January 24, 2010

To Know and Do God’s Will

Reverend Orin Cummings
St Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church
January 24, 2010

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21

Several items in the news this past week caught my attention. Here are a few: The devastating Earthquake in Haiti: emergency relief efforts and rescue; Nigerians pull bodies from wells after deadly clashes [between Muslims and Christians]; Great Britain raises terror attack level to ‘Severe’ citing possible Al Qaeda strike; and Republican victory in Massachusetts has implications across US.[i] These are by no means cheerful (except for the latter for some people), but for the most part rather unsettling news. The Vikings’ triumph over Texas was an exception for Minnesotans. Closer to home, this week we learned that Luther Seminary accepted two staff resignations – the Dean of Students and the Seminary Pastor. What is even more troubling is that the president stated that the office of the Seminary Pastor will be downsized, eliminating the support staff position and reducing the pastoral position to part-time status. The Church Council of the ELCA at the end of 2009 took action to eliminate over 40 full-time positions. Both the Seminary and the ELCA point to economic downturn as the reason for drastic changes in the way business is conducted. Needless to say, unemployment level across the country is high and those with jobs for the most part do not feel like they have job security.

These are anxious times. Not unlike the experience of those who returned from exile only to find Jerusalem in ruins. Life was very difficult in a foreign land, albeit there was food, shelter and employment. But the prospects of rebuilding from total devastation is not only daunting, it requires a certain outlook on life. Like the exiles, Haitians will need substantial amounts of material resources, a plan and strategy for reconstruction. But most importantly they will need encouragement that inspires determination and pride to achieve their goal. They would have to be united in purpose and commitment. As one commentator observes Haiti needs help, but more importantly solidarity. Alissa Trotz states in an article in the Stabroek News (Guyanese newspaper), “…the language of charity is not the model, for it springs from pity and is not based on a principle of equality.”[ii] She makes a good point in light of our colonial experience, but I would offer mutuality rather than equality, especially since there is an overwhelming lack of resources and infrastructure in Haiti for its reconstruction. It is enough to say at this time, Haiti needs all the help it can get. It is in no position to pick and choose. But charity must be a short term goal. The long term health of the nation should not be dependent on charity, but overcoming systemic injustice, economic and political oppression.

Back in September 2008 Haiti was hit hard by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. At that time, there were over a thousand fatalities and 12% of the population was displaced. It was observed that Haiti, one of, if not the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere could not deal with such natural disasters and their aftermath. Regrettably, American televangelist Pat Robertson who said that the earthquake was payback for the pact Haitians made with the devil in return for an end to slavery under the French, did not take this fact into consideration. Martin Luther King Jr. provides an appropriate response in saying, “Any religion which professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a dry-as-dust religion.”[iii]

Where did the exiles look for inspiration? For them, history had revealed that when they themselves turned from God and were conquered by surrounding nations, God was not defeated nor did God abandon them. In spite of their disobedience, God remained faithful to them. They learned from their suffering to turn once again toward God. Through it all they learned that God can be trusted for God is steadfast, loving and forgiving. So who did they turn to for inspiration? They turned to God urging Ezra to declare God’s word to them. Indeed: “The teaching of the Lord revives the soul” (Ps. 19:7).

When caught in a web of dissension where does the church at Corinth turn to for inspiration? They turn to their trusted leader, the Apostle Paul. He tells them that Christ is not divided. Those who are of Christ have unity in diversity. What would it take for the ELCA to believe and live out this word? The Presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson in a Town Hall Forum urged leaders to focus on the complete picture of the ELCA through “a wide-angle lens” versus focusing on human sexuality issues. He said, “ELCA leaders and members need to encourage each other in their ministries.”[iv] One must remember that the church at Corinth was so divided that there were factions. No doubt the problem grew worst when they started to quarrel among themselves. The inevitable would have been parting ways.

Paul addressed the subject of their disagreement when he says, “…the body does not consist of one member but of many” (v. 14). He concludes by saying that the church is the body of Christ (v. 27). Further, God has so ordered the body not for division, but for interdependence. In other words, God has so designed our body which is a model for life together in the church. ELCA member churches need to get used to it. If you want someone to quarrel with, quarrel with God who assigns roles in the church.God is the one who has call us and endowed us with special abilities for the benefit of the whole and our witness to the world. When one is tempted to think too highly of oneself, pause and consider who you are and whose you are. We are a new creation for in baptism we died with Christ and rose to new life in him. We are Christ’s resurrected body no longer to be controlled by our own whims and fancy, but by the Spirit into which we were baptized.

Like Jesus we are Spirit led, not ego led people. Luke tells us that the Spirit is the secret behind Jesus’ power over the evil one. In the passage before us, Luke wants us to understand that the Spirit is fully at work in Jesus’ life. Owing to the presence of the Spirit, Jesus performs miracles, exhibits wisdom, authority and fulfills prophecy. It is not by chance that Jesus shows up in his hometown, goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath, indicates his intention to read from the Torah and his given the prophecy of Isaiah. Luke would have us know that Jesus purposefully locates this passage because having been ordained by God for public ministry at his baptism, Jesus now fulfills history.

Look at how Luke emphasizes the effect of Jesus on his people. The NIV renders verse 20, “The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.” The NRSV states, “The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.” There is a sense of expectancy here. They knew the passage pointed to the Messiah. They were eager to hear what he would say next. When he came to his hometown word had already circulated about him. There was talk that he is the Messiah. No doubt, the question for them as it is for us is: what does the messiah look like. But they also knew him to be one of their own. He grew up in front of them. He worked in Joseph’s carpentry business. He was Mary’s son. So for them the question will be: how does one reconcile his previous life with his present claim. That I am certain will be taken up in next week’s reading. What is important for us in that history is fulfilled. The good news is that the Messiah has come. And the way of identifying the Messiah is by what he does for you and the world.

As I watched the news in the company of Samuel this past week, he asked me:  Why are so many bad things happening? He was trying to make sense of the news. But this is precisely the difference between news and good news. The news reports what’s happening in our world. Granted it is not always objective, still it attempts to lay bare the facts of the matter. It is descriptive at best even though it attempts to shape our perceptions as to why some things happen. However, the good news does the opposite. It shows us who we are; that we are a needy people for whom Christ gave his very life. The good news announces that God is for us in spite of the evils that surround us. It declares that God is present with us in our suffering giving us strength to bear up and finally to overcome. The good news is that we can trust Christ who says, “I am with you always” (Matt. 28:20). God is with us always in the Word and in Spirit.

Like Jesus we too are given the Spirit. Having received the Spirit we live not to ourselves, but for others both in and outside of the church. In answer to the question: why are so many bad things happening, I say this much, we are a new creation, but the world is certainly not. The evils that we see reminds us that God’s redeeming work is done, but still to be completed. Christ’s work continues in and through our work in St Paul, MN, the US, Haiti, Jos, El Salvador, and the world. Let us not be distracted by petty disputes aimed at massaging our egos while pushing others out. There is no place for that in Christ’s body. Instead, Paul encourages all of us to seek the more excellent way. That too we will hear about new Sunday. For now, we live in the fullness of the Spirit like the exiles seeking only to know and do God’s will. And in so doing may we say to one another, “the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10). Amen.

[i] http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/12/haiti.earthquake/index.html (accessed, January 23, 2010).

[ii] http://www.stabroeknews.com/2010/features/01/18/we-must-stand-with-haiti-solidarity-not-help/ (accessed, January 23, 2010).

[iii] http://www.ppu.org.uk/e_publications/mlk_2.html (accessed, January 23, 2010).

[iv] http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Communication-Services/News/Releases.aspx?a=4365  (accessed, January 23, 2010).
January 24th, 2010 in Uncategorized |

Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration

January 17, 2010

St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church

Pastor Anita C. Hill

Hope for Haiti; Hope for the World


Isaiah 62:1-5; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11

Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Haiti is on my mind as I hear the words of Isaiah: “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate.” Can we really take seriously this sense of hopefulness from the prophet and apply it to the incredible devastation brought about by this earthquake? Is there any hopefulness about the lessons that can be learned in the wake of this horror? Is there any hopefulness about the moral truths that are waiting to be brought forward as the world watches the response to this disaster? Have we learned anything since Hurricane Katrina and our nation’s response to it? Can we hope that the world will deal differently with Haiti?

Haiti is a poor country that experienced the desolation wrought of years of colonialism, slavery, misery, hunger, and sheer poverty, and now the overwhelming devastation wrought of natural disaster.

Who hasn’t been moved this week with the news from Haiti after the earthquake that has killed tens of thousands and left countless more homeless or trapped in the rubble? We’ve heard reporters with tears choking their voices. We’ve watched and carried the pain, wondering how we might endure such difficulty; wondering how anyone can. Tears flowed at our text study group. Grief is palpable on the faces and in the words of world leaders. Grief came closer in the announcement from the ELCA about Ben Larson, a senior seminarian who died as he, his wife, and his cousin served a mission in Haiti.

In a nation already deemed desolate, fear rises that they will be completely forsaken in this horrific time. Newspaper headlines shout: “We are alone. Look at us!” Those words are like the words shouted, prayed, and lifted up to God after the Israelites escaped from exile only to experience economic and political troubles in the land of Judah.

Today we commemorate the life and work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his prophetic voice in our country’s history of oppression and freedom. We recall the ways people of color, especially those of African descent, have carried the weight of economic and political troubles since the earliest days of the United States.

Martin Luther King, Jr., like the prophet Isaiah, held fast to the promises of God. He held onto hope for the mistreated multitude in spite of evidence to the contrary. Perhaps this is what St. Paul called “hope against hope” in his letter to the Romans.

In spite of difficulties wrought by disaster, an imperiled economy, hunger, disease, wars, climate change, exclusion from opportunity, and so much more, the prophet still hopes. He continues to make his case before God, reminding God of the promises made to Israel.

Just as Isaiah continued to make his case before God, and just as Dr. King continued to make his case before the American people, we are called to hold onto hope in God’s promises. We are called to raise up the case of the Haitian people, called to continue to cry out until the “vindication [of humanity] shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.” And for the vindication of all the people who feel forsaken and alone in the midst of desolation.

It is for this reason that we have been “given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Gifts like wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, and working of miracles.

Where is hope for Haiti? Hope rises in the prayers being lifted around the globe. Hope lives in the response to the disaster from the US and other countries around the world. Hope comes with clean water, food, and other provisions. Hope carries those searching the rubble. Hope comes in the form of an end to civil unrest and looting. Hope comes from people banding together for the common good. Hope comes in the form of people expressing their spiritual gifts so that Haiti will be rebuilt and not forgotten.

Hope comes as we recall the legacy of Dr. King. Hope comes as we continue his dream of a country where what matters is the character of a person, not the color of their skin. Hope comes as we work side by side to make our communities just; when we provide opportunity for everyone, especially those whom racism has shut out from opportunity.

We just read in Advent the promise of the Magnificat of Mary that God will fill the hungry, bring justice to those who have been trampled. Hope comes from reminding God of these promises, “giving God no rest until they are fulfilled. Of course, this will have an impact on us. God will likely remind us of our role in addressing hunger and poverty.”

Hope comes from Jesus, whose mother reminded him at a wedding about what was needed. He wasn’t yet ready, but she moved him to take action, which brought forth Jesus’ first miracle, changing water into wine. This first sign that “revealed his glory” leads people to believe who Jesus is and what he is about. “That sign, while at first glance appears excessive (gallons upon gallons of the best wine), directs our attention to God’s abundance. This abundance is graciously given as a foretaste of the kingdom to come.”

In response to the needs of the world, the question today is not what would Jesus do? Or even what would Martin Luther King do? The question is what will you do?

Hope for Haiti, indeed, hope for the world, comes when we consider the gifts God has graciously given to us, even in excess. God is reminding us, as Mary reminded Jesus, of what is needed. God is asking us how we will use our gifts as a church for the good of the world. Hope rests in our collective action: in prayer, in our gifts shared, and in the ways we bring the lessons we learn back home. May our response leave God rejoicing. Amen.

January 17th, 2010 in Pastor Anita Hill |

The Baptism of our Lord Series C

January 10, 2010

St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran

Keith Olstad

The texts:

The first lesson: Isaiah 43:1-7 NRSV

Psalm 29 NRSV

The second lesson: Acts 8:14-17 NRSV

The Gospel: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 NRSV

The Children’s lesson

Good morning! I’m glad to see you here this morning. I so enjoy this time with you.

I want you to watch what happens when I do a little experiment. I’m going to see if I can get a response when I do this: (to the congregation) Stand up!

What happened? Did anyone stand up? Why didn’t everyone stand up?

Let me try it a different way. Jim McGowan, stand up! Did he do it? Why did he? Because I used his name. Thank you, Jim. Please sit down.

Several things happened when I used Jim’s name. He knew who I was talking about, and so did everyone else. So if he ignored me, everyone would wonder what was wrong. But something else happened, too. When I used Jim’s name, Jim knew that I knew him. My using his name meant that I had a connection to him, that I knew him as well as his name. He paid attention to me precisely because my using his name meant that we have a relationship.

You are going to hear in our lessons this morning that God knows your name, and loves you specifically. You are also going to hear God speak to Jesus, calling Jesus, my son, the beloved. And I want you to remember that when you were baptized, we used your name, and God made firm promises to you.

God knows you by name, and loves you just as God loves Jesus. And God will always keep God’s promises to you, and will be with you forever.

The sermon:

Friends, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and from our loving Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I was six years old at the time-puny and green. Even though I had spent several summers staying at my grandparents’ log cabin in northern Wisconsin, I had never before gone camping in real wilderness. But my dad, a counselor at a local camp, was going to lead an expedition of young hikers into the virgin wilderness of Northern Michigan’s Porcupine Mountains. He suggested that I go along. So prouder than scared, I went with my father and a strange collection of spoiled adolescents.

My memories of that adventure have blurred over time. I remember that trees had never before seemed so tall, and that fallen ones were really hard to climb over. I remember mosquitoes so thick they droned like jet engines and stung every exposed skin surface. I remember cold, non-stop rain every day, so I was deeply chilled. I remember that the deep woods were very dark at night; and that I got very, very tired.

But mostly I remember that in this immensely strange and foreboding place, my father kept me safe. I remember Dad’s strong hand reaching to help me over dark and gnarled logs. I remember snuggling up to my father’s warmth in the cold of those restless nights in soaking tents. I remember the deep, reassuring tones of my father’s voice saying my name, urging me on through the blur of my fatigue.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine,” God says in this morning’s lesson. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;…”

I will be with you, says our God. I know who you are and I love you. I will stay with you. I will guide you across obstacles. I will hold you when you are cold. I will encourage you when you are tired. I will take you by the hand, says YAHWEH, our God, and I will keep you safe.

My mother worried about me during that trip. Frankly, I suspect she worried about both of us. It was unseasonably cold and raining daily. Mom had no way of keeping contact with us, no way of knowing whether we were safe. But when I got home, I remember that she took me in her arms and hugged me long and well. I remember that she said how much she loved and missed me, and some other things that made me feel wonderful in spite of my fatigue, although I no longer remember what she actually said. But I knew profoundly that she loved me, and that even in the wilderness I had never been beyond her love.

“And when Jesus … had been baptized,” writes Luke in our Gospel, “a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” With you I am well pleased. I love and cherish you, and delight in your presence. I am proud of your integrity and your faith, and I delight in your goodness. You are my beloved son, God said to Jesus, and I am so very pleased with you.

So God spoke to Jesus. And this morning, so God speaks to you. To youGod says, I touch you in Baptism, and I put my promise on your forehead. You are my daughter, my son; you are my beloved; with you I am very well pleased. Your hand I take this morning, and you I want to keep with me.

Me? you say. Does God so honor me? What if my mother or my father did not so clearly love me? What if my life is painful, or my energies are ebbing? Can God so choose and love-so hold and keep-each of us? What if we are not so lovable? Or what if we’ve failed? What if we’ve not been able to be what we thought we should be?

Such questions were on the minds of the people for whom our first lesson was written. These words were first spoken to Israelites in exile in Babylon. Their ancestors had come through the wilderness with Moses and had walked into the promised land. Under David and Solomon their ancestors had become a world power, rich and successful beyond imagination. But it was also their ancestors who failed to honor God, who lost their power and prestige, and then even lost their temple and their land and were carried off into exile as slaves. The Israelites who first heard Isaiah’s words knew their ancestors had failed them, and they felt worthless. They themselves were paying for the disobedience and errors of generations before them.

It is precisely to people who feel like victims, who know failure and defeat firsthand, that God speaks these gentle, compassionate words: “…now thus says YAHWEH (our God), the One who created you, O Jacob, the One who formed you, O Israel:… you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you,…Do not fear, for I am with you;…” It is to people who are utterly down and out, depressed and desolate, that God now says, “I will…bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth-everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.’”

The God who claims us in Baptism, and who loves us in every moment of our lives, claims us not because of our accomplishments and success, not for our rightness or our smartness. Rather God claims us simply becauseGod loves us-because God made us, because God forgives us, andbecause God promised to keep us forever. God claims us as God’s own simply because God is ultimately gracious and forgiving, and loves us.

So, yes, you are God’s daughter, God’s son, God’s beloved, with whom God is so very well pleased.

God’s pleasure-God’s conviction-is that by so loving you, so taking you by the hand and keeping you, you will pick up Jesus’ mantle, and his winnowing fork, to gather wheat into God’s granary. God believes that grace will empower you, and love will ignite you, and you too can be on fire with God’s own Spirit.

When I was six years old, I could fantasize myself as Davy Crockett or Dan’l Boone, and I could dream of riding a chariot with Ben Hur. But I did not know that my parents’ love would make me able someday to make a difference in others’ lives. But their love did that. It is not a matter of who or what you are. It happens simply because parents’ love empowers their children, and a friend’s love empowers a friend’s love. A person does not need to save the world, or conquer the wilderness, or even always be good. You simply need to receive love, and pass it on.

So God’s love comes to you today. God claims and loves you as God’s own daughter or son. All you need to do is breathe deeply, for God’s Spirit is all about you. All you need to do is come to the table, where God is dying-no, living-to feed you. All you need to do is know that you are claimed, and loved and kept close by our graciously loving God.

And in that promise is the power to pass through raging water and walk through scorching fire, all for the sake of love.

So be it. Amen.

[1] Ibid. vv. 5-6a

[2] Luke 3:21a,22b NRSV

[3] Isaiah 43:1a,4a,5a

[4] Ibid. vv.6a,c,7

[5] See John’s language in Luke 3:16-17

January 10th, 2010 in Pastor Keith Olstad |

Festival of the Epiphany

Festival of the Epiphany

1/3/2010

Pastor Anita Hill

St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church


Seeking God

Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7,10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12 Matthew 2:1-12


Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Over this holiday weekend, we watched a mostly silly movie: “Imagine That” starring Eddie Murphy. He and his daughter played with her magic blanket. His daughter’s “imaginary” friends became a way of seeking a kind of divine wisdom to guide investments and foretell market futures. It was God as wall street seer.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could just find a magic method to discern God’s will for us? Who wouldn’t want to be sure of God’s guidance about the right path in life for us? Maybe we all need a guiding star in the East to lead us, just like the Magi who followed the star to guide their journey.

Why did these strangers, the Magi, make such a difficult journey? Even their trip home was perilous as they heeded warning from a dream telling them to take a different route. They were driven by their sense of an event so important and so powerful that it drew them far from their homeland, called forth their generosity, and brought forth their humble worship before Jesus.

The magi came from the East, the lands of those who had conquered Israel throughout history. They were wise men, but not in all areas. They looked for the child in Herod’s care. Naively, they went to Herod, a cruel ruler who dwelt in fear and dealt in death.

Herod wanted to know where to find this baby called King of the Jews, this child whose birth brought good news for the world. He wanted to get rid of anyone who was a threat to his authority, and he was the one who had been named “King of the Jews” by Rome.

Even wicked people in the bible sought out special divine knowledge. Herod went the traditional route to find knowledge, so he called together the religious elite, and asked them about this birth. They studied the scriptures and found an answer in the words of the prophet Micah (5:2) and in 2 Samuel (5:2) that pointed them to Bethlehem, the hometown of David, the shepherd king, as the birthplace of the Messiah who would be the greatest shepherd of all.

Deceitfully, Herod asked the Magi to return and tell him where to find this baby so he could also pay homage. But the Magi were warned in a dream not to return to Herod. And we know about Herod’s evil action in killing the innocents.

Human beings have always tried to get divine knowledge and wisdom. We have always sought help from above. Many people in the Bible had dreams that led them into the right decisions. Many others asked God for signs and signals for what to do. Moses received God’s word from the burning bush. Abraham spared his son Isaac from sacrifice when God sent a ram. Samuel heard God’s voice in the night. Jacob’s dream of a ladder between heaven and earth is described in Genesis. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter has a dream showing him that the Gospel is to be shared with the Gentiles, those whom his tradition had deemed unclean. 

Think about ways modern people try to “read the stars” like the Wise Men from the East tried to do: through astrology, psychics, palm readers, tarot cards, mediums leading séances, and more. We even try to read the minds of our pets through pet psychics.

It’s a part of many world religions to seek divine guidance. Some toss the Runes, roll dice, or throw I-Ching coins. Some read tea leaves. Native Americans put an animal bone in the fire and watch how it disintegrates to ashes to determine the will of the Great Spirit. The Jewish Kabbala is a form of mysticism that has captured the imagination of the singer Madonna, trying to find hidden messages in the text of the Hebrew Scriptures. Some fundamentalist Christians open the Bible, point to a random text and look for a message from God in it. Some Christians look at what is happening in Israel to see signs of the coming of the end of the world

Think of all the movies in the recent past where angels are portrayed coming to human beings with a message from God: “Heaven Can Wait,” “City of Angels,” John Travolta dancing as the angel “Michael.” Even the old favorite played every Christmas: “It’s a Wonderful Life.” I’m also thinking of the TV show “Joan of Arcadia” where God comes to teenaged Joan in many different human guises. And there was an older show titled, “Touched by an Angel.”

We want a direct way to contact a power greater and wiser than ourselves to help guide us. We seek a guiding light. We want answers, and many people will take the voice of something, somewhere out there, anything beyond this earthly reality. Too many have learned that drugs are a bad substitute for having a transcendent experience.

Without God in our lives, we become lost and confused. We live in a state of anxiety and uncertainty, without a special star or road map for where to go and what to do. We look for ways to discern God’s will, but few, if any of us find magic blankets, or divine intervention in the form of a dream or an angel. We have to look for other ways of finding out the will of God, perhaps through prayer, asking for the wisdom to know the decisions that will be the best for us and for the world.

The good news in this text is that God is able to be found. Scripture says, “Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened.” There is a famous line from the oratorio Elijah: “If with all your hearts, ye truly seek me, ye shall surely find me.” God is not an elusive God. God came to the earth for the sole purpose of revealing Godself to humanity in Jesus. We have been graced with a God who sought out life in humanity in order to be made known to us. God wants to be known.

What are we searching for? And why do we want to see God’s face? Some want the ecstasy that comes with divine encounter.  Some search for ways to communicate with God so they can act as God wants. Some want to profit from the connection.

When were times that you have felt you were seeking God in your life? Was it only at times of need or suffering? Was it an intellectual search, or did it come from a deep, personal hunger?

There are many ways we find our way to God. Nature points us there. Did you see the Blue Moon on New Year’s Eve? Sunsets turn my attention to God any time of year. We recognize God in those who offer care and help in our times of trouble. We hear God’s “still small voice” within us. Sometimes we are sure prayer has been answered.

Christmas recalls the story of God in Jesus. Epiphany speaks to our recognition of God’s light in the world. We have personal experience. We have scripture to guide us, and community to help us understand these gifts. “Then, like the Magi, we’re drawn to worship the One we seek.”

The good news is that God wants to be found. God is accessible without a magic blanket. That’s why God revealed Godself to us in Jesus: infant, child, man on a mission to point us to the mystery of God. Jesus, whose birth turned the course of human history, is the one we know as Christ. Scripture tells the stories. Without scripture, we wouldn’t know where or how to worship.

When we go searching for God, we will find God in unusual places, in unlikely circumstances. When we have our hearts open, expecting to experience God’s presence, we will be led like the Wise Ones from the East. Probably not led by a star, but led to the voices of children, to the visions of elders, to the dreams and prayers of waking and sleeping, led to the needs of the world.

God, the long sought after Holy Presence, is with us. The light of Epiphany is not contained. The story of seekers from the East so long ago is not just a sweet story for Nativity sets or Christmas cards. It is our story, too. It is the story of God and humanity together in the midst of the larger story about tending suffering in the world.

Seeking God, looking for the Light, listening for God’s guidance, noticing God’s creation, extending our hands in loving, using our minds to solve problems, building relationships with depth and meaning, acting on behalf of others, these are signs of assurance that God is with us now. The Star is with us, the Christ light is here. Amen.

[1] Rev. Kate Huey, Weekly Seeds, “Where is the Child,” www.ucc.org, Epiphany 2010.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Thomas Long, “Matthew,” Westminster Bible Companion.
January 3rd, 2010 in Pastor Anita Hill |

First Sunday of Christmas

First Sunday of Christmas Series C

December 27, 2009 St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran

Keith Olstad

The texts:

The first lesson: 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26

The second lesson: Colossians 3:12-17

The Gospel: Luke 1:39-55

Children’s lesson:

I’m so glad you are here. I always look forward to this time with you!

I have a story for you. When Libby’s and my kids were teenagers, we all went to the state fair together. Now I don’t mind telling you that I don’t much like the state fair. There are just so many people and so much spending money on things that cost too much, all that noise, heat and grit and-oh, it’s just too much for me. So Libby and I decided to go spend some quiet time in one of the exhibit buildings while the kids went on more rides.

When we went to find the kids, they weren’t where we thought they were going to be. So we waited for awhile, and then one of us stayed there while the other one went out looking in the crowds. We got more and more anxious and concerned about whether the kids were all right. We started to think about all kinds of terrible things that could have happened to them. We searched and searched for a couple of hours, and got more and more scared and frustrated.

Finally, in frustration, I called home. We didn’t have cell phones then, so I used a pay phone. And guess who answered the phone? “Where are you,” one of our sons said. “We couldn’t find you, so we just took the bus home. Why haven’t you come home yet?”

Well, I’ll never forget how anxious we were! Actually, we were pretty angry too, because the kids didn’t remember where they were supposed to meet us.

Some people say that Jesus never sinned. In the story I’m going to read to you in a few minutes, I think that claim is debatable. I bet there are some other parents and grandparents here who might wonder about that too. Well, OK, if he didn’t sin, he at least made his parents really anxious, even if he was just doing what he thought he was supposed to do.

Sometimes life gets pretty complicated that way.

The sermon:

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and from our loving and incarnate savior, Jesus Christ. Amen

I watched the whole process, from the arrival to the letting go. And frankly, I think it was the letting go that was most deeply poignant.

As their pastor, I received an early announcement of their pregnancy, for I had counseled them as they had tried for years to conceive. Now pregnant, they were more aware than many couples of the holiness-the blessedness -of being pregnant.

Then I was with them hours after the birth of that precious baby girl, to share with them a joy beyond words. I conducted her baptism, and I was so honored to be their beautiful daughter’s confirmation teacher. When I confirmed her, and put my hand with theirs on her head, I saw their quiet tears of pride and joy, and I was deeply moved.

But it was just after her wedding, when we all finally said good-bye to her, that I was most deeply touched by her parents’ response. Their faces again shone with radiant pride rooted in love, but simultaneously I saw those tears conveying the deep grief of loss. Oh, the agony of letting her go, of allowing the breaking away, the parting from them of this dear daughter they most desperately loved. Their daughter, now a young woman, was moving away to live with another, moving across the country to begin a new life. They knew it was right and good. But, oh, they grieved their loss, even while affirming the rightness of it.

We find in this morning’s texts similar stories of parents’ poignant struggles with letting go. In the first lesson, Samuel was the first child born to Elkanah and Hannah, after many years of struggling to conceive. When finally she conceived a child, Hannah burst forth in a song stunningly like Mary’s Magnificat. 1 In thanks to God for finally giving them a child, Hannah returned her son, Samuel, to God, giving him to Eli, the priest of the temple. There Samuel grew up apart from his family, directly serving his God in the temple. Only annually would his parents visit him, and Eli, the priest, would each year bless this faithful woman and her husband, and they bore five more children.

But, oh, the poignancy of visiting your first child only once a year, and there giving him a new garment to wear, a robe on which you likely worked for weeks or months. How gripping a prospect-that those threads somehow had to bear the love and parental longing of a year of separation.

Then in our gospel we encounter Mary and Joseph on an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In contrast, their first-born son, Jesus, travels with them. But now, in this story, Jesus leaves his family in order to go to the temple where, rather than serving the priest, Jesus engages the priests in discussion.

Only this time the anguish of the parents is even more profound. Because they have traveled across the desert in a group, for a full day Joseph and Mary don’t even note that Jesus is missing, and then it’s another two days before they finally find him in the temple. Can you imagine their panic, feel their anxiety? Any parent whose offspring has run away will tense at the memory of those times of deep panic and frustration. Only tepidly Luke captures their reunion, having Mary ask blandly: “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, you father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.”2I can’t help but believe that Luke’s record must dramati-cally understate Mary’s reprimand.

But Luke wasn’t there. In all likelihood, this account was written some seventy to eighty years after this phase of Jesus’ life. Whatever the actual event was like, Luke includes it here, I suspect, to make a very particular point about this boy, Jesus.

Luke uses the gospel story to draw a parallel between Samuel and Jesus. Remember, after all, that Samuel was the pivotal prophet in the transfor-mation of Israel from a federation of twelve tribes into a single nation, the kingdom of Israel, under a single king. Jesus, Luke wants us to recognize, is shaping up to be the one who will move God’s people into a new era, into the one and holy kingdom of God.

Not only that, but Luke uses this story about Jesus as a boy to illustrate a couple of other points as well. Jesus’ encounter here with the religious leaders is only the first of many encounters Luke remembers Jesus having with temple authorities. In Luke’s gospel these encounters get increasingly problematic. Furthermore Luke’s story suggests that like other heroes in ancient literature, Jesus shows his precociousness at an early age. But remember too that in Luke’s gospel Jesus’ mission and his family’s expectations often come into conflict, and even more so, it seems, as he grows older. In the eighth chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus refuses even to acknowledge his own mother and brothers, declaring: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” 3 But, oh, imagine again the poignant pain of a parent, hearing such a pronouncement from a daughter or son.

Insofar as these dynamics begin to sound like patterns in our own families-insofar as these stories remind us about our own adolescence, or about the adolescence of our own sons or daughters, or even our granddaughters and grandsons-to this degree we are coming face to face with God’s incarnation. We are experiencing in our own memories, in our own beings, the truth of God’s dwelling among us in this account from Jesus’ own adolescence.

You hear this story, and you not only remember your own encounters with adolescent strivings and bravado-whether your own or your loved one’s-but you can also identify with a Mary. Libby and I will never forget those anxious times when our daughter disappeared and we searched and waited seemingly endlessly. In a similar way, I want always to remember our times of great pride at her piano recitals, or at our sons’ band concerts or sports event. It is a Mary very much like you and me who, according to Luke, “treasured all these things in her heart” 4 as she sought to understand the strange machinations of her amazing son.

This identification with Mary has another dimension to it. So often in our culture we think we have to be the ones to do the work, to lead the way, to make things happen. This morning however we find ourselves much more like the parents-like Mary and Joseph-and our task is not to proceed, but to step back. Our task is not to be the ones, but to let others be the ones. Our role is to let go, to let go and let God get on with things through Jesus.

God was deeply involved in the stories in our texts this morning. In the first lesson, “the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with YAHWEH (our God) and with the people.” 5 In our gospel lesson, “Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” 6 It would have been easy for the early church to be too busy to notice, and it would be easy for us as well for us to be too busy to notice. But God was and is powerfully involved-then and now.

God is involved here among us this morning, and throughout these days. We have work to do, lots of work-to care for our families, to respond to our neighbors’ needs, to care for this little plot of God’s creation where we do ministry. Because God is so involved, we need to make sure that we are not only busy, but that we are also observant enough to notice what God is doing, and to treasure God’s persistent, diligent working in our own hearts.

So be it. Amen.


[1] See 1Samuel 2:1-10

[2] Luke 2:49 NRSV

[3] Luke 8:21, but see vv. 1921

[4] Luke 2:51b

[5] 1 Samuel 2:26

[6] Luke 2;52
December 27th, 2009 in Pastor Keith Olstad |

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Fourth Sunday of Advent Series C

December 20, 2009 St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran

Keith Olstad

The texts:

The first lesson: Micah 5:2-5

Psalm: Luke 1:46b – 55

The Gospel: Luke 1:39-55


The children’s lesson:

Good morning. I’m so glad to see you again, and have this time with you.

I am so sorry that it’s almost Christmas, and that means you will have so much hard work to do. I mean, you have to give away some those presents you got for other people, and you might even have to wrap them. Geez, whatta drag. And then people give you presents, and you have to open them and then throw away all that wrapping paper and boxes and bags and stuff, unless you save them for next year, and that’s a drag too. And then you have to thank the people who gave you the gifts, and then you actually have to play with your toys or wear your new clothes. Oh, wow. I know that’s hard, so I just want you to know that I feel your pain. And I’m sorry that it will be soooo tough on you…

I want you to think about that for a minute, though, because both of the lessons we’re going to hear in a minute, including the beautiful song that Margaret will sing as our psalm, are all about people who don’t have any of that stuff. They don’t have the money to buy presents or to make good food. In fact, they can’t even live in their own houses or have their own gardens or fields or much of anything that is their own.

It’s amazing, because our lessons are about people who are very, very happy about things happening that will make the world a better place for them and for all people, but it’s not about sharing how much they have. Instead, it’s about the possibility that people who do have things could learn to share them, and people who have food would help other people get food, and that everyone could have a safe place to live and good work to do.

So I hope when you are doing all the hard work of Christmas that you’ll remember some of the people who don’t have that hard work to do, and that you’ll think about even just one way that you can do something that will give them hope for a better life.

The Sermon:

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God, our creator, and from our loving savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The people of Israel, in the days when Micah writes our first lesson, are a conquered, dispirited people who have been hauled off into exile in Babylon. For generations they have suffered and slaved in that foreign land, losing identity, losing faith.

Micah brings them a new vision, a promise that from Bethlehem, back home in Israel, will “come forth for (God) one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old,…” Bethlehem back then was a little town anchoring Ephrathah, the smallest and weakest of the tribes that made up God’s chosen people. But now, says Micah, from that no-place town back nowhere in particular, there will come one who will restore and save God’s people.

It is a promise of special power and promise, for God’s people in exile shall return to Israel to be the people of God once again. They will stand proudly with God’s ordained leader standing among them in God’s strength, giving them security from all that threatens them. His greatness shall be known to the ends of the earth.

I remember as a kid Christmas shopping with my grandma and grandpa.

They promised to buy me candy if I would be good while they shopped. I would stand in front of the candy counter, looking at the jars of shiny, brightly colored candy behind the glass. I would get so excited I could barely stand it. Frankly, the anticipation was almost as good as the actual taste. But somehow, somehow, I’d have to wait just a little bit longer.

Micah’s prophecy for those exiled people in abject poverty gave them reason to be excited, to twitch with anticipation of a sweet and glorious savor of freedom and security in the embrace of their homeland. Micah’s promise made them anticipate, like standing in front of that candy counter.

Only their longing, their visions of sweetness and delight, came not from the mouth-watering delirium of a happy child, drooling for a moment’s delight. No, their longings came from the deep recesses of a people brutalized by poverty, devastated by loss of voice and demoralized by the crushing of opportunity. Their longing was not for the temporary delight of the sweet hard candy, but rather for a liberation from all that defeats ambition, that destroys initiative, that suppresses the power of community and comfort. It is the difference between our commercial trivializing of Christmas and the dire circumstance from which our Christmas story emerges.

In our gospel lesson, in the days when Mary travels to be with Elizabeth, God’s chosen people are once again a defeated people, governed by
Roman politicians, taxed by unscrupulous collectors, brutalized by omnipresent Roman armed forces. Nazareth is a forgettable town in a vanquished country, populated by the weakest of a people already conquered-utterly, totally down and out with nowhere to go.

But there is nonetheless that lingering promise made by Micah long ago-that something great will come from among them, the weakest of the weak, the smallest of the insignificant. What will come will change everything, for all time.

Is it like the glint of candy just out of reach in a radiant jar, twinkling with an alluring sweetness?

Elizabeth sees pregnant Mary coming down the dusty lane, impoverished, bedraggled from travel in an unyielding, barren land, and Elizabeth marvels at the faith of this insignificant woman who clings to a simple promise. “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Blessed is this woman who believes in the promise.

Can you see the candy jar glisten?

Mary then puts into song-as had Miriam and Hannah before her-the hopes and fears of all the years. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” sings Mary, “for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of this servant.” It is so audacious a claim, so utterly unwar-ranted! A peasant woman who is an embarrassment to her family, a disgrace to her fiancé, the shame of her town, claims to magnify God. She claims she can enlarge upon-expand in dimension and range-who God is! She is totally confident that God is treating her with special favor, and that through her God will become even more than God has been.

Then she dares to get specific about this God of hers. God “has shown strength with God’s arm; God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; Godhas filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. God has helped God’s servant Israel, in remembrance of God’s mercy, according to the promise God made to our ancestors,…”

Mary’s claims are clearly the delusional babblings of a traumatized girl, but they are also powerful claims of deep faith. God will scatter the proud, those arrogant ones who lord it over people of the town, who shame and torment people who are less gifted, less wealthy, less accomplished. God will take away the power of the ruling elite and give it to the people in towns and streets who are usually victims of these rulers. God will feed the hungry instead of the rich, so that those who have starved for generations finally have what they need to live, to thrive. God will remember God’s people with mercy-that grace and favor which forgives all errors, rights all wrongs, heals all wounds. These are powerful things indeed! This insignificant woman claims these things as her event, hers to birth.

Now I hear the footsteps of Grandma and Grandpa trudging down the aisle, and the candy fairly calls out for savoring. Grandma and Grandpa are chortling gleefully at my bubbly, bouncy joy at their coming. I am soooo excited about something so small and insignificant.

I remember those times, and I remember how quickly that luscious candy dissolved in my mouth, and then was gone. It was wonderful for a few precious moments, and then it was gone. We then headed out into the cold dark streets, and life returned to the way it was.

We come to this table again this morning. There is no glistening jar of candy to whet your appetites. Actually, what we have is only slightly more enticing that the meager morsels that Elizabeth would have served Mary. It is little; it is modest; it is common. Realistically, there is no way anything significant could be catalyzed by your brief encounter with this miniscule wafer of lifeless bread and this mere sip of mass-produced pasteurized wine.

Unless you have heard Mary’s song. If you have heard Mary’s song, and imagined that her audacity could be prophetic, then come to this bounteous feast. If you have heard Mary’s song, and dreamt that her son could actually foster justice in our world, then come to this plenteous repast. If you have heard Mary’s song, and hoped that the community gathered around this table could become a family of trustful and hopeful laboring, then forget the brief allure of glistening candy, and come to this table of genuine promise.

So be it. Amen.

[1] Micah 5:2b NRSV

[2] Luke 1:45 NRSV

[3] Exodus 15:20-21

[4] 1 Samuel 2:1-10

[5] Luke 1:46b-48a

[6] Ibid. vv. 51-55a
December 20th, 2009 in Pastor Keith Olstad |

Third Sunday in Advent

Third Sunday in Advent

December 13, 2009

Anita C. Hill, Co-Pastor, St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church

What is Essential?

Zepanaiah 3:14-20; Luke 3:7-18

Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Advent has been opened up for me this year through a completely unexpected source, a hibiscus tree. I received the tree as a gift last June. All summer long the hibiscus tree provided beauty. It produced 5-10 blooms every day. Big, showy, peachy-orange blooms that made me stop in my tracks. It brought joy and called me to stay in the moment to see them. Hibiscus blossoms last only one day; you have to take them in when you can.

When fall came, I felt sad that the tree would die, so I brought it inside. It wasn’t long before every blossom was covered with bugs. What a brood of vipers! They were sucking the life out of it. I washed the leaves to clear them away, but to no avail. So I moved the plant outside to left for the frost kill off what was left.

After a couple of weeks in the cold, I took the tree to the compost pile. I cut off the branches one by one. Before I chopped off the trunk at the root, I noticed there was a little ring of green showing just inside the bark at each cut across the branches.

After a pruning so severe there were only two tiny leaves left on it, I moved the little remnant of a tree back inside to a South facing window. To my delight, the plant has come back to life with leaves growing as new as springtime in December. I check on its progress each morning. It has proved to be one of the most moving devotions I’ve experienced in Advent.

A hibiscus tree has been a sign of God’s Advent presence this year. God is in the midst of us, working in all things, even new leaves in this deep December. Advent comes when our days have little light and the cold is cruel.

Advent is a time of experiencing the world “dying back” against the winter weather. It’s a time of darkness, with long cold nights. It is also a time of preparation for the arrival of new life. It is a time for deciding what is essential. It is a time for simplifying, for pruning back, for getting to the heart of the matter, to the center of what makes our hearts sing.

Our reading from Zephaniah begins with the words: “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout O Israel.” It provides a view of God as one not far away, but in our midst. God present with us. Our God brings victory. God rejoices over us with gladness, renewing us with love, and exulting over us with singing.

In this Advent time, we are invited to hold onto hope. Despair will not win the day. Our God is a God of action: removing disaster, dealing with our oppressors. God will save the lame, gather the outcast, and change shame into praise. God will bring us home, gather us and restore us. Zephaniah 3:18-20

I can only begin to imagine how the waiting went for Mary and Joseph as they prepared for the birth of their child. I suspect it was a time of crisis. Theirs is the story of a teenage pregnancy, a story a husband stepping in to give the child a father, a place in the world. And it was a world of difficulty, a world of relentless taxation, a world of coming retribution about the Christ child’s birth.

Some say that the current economic crisis has been for us a” pruning time,” so to speak.

Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, writes on “sojo mail” about the great recession. He says it not only gripped the world and captured our attention, but revealed a profound crisis of values. He writes:

The questions it raises concern our personal, family, and national priorities; our habits of the heart; our measures of success; the values of our families and our children; our spiritual well-being; and the ultimate goals and purposes of life, including our economic life. [We have] some fundamental choices to make.

In other words, in Advent, we are to determine what is essential for life with God present in our midst. John the Baptist gives some concrete suggestions. “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Luke 3:11 John gives some specific direction to tax collectors and soldiers, part of the system that oppresses people. Be honest. Tell the truth. Live and give others the chance to live as well.

Advent calls for honesty, truth-telling, for paring back to the essential values of our faith.

For all the judgment and bluster of John the Baptist, what keeps coming to mind today is the kind of solid advice we’ve heard from Robert Fulgum, author of All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindgergarten.[1]

Share everything. Play fair. Clean up your own mess. Say you are sorry. Live a balanced life. Take naps. Keep your eyes open. Be aware of wonder. When things are hard, hold hands and stick together.

Trust God. God is with us when we get pruned back: when we’ve lost a job, a relationship ends, when we feel we’ve been cut off at the knees, when someone we love has died, when we face serious illness, when joy is gone and bankruptcy looms. God is with us. God is in the middle of it all.

God comes through the darkness in unexpected ways like a plant that blooms unexpectedly in December. Advent is for preparing our hearts to be the cradles that carry the newborn Christ with us into yet another year. Another year in which we will experience highs and lows. Another year in which we can be sure that no matter what happens, God is present with us. That is what’s essential. Amen.

[1] Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Villard Books: New York, 1990, page 6-7.
December 13th, 2009 in Pastor Anita Hill |

Second Sunday of Advent

Second Sunday of Advent Series C

December 6, 2009 St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran

Keith Olstad

The texts:

The first lesson: Malachi 3:1-4 NRSV

Psalm 1:68-79 NRSV

The Gospel: Luke 3:1-6 NRSV

The children’s lesson:

Good morning. I’m so glad to see you again and have this time with you.

(sit still and silent for a full minute.)

Are you waiting for something to happen? Are you actually preparing yourself for something-perhaps startling, perhaps alarming? Or are you mostly getting irritated by my making you sit here with nothing happening?

I want to explore with you the difference between waiting and preparing. Think about the difference with me. What are some things that you do to prepare for Christmas?

What do you do when you wait? It’s harder to say, isn’t it, because usually simply waiting is not very active. You don’t usually do something in order to wait. Some things simply happen without our actually doing something to make them happen.

Our lessons this morning talk to us about preparing, but even while we prepare, we still have to wait. Listen for those differences in our lessons as they are read, and think about how you can both wait and prepare.

The sermon:

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God, our creator, and from our loving savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

This sermon was hatched in an airport. What an ideal place to reflect on the relationship between preparing and waiting! Afterall, when you decide to take a plane trip, you have to prepare. First you buy your ticket. Then you pack. Then you go to the airport with your boarding pass and ID in hand. And then you wait. Maybe you watch people, or read a newspaper or a book. A very few write a sermon. Most sit in the terminal as victims, a mere objects of the airline’s business. There is little one can do except wait.

But preparing and waiting are related in other arenas of life as well. When Libby, our boys and I decided to expand our family by adopting a daughter from Korea, we prepared intensely. We created a photo album that included every room in our house, our car, the boys’ tree house, even our pet bird. We fixed a bed, refinished a dresser, shopped for clothes, and planned our daughter’s arrival. We actively changing things, making them ready.

You know what I’m talking about. Many of you have gone through a pregnancy. You don’t simply wait for the baby to be born, the way you wait for an apple on the tree to ripen. No, you read, you exercise, you eat differently, you shop, you go to the doctor, you prepare the nursery. You prepare for a momentous, life-changing birth.

But all that preparation simply cannot eliminate the necessity of waiting. My family waited for months for Emily to arrive. It was excruciating waiting. We were doing all the preparing we could, and still there were times of simple, passive, almost helpless waiting.

There are people who wait for God to be born again the way they wait for their flights at the airport. They make the anniversary of Jesus’ birth a holiday and keep it at arm’s length. When the holiday comes, they get on for the day, and then get off. They are hardly affected. Perhaps for some it is enough, and perhaps for some-for any of a variety of reasons-it may be all they can do.

Our texts this morning, however, encourage us to make much more of this time before Jesus’ birth. Malachi presents a messenger who brings delight to God’s people, but that delight grows from a painful process of purifica-tion. The messenger is “like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap.” This, in other words, is an abrasive process, a preparation in which we are challen-ged, cleaned and refined. It is not simply the arrival of your holiday flight. This text anticipates the arrival of a person who “…will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendents of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to YAHWEH (our God) in righteousness.” The messenger kills what is against God, washes away anything that keeps us from embracing God’s presence.

Reading this text, I am taken back to El Salvador, where you sent Linda Dahlen and me three weeks ago. We listened to a theologically astute Lutheran bishop, Medardo Gomez, remind us that Jesus comes into this world to save all people. The eventual suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus as the Christ expresses God’s intent-actually, God’s accomplishment -in saving all people: rich and poor, oppressor and oppressed, privileged Anglo-Americans and impoverished Salvadorans. What we expect to celebrate in the birth of Jesus, Arzobispo Gomez would say, is that we are all included in God’s saving work through the incredibly broad embrace of God’s loving and redeeming grace.

But if today you want to find Jesus, Arzobispo Gomez taught us, do not look for him among the wealthy, the privileged, the comfortable. They- actually, we-clearly do benefit from what God is accomplishing in Jesus. But, says the archbishop, especially in today’s world, look for Jesus where he was born-in an impoverished community to an unmarried and ostracized girl in a stable, because no one would honor their need. If you want to encounter the Jesus of scripture, then confront your presumptions of privilege, your expectations of affirmation and endorsement.  Jesus will not be born in houses of power or glistening hospitals with full benefits. Rather, Jesus will be found where he has always been-not in the midst of our glitz and consumption, but in some dark place where people are longing for God’s intervention, clinging to unrealistic threads of hope.

For me this year, Arzobispo Gomez’ words constitute the fuller’s soap scraping at my assumptions, and the refiner’s fire burning away my pretentions. I am being scoured by recognizing my own wealth and position, and am left wondering about how to respond.

Then our gospel lesson delivers the story of John the Baptizer. Luke goes out of his way to confirm that John is a historical figure, influencing state politics and church politics alike. The baptizer himself is a refiner, a purifier of God’s people, for he practices “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” He calls people to repentance, to convert their lives in every dimension so they are prepared for God’s coming into the world.

The baptizer quotes the prophet, Isaiah, declaring that “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…” For many years I thought those lines were wrong-headed. I for one do not want a world in which everything is flat and easy. I can go to a mall for that. And it’s not the first place I would go to look for the virgin mother and her new baby.

But I have recently come to understand the prophet is talking not about geography, but about opportunity. I suspect Isaiah is talking about giving everyone a chance to participate in the fullness of God’s creative goodness. Luke apparently thinks that preparation and purification in this season has something to do with filling every nook and cranny of poverty and deprevation. He wants us to see that making the crooked straight and the rough ways smooth involves ensuring that all God’s people have a fair chance to get what they need. The prophet’s words envision a world in which what deprived people hope for comes to pass, and their celebration is felt and tasted in real goods and conditions of genuine health and justice.

What happens when all have what they need, and all can celebrate- according to the prophet, Isaiah, quoted so enthusiastically by the baptizer-is that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” All flesh-even we-will see the salvation of God. But it is not something for which we can buy a ticket and expect a reserved seat. It won’t simply pull up to the gate so we can get on board and kick back in first class.

Rather it is something in which we are called to participate. We are called to participate in a society-a whole world of confounding relationships-a world that is being purified, being refined and readied to embrace the abundant life for all that God intends. It is happening, and we are called to participate in the preparation.

Yet inevitably, while we actively prepare, we also wait. While we work and hope for what God can more completely accomplish, we remember that God has already come and is with us. While we anticipate a feast of justice for God’s whole creation, we are guests today at Christ’s table. While we look forward to a more complete fulfillment, we savor the presence of our loving and gracious God here today in our midst. On this basis we prepare, and of course, we wait.

So be it. Amen.

[1] Malachi 3:2b NRSV

[2] Ibid. v. 3

[3] Luke 3:3b NRSV

[4] Ibid. vv. 5-6a

[5] Ibid. v. 6b

December 6th, 2009 in Pastor Keith Olstad |

First Sunday of Advent

First Sunday of Advent

St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church
November 29, 2009
Pastor Anita C. Hill

Stand Up and Raise Our Heads
Luke 21:25-36

Jesus tells this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves that summer is already near.” (Luke 21:29-30) New things are coming. New life is near.
Writer/poet Annie Dillard tells of a tree fifteen feet long growing from the corner of a garage roof in the lower Bronx. She says: “Everyone knows how a sycamore root will buckle a sidewalk, a mushroom will shatter a cement basement floor.”[1]

Thinking about these brought to my mind what happens each year on the biking trails in Lilydale Park. I have seen places buckle up in the asphalt. It always amazes me to see some little plant break through, having caused all that upheaval on the surface. It’s one of the things that gives me assurance that God is still in charge. Only God could give that little green shoot of a plant the power to break through the asphalt. It is apocalypse for the smoothness of the asphalt pavement, but it is a sign new life in the world.
Jesus says that when everything is shaken up and the end of time finally comes, we should stand up and raise our heads, because the kingdom of God is near.
We’ve had a lot of apocalyptic readings lately. For four weeks we’ve heard about the end times. Today’s reading is the last one. If you weren’t here two weeks ago, I want to re-cap some comments on apocalyptic literature in the Bible in order to add a few thoughts about it from today’s Gospel text. First, is that apocalyptic literature is about the end times. Secondly, Lutherans have not historically spoken at length about the end times. Martin Luther even wanted to throw the Book of Revelation in the river. Thirdly, we Lutherans don’t take the events like the Rapture, the Tribulation, and Armageddon literally.
However, today, we hear Jesus talking in apocalyptic language, and so we take it seriously. The question is whether Jesus was an Apocalyptic preacher or not.  The answer, according to some scholars, is a resounding “Yes.” Jesus didn’t shy away from talking about the end times. He talks about the Son of Man coming again on the clouds, and everyone standing before God on that day; standing up and raising our heads.
So what are we to make of this kind of apocalyptic language? According to Marcus Borg, most apocalyptic literature was written in code language, to give a message to people without getting into trouble with the government. So, for example, the “Beast” might have referred to the Emperor Nero, who was so cruel to Christians. “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars” (Luke 21:25) may be code for the Star of Bethlehem, and the light of Christ that entered when the first Advent was completed.
According to Borg, the message in apocalyptic literature is not that the events are going to happen, but that God is in charge of all of history, period. God is the one who will decide when to bring history as we know it to an end, and to begin eternity. How it will happen, we don’t know, but we know that Jesus has said that he will return on the last day, to take us to heaven. On that day Jesus will break through the hardness of the world and the hardness of our hearts, calling us to stand up and to raise our heads, for something new will be taking place.
In other texts, we are told in no uncertain terms that we are not to try to figure out when that will take place, but just to trust that God knows how and when it will happen. God is in charge, not us. Human beings are not to play God, but to have faith, hope, and trust in God’s future actions in the world. God will indeed bring about a new reality in the future, and Jesus will be a part of that.
God is the God of doing new things in the world. Advent is an example of this.
The good news of this first Sunday in Advent is that Jesus is the in-breaking of God into history, not an apocalypse. The people of Jesus’ day wanted to hear about the end of history, and many preachers were predicting some cataclysmic event. But the radical  event is that God came into our world as a human being, breaking through the separation of the holy and the human, breaking through the barriers between now and then, breaking through the heavens and through the earth.
As we begin a new church year today, we move to a year based in the Gospel of Luke. In both the Gospel and the Book of Acts, Luke portrays Jesus as a radically new reality. Luke’s Jesus is “almost always compassionate, taking a personal interest in women, the poor, social outcasts and other powerless persons. Luke’s Jesus is empowered by the Holy Spirit. He forgives sinners, comforts the downtrodden, and heals the afflicted. In Luke, Jesus is particularly attentive to issues of social and economic justice. The in-breaking of Jesus’ realm demands a radical change in society’s present social and religious values.[2]
For some in the ELCA, the news of congregations withholding benevolence or leaving the denomination, are certain signs that the church is falling apart. Signs that the end times of the ELCA are near. But when we believe that God is one who brings about new life, these are signs that something new is coming. What seems apocalypse to some is new life for others, who finally can stand tall and raise up our heads.
Theologian Fred Danker asks: What has ever happened that was good in history that didn’t include struggle? Plants growing through sidewalk surely struggle, but they survive. People who have been held down by prejudice, discrimination, and oppression have struggled, but now might thrive.
Our reading from Jeremiah references the righteousness of God, saying that a righteous branch will spring up who will execute justice and righteousness in the land. In the Old Testament, “righteousness” often has to do with being faithful in relationship. The coming of God’s son brings God’s righteousness into the world in a new way, as a vulnerable infant who grew to care for the most vulnerable in the world.
A plant seems too weak to break through a sidewalk. A baby seems very weak way for God to come into the world. And yet, both are strong enough to disrupt the ways we try to control and order our world.
God has always been faithful in relationship to us. There is a wonder and mysticism about God that is beyond our conception, but God’s conception into the world brings change to the universe and re-directs the course of human history. The signs and the turmoil of the world mean that something is struggling to be born. It also means God is coming near.
Like plants that sprout and live against the odds, God will fulfill God’s purposes. Signs of that fulfillment abound. On that great day there will be dismay and confusion, but God’s people shall be given strength to stand up and boldly lift our heads to receive God’s promised redemption. Jesus advises that we stay alert and pray for the strength to stand before the Son of Man.
In Advent we await justice and mercy breaking through the hardness of the world. What is coming in Luke is the nearness of God. The power of God breaks open the present to a future with hope. We have the promise of a child in a manger. Amen.
[1] Annie Dillard, The Force That Drives the Flower, The Atlantic, November 1973. (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/73nov/dillard.htm)
[2] Stephen L. Harris,  Exploring the Bible, McGraw Hill, 2010, Chapter 32: Jesus as a Savior for All Nations, page 328.
November 29th, 2009 in Pastor Anita Hill |

The Reign of Christ

The Reign of Christ       Series B
November 22, 2009     St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran
Keith Olstad

The texts:
The first lesson: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14   NRSV
Psalm 93   NRSV
The second lesson: Revelation 1:4b-8   NRSV
The Gospel: John 18:33-37   NRSV

The children’s lesson:
Welcome!  I’m so glad you are here.  I’ve been with a whole lot of kids lately, but they weren’t you!  The truth is, I miss them, and I’m really glad to be back with you.  I was with the kids of our sister parish in El Salvador, Christ the Liberator Lutheran Church in Nahualapa.  Several of the many kids who received school scholarships from members here either came up to me to count to 10 in both English and Spanish or to sing songs from the Spanish alphabet, especially songs about vowels.

Do you know you’re A-B-C’s?  Can you sing them with me?  So what’s the first letter?  And what’s the last letter.  If you’ve got all the letters in between, you’ve got the whole thing, right?!?

In our second lesson today, we hear the Lord YAHWEH declare that God is Alpha and Omega. What does that mean, Alpha & Omega?

Actually, alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet and omega is the last letter.  Alpha and Omega to the Greek language are like the A-B-C’s in English.  Alpha is the beginning, and omega is the end.  And since you can spell every word with the letters in the alphabet, if something is from the beginning to the end, it pretty much covers everything too!

When the Lord God announces that God is Alpha and Omega, God also says that God is the One who is and who was and who is to come.  God embraces everything, covers everything, endures everything.

You know your alphabet, just like the kids in Nahualapa, and today we’ll be listening to the same bible lessons that they’ll  be listening to.  We’ll all hear about how our God is involved in everything, from alpha to omega, from beginning to end.

The sermon:
Dear friends, grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, and from our loving Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

A king falls deeply in love with “a maiden of lowly estate in life.”[1]  Though the king knows the young woman, she does not know him.  Hopelessly smitten, the king ponders fervently how to win her love.  So begins a fable told by Soren Kierkegaard, nineteenth century Danish theologian.

The king is powerful and imposing, so he could simply summon the young woman to the court.  But he knows that if he were to confront her, she might simply fear or tolerate him.  Or she might humor him in order to gain access to his wealth and power.  Even if she enjoyed him he would never know to what degree she loved his wealth and power rather than his person.

So the king searches for a way to make her his equal, as wealthy and powerful as he is.  As equals, he thinks, the only question would be whether they could love each other as persons.  But the king soon realizes that there is no way to raise her to his level without indebting her to him.

Finally, then, the king’s only option is to descend to an estate in life as
low as her own, to a condition in which he can meet the lowly maiden as her lowly equal.  Only then could she grow to love him simply for who he is.

At this juncture, Kierkegaard stops developing the story.  The story cannot be completed, he decides, for there can be no king willing or able to make such a sacrifice.  Even if a king wanted to take such a risk, no king could divest himself of enough power and prestige to be equal to a maiden of “lowly estate in life.”  Kierkegaard proceeds then to use the paradox faced by this king as an allegory for God’s dilemma.

The allegory is captivating and revealing.  This powerful and wealthy royalty wants desperately to be loved for his personal power and integrity rather than for his office.  But I believe with Kierkegaard-in spite of the way our church has traditionally titled this day: “Christ the King Sunday”-that kings are no measure of God.  Kierkegaard knew that only God-no king-could reduce himself to the estate of one simply and utterly vulnerable to love.  As Kierkegaard himself notes: “in order for the unity to be effected, the god must become…as equal of the lowliest of persons.  But the lowliest of all is one who must serve others-consequently, the god will appear in the form of a servant.”[2]

Kierkegaard then spends the rest of his essay talking about the humbling of
God.  God chooses to be humbled in order to win humanity’s love.  God is  willing to become subject to human beings, to become vulnerable to all creation, in order freely to win humans’ love.

Kierkegaard however focuses on the once-and-for-all character of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection as the Christ.  That once-and-for-all event tends to be the preoccupation of much of our theology today.  But as Linda Dahlen and I heard repeatedly during the last week, a Central American “theology of life” uses that once-and-for-all event not as a single happening, but rather as a lens for what so much of our world experiences as the on-going nature of suffering, death and longed-for resurrection.  A theology of life claims that God did not just once stoop down to a lowly estate, but will be found now and always wherever people are reduced to a lowly estate.

One particular incident brought the power of this claim home to us in a powerful way.
(Linda Dahlen then told about going with a group of colleagues to the Salvadoran town of Verapaz, which had been hit hard by a rock and mud slide during the horrible rains that fell there in mid-November.  Boulders the size of cars and uprooted trees had been carried by the mud several blocks into the town, leaving a lunarscape of devastation at least two blocks wide.  Nothing in the mudslide’s path was left standing, and many people were killed.

Salvadoran Lutheran pastors had come to the town immediately after the tragedy to providing counseling and support to victims.  One of the pastors was in Linda’s group, and was recognized by one of the victims as the group walked by.  The woman had been standing where her house had been, but where there was now nothing but mud and rocks.  Nonetheless, the woman invited the group into her non-existent house.  The group encircled her to pray for her.  Her father was there, and stood next to Linda.  As the group prayed, Linda heard the abuelo praying in Spanish: Thank you, God, for all your goodness, and for your protection and love of your people, etc.
Even in the wake of such horrible devastation and loss, this Salvadoran family standing in the ruins of what little they had formerly had, now welcomed others into their loss, and prayed their thanks to God.)

Keep that image of these devastated Salvadoran peasants in your mind for a moment.  Remember them standing in the mud that caused and covered their loss of everything they had.  And then remember that in his final statement to Pilate, Jesus says, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”[3]

The truth is that God, in the person of Jesus-in spite of being declared a king-is willing to die as a common criminal, to be tortured and spit upon in Herod’s court, ridiculed and despised in the church, and hung on a traitor’s cross to suffer excruciating death.  He does so precisely to express the depth of God’s longing to love and to be loved.  God in the person of Jesus does this, in other words, not in regal strength and military invincibility, but in exposed weakness and vulnerability; not in success and accomplishment, but in bitter patience and minimal survival; not in victory, but in suffering and loss.

In doing so, God reveals once-and-for-all who else in turn can be loved.  God’s experience becomes our experience, and our experience in turn becomes God’s experience.  In the reality and depth of our worst times, God identifies completely, and provides for us a new possibility for love and hope.

The truth is that Jesus, the Christ-the one with all power and authority in heaven and on earth-will be most clearly and powerfully found among those who are utterly vulnerable and depressed; not so much among those who minister as among those who need to receive the ministry.  Jesus the Christ will be less among those who control the world’s wealth and resources and live in fear of losing their accumulations, and more among our global partners and their neighbors in communities of poverty and suffering, who live in abundant and persistent hope.

This truth-that in Jesus the Christ, God becomes so human, participates so fully in human experience-this truth becomes sacramental.  We feel God’s touch and hear God’s words in the splash of baptismal waters.  We taste and savor God’s own presence in the bread and wine of the table of God’s love.

So finally, paradoxically, the truth-after all is said and done-is that the crucified Christ is not king, but God.  And God is among us-in every moment, but especially in our most lowest and most vulnerable moments-and will be with us forever.  “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”[4]  I was with you in your most vulnerable beginning, and I will be with you in your vulnerability in the end, and always.

So be it.  Amen.

[1] Kierkegaard, Soren.  Philosophical Fragments.  p. 26
[2] Ibid.  p. 31
[3] John 18:37b
[4] Revelation 1:8   NRSV
November 22nd, 2009 in Pastor Keith Olstad |
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