Embodied Unbound

Easter Sunday - Isaiah 25: 6-9 and Mark 16:1-8                        Image from A Sanctified Art

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!

“I’m not quite sure what I’m doing for Easter yet.”
If you heard something like this—or if you felt it this week—do I want to go to church this Easter Sunday?—you’re not alone.

The very first Easter was filled with uncertain people, people wondering what to do—and walking toward an empty tomb was not immediately joyful but full of all kinds of feelings—fear, uncertainty, ambivalence, wonder. The first response to the resurrection news from Mark in that they said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.
And that sure sounds like a bizarre ending to the story but turns out, it was just the beginning.  

Other writers took on this story—Matthew, Luke, John—and filled in more details… they told stories that described that after people met angels who said Jesus was raised from the dead that Jesus met Mary in garden, broke bread, ate fish, showed that one can live again even after being wounded.

All these stories try to show, not just tell, how the Risen Christ was embodied… the risen One breathed, ate, touched, forgave… still, in the resurrection, God is completely committed to bodies, to real life, to earth.
But also, in the resurrection, Jesus is… 

Not bound by the harsh rules of life and death anymore.

 

Today, you have come to see for yourself and let’s just be clear that we know you’re not here because you’re bored and have nothing else to do… Maybe you’re here today because 

·  You are searching for meaning and trying to understand a world that is different than it was just a year or two ago.

· Or because you’ve been exposed to different faith communities and theologies, and you need a safe, reliable place to question, wrestle, and discern.

· Or because someone has diminished your human dignity and you long to be known, seen, and loved as the Beloved of God.

Maybe you’re here because

· Or because life has gotten progressively harder, and you need spiritual strength and power that only comes through community

· Or because you are grieving and mourning and need faithful community to accompany them.

· Or because you are tired of the relentless grind of productivity and work and want to establish restoring rhythms of life

· Or because you’ve had enough of shallow interactions and dysfunctional relationships and you long for healing

· Or because you are looking for an encounter with God[1]

Regardless of your reason for being here, these are all good reasons to be here—all of these are possible in this space, with God’s help—all of these are things God does among us, with us, for us.

As you may have read in the welcome words… Jesus is alive, and God has swallowed up death forever. With Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, we may feel astonished and confused, unsure of what to make of the empty tomb. But this is why we gather: to share stories of the hope we have, to accompany one another and be part of the new life that Jesus’ death and resurrection brings into being.

Yesterday evening, there was a gathering here called the Easter Vigil. There was fire, there were stories and singing and prayers. Then, those who were present witnessed the baptism of Soonee—and got to hear the story of how 10 years ago—her family was baptized. So, it was both the 10^th anniversary of three family members’ baptism and the baptism of long-awaited, much loved daughter and sister, Soonee. Water splashed over her small head, she received prayers and anointing with oil, and we all made promises to one another in light of all the promises God makes to us. We remembered together that Soonee is a beloved child of God.

We have so many embodied practices when we gather as church—we use water and oil and words and prayers—because we want and need to know deep in our bodies how much we are loved. There are so many voices that tell us otherwise. So, we practice the liberating reality of Christ’s death and resurrection here so we can know… as sure as we live and breathe… that Jesus is present, in and around our real bodies, and freeing us from anything that comes in the way of God’s loving embrace. 

In a few moments, we’ll gather with an invitation to come and eat the bread of Holy Communion. Everyone is welcome at this meal where we receive a little bit of bread. It’s bread that Jesus said is God’s body. We eat it and become God’s body. We’ll share from the cup that Jesus said makes a new covenant—a promise, a blessing—between God and us.

All of this is so that we can experience God’s presence within, in community and beyond these walls—we get a taste of these realities, these promises here so that we will be able to glimpse the Risen Christ everywhere. So that we will be free, unbound… even as we are grounded in the loving reality of God who is so committed to life with us that God altered the realities of death and life forever—transforming death into something temporary and life into an opportunity to taste the love that begins now and continues… forever. 

This is why we know that Jesus’ resurrection is not a comeback but a transformation, not just a guide to the afterlife but a guide to life now, not a happy ending but a new beginning.[2]

In word and feast, prayers and songs, we celebrate God’s unending love, and leave not in terror but filled with love to share with all the world.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!

 

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[1] From a message by Jennifer Watley Maxell, “Don't Misinterpret the Moment,” March 19, 2024, The Ministry Collaborative

[2] Steve Garnaas-Holmes’ https://unfoldinglight.net/2023/06/01/easter-sunday-2/

 

Life Altered

Easter Vigil – Baptism of Soonee Vangyang                            Image from A Sanctified Art

This is the night!

How wonderful to gather with you this evening around the fire that represents God’s mighty presence from the creation until now—another moment of God’s new creation. 

How wonderful to gather with you this evening around five great stories of God’s mighty acts—knowing that we could tell many, many more—and sing God’s praises long into this night.

How wonderful to gather with you this evening as we celebrate with Soonee, long awaited precious daughter and sister, newly baptized to remind us all how God welcomes and calls us God’s very own beloved children.

 

Ten years ago at the Easter Vigil at Lutheran Church of Peace in Maplewood, we celebrated the baptisms of Vameng, Pakou and Sanklai. When we first met, Pakou and Vameng expressed their desire to be baptized but asked to wait for their baby’s birth so that they could all three be baptized together. I have such a vivid memory of that beautiful evening together—it was rainy, we had to modify how we did that outside fire time… passing the fire and lighting all our candles inside… but just like tonight, the challenges made it all the more memorable. Tonight, we celebrate your 10^thBaptismal Anniversary, Sanklai, Pakou and Vameng and we celebrate and welcome you, Soonee. 

 

The gift of baptism is a free gift of grace, whether you are given it as an infant or receive it as a child, youth or adult—and it is an opportunity to remember how God reaches out to create a relationship with us. We can water and cultivate that relationship together—as we keep and help each other keep the promises made tonight so that we grow in faith together. 

 

Tonight, we hear some of the very first responses to Jesus’ resurrection… the first glimpses of resurrection, when it was still dark. The first glimpses, the first reports, just revealed that Jesus’ body was missing. Simon Peter saw and believed what Mary said but they did not yet understand what Jesus’ had said—that he must rise from the dead. That is what will sink in as Jesus appears to them again and again, sharing breath, sharing peace, sharing the meal with them not only tonight but for all the time to come.

 

As the Easter Vigil shows us, cultivating a relationship with God and one another can be full of laughter, joy and community. This path is full of responsibilities and promises to one another but also, it’s full of love that makes all burdens lighter. Trusting and understanding comes over all the weeks, months and years to come.

 

Tonight, on the eve of Easter, we get our first taste of the Alleluias that are to come for a week of week—seven Sundays of the Risen Christ appearing to us, surprising us and helping us receive the good news that Jesus not only lived in love and died on the cross but was raised from the dead. And with Jesus’ resurrection, God shows us that death does not have the last word. Life is altered forever because God continuously brings life out of death.

 

Tonight, we experience the heart of God’s baptismal promise and the center of our faith: we are claimed and washed, renewed in the death and resurrection of Christ. We gather to share this meal with all the saints of every time and place to celebrate the good news: Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! This is the night!     Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!

Altered Alongside our Enemies

Lent 4 - Jeremiah 31: 31-34 and John 12: 20-33                             Detail of Image from A Sanctified Art        

A few weeks ago, one of the youth of our congregation expressed that he wanted to read the Bible more and asked, “What would I recommend?” I shared a Bible with him and we talked about three possibilities of where to start. Of course, you could begin with Genesis and Exodus—great and ancient stories of faith. You could begin with the gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke & John—the good news of Jesus. You could also pray the Psalms. I’m aware of at least one other member reading the Psalms this Lent—the book that Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the Prayerbook of the Bible. The Psalm for this Sunday is Psalm 31. 

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
    my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also.
¹⁰ For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away.

¹¹ I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors,
an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.
¹² I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.
¹³ For I hear the whispering of many—terror all around!—as they scheme together against me,
    as they plot to take my life.

¹⁴ But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”
¹⁵ My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.
¹⁶ Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.

 

Last Sunday, when I shared with the children the book about a child witnessing the death of George Floyd, one asked me, “Why did they kill him?” All I could say in response in that moment was, “That’s a very good question.” And I’ve thought about her question all week.
Why did they kill him? 

There are always “responses,” theories, ideas (sigh… aren’t there?) as to why bad things happen. There are stories and counter-stories and trying to find the truth of the “why?” 

But so often, there are no real answers to our hardest questions. Especially when someone dies… especially when it is an enemy. Or someone who turned out to be an enemy. Or when death is the enemy. So often, there are no real answers to our hardest questions.

 

There is only being changed… and praying that as we encounter tragedy, injustice, actual evil, that we still remember the themes of Jeremiah who proclaims this truth from God—

You keep breaking relationships, but I keep making them…until the day when our connection will be so deep and so good that I will be part of who you are. Written on your hearts.

 

There is only being altered by our creating God… the same God who causes a single grain of wheat, planted deep in the good soil of earth, to multiply into so much more than it was before it was planted.

 

As Jesus begins to imagine his own impending death, Jesus admits, “Now my soul is troubled.” It’s so very human, so very understandable, not to want to go through the known and unknown aspects of death—pain, anxiety, uncertainty, suffering, grief—but Jesus keeps focused on what the fruit of death will be… that in this death, the ruler of this world is driven out.

The crushing power of death is overturned by the power of love and solidarity and transforms death completely into new life.

 

I think this may be why Jesus describes the pain and suffering and crises of this life not as an end but a beginning. It may look like and feel like death, but to Jesus, it’s the “beginning of the birth pangs.” (Matthew). Something new is being born… something that will last forever.

 

Lauren Wright Pittman is the artist who drew this beautiful cover art inspired by Psalm 31.

The person who feels like a broken vessel is in the very center of this beautiful mandala.  Bent over in grief. The artist describes how she wanted to make it better for the grieving person but stopped herself because, as she describes, “when I’m experiencing grief myself, I just want someone to sit with me in the unresolved, jarring, unsettling space of it all. I want someone to acknowledge and see the wrongness, the ugliness of grief—to see my shattered self and situation for what it is and not try to tape it back together for just a little while…”

She goes on, “As I drew layer after layer, I had to sit in the brokenness with the psalmist and experience…”

“What resulted is an overall flower shape that I wasn’t expecting. I think the message in this is that if we allow ourselves to grieve before God, to really open ourselves up to the difficult inner work that it takes, then that’s where true and profound growth happens… the broken vessel in the middle becomes the seed and center of a blooming flower.”

 

Isn’t this what we hope for ourselves… alongside our enemies…

That somehow all the grief and brokenness could be the seed that dying, could grow into something beautiful, new, blooming… and finally, bearing fruit.

 

Steven Charleston, who wrote the book we are using for reflection on Wednesday evenings, also writes daily reflections on Facebook. Here are two of his reflections from this week:

 

We all have carried our burden of grief. We have all know the weight of worry, especially for those we love. We have struggled to make a difference in a world that seems so far beyond our control. And yet, here we are, still together, [still singing, still watching in wonder]… We trust the Spirit and live into that trust each day. Life can make us hurt. Love can make it better.

 

There are no favorite children in the household of the Spirit. All creatures are beloved in the sight of their creator. While humans may true to pretend otherwise., while they may want to be the chosen ones, the fact is the Spirit does not love some of us more than others. We are all loved and forgiven equally. The Spirit is perfect love and perfect love could not do otherwise. 

 

And so we pray again with the psalmist for the Spirit to keep up this work of changing everything that is broken, grieving, all that makes us enemies…

¹² I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.
¹³ For I hear the whispering of many….¹⁴ But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”
¹⁵ My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.
¹⁶ Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.

 

And we sing again with St. Patrick to keep becoming more and more connected with God—Creator, Christ and Loving Spirit—

 

 

I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity by invocation of the same,

the Three in One and One in Three. 

 

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me,

Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me.

 

Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,

Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

 

I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity by invocation of the same,

the Three in One and One in Three. 

Altered through God’s Creativity

Lent 4 - John 3                                                                            Image from A Sanctified Art

In a way, you can empathize with the people of God wandering in the wilderness. Let’s admit it. Many of us like to complain. We certainly can dismiss our leaders and call them weak and ineffective. In fact, that might be one of our favorite ways to treat leaders in these times—elect them and then blame them for absolutely everything. So, we can understand people discouraged on the way—“there is no food, no water, we detest this miserable food…”

But it was another thing when their poisonous complaining became poisonous snakes all around them. They admitted their sin. Moses prayed for them. God provided a way out—look to the serpent and live.

 

In both Hebrew and Greek cultures, the snake around a staff became the symbol of healing medicine… and the ways that medicines can both help and harm.

 

Last weekend, I attended the triennial assembly of the European Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice triennial assembly. Since that name is confusing and a mouthful, at the assembly, the group changed its name to White Lutherans for Racial Justice. If you are wondering why a group named that would be necessary, it was founded about 15 years ago at the request of the ethnic associations within our church body. These are the African Descent, American Indian and Alaska Native, Arab and Middle Eastern, Asian and Pacific Islander and Latinx assocications—these 5 groups represent significant numbers of Lutherans but less than 10% of our official membership compared to over 90% white ELCA members. These associations asked for white Lutherans to organize and train to show support for BIPOC members of our church, and to speak and act against racism and white supremacy… and now, 15 years later, those of us who are white Lutherans are being asked to be even clearer about our solidarity and commitment in light of unfolding events in our country and church.

 

I know that members of our own congregation are experiencing the terrible effects of racism daily, and our neighbors are experiencing those things too. One of the Black local leaders shared her own family’s story of the death of her loved one in 2008—a death that resembled what happened to Emmett Till. Here, in St Paul… in 2008. That was years before George Floyd died in broad daylight.

So, our neighbors are asking for those of us who are white in the church to become even more activated in seeking out our neighbors’ stories, even more active in standing present with them in the truth that God so loved the world—including them.

 

I will share just a few details to give a sense of this… people within our congregation experience housing insecurity because of unethical landlords, people fear coming to worship because of anti-Asian violence in our community, some of our family members have been killed, jumped, threatened… do these things ever happen to white people? Yes. And, the systems, trouble and trauma that Black and brown people face are just too common, too much in this country—for those who are part of the global majority but who are considered minority here.

 

And then within our public life as a nation, we hear small numbers of white leaders with very loud voices saying horrible, hateful things about immigrants—words that sound very much like those that Hitler used on the way to World War II. This is toxic in so many ways. It fills people with fear and despair about the present and future.

 

But on Wednesday evenings, we have been hearing stories from others who might have caved in to fear and despair—the original people who lived on this land—whose stories might give us courage and wisdom to act with the kind of all-embracing love that Jesus calls us to today.

 

This past Wednesday evening, we heard about the prophet Smohalla of the Wanupum people of the Pacific Northwest. He had such a deep, protective love for mother earth and for people. Smoholla said, “God told me to look after my people—all are my people.”

Smohalla saw the land as his mother, not to be harmed, not to be sold. In view of this message that Smohalla preached, we wondered together if the earth is listening and waiting on us? Does the earth, who sustains our life, who holds our bodies in death, have something to say to us? 

 

The voice of Smohalla, the voices of scripture, the voice of Jesus are all calling for the same kind of love in action that is the antidote to fear, division and despair. It is like Moses’ snake on a pole—practice trust in God and you will live. It is like the life, witness, death and resurrection of Jesus—who came in love for the whole world, not to judge the world but to save us.

 

This is the antidote to the poison that swirls around and threatens to overtake us.

Love in action. Presence and solidarity with those who suffer.

Care for the earth and the whole creation.

 

Gathered as church community, we have so many resources to practice that kind of creative, love in action. On Wednesday evening, our consultant from Riverside Innovation Hub, Geoffrey Gill came to be with us, listen to us, share with us. He shared his own experience of being in the Boundary Waters for days and sitting on a rock. He described how his mind was so full of words. Then, words fell away and there was music. Still he sat on the rock for hours until finally there was silence and then he was able to be with the fullness of the beauty of creation around him. What a powerful story of connection—and example of how storytelling connects us.

 

So many of you have shared stories like this—the sighting of an owl, a powerful encounter in a kayak with a mother loon, a transformative hike or ski, an eagle along highway 36, deer wandering through your yard—you have witnessed God’s creativity in nature, right here in our neighborhoods and far beyond.

We have also witnessed places of destruction that miraculously have been able to mend and heal, grow and bloom again—with a little care and attention—as we love the earth as one of our closest neighbors, our beloved one.

 

God is so very creative—providing all we need, able to heal deep wounds—

even the evil we bring on ourselves and each other is not beyond God’s power to save.

We are invited into all kinds of God’s creative practices so that we can live like Jesus—with the words “God so loved the world” on our lips and in our hearts, remembering that God’s love never comes to judge but to save, like the very best medicine comes to heal, repair and bring us back to life.