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!

 

---

[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.

                        

Altered Through Stories We Don’t Trust

Mark 8: 31-38                                                                                Image from A Sanctified Art

Peter just can’t believe it. In the verses just before today’s gospel, Peter identifies who Jesus really is—you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God! And Jesus says no to say anything to anyone. But then Jesus talks quite openly about how there will be suffering, trials, death… resurrection? Jesus said all this quite openly.

What do we do when the story of Jesus, the savior of the world, includes so much suffering and pain? Do we only focus on the glorious end?
Or does the suffering of God leave space for our own suffering? 

I think that mostly, we hope and wish that God would take suffering away. We want for God to move in the world and in our own lives in such a way that there will be less suffering and pain. We know people who live with pain all the time—and that includes some of us gathering today. It is so very hard to live with pain. It changes us and not always in the ways we would like to be changed. Like Peter, we are so likely to say to Jesus—can’t you change this story? 
Wouldn’t it be SO MUCH BETTER and easier if the way your story unfolded involved… well, less of the suffering and dying part?

So we’re tempted to keep laser focus on the glorious end—the resurrection life that awaits us, the resurrection moments that we taste along the way. But, if we ignore the suffering of real life, trying to pretend it doesn’t exist, we’re missing something too.

Just in the way that Jesus rejected Satan’s offers to Jesus to grasp power over human suffering in the wilderness, Jesus rejects Peter’s rebuke. We can’t really understand it but somehow Jesus understood that the way for him would involve suffering, rejection, death and resurrection. 

Then, Jesus invites followers, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” 

This reminds me of the first prophet that we gathered to listen to last Wednesday evening. We are gathering on Wednesday evenings in Lent for a delicious soup supper, and then for conversation on the book We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope by Steven Charleston. Steven Charleston is both an Episcopal priest, former Bishop and theologian who taught at Luther Seminary. He is also a Choctaw elder and sees spiritual lessons for all of us in the terrible suffering and hope-filled survival of Native American communities. This past week, we learned how Ganiodaiio, also known as “Handsome Lake,” turned his culture upside down—introducing foreign concepts such as sin and confession—as part of a visionary, Spirit-led way to help his people transition from a completely communal worldview to a place of embracing some aspects of personal responsibility. Many people still suffered, many people still died… but a remnant survived. Steven Charleston asks us how might we learn from this spiritual vision of turning culture upside down.
In such an me-centered culture, how might God be ready to turn our culture upside down? Charleston imagines that the cross ahead of us that we must take up together is a radical shift from a “me” dominant culture to a “we” reality—in which we are willing to sacrifice personal comfort for the good of all.

 

This is not an argument for suffering in silence from abuse. Instead, Jesus invites us into love in action. Love in action might often look like a harder path, though.

When we are surrounded by a whole culture that tells us… some people have it so much easier than you, don’t you want what they have? Just buy this… just build that… just improve this about yourself… then you’ll have a dreamier life.
Instead, God calls followers into a truth-filled, connected life.

This week, Ben heard a moving story on NPR. It was an interview with a close friend of Aleksei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent political leader who opposed President Vladimir Putin. He had been living in exile in Germany but felt a strong sense that in order to be a Russian politician, he needed to be with the Russian people. He returned to Russia, knowing that he would be imprisoned and last week, he died in a remote prison at age 47.

When the interviewer asked his friend, “He went back to Russia and then he was killed. Isn’t that the worst thing that could have happened?”
And Navalny’s friend said—No, the worst thing would have been if he stayed in Germany. His message to the Russian people was not to give up and to live without fear. So people knew when he came back to Russia that he was really with them. Now, there is a whole generation of young Russians who will remember what he did and will not be intimidated by the current regime.[1]

At the end of the story, they had a clip of his mother’s voice, as she stood in front of the Arctic prison, asking for his body. We are not all called to make this same kind of sacrifice of our lives—but we can certainly recognize the ways this story mirrors the story of Jesus, and the ways it calls us.

We heard at Maureen’s funeral these powerful words – “When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

We have doubts and fears along the way of life—of course we do—but what might happen if we name the doubts and fears… and allow God, maker of heaven and earth; allow Jesus, the resurrection and life, who suffered death for all humanity, who rose from the grave to open the way to eternal life; allow Holy Spirit, the author and giver of life, the comforter of all who sorrow, our sure-confidence and everlasting hope; allow this transforming God and their stories to change us anyway?
It might turn our culture upside down. It might help us trust. It might be God’s dream.

---

[1] For the full interview-- https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/podcasts/the-daily/navalny-putin-russia.html?rref=vanity

 

In Christ, We Gain Vision

Transfiguration of Jesus

Today, I want to begin with words from Joy McElroy, Director of Cherish All Children. These are words she shared in her weekly Wednesday prayer.

 

The Transfiguration is one of those surreal stories of the Bible. The disciples were terrified, they didn’t know what to say, they hear God’s voice telling them to listen to Jesus, and then they’re sent back down the mountain. Peter jumps into problem solving mode offering to set up their dwellings and stay. But God intervenes – listento my Son, the Beloved.
 
These past few weeks have included experiences of fear, pain, grief, and anger for some of my beloveds, and I have thought at times “This is getting to be too much” so I jump in and try to solve it all. And then I remember God’s voice telling me to listen. Listen to the one who is called the Beloved and who calls each one of us beloved.  
 
I’ve been reading Osheta Moore’s book “Dear White Peacemakers” and I love the way she so graciously calls us into our belovedness as a way to enter into anti-racism work. This [perspective] informs [Cherish All Children’s] work to prevent sexual exploitation and trafficking, dismantling systems and structures that have marginalized some communities, making them more vulnerable to exploitation. She expresses,

“I often wonder why Jesus began his ministry standing in line with the poor, the outcasts, the forgotten, the ones riddled with internalized hatred. The Spirit of God, the Spirit that calls us the Beloved, is the Spirit that makes us whole. There is no clearer way to discern the presence of God’s Spirit than to identify the movements of unification, healing, restoration, and reconciliation.”

 
Our work to share resources and support one another in faith communities may not be considered “mountaintop” experiences like that of the Transfiguration, and yet these daily actions may be just what is required of us. Coming down the mountain, being with each other, holding each other up.

Joy, thank you so much for that beautiful reflection, highlighting the call to listen to Jesus (rather than jump right into “solve it” mode). Thank you for the invitation to daily actions that resemble Jesus’ and the disciples’ path—listening, coming down from the mountain, being with each other, holding each other up.

This week, Ann [Jalonen] and Joy [McElroy] and I, along with neighbors from close by and from greater Minnesota, with watershed and ecology experts, with those from government and an energizing consulting team, gathered to be part of the Capitol Mall Design Framework charrette. This was a word that was new to me-- A Charrette is a collaborative planning process that harnesses the talents and energies of all interested parties to create and support a master plan that represents transformative community change. Today a “Charrette” combines creative, intense working sessions with public workshops and open houses. 

So we gathered in working teams to listen to each others’ ideas and dream big together about what could be present in the Capitol Mall and Capitol Area to bring vitality and vibrancy—and just to say that while of course there were voices present to remind the group what has been tried and has failed, there was also such a spirit of excitement and energy around what could be. What if we dared to dream bigger than our fears and past disappointments? What if the Capitol Area could have bathrooms and benches, prairie and indigenous healing herbs, community gardens and picnic spots and water features and playgrounds? What if it could be a place where thousands of people gathered not just to protest but for fun and community? What if people felt interested in coming to these spaces with groups of friends or family to picnic, rest and play? What if it could honor all the people—both the original people who have been here for 12,000 years—and all the rest who have arrived these last 200 years?

In a week when we have heavy machinery in every direction, opening up our church to be visible in all directions for the first time, it was amazing to keep imagining what could be. Some of these plans will start to be implemented right away, even as soon as 2024. Going home from the full day of work together on Tuesday evening, I drove from the History Center up Rice Street and for the first time, I caught a glimpse of our church building, lighted and visible… and it took my breath away. We are transfigured for a moment. This place now is the only standing building in our block—how might we continue to show ourselves as a beacon of hope and light, even as the spaces around us are put back together in new ways. 

In this season of accompaniment, listening to our neighbors even more deeply, how can we continue this work that comes from God—to be with each other and hold each other up, especially when we’re wondering what’s ahead and what in the world God might be calling us to next?

All this season, we’ve repeated these words in the Affirmation of Faith—and again today, we’ll say them—“I could fail every test, miss every goal, drop every ball, and I would still be God’s beloved. Therefore, I cling to this promise like a rock in the storm. I anchor myself with this good news, allowing the anxiety of the day to roll over me as best I can, because I know where I belong. I am a child of God. I am beloved. I strive to live this way.” Today, let’s breathe that truth in again… and speak it together and take it with us.

Let us pray  [the prayer from Joy’s Wednesday Prayer] - 
God of mountaintops and valleys, we come to you with our pains, fears, and loving concern for others. We are each other’s beloved. Help us to hear the cries of those in need and come together to hold one another in your loving care.  Amen.

We find strength and renewal

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).

Calling the Disciples: We Practice Truth & Equity

Mark 1: 21-28

When people heard Jesus speak, when they experienced Jesus in person, people sensed a unique authority or maybe we would say authenticity in Jesus’ actions and words. In the welcome words today, we heard this “We encounter that authority in God’s word, around which we gather, the word that prevails over any lesser spirit that would claim power over us, freeing us to follow Jesus.”

 

What are the words—in daily life, on Sunday mornings—what are the words that are God’s word to you? What are the words that sustain you in times of difficulty, that keep you from caving in to terrible fear? What are the words and actions that help you to come back to yourself at the end of the day?

 

As I have been preparing for the Lenten season that’s coming soon—in just over two short weeks—I have been reading a powerful book that Mike Peterson recommended to me and plans to lead us in conversation around this Lent. It’s called We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope. The author is Steven Charleston, who is a Choctaw elder, public figure, who has been Episcopal Bishop of Alaska, president and dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, and professor of systematic theology at Luther Seminary. He writes with incredible insight and clarity about how people have survived catastrophe. He writes about how important spiritual community is when things fall apart, as things change all around us, and I’m looking forward to these stories and insights each Wednesday this Lent.

 

Steven Charleston writes about surviving apocalypse. What is apocalypse? It’s used to describe catastrophes or even the end of the world, but that’s only part of the meaning. In Greek, the world means “uncover” or “reveal.” So, it might be a vision of the future, imagining what is to come.  This is the same kind of writing that Mark uses to tell us about Jesus. According to David Schnasa Jacobsen, Jesus’ baptism happens after the heavens are ripped open. Then, the Spirit drives Jesus out into the wilderness to contend with Satan, hunger, beast and angels. Then, Jesus preaches that God’s kingdom is here and calls disciples out of their fishing boats immediately. Then, today Jesus is casting out demons. Everything in Mark is urgent.

 

What does all this mean for us, especially if “the things that threaten our world are not so much demons and ripped-open heavens but broken or [evil] systems of human construction?” Jacobsen quotes another teacher, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, who says we are called to “steadfast resistance.”

And then Jacobsen invites us to pay attention to our bodies as we hear God’s word—this gospel of God’s work in Jesus is capable of sustaining steadfast, embodied resistance. Put another way, it’s to give us deep hope and allow us to practice even deeper love in steadfast resistance to any fear that might come our way.

Up ahead in Mark’s story is the fact that Jesus dies on a cross. And in Mark, the meaning of Jesus’ cross is not about Jesus dying for people’s sins. It is about calling a thing what it is. Jesus chose the way of weakness (not dominance) and suffering (not having it all together). This version of Jesus’ story is not about escape, but naming the world, its pain and its promise.

Jesus is not going for power and popularity but silences demons when they speak of his identity. He is humble even as his reputation grows. Jesus doesn’t dominate people but practices self-awareness.[1]

Jacobsen says, “This little scene from Mark 1… set in a synagogue on the Sabbath, is a sign of God’s reign for the real bodies in the room. It is… spoken by a Jesus who wants nothing to do with dominance schemes and good publicity. He aims with urgency to enlist disciples, and anyone else with ears to hear, in their own local practice of apocalyptic struggle.”

 

Finding our own local practices of steadfast resistance, of apocalyptic struggle, of inner purpose within spiritual community… this is, I think, the call of the Holy Spirit to us in 2024.

 

After all, we have so much evidence that things are changing all around us. On Thursday this week, half of our new Vitality Team met to do a prayer drive around our neighborhood. We were asked to watch for moments of desolation—sorrow, brokenness, fear, anxiety…

And moments of consolation—hope, healing, courage, peace…

 

We drove down Charles Street where we know that Kathy Harris lived for years until it finally got just too dangerous to stay. And we also reflected on neighbors who live in the historic small homes on Charles Street—and who have in fact purchased multiple houses—to live in and strategically build meaningful community. We saw the boarded-up businesses and the lack of family-owned restaurants that we remember once being here… we also saw the brand new Frogtown Community Center and the Hmongtown Market. Focus is a caring ministry of sharing meals, clothing and services with the most vulnerable, surrounded by non-profits, advocacy agencies and government buildings that are trying to influence matters throughout the whole state. This neighborhood is built to support the Minnesota State Capitol but so many people live here, too, and Ann shared that her mother described it this way, “Things might look sad in this neighborhood but people-in-need have always gathered in the shadow of the Capitol because they hope that they will be protected (it happens in every state, even in D.C.).” If this insight is true, I wonder how God is calling us to practice truth and equity alongside these neighbors gathering for protection. How do we share their hopes and question with them how our state government might better serve and protect these neighbors?

 

Let me end for now by inviting us to this season of accompaniment, with the quote that Steven Charleston uses at the beginning of his book, a quote from Joseph Campbell: 

The mystical theme of the space age is this: the world as we know it is coming to an end. The world as the center of the universe, the world divided from the heavens, the world bound by horizons in which love is reserved for members of the in-group: that is the world that is passing away. Apocalypse does not point to a fiery Armageddon but to the fact that our ignorance and our complacency are coming to an end. –Joseph Campbell

Many people who live beyond the city of Saint Paul never drive in to our part of the city… any of us might have the cloudy view of seeing only desolation… but with God’s help, we have a new and different view. We are invited by Jesus, through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, to see things as they are… to notice both the places of desolation where Jesus is very present… and the places of consolation where God is bringing new life into being. This is the journey that we are being invited into this Epiphany, and the way of the cross we’ll go deeper into this Lent. This is how God is calling us and it’s my hope that you will join in this rich and deep, story-filled season, as we gather around God’s Holy Spirit, the stories of ancestors and our own selves--who will all work together to transform us and move us into the new reality that God is creating within and around us.

---

[1] David Schnasa Jacobsen, workingpreacher.org

How does a weary world rejoice? We trust our belovedness

 

Luke 3:21-22                                                                Image from A Sanctified Art

Last week we remember the ritual of Jesus’ dedication at the temple, the story we meditated on last week, where Simeon and Anna praised God for Jesus when he was just eight days old and spoke to everyone about his identity as the Messiah. Between that time and this, there are many unspoken parts of the story of Jesus’ life. We have to jump to Matthew to learn a story of a terrible ruler—Herod—who threatens the community so much that the Holy Family has to escape to Egypt for an unknown number of years. In Luke, we just read about the Holy Family’s yearly trips to the temple in Jerusalem with their community, and how one year when he was 12, Jesus got accidentally left behind and was sharing wisdom with the teachers at the temple. we read only that Jesus grew in wisdom and statue and in favor with God and people. Years go by and we read about a fiery preacher named John who is baptizing everyone but is preaching such a powerful and world-changing message that he has already been thrown in prison by the time Jesus’ baptism is mentioned. 

 

“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.’ Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work.”

 

On the bulletin you see an image of Jesus’ baptism where he is submerged in the water. The artist describes her process of trying to imagine a different moment than so many others pictured throughout time. We usually see images of Jesus coming up out of the water, into a scene of deep affirmation as Jesus’ steps into his mission. Here, though is another moment. Jesus is underwater. The artist—Lauren Wright Pittman—describes Jesus as “completely suspended, embraced and upheld by the waters of baptism. The water’s surface is choppy. The future is unknown and precarious. The path is a lonely and formidable one, eventually leading to his suffering and death.” 

Then she writes, “Despite what is to come, Jesus reaches toward the surface. Two fish are drawn to the light [around his head], foreshadowing his companionship with fishers and his miraculous feeding of the [thousands]. All of creation is leaning into [this] call.”

“This is what trusting your belovedness feels like—muscles and bones relieved of gravity’s burden, serenity, weightlessness, oneness with creation, and the warmth of God’s love permeating every cell of your body and every [part] of your soul.”

 

All week, I’ve been sharing and hearing stories from people who are moving slowly into 2024. Maybe the Christmas tree has been taken down, maybe not. On our fifty degree Christmas Eve, we were holding our breath, watching and waiting for this weekend—a snowy, deeply cold one that balances out our fragile ecosystem again. Right here at 105 University, we’ve been waiting and watching as the historic building next door, scheduled for demolition, has experienced delays. But this week, our staff and I faced the challenge of the internet being cut on Monday and not restored on Friday. So, all the work we needed to do this week was slower and more creatively accomplished than we expected. So many of us have had to pause, in so many ways—suspended, embraced, upheld—looking at the choppy surface.

 

This weekend, in so many places throughout Saint Paul, we have the opportunity to honor and remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., another young man who traveled a lonely and formidable path, one that eventually led to his suffering and death. Part of my family was present at Luther Seminary on Friday and had the opportunity to hear ________ preach, and he described this weekend as a megaphone for the dreams of MLK… dreams that cannot die if they live on in us. The dreams live on in us as we recognize how they represent our own values, values in which every person is beloved to God. If we believe that every person is beloved to God, we stand with sanitation workers who need access to a bathroom, a place to change their clothes, a living wage. We stand against unjust wars. We stand with those of different religions, different cultures, those who are struggling to be seen as those with human dignity. We hold fast to this dream of God—that everyone is beloved and deserves to be treated that way—even when it seems like an impossible vision.

 

God—who speaks from the heavens, who appears in the form of a bird, who speaks in the night calling our name—calls us to do the bravest thing we can do. As Rev. Sarah Speed puts it—

 

Trust your belovedness.

Let it be a protest, an act of resistance, a song of celebration.

Trust your belovedness in a world that is rarely satisfied.

Wear it like a badge of honor.

Speak it as confidently as your last name.

Tattoo it to your heart.

When outside forces chip away at your sense of self,

When like ask you to hand over the keys,

Remember the water.                        Remember creation.

Remember how it was good, so very good.

Let that truth hum through your veins.

Sing it so loud

That it drowns out the weariness of the world,

For the bravest thing we can ever do

Is trust that we belong here.

 

In this baptism scene as described by Luke, a detail I appreciate is that Jesus is praying. Maybe you read in our devotional booklet this week the reflection by Rev. Cecelia D. Armstrong. She described how when she was young, her mother woke her up each morning with the song, “Hey, good lookin’ what you got cookin’? How ‘bout cookin’ something up with me?”

She still feels the affirmation of her mother who was interested in her plans each day. Like that, Jesus is praying, connecting with God—and Jesus receives this deep affirmation.

In baptism, we too have this opportunity to remember—we are created in the image of God, we’re invited into the practices of God… and we’re invited to “cook up somethin’” with God as co-creators in a world that longs to rejoice (words and images of Rev. Cecelia D. Armstrong).

 

When we trust our belovedness, we can live and give fully—we treat ourselves, others and all of creation with tenderness and care. When we trust our belovedness, we have endless reasons to rejoice. [1]

---

[1] Writings from A Sanctified Art liturgy and devotional resources.