father Maynard -- and we were honored by that privilege. We were honored to have a priest in the family, but more so to have a priest who knew how important family was.

Father learned the importance of family from a young age. Life in Glencoe and Winstead was not elegant or easy, but family made it worthwhile. The Kegler children learned to be rich in imagination and creativity. They played leapfrog through the house. They made up translation games with German and English.They played make-believe church, with Monica and Benilda as the choir, Stanley as the server, and Maynard, of course, as the priest. Family continued to nurture him as he went to prep school and seminary. A borrowed cushioned kneeler, begged from a neighbor, brought a host of bedbugs into the house. Even when Maynard could not come home, his clothing could -- a suitcase full of laundry to be washed, dried, starched, ironed, folded, and sent back to the seminary.

His family’s care and nurture, and Father’s dedication to God, came together when he was ordained and when he celebrated his first Mass at Saint Augustine’s. Father Maynard’s early days of ordained ministry are filled with beautiful memories for so much of the family: the dresses made by Monica for Paulette, Jeanette, and Betty; Joanie Amtsbauer chosen as the “little bride” for the first Mass; the ice cream treats afterward, with tiny candy crosses on each one.

Father Maynard’s ministry to the family continued. He baptized many of the Kegler family children, with Vern helping to coordinate meals afterward. He officiated many marriages, sometimes for children he’d baptized. Receiving communion from him meant receiving the body and blood along with his own tangible joy that we were there with him. The private masses he offered for family were solemn and intimate, and always followed with a potluck and storytelling.

Worship under Father Maynard’s direction was solemn, but not strictly serious. At one wedding in particular, here in St. Francis Xavier Church, Father had proceeded to the altar to prepare communion. Unbeknownst to anyone in attendance, a small black bat was sleeping in one of the potted plants around the table. Something must have woken it, for its little black head appeared, along with little black claws that climbed up the altar cloth, for all the congregation to see. The bat peeked its little head just above the edge of the table and looked right at Father. A respecter of all God’s creatures, Father also knew that each animal has its time and place, and he snatched up the service book to shoo it away, while he spoke the words of the Sanctus: “Holy, holy.”. He was able to finally swat it on the third cry of “Holy.” The whole event was caught on tape, and eventually submitted to America’s Funniest Home Videos; it was not televised, which only proves that the Kegler sense of humor is a truly unique one.

Father was with us for some of the happiest days of our lives - and also for some of the saddest. He buried many family members, saying the Mass for his brother Aloysius and for so many fathers, mothers, and loved ones. His comforting, calm presence made the pain easier to bear.

Father’s warm welcome extended to more than worship. He and Vern continually opened their home to family and friends. We were welcomed to the cabin in McGregor and to pontooning on Big Sandy. Father’s hospitality gave many of us opportunities to visit and explore places we otherwise might not. He invited us all to share in his love for classical music and the opera. In all the good times with family, his laugh was sure to be heard, from the time he handed out “white elephant” gifts at Kings House after a celebratory mass, to buzzing around a campground in Arizona on Al’s four-wheeler.

Father’s travels continued beyond his different homes in America. He and Vern traveled the world, sailing on the Queen Elizabeth 2 across the Atlantic, riding the Orient Express from Hampton to London, watching polar bears migrate near Hudson Bay, and visiting, in the course of their journeys together, all seven continents -- even dipping their toes in Antarctic waters. They loved cruises, and Father was often a chaplain on them, where he’d spend an afternoon playing bridge with the likes of Omar Sharif. He was a teacher and mentor to Cardinal George of Chicago, and remained his friend throughout his life.

Throughout his adventures, Father also displayed incredible gifts of generosity and compassion. He faithfully sent out beautiful, handwritten Christmas cards, bringing warmth and light into our homes during the winter. He gave gifts that were personal and heartfelt, encouraging us through them to pursue our interests and dreams. He remembered the forgotten and the poor, ministering to Native Americans on the reservation in South Dakota and supporting HIV/AIDS housing in Minneapolis. He championed Thomas Anthony Dooley III, physician and humanitarian, for beatification.

Father’s deep spirituality and joy meant that he continued to find family wherever he went. He was a great light in our lives, and saw the light in so many of us. He was always open to new people, new ideas, new stories, and welcomed all into his wide embrace. Many of us remember his gentle kisses when he greeted us and when we left. Throughout all his life, and through many of ours, his twinkling eyes and contagious laugh made us feel at home wherever we were.

Cousin Yvonne most recently visited Father and Vern this past February. She remembers going with them to Coco’s, one of their favorite restaurants. As they crossed the restaurant, Father reached for and took Vern’s hand for support. It was a tender, poignant moment, and a beautiful sign of the team they truly were as they walked this life.

We have lost a beloved brother, a beloved uncle, a beloved companion, a beloved priest. When I was four years old, he laughed at my utmost certainty of Jesus in the hay. I know that he laughs with joy now, his eyes twinkling, to know that we may be just as certain of Father’s presence with us, now and always, because of all the love he bestowed on us in his life.