Thursday, January 31, 2013

"Innovative Children's Ministry Happens Where..."


The following is an article I wrote for the Winter 2012 APCE Advocate, "Trends and Innovations."

My children’s summer highlight is vacation Bible school, when 100 children and 70 adult volunteers come together for a memorable week of exciting activities and experiential Bible lessons.  My children sing the VBS songs  practically daily clear through Christmas. The only thing is they can never participate in the closing worship the weekend after VBS is over. They are nine miles away in our own little Presbyterian congregation, instead of
at the large Lutheran church where they attend mid-week choir and summer VBS.

We are not unusual in this. In my neighborhood, kids might be signed up for several VBSs in a summer, weaving them in between swimming lessons, Little League and multiple week-long day camps. Children are now often as booked, scheduled and programmed as their parents, if not more so. And there is little loyalty to one congregation—or even denomination— as families “shop around” for the best programs for their children.

As parents, we seek to give our children enriching experiences that strengthen skills or expose them to a variety of activities or perspectives. In the past, church could be the majority of a child’s educational or entertainment extracurricular activities, but we live in a culture where the opportunities for children far outstrip what churches can provide. And yet, we continue to try to compete against soccer and Girl Scouts.

My children attend VBS at a large church that can still pull off being a programmatic
center of excellence, when most mainline churches are shrinking and families’ obligations are growing. So we wonder, How can we do a good children’s program? How can we get families to come, choosing church over track meets or language camp? How do we “reach out” to families?

But perhaps these questions are the wrong questions.
I am fascinated instead by questions like: How can we be the church together for this time and place? Where is God’s Spirit moving among us? Who has God made us, this specific congregation, to be? What do our children, our people, our communities need that we are already equipped to provide?  At a time when families are busy, disconnected and tired, can the church offer rest, relationship and support? 

A few years ago our little congregation went through a time of intense reflection and dramatic transition, and we asked ourselves those questions. Among other things, we quickly realized that in an age when many people live far from extended family, our sanctuary is packed with grandparents and great grandparents, and our congregation is something of a stable “nest” for people who come and go. And while people are age-segregated in almost every other area of life, here we had young and old, readers and nonreaders, floor-sitters and wall-standers, all together in the body of Christ. 

We decided to stop competing with the rest of culture. Our younger families know where to get good programs and enriching experiences for their children and will continue to do so, with our blessing. We can be the people with whom these children have their belonging. 

With us they are free to ask questions, to voice their thoughts and fears. We will be the people that stand by them, listen to them and give them chances to lead. We can do faith together, seeking God in doubt and joy, all of us. Now shared meals, shared worship and shared prayers anchor our life together, and shared themes guide us. In children’s and adult classes and worship, we draw from the same well. Instead of lamenting that we can’t pull off age-segregated Sunday school classes, the children learn together in one group. In addition to exploring scripture through fun and varied means, they might prepare a prayer to lead later in worship. We’ve also flipped the “children’s time” of worship on its head, asking children to teach adults what they are learning, so that we can all learn together.

In our sanctuary there is a children’s area with quiet crafts at sitting and standing tables to help children participate in worship, and a rug for playing babies to hang out but also hear hymns. Instead of a staffed nursery, we have “children’s hosts” who assist families in worship, and can also leave for a spell with any kids who need a break from worship for a walk or time in the playroom with toys. 

For communion we all stand in a circle, serving one another—young and old—looking into the eyes of one much taller or much shorter than ourselves, and saying, “The Body of Christ, broken for you.” 

Last summer we held our second annual intergenerational vacation Bible school. All ages gathered together for story, music, and hands-on activities exploring God’s love. It’s a delightful experience for children to be in VBS with their grandparents, and for single people or those with grown children to share in the excitement and energy of learning and exploring with children.

Our congregation practices sabbath two Sundays a month. We set the day aside as a day of rest, meeting the evening before for worship and a meal that inaugurates our sabbath time. My young children have grown up with this three year-old pattern, and sabbath Sundays are one of the greatest gifts in our family’s life. We play, rest, and connect with each other in a different way than we do the rest of the week, and we say no to whatever might impinge on that time. 

am grateful for our congregation, which lives faith in a way that runs counter to the craziness of our culture, and which nurtures people of all ages in seeking to participate in God’s love in the world.  Frederick Buechner said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” It could be said, then, that innovative children’s ministry begins by noticing where your congregation’s deep gladness and clear gifting meet the deep hunger and real need of the children and families among and around you. Then your joyful task is to adapt practices that live from this heart of God’s ministry that beats between and through you in this time and place. 

Kara K Root is pastor of Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, Minn., a Christian community that shapes its life around worship, hospitality and sabbath rest.  She has a M.Div. with a concentration in spirituality/spiritual direction from Fuller Seminary, and is a Minister of Word and Sacrament and Certified Christian Educator in PC(USA). Being mom to two entertaining children and wife and proofreader to a wily theologian spices up her vocational calling and keeps her fully immersed in life. She’s written for Sparkhouse “re:form” curriculum, Homily Service Journal, Working Preacher, Clayfire Curator and Patheos, and blogs
about ministry and motherhood at “in the hereandnow.”

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Beginning Beloved



Tonight we are baptizing Soren, Svea and Sigrid.  In the mystery of this moment of baptism, God claims us and marks us as Christ’s own forever.  Our journey to discover what this means in our life, how we are meant to share in God’s plans for the world, begins here at the font.  Here the Spirit indwells us and beckons us to follow.

There is nothing magic about baptism.  Pouring water and speaking words doesn’t save us or change us.  We come here as people who doubt and argue, who suffer pain and fear, who betray and let down those who love us.  And let’s be honest, we leave the same way.  But we baptize anyway.  Why?

   Because baptism is not about our attitude, or worthiness or our earning anything, it’s not about the words said or water used; it is about God.  It is about God who created the whole world saying, You are my beloved, and you belong to me, and have I got some plans for you!  And for this reason, who we are, and whose we are – as a community and as individuals- flows from this place.

In our scripture tonight we see Jesus’ baptism. Don’t blink or cough, though, because you’ll miss it.  In Luke’s telling Jesus shuffles into the river with all the others and is baptized right alongside the rest of them.  A peasant man, son of a carpenter from a small, no-place town, just like everybody else in one way or another. 

Nobody around him gave him a second glance, or wondered to themselves, Hmmm, could that guy be the Messiah we’ve been waiting for? No, of course not.  They were all too busy gazing at John, all passion and fire, prophecy and drama, and speculating that perhaps HE was the chosen one.  John, who preached fire and passion like a prophet of old and lived off the grid; he fit the Messiah mold.

But instead the Messiah they’d been waiting for wanders into the waters of salvation right alongside them, and submits to the ritual of repentance and cleansing.
John raises his head from the mucky river to the converts lined up in front of him and meets eyes with his cousin, the Chosen One, and he quite understandably balks. Wait, I can’t baptize you! He says to Jesus. You should be baptizing me!  What need do you have of repentance? How can I pronounce over you forgiveness of sins?  What is even going on right now?
But Jesus insists, and a baffled John goes ahead and baptizes Jesus just like everybody else. 

Afterwards, when this unremarkable, wet and dripping baptized man slogs out of the river back onto the muddy shore with the rest of them, something kind of dramatic happens.
The heavens tear open, and the Holy Spirit dive bombs him, (like a dove), and a strong and clear voice announces in the hearing of the startled and perplexed onlookers, “You are My Child, my beloved, I am delighted in you!” 

Before Jesus can begin his public ministry, just before he is sent into the wilderness and struggles against temptation, and in his first appearance since his childhood disappearing act in the temple while his frantic parents searched for him is this moment, this moment that defines him, that sets the trajectory for him, that starts his vocation, this moment when God says outloud, “You are my beloved, I am so thrilled in you.”

What a blushingly extravagant thing to be called, beloved. My beloved.  The one I love, the one who belongs to me, my beloved, my joy and my love!  I wonder what it would be like to live as a beloved?  How does being “beloved” shape you? 
Who are you?
I am beloved; I am my parents’ beloved child. I am my sweetheart’s beloved.  I am a beloved friend, sister, grandson.  I belong to someone who adores me.  
When you are beloved, and you know it, that is foremost who you are; everything else comes from that place and returns to that place, that you are loved. Love transforms us with its extravagant abundance.  It makes us brave; it makes us strong.  It makes us generous.  Being loved makes us able to love other people.  It connects us to others.  Belonging is the place it all begins.
Because I am loved I am not alone, I can face hard things, I can risk joy and risk hope and risk being honest and real.  Who are you?  I am beloved!

This claim of God over him is the beginning for Jesus to fulfill God’s calling and ministry to the world.   He goes from that place as God’s beloved child, sent by God and with the power of the Holy Spirit guiding him.  
Jesus’s ministry does not begin in might and power, in some kind of holy inauguration or sovereign swearing in ceremony that recognizes his authority or his worthiness.   God doesn’t speak down over him in front of a respectful audience of leaders and important figures, “You are my representative; I am counting on you.”  
Jesus’ ministry on earth begins in coming just as one of us, with us, bearing the weight of human repentance, the need for God’s mercy, the hope of God’s grace and leading.  It begins with being washed in the waters of new life, and being named in God’s love.  I choose you. You are mine.  You are my beloved, and I love you.
God has come to share our place.  And we are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection.   Martin Luther calls this “the happy exchange.”  That in Jesus God takes on everything it means to be human, and in exchange gives us everything it means to be Christ. 
So what’s ours in this glorious trade-off is being in relationship with God, being free to love God and one another, being empowered to share in God’s work of healing and hope.
And in exchange, Jesus takes this into himself our weak and selfish humanity, death in all its ugly forms: injustice, atrophy, corporate evil and personal pain, all that we do to ourselves and each other, all that separates us from God and threatens to destroy us.

We have a picture on Owen’s bedroom wall.  You kids saw it last week, when Owen brought it to Sunday school show and tell.  It is framed, with a date on the bottom, March 6, 2005.  In the picture a short, stout cheerful looking woman in a robe holds a small boy in white in the crook of one arm, his perfectly round head front and center and his face hidden from the view.  She is saying something, and her other hand is cupped, above him, water dripping down from the backs of her fingers.  Owen’s baptism.  We placed the picture directly across from his bed.

Owen struggled for a while when he was very young with terrible nightmares.  Frightening visions that made him feel unsafe, alone, terrified to be in his room at night.  We tried to comfort him in various ways, praying for him, cuddling him, leaving the door open and the hall light on. 
We told him that Jesus was with him, and this just frustrated him.  “I can’t see Jesus!”
We told him angels were there and that just freaked him out.  “I don’t want them in here!”
Finally, we told him the story of his baptism.  “You belong to God,” we said, “You’ve been baptized.  Jesus’ love is stronger than death; it broke death, forever, and you belong to this love.  When you feel afraid, when things seem big or scary, look at this picture.  This is your baptism.  Do you know what this means?” we asked.  And then he first heard the mantra that has become our children’s’ comfort in fear: “Death can’t get me because Jesus has got me.”

And in years to come, when Owen doubts himself and his parents and questions the things he has been raised to believe, when life knocks him down and breaks his heart, that picture on his bedroom wall is testimony that no matter how far he goes, no matter how lost he feels, no matter how hard he fights it, no matter how loudly he may shout “NO!” God has already said Yes.  It is irreversible and permanent. He belongs to God.  That is whose he is.

God has claimed the whole world and the promises of God are for all.  All creation and every person who walks the planet belongs to God.  But we sit here as a people with that promise poured over us, and spoken onto us – many of us before we could speak ourselves - and embraced into us by those around us.  When you and I were baptized, belonging to God became what defines us; our identity is now rooted in that reality.  That is whose we are.
And when we die, our baptism will be complete, we will be fully united with God, in Christ, where we belong, in the arms of the one who calls us beloved.  In life and in death, we belong to Christ.

Baptism doesn’t take away the questions or spare us the pain.  It doesn’t exempt us from hardship or shield us from evil.  Baptism tells us that no matter what happens we have this hope and promise: we belong to God.  We are God’s beloved.  And Death can’t get us because Jesus has got us.
As Paul says,  “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And just as it was for Jesus, baptism is the beginning of our ministry.  God chooses us to participate - we are drawn into God’s purposes sent out in God’s power.  So we get to bravely live out our identity and calling as God’s beloved children- that is who we are.  Our lives get to be part of God’s work of loving the whole world.  As a people claimed by God-with-us, and led by the Holy Spirit, we get to fearlessly embrace a world being redeemed by God; and we get to continually seek to join in the miracle of redemption - in all the prominent and quiet ways God is accomplishing it  - until Christ returns.  We live out our faith by entering in, not backing away from other’s pain or suffering, not fearing our own doubts or failures, but even in our very weakness speaking up, reaching out, stepping in, right alongside one another, where Christ is found.

Our journey begins here at the font; who we are and whose we are- individually, and as a community - flows from this place.   And so, Soren, Svea and Sigrid, we are so excited to speak these promises over you tonight, and welcome you into this calling, as you are claimed by God, who says, “You are my beloved, I am delighted in you, and have I got some plans for you!”

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

2012: A year in the life of a congregation...


Last week I had one of THOSE kinds of days - several times in a row.  Hard.  Frustrating and discouraging.  I was carrying inside me a knot, tightly wound of several conflicts and situations of sadness which I could not seem to let go of.  One evening I sat down to begin writing my "annual report" - something that feels administrative and dreadful at the beginning, so I inevitably put it off to the last minute.  But once I began, I spent a couple of hours swimming in memory and thankfulness, marveling at God's faithfulness as I reflected back on the year in our life together at LNPC.  
At the end of the night, when I stood and stretched and closed my laptop, I was astonished at how different I felt.  The anxiety I had been gripping had been completely released, and in its place was gratitude.  With joy and peace welling up inside me, I opened back up the computer and posted on Facebook, "Gratitude is a mood-altering substance."  
I am so grateful for this little church community of fearless love and compassionate hope.  And I'm grateful for the chance to keep living together in the unfolding story of God's grace.
 The following is my "2012 annual report" for LNPC - (names have cut for privacy).

LNPC Prayer Candles
I pray…that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, as we are being rooted and grounded in love.   (from Ephesians 3:17)
Once upon a time there was this kind and courageous little group of believers, this expression of the Church of Jesus Christ in one time and place, in whom Christ dwelled, and who were joyfully being rooted and grounded in love.  And as they moved through their world in ordinary ways, their lives were part of the Story of God.  When I reflect on 2012 the theme that comes immediately to mind is that of Story – God’s Story in our stories.

Our lives are sacred story.  Being Church is a gift.
Session gathered in January on our annual retreat and began sharing with one another some stories of our faith.  For some faith was a lifelong, unquestioned stability. For others it was ups and downs, doubts and trusting, hope and despair beautifully woven.  For some it was experienced in concrete caring for each other, with not a lot of clarity about God, and for others it was personal, private and holy.  I was struck by the amazing thing it is to be church – where all these expressions and explorations of faith in Christ deepen and grow by complimenting one another and giving window into how God moves in our lives.  Jesus Christ meets us as we meet one another, and we continue to encounter Christ anew as we live our faith together.

We are part of God’s Story.  The biblical story is our story.

2012 continued our journey through the Old Testament, exploring the Story of God in the lives of the Joseph, Moses and the children of Israel, and getting to know the prophets.  We spent Pentecost reliving the whole OT narrative, walking through symbols of our journey from Genesis to John the Baptist, and concluding with a group portrait of this prophetic community whose lives both proclaim the promises of God and cry out the world’s need for salvation. 

The prophetic community on Pentecost
During Lent, we focused on The Lord’s Prayer and five different voices within our congregation preached, leading us through the prayer, and culminating with Easter’s celebration of Resurrection and life.  This summer our Saturday services were “home church”, sharing conversational worship and hymn sings in the Gathering Room.  We spent the Fall in the book of Acts, exploring what it is to be church together, as the people of Christ who are part of God’s Story.

The Lord's Prayer in a dozen languages
Our Story is woven in with others’ stories.  We honor the story of God in others’ lives.

In January, I began meeting for monthly 24-hour retreats, with a small group of clergy through a grant from Austin Seminary.  These retreats have been restorative and faith-deepening, and in October we gathered in Austin, Texas for a four-day conference on storytelling and faith.  Our gatherings are shaped around the themes of belonging and identity in faith, and we have begun doing that through the element of storytelling, as it blossoms in our congregations as well.

In March I had the opportunity to preach in Bergen, Norway, and a few weeks later we welcomed the N. family from Norway into our own worship, as our stories entwine with the Body of Christ near and far.  This summer we worshipped together with Westminster Presbyterian Church one evening on Sabbath-keeping in their summer worship series, and we celebrated our annual outdoor Worship at the Falls in Minnehaha Park with friends and neighbors.  We hosted our third annual Movie Camp with kids from St. Joseph's Home for Children and Dean and Kirsten Seal, which Westminster Presbyterian helps us to fund, and we co-sponsored our the third annual Transforming Conflict conference at Luther Seminary, co-led by our Parish Associate Theresa Latini.

We partnered this year with Dogwood Coffee Company, who imports coffee directly from small farmers (and shares their stories!) and roasts and distributes it here in Minneapolis.  They generously loaned us coffee grinding and brewing equipment...and we are thrilled to be serving their delicious and fresh-roasted coffee regularly now!
  
Lisa and Amy in conversation on retreat
Our partnerships have broadened; we’ve connected with other churches - sharing Ash Wednesday with Edgcumbe (EPC), and hanging out with Humble Walk Lutheran Church for their monthly Theology Pub, and their Beer and Hymns, (and Pastor Kara preached there once this year as well). In November, thirteen women from LNPC joined six women from Humble Walk and six women from Edgcumbe for a retreat on Story, at beautiful island Bay LakeCamp.  We shared our own life stories and received the stories of others, and celebrated the gift of living with laughter and tears, good food and friends new and old.

Our partnership with Westminster is a gift, and we are looking at more ways to live that out, including giving some shape to the “Hospitality House” dream that took root in our imagination last year. We are in conversation with a few churches, including Westminster, about collaborating to make that a reality.

This year we danced our second Christmas Razzle with a trombone quartet and the famous C. Mulled Wine, and we collected diapers and toys for Tapestry Center for Families in our neighborhood. 

With the tangible prayer support of session and the congregation, I began serving on an Administrative Commission appointed by presbytery to a congregation seeking dismissal from our denomination.  Our focus on hospitality as truly seeing and hearing one another is a blessing in this role, and I feel I am doing this difficult work as an extension of the ministry of love and care in Christ that our congregation lives out faithfully.  Truly, I almost tangibly feel your presence with me as a representative of love and acceptance of these brothers and sisters in this difficult process.  And we have discovered that sharing stories of our faith each time we meet is a way to begin our conversations at our common humanity and in the grace of God which holds us all.

Our lives are part of God’s story unfolding in the world.  Praying draws us into redemption and hope where God’s Spirit is hovering in invitation.

As praying people, we share with each other our losses and joys each week in worship and by email and mail prayers, and uphold one another with cards and rides and love, the commitment to stand with and for each other through joy and struggle.  This extended beyond our community in powerful ways this year.  Shared prayers resulted in Barb D. traveling to Kansas to move right into my sister’s house to help her with four foster kids and her son while my sister was on bedrest, and again when the household welcomed their sixth child and my nephew was born.
  
Duluth work crew!
Because of shared prayers a group of folks (including Alan and Aleta I., Sue G., Ani G., Lindsay H., Maggie, Andrew and Andy C., Ben V.and his friend visiting from Florida, Jose), headed up to Duluth and did several days of maintenance and repair work on Ani G.’s parents’ house, which they could not rent out our sell because of flood damage, though they’d moved on to new jobs in Nebraska.  

When we pray, we feel the Spirit prompting us also to join in what God is doing, and this year we joined in.  We welcomed the L. family into the congregation just before they welcomed their newest member, Sigrid.  So we organized meals for them, and also helped to bring meals to friends of the congregation, the B.s, who welcomed twins, and the D.'s – with whom we rejoiced at the birth of baby Wally. We celebrated with the J. family at the birth of Ben and Rachelle’s daughter, Norah, and in late Spring we took turns bringing food to the W/D's, when little Caroline kicked off the boom of new babies in our corner of the world.  (She expressed her gurgling gratitude by playing our Lord Jesus Christ refusing to lie down in the manger on Christmas Eve).

We also honored the lives of those we’ve loved.  A group gathered with Lois B., sharing prayers and communion with her in the weeks before she passed away, and we celebrated her life together at her memorial service.  In late November several of us gathered at the bedside of Agnes W., for a ceremony of blessing and prayer, declaring her baptism complete, and sharing songs and joy even in the sorrow, with Lee and Agnes’s sister Treslyn, the family, and the lovely community that cared for Agnes for seven years.  We celebrated Agnes’ sacred life and grieved her passing at her memorial service the following week.  We also grieved the sudden loss of Dave E. and continue to hold Pat in prayer.

Confirmation bread bakers!
Our Story is still being written.  God is always moving in our lives.

In July the confirmation students went up to ARC Retreat Center for a retreat with Jeanne R., Andy R. and me, exploring their own faith stories, playing games and baking bread together.  They designed a worship service, which they led for us the following week.  In August we Confirmed Maggie C. in a joyful ceremony remembering her baptism and witnessing her faith, and we sent her off to college with our blessings.

This summer we held a book club on Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World, and over homemade peach pie we discussed spiritual disciplines in our everyday lives.  Connections has continued to meet- women from LNPC past and present and future, and friends of friends from time to time as well, gathering monthly at Fireroast Mountain Cafe for coffee and conversation. PW also met monthly with good conversation and great cake, to chat to study the book of Revelation.

Telling the Story on Christmas Eve
Our children’s Sunday school class has continued to grow and deepen, and the kids explore each week the scriptures we share together in worship.  They share with us what they are learning, as well as leading a prayer in worship that they have prepared during Sunday school.  They continue to be our teachers and co-learners, and on Christmas Eve we all told the story of God-with-us, the birth of Christ, through story and song.

We were so blessed this year to celebrate the milestones and callings of Lisa J. and Cyndi W. this year.  Lisa and Peter shared life with us for a time and moved with our blessing into the next chapter of their lives as Lisa was called to pastor Zumbrota/Oranoco churches and they prepare to welcome twins into their lives.  Cyndi W. became a Candidate for the Ministry of Word and Sacrament under our care, and we sent her off to...Oregon with a meal of Cyndi favorites, a framed portrait of glimpses of LNPC worship she had had helped to shape, and a gift card to help her get settled in her new home, with our prayers, blessings and love.


Cyndi becoming a Candidate at Presbytery in November
 
Our story is worth telling.  Telling our stories help others embrace and live faithfully in theirs.
We held a workshop on writing our life stories during Advent led by one of our ArtSpace artists this year, Marie Theilen, the highlight of which was hearing from others snippets of their lives and seeing connections and places congruence with our own lives.  God’s faithfulness takes infinite forms!

In the Fall, each week before the offering in worship, a different person shared why they are part of LNPC and why they give money, and our stories were all different and all meaningful.  We’ve seen pledging double since last year, as we take up the joy of being church with one another and see ourselves in this communal story of faith.

Our story has inspired other congregations and organizations this year. I led a day-long Sabbath retreat for Twin Cities Volunteer Coordinators this Fall after they stumbled across our congregation’s story online, and two different researchers (one in Canada!) studied us for their dissertations/thesis on church and change.  This year we were part of the Biblical Preaching Project out of Luther Seminary, where we shared our experiences of worship and preaching, and learned from the stories of other worshiping communities in ways that strengthened our understanding of the biblical Story and helped us live it out in our daily life. 
I wrote an article for the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators’ magazine, the Advocate, telling how we share life and faith as a whole community, including the gifts and voices of all in our community.  I also wrote for Austin Seminary’s Communitas on Storytelling as Sacrament, which, among other things, shared about our annual “stories of Resurrection” service after Easter, in which three members of our community share stories of resurrection and hope from their own lives, and told of how our session uses storytelling with new members and one another as an entrance into this community of shared faith and doubt.
a walk in the woods at Clearwater Forest

We are Stewards of the Story that began long before us and continues long after we’re gone. The time we’ve been given is an invitation to join in.

In 2012 the Presbyterian Women held their 80somethingth Bazaar to raise money for ministries in our local community, and this Fall we elected two brand new first time elders and two brand new first time deacons to begin serving in 2013.  The past continues as the future opens up before us. 

The worship ministry team took our annual retreat to plan for the year, spending time in prayer and creative brainstorming, and a small group from the congregation spent a beautiful weekend in October up at Clearwater Forest, learning and practicing Sabbath rest together. 

planting the garden
Gardening
We gardened this summer – the children planted vegetables that were watered each day by our neighbor lady Alice (and her little dog), and the veggies were eaten at a few of our Saturday meals, and at various of our dinner tables as well.  We’ve sought little ways and chances to live intentionally in the story we’re in, to treasure the life to which we’ve been called.

We shared our 77th Annual Ham and Cherry Pie Dinner, welcoming people from far and wide whose stories are woven into the life and story of LNPC to eat what we eat every year and initiate new people into this timeless church basement tradition.

Sabbath means we’ve been intentionally practicing saying no, simplifying things and putting people before programs this year, which has resulted in healthier volunteers and fewer commitments. We canceled our summer VBS when we realized it was more than we could do well, and are glad for opportunities to learn and practice balance together, to live well the life and ministry to which we are called.
  a group of picnickers at the 90th Anniversary

This year was LNPC’s 90th Anniversary as a congregation.  We celebrated in a joyous service with lots of extended family and friends, with a timeline stretching around the back of the sanctuary.  People’s stories jotted on the timeline and shared in worship gave us the chance to witness again God’s faithfulness spanned out before us and lived out in so many lives that have been part of this feisty little community of faith and hope.


In Worship we explore our stories inside God’s own Story of wholeness and life. 
In Hospitality we participate in God’s radical welcome and honor each person’s story.  And in the quiet of Sabbath rest we live into the Story by slowing down to reconnect with what matters.  We have done these things well in 2012. 

Once upon a time there was this kind and courageous little group of believers, this expression of the Church of Jesus Christ in one time and place, in whom Christ dwelled, and who were joyfully being rooted and grounded in love. And as we move through our world in ordinary ways, our lives are part of the Story of God. 
What a story we are blessed to be living! 

Amen, and amen! 


Rev. Kara K Root 






Sunday, January 13, 2013

Incarnation, Phase Two (been there)


"Mary finding Jesus" from Franco Zeffirelli's movie, Jesus of Nazareth



So you may be wondering what happens between the time the little baby Jesus arrives in the manger, and when he is a full-fledged, fully-grown Messiah, teaching and healing, all self-sufficient and confident?

Well, this happens.
12 year old Jesus gets left behind by his parents.
On an annual road trip with his family. And not accidentally left at a rest stop when the caravan pulled away.  But apparently deciding suddenly that he had a different agenda, that he was on a different journey from his friends and relatives, and simply bowing out of the group thing. 
And perhaps he figured it would be better to ask forgiveness than permission – mom would NEVER let me stay behind and hang out in the temple! – or perhaps he didn’t think of his parents at all.

But no matter which way you slice it, nobody comes out looking great here.  
How could you lose the Messiah?
I give you one job… the most important job in all the earth, and you mess it up?  
How long had it taken Mary to get over the scandal of the whole “pregnant by the Holy Spirit” debacle, and now, when she seems to have become a respectable parent doing a pretty decent job of it, now this?

And Jesus, what the heck are you thinking?  Because you are not thinking of your parents. 
“Son, how could you do this to your father and me?”
“I wasn’t doing anything TO you.  Why were you searching for me anyway? Wouldn’t you know I would be in my father’s house doing my father’s business?”

Cheeky.  There is so much sass in this answer I don’t even know where to begin.

How should they have known that, Jesus?   
Should they have known that because they are your parents, and parents know everything? 
Should they have read your mind, or held the bigger picture at all times?   
What should THEY have done differently, here, Jesus?

Has it dawned on you yet that you that while you were in a euphoric state of self-discovery and growth and amazing learning and getting all kinds of accolades for your wisdom, your parents were frantic and sobbing and enlisting the help of everyone they knew and praying desperate, apologetic prayers to God for losing the Messiah of the world, or at the very least, desperate, apologetic prayers to God for losing their beloved son?
Are you looking your relieved and confused mom in the eye when you answer back?

Didn’t you know I would be in my father’s house?

Who’s your daddy, Jesus?
Because you just told your adopted daddy, who has loved you from the day you were born, and raised you as your father, that he has no claim on you; you just threw the “you’re not my real Dad” card in his face.
Did Joseph flinch? Did Jesus notice?

So here is my question.  
Why does Luke decide that of all the childhood experiences, all the wonderful memories and tales that could be told that would give a glimpse of God as a child, of all the things the church and the followers of Christ would need to know about Jesus in his early years, that might tell us something of his character and person, that this is the ONE story to tell from his childhood?  Why is this the one that’s got to be in there?

When I was in seminary I took a preaching class called “Making Doctrine Live.”  We were assigned a Christian doctrine and a scripture text - mine were the divinity and humanity of Christ, and the passage from Luke when Jesus calmed the storm.  I wrestled for hours upon hours with that text, and - for days I read commentaries and theology books, and tried to wrap my head around the doctrine.  I strove to understand how Jesus could be both divine and human and then agonized over how to talk about it.  In frustration, the day before I was to preach the text for my class, I sat down and began writing, and a letter came out. It was a letter to a friend, as though I was in the boat with Jesus the night he calmed the storm. It was a letter that poured out my own frustration – that what I was seeing was true, before my eyes, but I could not explain it, could not even understand it, and yet it compelled me, and moved me to follow.

And I saw for the first time how the gospel writers revealed deep and poignant truth about God through story – that sometimes the only way to talk about something that is bigger than human words and more true than human concepts, is through story. In telling the story of God-with-us, we resonate deeply in our being - beyond what our mind can grasp or our theology spell out - with the inconceivable and relentless love of God.

 “And the boy Jesus increases in wisdom and years, and in the favor of God and people.”  It’s a journey, growth is, we don’t come out knowing it all, doing life and relationships right, right from the get go, apparently, any of us.  Not even God.

I sometimes think there might be no worse feeling in all the world than that of hurting the people you love.  The worse you hurt them the worse the feeling.  And when it happens by accident, because you are not thinking of them and are thinking only of yourself, when your thoughtless words or selfish actions tear down someone you love and respect, and you’ve done something you can’t take back and can’t make right, what a horrible feeling it can be. 

And it gives me hope, actually, to imagine that in the very heart of God, the heart that has been broken again and again by the children of God’s betrayal and stupidity, by a world filled with selfish and thoughtless actions and words that divide and destroy, that in that heart is now the other experience, the other side. You have hurt those who love you more than anything on earth. You maybe didn’t mean to, but you are responsible for your choices. And you caused them pain and suffering. That was your fault.  The breakdown here, the division here; you caused that.

If we thought the incarnation got LESS messy as it went along, we thought wrong.  The mess goes all the way through. Every new stage is filled with new mess. And what to do with a Jesus who seems to show a growing self-awareness, an awakening sense of who he is, his own wrestling to make sense of it all? 

And what about his parents? Who thought they just about got their heads around this incarnation thing when he was little, but were not prepared for this new, tall, argumentative Jesus, this too-big-for-his-britches tween, who is not quite a man but no longer a boy?
 
And that thing that starts the second your baby is born, that knowledge that hovers that you are working yourself out of a job, that one day you have to let them go, that every new stage, every new word and step and friend and hobby and discovery is exhilarating and a tiny bit heart-breaking because it takes them into themselves and into the world and out of your hands, and it is both as it should be and completely unnerving- that whole thing is hard enough. 

But when you’ve had glimpses and full face views of what is in store for this child, when you are told at his christening that a sword will pierce your soul because he will divide nations, when celestial beings announce his birth and strangers travel from the ends of the earth to lay eyes on him and the king of your land wants him dead and you’ve lived in exile and returned – you’ve had foreshadowed to you all along that his future is out of your control, out of your imagination, and out of your hands, but all along that has been SO FAR OFF, and he’s just been your baby, your kid, your delight, and you’ve done a pretty good job of giving him gradually more independence and respect, you let him travel with the big kids instead of by your side, on the annual family trip, after all, and then this happens.
This.
But also, what was that feeling  - when you saw him in the temple, before he saw you, and after the relief and the anger rushed up inside you but just before you rushed up to him- what was that feeling that made you gasp and hold your breath when you watched him, answering the great teachers, his face alight, his hands animated, and their eyes riveted and bodies still, as they took him in with respect and wonder? Had you ever seen your boy like this before? With a look at what he might be as a man?  With a glimpse of how he might be in the world as a leader? Was there pride or wonder of your own? Or was it sheer terror?
This is all so close, it really is happening.  This is really, really real.

And Jesus, what happened when mom and dad showed up and the bubble burst?  Real life floods in and the reverie is broken and you have your oh, sh*t moment when you look at your watch for the first time, (or calendar, as the case may be), and realize how much trouble you must, rightly, be in?
And that embarrassment when you go from feeling so very grown up in the eyes of the those you respect and admire, to being reprimanded by your mommy in front of these great men, and deservedly so.  And you condescendingly sass back at your worried sick parents instead of apologizing?

I think the apology is there, by the way. In the way 12 year old boys sometimes apologize. He goes back with them and is obedient, the text reads. Once they are out of the temple he submits to his mother’s hug, and leans into her with his head down, acknowledging her affection and dropping his attitude and letting her brush the hair off his sweaty forehead and ask him when’s the last time he had something to eat.

What is incarnation?  What does it really mean, this “God-with-us” thing?  Is God all-knowing and outside the fray? Is God moved by human pathos? Is God able to make mistakes? And apologize? And be forgiven? And learn from them?

There is no great doctrinal response.  But maybe it doesn’t matter how it all happened, just that it did. Maybe it’s not important to be able to say precisely what it means, the incarnation, how Jesus is God with us, how he could be both a kid and the creator of the universe, how he could be love embodied, and also mess up and hurt his parents.  Only that God did. God did it all.  For us.  With us.  Maybe the only way to understand the incarnation is to feel it from the inside, to hear the story of it and see it in our own stories, to live it, like Jesus himself did.
And maybe we can do what Mary does- we can treasure these things in our heart.  We can wonder, and let them sink in, and shake our heads in disbelief, and sit for a while in the discomfort and comfort it simultaneously brings, and let the incarnation’s truth seep into all the places in our own lives that need to hear it right now.

And so God, when I let myself treasure and ponder these things, I wonder…

What does it feel like to be on the inside?  Is it how you thought it would be, this living thing?
What do you make of puberty?  What’s it like getting in arguments with your sisters and brothers?  Is it hard to be close to Joseph? Does Mary sometimes drive you crazy or embarrass you in front of your friends?

Do you have high expectations of yourself?
 
Are you able to forgive easily, or do you find it difficult, like I do, to let go? 

Do you wish you looked different, had a different voice or were better at some sport or skill than you are?

How much did your parents tell you growing up about who you were?
How much did you take in, and was this when it first began to dawn on you?
What did it feel like to realize you knew thing, you WERE things?
What did that feel like, when pieces began to connect, when vistas began to open? 
Did you always know you were different, from the very start? Or did cousin John recklessly break the news on one of the family trips?

How hard is love, God? It’s hard, isn’t it?
It’s hard to belong to people and be accountable to people and sometimes have no good options and sometimes make the wrong move.  And do the work to stay close even if you don’t deserve it and they don’t deserve it and you all really need it.
Is it harder than you thought it would be? 
It’s harder than I thought it would be. 
It looks easy from the outside, but it’s really not. Love demands all of you and stretches you in ways you didn’t knew you reached.
Do you see the world differently now? Do you love differently now?

Did you ever want out?  Did you ever feel trapped, as one of us, and want out?
You really played the long game, didn’t you?
This wasn’t a quickie experiment; you didn’t come as a grown up, to try out this humanity thing, you were in it all the way from the get go. You had to learn it all, go through it all.

And those weren’t throw-away years, were they?  Those were essential to shaping you, those were vital to your experience, to your mission, your person, to your God-with-us-ness. 
Why haven’t you shared much about those early years with us? Are they too private? Do you want us to know that they were not so different from our own early years?

Once upon a time brilliant and mouthy pre-teen God screwed up and ditched the family trip without asking permission or telling his parents. 
Once upon a time the two people charged with raising God from a baby and protecting the incarnation lost the Messiah of the whole world for four days
Once upon a time the leaders of religion and teachers of wisdom and worshipers of Yahweh saw God before them both incognito and revealed in a skinny, ruddy, well-spoken boy, opening up their minds with his questions and getting in big trouble from his mom.
Once upon a time God said things that were rude and disrespectful to his parents, that hurt them deeply, but also were a totally normal part of pulling away and growing up. 
And he kept growing up, kept on learning and becoming, and got better at loving and respecting and gained favor in the eyes of both God and human beings.
And for some reason the story of God-with-us is not complete without this particular part.
May we receive the gift of it, absorb the truth of it, and treasure these things in our heart.
Amen.



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