Isaiah 40 and Mark 1
Yesterday, I attended a workshop offered by the Saint Paul Area Synod—Beginnings & Endings: Contemplating God’s hopeful direction for your congregation. I sat with members of congregations from throughout the area—rural, suburban and city congregations—and we began with worship and then a video about the Two Loops Model from the Berkana Institute.[1] This was a business video, but applied to organizations including churches. We are living systems, not a mechanical system. That means that like all living things, there is a life-span. Living systems aren’t like cars where when something stops working, you can just replace a part. There is a life and death cycle. We have known for a while now what the Covid pandemic brought into clearer focus. Things are changing rapidly. Certain aspects of our life are coming to an end, and new patterns are emerging... and this is NORMAL, but it can be really hard, as death and new life often is… At the workshop we heard, “Our job as systems changings is not all about creating the new. It is as much about helping the existing system decay with dignity so that they new system can emerge.” This is also what we’ll be exploring through the Lenten season—how we can hold on to hope as we “transition our energy resources to the living, growing new system.”
More good news in this time of dying and rising is that we have asked all these questions before—we have some practice in this church with adaptive change. More than a hundred years ago, this congregation had to move buildings to the present location. Fifty years ago, the congregation contemplated if they would have to close in response to white flight from the city of Saint Paul. But then, a revitalizing ministry began with Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees and newcomers from many countries. Over twenty years ago, Daily Work sprung up as a response to a critical need for jobs. Nine years ago, I was preaching on these very same scriptures and we were preparing for a Visioning Summit. That was the time and space where we first imagined together that Christ is a tree of life in the city. We were already talking about the need for a renovated kitchen but didn’t know yet how that story would unfold. So we have some practice at asking curious, meaningful questions of each other and our neighbors—
How did you get through that? What is moving you to change?
What’s your next step? What is bringing you joy?
In that spirit, here’s what I notice in this story of Jesus—still in Mark, chapter one, just the beginning of people figuring out who Jesus really is—he has called together a small group of friends, he’s healing their immediate circles of people, restoring Simon’s mother-in-law to health, raising her up… and then she begins to serve them. Jesus didn’t just heal her just so she could make them lunch. The word for “serve” here is diakonia. That in Greek is something like “doing the thing we were created to do.” It’s the same root from which we get diaconal minister, the ordained ministry of word and service… and it’s a way of imagining together that every action, every daily task has deep value.
This story, Simon’s mother-in-law, reminds me of a visit I shared nine years ago with Karin Peterson, an elder in our congregation at that time. I had only met Karin once at the church. In the doorway, she gave me a surprise loaf of cranberry bread. The next encounter was in the hospital, after Karin had a near-death experience. I visited her at Regions and then she moved into continuing care for months. When I visited, she showed an indomitable spirit. She described her resolve to get better and be restored to full health, back to church, back to the CLC Women to do what she had always done, serve… Doesn’t that sound like Simon’s mother-in-law?
When Karin died, she surprised everyone and left a very large bequest to Christ—the seed money that led us to the renovation of Abundance Kitchen. That gift plus the Welcome Table Capitol Campaign led to having a job for Deacon Kari, deepened partnership with Shobi’s Table and more kitchen partners today. All of this was more than we could have possibly imagined in 2015. We didn’t know that any of this expansion of our ability to serve our neighbors was about to take place nine years ago.
The Bible has its own truths beyond our understanding of it, but I think that this is how the Bible becomes real and true, how it comes to life for us… when we walk around with its stories and characters in our minds and then we encounter people in our everyday lives and we recognize God’s Spirit within, through and all around their lives. We start from where we are… and then like Jesus went out to pray, we are called to connect with God who helps redirect us about where our next steps should be, if we’re open to that (and sometimes, even if we’re not) …
We don’t and can’t see the whole path, but sometimes, we get a glimpse of the next step…
In our ongoing work with the Riverside Innovation Hub, we are entering into the Season of Accompaniment. This means that we are going to be looking for ways to enter into meaningful conversations with each other—maybe especially those who are in this room that we really don’t know that well—and with neighbors beyond these walls.
One idea that our Vitality team has had already is that we want to encourage everyone to consider having lunch with Shobi’s—on Tuesdays or Wednesdays or Thursdays or Fridays—and if the weather is okay, sit down to eat your lunch next to another diner. We’ll be watching for ways to have conversations over lunch.
Also, we’re hosting a Good Neighbors’ gathering this Friday at Noon with special guests attending from those who are working on the next plans for the Capitol Mall. We’re hosting the meeting and this Friday, those of us who attend are there to listen—what do our neighbors think is important as our state invests millions of dollars in the vitality of this neighborhood?
Margaret Wheatley writes in her book, Turning to One Another, “There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about… [so in these next weeks], notice what you care about. Assume that many others share your dreams. Be intrigued by differences… Real listening always brings people closer together.” What Wheatley describes is what Jesus did—he was “brave enough to start conversations that mattered.” She encourages, “Listen to people you know. Listen to people you don’t know. Listen to people you never listen to… Invite everybody who cares to work on what’s possible.”
In 10 days, we’ll begin the season of Lent. However you’ve participated in Lent before, I hope that this time around, you’ll be looking forward to it as a time to give a little extra time for practices that we don’t often allow ourselves to give extra time for… gathering together for prayer, forgiveness, reconciliation, listening conversations with those we sit near but don’t really know, expanding our circles of who we see ourselves as connected to…
For God promises, “Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
So we pray to God, help us in this season of accompaniment, lead us in the next steps, help us notice you—around and within us already—help us hear your calling. We are living systems, dying and rising. As we wait, experiment, fail and hope, we trust in the strength and renewal that you are creating and sharing with us, all the time. Help us find your hopeful direction.
[1] Two Loops Model, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQWKmtx8L2s (the part about Bitcoin from minutes 7 to 10 is less relevant for our congregations, but consider the learning on either side).
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