Sunday, January 26, 2014

Something Essential is Happening



O God,
says the poet Ted Loder,*
let something essential happen to me,
something more than interesting
or entertaining
or thoughtful.

O God, let something essential happen to me,
something awesome,
something real.
Speak to my condition, Lord,
and change me somewhere inside where it matters,
a change that will burn and tremble and heal
and explode me into tears
or laughter
or love that throbs or screams
or keeps a terrible, cleansing silence
and dares dangerous deeds.

Let something happen in me
that is my real self, God.

O God, let something essential and passionate happen in me now.
Strip me of my illusions and self-sufficiency,
of my proud sophistications,
of my inflated assumptions of knowledge
and leave me shivering as Adam or Eve
before the miracle of the natural –
the miracle of this earth
that nurtures me as a mother
 and delights me as a lover;

the miracle of my body that breathes and moves,
hungers and digests,
sees and hears;
that is creased and wrinkled and sexual,
shrinks in hurt,
and swells in pleasure,
that works by the most amazing messages
of what and when and how
coded and curled in every cell
and that dares to speak the confronting word.

O God,
let something essential and joyful happen in me now,
something like the blooming of hope and faith,
like a grateful heart,
like a surge of awareness
of how precious every moment is,
that now, not next time,
now is the occasion
to take off my shoes,
to see every bush afire,
to leap and whirl with neighbor,
to gulp the air as sweet as wine
until I’ve drunk enough
to dare to speak the tender word:
“Thank you;
“I love you”;
“You’re beautiful”;
“Let’s live forever beginning now”;
and “I’m a fool for Christ’s sake.”


Tonight we hear of something essential happening to these people.
Our text from Matthew opens after Jesus has been in the wilderness, and after John has been arrested.  Jesus has been around, as abrupt and urgent as this text sounds, it’s not entirely out of the blue.  People have seen him, they’ve heard him preach, in this small town, he was most definitely on their collective radar.  Whether these particular fellows had ever contemplated attaching themselves to him or his message in any way before or not, they’ve at least come across him a time or two.  Whether they had longed for something to happen to wake them up and plug them in, we are not told.

On this day they are doing their own thing, their normal thing, they are at work.  And Jesus calls to them.
Now in John, in the text we read last week, there was a gentler invitation, given to those already curious, initiated, in fact, by them. Come and see. Jesus answers them. Come find out. Come and discover for yourself.

Here it’s a bit different. Repent! He walks around declaring, The kingdom of God is near!
And then right to them, they don’t even see it coming, he shouts from the shoreline, Follow me and I will make you fish for people!

This week a vanfull of clergy talked about how harsh that sounds, how it seems to invite an aggressive form of evangelism that seeks to hook people for God (or, as one person said it, “guts them alive and consumes them”). 
So, upon hearing this text people either feel motivated to get out there and get cracking, catching folks for God, or they cringe and shudder at the invitation.  Either way, putting these stories side by side, John’s calling story sounds much more appealing and soothing to our tender Presbyterian sensitivities. 

But let’s talk through this a moment.  First of all, that word that John the Baptist belts out on the edge of the Jordan to all who come to hear his wild message – REPENT!, Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is coming near! 
That word is now in the mouth of the one John said was coming.  Repent in the Greek means a changed mind, a total change of view, all of it- it affects social, spiritual, psychic, moral – a full shift of perspective that impacts all aspects of life and personhood.  Wake up! Notice! Let something essential happen to you!  The reign of God has begun!, Jesus declares, in that “place of deep darkness, on whom the light has now shined.”

What is it to be in deep darkness?  When it feels like nothing can reach you, and there is no clarity or perspective at all? When it’s foggy and fearful and you feel desperate for some indication that there is something beyond this moment? 
When the light comes to that place, when hope shines in, or love breaks through, when someone reaches you and you know now that you are not alone, when something opens up to indicate there may be a way forward – what is that like? 
It just make you leap up and drop whatever you’ve got going, because whatever it is, it’s nothing compared to this light pierces into your darkness, illumining your life.  This is the sense of Jesus’ impact on that region; and there were certainly those for whom his message and his promise - that God’s rule was near, that a different kind of everything was just on the horizon - must have felt like air to a suffocating world.  Sometimes the call of Jesus feels like just that.

But then, there are those who are just sitting in their boats on a Tuesday morning. Mending their nets. Drinking their coffee.  Doing what they’ve always done, and their fathers, and their father’s fathers before them. Filling their role in the world, taking their place, not really drowning in darkness but not really shining brilliantly with light either. Just sort of plugging along the best they know how in life like we do.  And of all the beaches in all the world, Jesus strolls onto theirs and says to them this: Follow me. Follow me and I will make you fish for people.

Follow me, and I will reorient your whole life. Lift your head from your work and raise your face toward others. I am calling you to participate with me in what’s happening here. Put down that net, Get out of the boat, and let something essential happen to you.

And they do. Immediately.  They drop what they are doing; and something in them thrills to the invitation, something in them resonates with the calling – a note is plucked in the universe that reverberates within them and they wake up.  They can’t not get up and go.  So they get out of the boat and they follow the light of the world.

We like to think they just strolled out of the scene and didn’t look back, but that’s not really the case.  They cycled back from time to time, itinerant-like – we see Peter in the home of his mother in law in a few chapters, and Jesus comes and heals her.  Now and then they came home for a round of fishing, they connected with their fathers and ate at the tables of their mothers.  They returned to their wives and kids too, I suppose, those that had them.  But something within them had fundamentally shifted. They themselves had shifted. They had repented. They had a surge of awareness, awake to an utterly new perception of it all, now is the occasion to take off your shoes! to gulp the air as sweet as wine – and because of that no part of their life could be the same. 

And it was a radical enough thing, to walk away from their livelihood, their family trade, their actual nets, even. It probably created quite a stir. But it also was deeply true to who they were, that there was nothing else to do in that moment than to answer the call.  Suddenly, immediately, it was the only thing that made sense. Suddenly something had happened in them that was their real self.

Jesus calls us in all kinds of ways, some gentle, some insistent.  
Follow me.  
Wake up to notice the world with the light in it.  
Participate.  
Get out of the boat.  
Set down those things that seem so very central and important, so very vital to who you are and how you contribute to the world, and dare to let your real self reach out to others.  
I will make you stop fishing for fish, and start fishing for people. 
I will take the you that’s in you and plug it in to the thing that connects us to all the other yous in the world- because if you want to know where I am, it’s there.

Some time ago I was on a flight from Minnesota to Los Angeles and found myself sitting next to a woman who was clearly very distraught.
She sat there next to me weeping, her grief palpable and overwhelming. And to be honest, I desperately wanted to ignore her; she was kind of rocking my boat.  I was tired from my own trip, and embarrassed by her public anguish, and also it frightened me.  I didn’t have any idea what to say. 
But I didn’t feel right pretending I didn’t see her, I felt like I should do or say something.  So I took a deep breath and got out of my boat.  Without having any idea where it would lead, I finally worked up the courage to simply put my hand on her shoulder.  On a stranger’s shoulder.  I had no words, no answers to give her, so I just sat with her in solidarity.  After a time, she started to talk, and told me that she had flown to Minnesota that afternoon for a conference, and upon arriving was informed that her mother, who had been ill in the hospital for some time, had crashed, and taken an abrupt and severe turn for the worse.  This lady turned around and headed back to the counter, purchased a return ticket, and was racing time to get back to the hospital in Los Angeles before her mother died. 

I just listened.  I joined her.  Eventually it became a conversation, about the pain of losing someone, and the tragedy of death.  We even talked a bit about God, but only because we were somehow sharing an experience of God.  For four hours, I sat with a stranger and found Jesus. 
Follow me.  See the person in front of you. Reach out your hand. Brave the tender word.

When Jesus calls us to follow, it is always something essential happening to us.  It is a wake up and take notice.  Instead of smothered in darkness, you will recognize that the world shot through with light, and it will illuminate those around you – for you are not in it alone.  
Because also when Jesus calls it always reveals other people as the ones to whom you’re called,
I will make you not just fisherpeople, Jesus says, but fishers of people, 
not just bankers, but bankers of people, 
not just teachers but teachers of people, 
I will make you accountants of people and nurses of people, and baristas of people and parents of people, and sons and daughters of people, and friends of people, and neighbors of people. 

And in those simple and terribly brave moments that you hear and answer the call to be with them and for them, you are part of the light that the darkness cannot quench – the conspiracy of God-with-us.

The invitation of Jesus to you and to me comes to us every day, into our curiosity and seeking, into our deep darkness and despair, and into our very ordinary, routine kinds of days that blend one into another, The Spirit of Godwithus continues to nudge and prod, I came to be with and for the world.  Come be with and for the world with me.  

 So far this Epiphany we’ve heard:
Come and see: experience it for yourself.
Follow me: join me in this thing. 
Repent: wake up and let it all look different. 
The kingdom of God is at hand: the purposes of God are unfolding.

It’s happening.  Get out of the boat and be part of it.  
Let something essential happen to you. 
Don’t be afraid.


Eternal God,
lead me now,
out of the familiar setting
of my doubts and fears
beyond my pride
and my need to be secure
into a strange and graceful ease
with my true proportions
and with yours;
that in boundless silence
I may grow
strong enough to endure
and flexible enough to share
your grace.*

Amen.



(*opening and closing prayers by Rev. Dr. Ted Loder, found in Guerrillas of Grace)



Sunday, January 19, 2014

See for yourself





Have you ever had a moment, when, out of nowhere, you suddenly feel absolutely seen? Things are just going on as usual, you’re doing your ordinary thing, bumping around your ordinary life, and then suddenly someone looks into your eyes, except really into your soul,
someone says something that touches exactly on what you mean but couldn’t find words for,
or gives you just precisely the encouragement you needed, just exactly what you needed to hear, or gets you a gift that you didn’t even know you wanted but turns out to be astonishingly perfect for you? 
Have you ever had someone sit with you in silence that was so profoundly right that for a moment you felt completely safe and utterly known?

Have you ever seen someone?  Really seen them?
Suddenly the joking falls away, or the moment shifts and for a split second you are so aware of them, and they are so utterly beautiful in their themness, like no one else, unselfconsciously shining in their sheer self, with no clue of their magnificence, that your breath catches in your chest and your eyes unexpectedly well up?  Have you had a moment when, for whatever reason, you know just exactly what someone else needed – a word, a touch, a favor-  and then you even had the courage to give it?

Have you ever had that experience of intensely calm connection, awake and at peace all at once, like the universe peeled back the curtain for a moment – in a stranger’s blatant kindness, a bird’s gentle flight, resting on the wind, the sound of nearby children laughing in delight, an event of absolutely righteous justice – and you glimpse the harmony that was intended all along and pulses underneath the surface of all things? 
Hold that feeling, for just a moment, inside you
and breathe.

Thank you, God.

Now,
I love this quirky story we have before us today.

Let’s just say that Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell the story of Jesus in a certain way: they tell about his birth, and then his baptism and then the calling of the disciples, very straightforward and sequential.  They look back – at the prophets foretelling his coming, or his genealogy laid out for generations, and somehow, in their telling of it, it just makes sense.  That’s kind of their point, isn’t it? Here’s how it all went down… they say. And the way they portray it, it’s not terribly hard to accept incarnated Creator walking around upon the earth alongside everyone.

But John tells it a little differently.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God… and the light shines in the darkness… and he came to what was his own but they did not know him… the whole cosmos which he had a hand in creating didn’t recognize Jesus at all.  And even when it did, it didn’t, not really.

Contrary to Matthew’s tale of baptism that we heard last week, where God publicly declares, “This is my beloved!,” or Mark and Luke’s depictions where God speaks to Jesus personally, the baptism story in John is not actually the baptism of Jesus, it’s John the Baptist telling about what he experienced during the baptism of Jesus.  Because that is what John does in the gospel of John (different John), he doesn’t actually baptize, he tells about it, that is, he is not “John the Baptist”, he’s “John the Witness,” the seer, the teller, the one who makes known, and who points always, in all things, to Jesus. 
So John tells about how he didn’t know Jesus, and then suddenly he did.

But being his cousin and all, John surely knew who Jesus was, right? I mean they’d grown up together, right? Shared holiday meals, gone off to summer camp together, passed on their hand me downs? 
But I myself did not know him!, he says. Twice. 
I didn’t see!  he cries. I talked about him and anticipated him and prepared the way for him but it wasn’t until I took his hand and lowered him into the waters, and the Spirit of God came upon him; it wasn’t until God literally pointed him out to me that I SAW who he really was!
I didn’t know, John says, I didn’t know!!
And now I do! Here is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world! Here is the gift of God, the feast, the promise, the One that brings everything back into alignment – like we never even knew it could be.

He was among his own, and yet his own did not recognize him.
And we plunge deeper into Epiphany, or rather, epiphany plunges deeper into us. 

So a couple of people are walking by, and they overhear John talking about Jesus as he is walking by, so they shadow Jesus.  And this scene cracks me up.  Because following someone without being invited to tag along is always, without exception, awkward. 

I can see the scene. Turning corners when Jesus did, slowing down to keep the pace.  Like groupies spotting a possible rock star, they trail along behind, whispering and surreptitiously pointing and trying to keep up, maybe hoping to catch him in the act of some vague greatness, intrigued enough by what John said to follow him, but with no real plan for what would happen if they happened to catch him.
Finally, I can imagine Jesus stopping, sighing and turning around.  He sees them.  They see him.  They see him seeing them. 

You. he says, “What are you looking for?”

That’s a question, right there, isn’t it?  
What are you looking for? Really? 
In all the world, what do you most wish to find? 
When you are looking, which isn’t all the time, for most of us, it’s not even much of the time, but when it does happen that you are really looking, what is it you are hoping, truly longing, to see?

Well his question catches them short. 
Perhaps they weren’t really sure what they were looking for.
They weren’t even really sure what they were looking at. 
So, maybe just because they don’t know what else to say but they want the conversation to continue somehow, or maybe because the question grabs hold of them, and they desperately want to be asked to dinner (it was, after all, 4:00, the text points out), or to find some other way to extend this budding conversation, they ask him, “Teacher, where are you staying?”

And he answers, “Come and see.”
Come find out, he responds.
Not, “I’m just down the street at the Erickson’s house, or, you know that hotel on 34th and Elm?” He doesn’t answer their question, just like they didn’t answer his.  Instead he says come and experience it for yourself. Come and see.
Like John did unexpectedly when he baptized his cousin, and like what is about to happen in the coming chapters to Philip, and Nathanial and the Samaritan woman at the well, and a whole bunch of other unsuspecting and own-business-minding people that come along as this story unfolds, who haven’t even really been looking but who end up seeing anyway.  
Come and see.  Experience for yourself.  Peel back the curtain and have a gander.  Let yourself be drawn in.

So they do.  They spend the day with him; it says, they abide, they remain, they loiter with no agenda in particular. (Basically, sabbathing).  Hanging out listening, talking, sharing food, and space alongside each other. Hearing and seeing, being heard and seen, (hospitality). Without knowing they were looking, and in absolutely ordinary, everyday human interaction, they find Jesus and they are found.  
They go from anonymously following Jesus over there to personally witnessing Jesus right here, and the next day they tell a couple of others, we have seen; you should come and see too!

The light is in the world and the world does not know him, yet. He comes to his own and they don’t recognize him, yet.  Until they hang out with him a little bit, and then they’re seen.  Then they see.  And then, the whole world changes view. The light that is in it illuminates it all.  Illuminates them.  Illumines you and me.  It infiltrates us and grabs hold of our being in thrilling recognition, because if you suddenly, for whatever reason and in whatever small way, see that God is in the world, if you are seen by God in the world, can the world ever look the same?

Come and see! Come and loiter with the light of the world!

The Church is the community who sees.  Sees the light in the world, in each other, in the dark places where it looks like light would not be.  Sees, from time to time, the you and the me and the them in all our unconscious brilliance.  Sees the hope, sees the promise, sees the way it is meant to be, even when (especially when?) it isn’t that way yet. Ses God right in the midst of it all, right here.  We are the ones who see Jesus.

And not all of us see all the time; in fact, most of us don’t see much of the time. But we keep inviting each other, Come and see.  We keep taking turns getting glimpses, which is why we need each other. By being in this together we go from anonymously following Jesus out there to personally witnessing Jesus right here.

So Come see!  Hang out a while till you notice. Experience for yourself.  What is it you are looking for, really looking for? we ask each other. I’ll help you look.  
What is it I am looking for, really looking for? we ask ourselves.
Will you help me recognize? 
And then we’ll tell each other about it.  We’ll tell the world what we see. 

In just a few minutes, we get to welcome new members.  Once again, we will officially join our own journeys together with some more witnesses, more people whose souls scan the landscape, the nooks and crannies, for the light of the world.  More people who have, from time to time, those fleeting awake moments, who recognize Jesus in places we might miss, who have their own abiding experiences quite different from each of ours, their own personal encounters with the Messiah who moves among us, leaking light and hearing the harmony in the fabric of all things. 
And they bring their own vision, their own unique ways of noticing and witnessing to who God is and what God is doing. Their lives reflect the presence of God in ways yours might not and mine never could. 
By coming together, our vision broadens, and the world’s startling beauty becomes clearer; we get new vistas, different lives and stories to see into, and we get new watchers in our own lives. 

And so, side by side, we will practice looking, and taking it all in, and letting it take us in as well.  And we will practice telling about it too, because that’s all we can really do, after all, is tell about what we experience.  Tell about what we see when we can see it.  
Because regardless of what we think we know, none of us really knows, until, unexpectedly, into our own ordinary and quirky stories the light of the world shines bright, and all of a sudden we see it for ourselves.

Amen.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Thank you, Lake Nokomis Church

Every year I struggle to write my "annual report" for church.  This year, it suddenly stopped being hard when I realized I just really wanted to say "Thank you"...


Dear LNPC,

2013 marked my fifth year of sharing life and ministry with Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church.  What a gift it has been to be on this journey together!   Stepping away for a three-month sabbatical gave me a chance to see you anew.  As I reflect on our year, I would like to share some observations and gratitude I have about you.

I am thankful for your bravery.
It’s quite something for a small congregation to send their pastor on a sabbatical and do most everything in-house.  You are a strong and wildly gifted bunch of folks, and a community that isn’t afraid to take risks.  You’re also brave in sharing real life with each other, in dreaming and in trying new things.  I can’t tell you how many times this year, upon hearing about the way we live out worship, hospitality and Sabbath, people have commented to me, with great respect in their voice, what a brave congregation you are.  And I whole-heartedly agree.

I am thankful for the way you welcome.
Young adults, retired adults, tiny babies and teens, busy children, tired parents, doting grandparents – you embrace each person where they are and appreciate the gifts they bring.  Everyone’s voice is respected and contribution is honored and celebrated. This is an incredible thing, and I am profoundly moved by it and grateful for it. 

This year we stood with so many as their journeys took them to new places.  We celebrated our graduates Lindsay (college), Maggie and Ben (high school) and Cyndi (seminary), we confirmed Ben and Andrew, and bid joyful and sorrowful goodbyes to Lee and Barb as they headed to Florida, and to Theresa on her move to Michigan, and blessed Cyndi as she was approved for ordination.  We baptized Soren, Svea and Sigrid, welcomed Andrea, Linnea, Jose and Will (this Sunday!) into membership, and honored the life of Sylvia with wonderful stories, laughter and tears.  And every week I watch you all warmly welcome one another, visitors and friends into this sacred space between us that the Spirit has shaped.  Thank you for receiving each other with an open heart.

I am thankful for your vulnerability.
‘nuff said.  It’s powerful.

I am thankful for your commitment and investment.
You are invest in each other, in this community. You stand by one another and keep showing up.  This is a defining mark of this congregation.

I am thankful for our little people, and the ways you support them.
LNPC continues to grow – we have begun to regularly have a dozen children in worship and Sunday school.  They have invaded our worship with joy and curiosity, and you have welcomed them with open arms. 

This year they have led us in worship by sharing their own learning every week, collecting for the food shelf, writing and leading offering prayers, sharing story on Christmas eve, guiding us through Advent with candle lighting and liturgy.  At LNPC children contribute with their artwork and singing, their prayers brought up and bravely shared right alongside adults’ and their small hands offering us communion.  Their insightful comments and happy contributions, tearful meltdowns and occasional giggly toddler laps around the sanctuary mid-sermon are all held in love by you.

Carolyn and Linnea shape Sunday school lessons that help our kids engage worship and encourage them to embrace their lives as part of God’s love in the world, and we get to hear about that from the children themselves.  For a short time this year we had a Church Nanny who supported parents and children in worship, but we unfortunately lost both Camille and our de facto children’s host Lee to out-of-state moves.   But we continue to adapt and embrace the changing needs and strengths of our congregation, and to be blessed by our children’s participation and leadership, even.  Watch in 2014 as they begin stepping into more roles, including ushering.

I am thankful for the care with which you tend our resources – our space and our gifts – both concrete and tangible, and what we each bring to the table. I spent some time on sabbatical in other church spaces, some of which clearly were filled with love and community like ours, but in need of some TLC.  It made me appreciate this about LNPC – you care for one another well, and take good care of that of we’ve been made stewards. 

In walking through our building, reflecting on our artist Mark’s basement studio, Field Regina Neighborhood Group’s office, the various yoga, women’s and parenting groups that meet in our space, Terry’s spiritual direction office “Storyteller’s Lodge," the times when our sanctuary hosted Trinity choir and orchestra concerts, the surprising number of community parties, and wedding and baby showers that fill Nokomis Hall and the many more incidents and ongoing experiences of offering our space to others, I recognize that sharing is important to us.  All this, and our building looks well cared-for, and looked after. 
Thanks to Kathy for that, and for all the countless volunteer hours people (like Dick and Gary and Aleta and many others) spend putzing on repairs and tidying up.  And to each person who pitches in on dishes or helps the kids’ straighten up, thank you.  We have a church building that feels like home. That’s part of our ministry of hospitality.

I am thankful for your flexibility and generosity.
These two things go hand in hand, and have to do with truly valuing one another.  You are great at adapting to the situation and the need.  Whether it is pulling out soup and bread for an impromptu meal, taking a baby into your arms to give a dad or mom or grandma a break, watching big sister when little sister gets hurt and needs help, giving each other rides, subbing for Meals on Wheels, offering a helping hand, you are a congregation that is willing to bend preset plans in order to stay true to one another in the moment.

I am thankful for your creativity.
Stunning handmade crafts, jams and banners, music and visual art, delicious food, and an eye for beauty and delight in life shines through at LNPC.  From our Lenten journey to the cross with candles and flowers to our Advent stars hanging from the ceiling, our stylish photo directories (Thanks, Ani!) and the lessons the children gave us in tokens and handouts, creativity enlivened our life together this year.

I am thankful for your resourcefulness.
LNPC operates on a shoestring found for a steal at Savers and spruced up with handmade embroidery.  This year you did great things with great resourcefulness; you specialize in homegrown and elbow grease!  I returned from sabbatical to find a brand new paved area in front of the church with a bike rack and public garbage can, beautifully installed by members and paid for by a grant. 

People contribute from their strengths and joy and generosity – garden planting, snow shoveling, inspiring children, preaching, praying, leading conversations in adult education, number-crunching, making music, listening, feeding kids from St. Joe’s at Movie Camp and people of all ages at Ham and Cherry Pie Dinner, secretly cleaning and organizing the nursery, collecting and sharing food and money for the food shelf or a friend of the congregation, visiting with each other, donating diapers, pitching in to cover unexpected expenses like boiler repair or sidewalk assessment,  leading liturgy, and turning strangers into friends.  You used what you have, and brought who you are, to being church together.   Thank you.

You give to others without knowing it.
The space of QuietWednesdays became a holy gift every week to a friend of the congregation who slipped in and spent hours in peace.  The service of blessing we shaped for twin babies embraced a neighborhood family in love.  I received inquiries about our worship and life together and shared what we’ve learned with congregations in Delaware, New Jersey, California, Georgia and Kansas.  We’ve been asked to share our story at a conference this coming March, to help congregations seeking inspiration and new vitality, and have been written about in several more articles this year.  The sabbatical task force is finding itself a source of encouragement and learning for several congregations on the brink of their own sabbaticals.  I have heard countless comments from visitors about the warmth of their welcome, and the inspiring way children are involved and empowered in our worship.  Our life together is a gift, and God uses it to bless others.

I am thankful for your questions.
For a whole three months this year, you sat in questions.  Where was I surprised by God this week? Where do I need rest?  In Lent you pondered what it is to confess.  We wondered through Advent and sat in the wonder at Christmas.  The children in Sunday school and adults in Adult Ed press into questions again and again without hesitation.  You are honest and willing to engage life thoughtfully and intentionally.  Faith is not a pat answer for LNPC, it’s a real journey of trust, and your questions keep opening us to the Spirit’s activity in our lives and helping us search for and join in God’s mission in the world.  Thank you.

I am thankful for your passion.
This little congregation is filled with people faithfully joining Jesus’ love in the world in inspiring ways.  We support each other in our causes and journeys, from Ben’s work helping congregations become more open and affirming of all and Carolyn’s work supporting women caught in domestic violence to Sue’s fiber and visual art and the amazing grandparenting regularly in our midst.  People at LNPC pour themselves into their lives with enthusiasm and gratitude, and share their passions with all of us, which inspires each of us in our own living.  Whether in adult ed, session meetings or coffee hour, there is no shortage of lively discussion and thought-provoking disagreement, ready laughter and dedicated listening.  PW Christmas party games, donuts with Dick and Jan, starry night walks on retreats, pie at Movie Night, and goodbye blessings all shared LNPC’s spirit of life and joy, and the desire that what we do matter.  I love how passionate you are.

I am thankful for the space you gave me.
It was incredibly difficult to step away from you for three months. The first ten days were easy – a breeze, really! - but after that it was hard.  You respected the space we had set up – I didn’t get a phone call, an email, a message of any kind for three months.  For twelve weeks I imagined you bobbing on a boat far out in the sea, sails open, merrily on your own, held by God and holding me in prayer.  For twelve weeks I sat in the expansive space held by God and you, and grew in trust, strength and peace.  I felt myself filling back up, rejuvenating, exploring my creative side, feeding my intellectual side, stretching my spontaneity muscles and letting them lead.  I got to rediscover presence –with my children, with Andy, with myself and with God.  I slowed way down, and came back to you awake and present.   I might have caved had you not been so gracious and firm about the boundaries of sabbatical.  Thank you.

I am thankful for your wisdom and realism.
This year LNPC has been facing facts about finances, seeking with transparency and practical approaches (cutting expenses and beginning to explore alternate forms of funding) to move into the future faithfully.  We begin 2014 with a strong commitment to strengthening our financial life. 

You’re good at knowing when to say yes, and ok with saying no.  This year we recognized the gift Saturday meals had been to the congregation under Cyndi’s leadership, and for a time many others stepped in to make meals to be shared.  We also recognized when they had run their course and that it was ok to let them go.  Then we were able to make meals on Saturdays for special events and as specific times of hospitality- a guest preacher, a goodbye party, a welcoming back of old friends. 

It is not easy staying in touch with where things are and being willing to respond in the present- far easier to fall back on “tradition” or be compelled by obligation.  You are honest and willing to talk about hard things, and it makes what we do continue to have meaning and significance. Thank you.

You understand God’s ministry and God’s Church to be far broader than ourselves.
This year we invited the possibility of sharing space and worship with Familia de Fe, and this opened up rich and challenging discussion about who we are, how we can best share what we have, and what it means to be church. Ultimately, they decided to nest elsewhere, but I was grateful for the discernment and intentionality that went into the beginning of that conversation.

We shared Family Camp this summer with Humble Walk Church at Bay Lake Camp.  The LNPC contingent was outnumbered three-to-one children-to-adults, and we had a wonderful long weekend with grandparents, parents and children, playing, praying, singing and swimming (with Barb Day leading the fishing crew). S’mores were consumed and skits were performed and it was the beginning of a much-anticipated annual summer tradition.

Four times a year we share worship at St. Joseph’s Home for Children.  Every time we go, we come away in gratitude and awe for the ways we experience God in sharing worship with them.  Most notably this last time, two young people asked for one on one prayer and conversation, and we frequently hear from staff how meaningful it is to them as well.  Our annual Movie Camp experience – led by Dean and Kirsten Seal and assisted by Westminster- has continued to be a simple and powerful way God uses LNPC in people’s lives.

I have served this year on an Administrative Commission to a congregation seeking to leave our denomination.  It is our life together that has given me words and prayers to shape our time in these sometimes very difficult meetings.  Despite differences that will ultimately divide us, we have found common faith and hope and the ability to appreciate each other’s humanity and faith in Christ.  It was a profound gift when the team from the departing church asked if they could lay hands on me and bless me as I set out on my sabbatical.  I have felt strengthened by our work together in compassionate communication at LNPC and the mission of hospitality that compels us to truly seek to know and be known.  It has shone a light into this conflict and kept us connected with these sisters and brothers in Christ.

This year I led two workshops on Sabbath at Luther Seminary’s Convocation in February, and Sue and Carolyn helped me set the space and share the story of our journey in tangible ways.  I also shared about Sabbath rest with a group of MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) in Owatanna and a Women’s group at Knox Church just up the street.  We continued our (now) tradition of a joint Ash Wednesday service with Edgcumbe Church, practiced writing and sharing our stories in a Lenten writing workshop with Marie Theilen, cooked and served meals at Our Saviour’s Housing, welcomed Boy Scouts from Texas and North Carolina to camp out in our building, and welcomed a new generation of servers and kitchen assistants to our 78th Annual Ham & Cherry Pie Dinner. 

From supporting ARCretreat center and Tapestry Family Center to welcoming the baptismal class of Judson Memorial Baptist Church to talk faith with our confirmands, Diane walking in the TRUST Parish Nursing Fundraiser to Dee walking neighbors’ dogs- the ministry of God is relentlessly drawing us into the world in love and service to others, and LNPC helps us see and participate in God’s call – both together as a community and individually in all the many ways we are beckoned.  We are connected to all that God is doing in the world, and get to see that unfold in each other’s lives.  You live this out faithfully.  That is a true gift!

Thank you for a great year of worship, hospitality and sabbath together!

Kara





Sunday, January 12, 2014

This One is Mine

Baptism of Jesus: "Gymnos Aquatic Saints"

Isaiah 42:1-9

Two weeks ago I was invited to preside over a baptism at a nearby congregation. My friend Tricia adopted a little girl from Haiti. She had gone down there several times a year for several years, to volunteer in an orphanage, and when she adopted Saraphina as a baby, it took over a year for the red tape to allow her to bring her home. 
We gathered around the font, Tricia, her parents, siblings, aunt and uncle, and nephews and nearly two year old Saraphina, toddling happily between them.  
Before the baptism, I prayed a blessing on Tricia; I anointed her and called her mother, and Saraphina, daughter. We were witnesses to God’s blessing of this little family on that day.  As Jesus himself was adopted into the family and line of David his adopted father, Joseph, I said, today we remember our own adoption as we are brought into the family of God.  And today, in her baptism surrounded by a community of love making promises to her, Saraphina’s adoption is made complete.

And then I made the sign of the cross on Tricia’s head, the sign of her own baptism, while Saraphina, in Tricia’s arms, leaned in watching closely.  When I finished, she gently reached up to touch Tricia’s forehead, and she said, “Mama!” 
Then, I poured handfuls of water on Saraphina’s head in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and it ran down her cheeks, and she traced the drips with her fingers, and gazed at me as I spoke the words to her,
For you, little one, the Spirit of God
moved over the waters at creation,

and the Lord God made covenants with the people.

It was for you that the Word of God became flesh

and lived among us, full of grace and truth.


For you, Saraphina, Jesus Christ suffered death

crying out at the end, "It is finished!"

For you Christ triumphed over death,

rose in newness of life,

and ascended to rule over all.

All of this was done for you, little one,

though you do not know any of this yet.

But we will continue to tell you this good news

until it becomes your own.

And so the promise of the gospel is fulfilled:

"We love because God first loved us." 

When we bowed our heads to pray, Saraphina leaned down from my arms and scooped a handful of water. She reached up and dropped it on top of her own head, and then she leaned down again and got another handful of water, and reached next to her and patted her dripping hands onto her mama’s forehead.
The sign of belonging.

When Jesus is baptized, in front of all the onlookers his ministry is begun. 
We jump awkwardly from his toddlerhood and the visiting magi from far off lands to this big grown up man Jesus with almost nothing filling in the gap; he’s been virtually hiding in a super ordinary, pretty typical childhood. But at this moment something changes – as his ministry is kicked off not with anything spectacular that he does, but with God claiming him outloud in front of people. This one belongs to me.

When Jesus argued with his cousin that indeed he did wish to be baptized, Jesus didn’t know what was coming next. Or maybe he did, but it wasn’t rosy. He didn’t go from there into teaching and preaching, didn’t punch his Messiah timecard, eager and ready to get started.  From his baptism, he is led, driven it says, by the Holy Spirit, right into the wilderness.  After he is claimed by God in front of everyone, he finds himself in temptation and doubt, hunger and struggle in the wilderness. Being God with us doesn’t spare him from life’s pain and hardship.  Perhaps being God with us means that’s right where he needs to begin… but we will join him there in Lent to ponder these things.

Right now, standing in the water, defying his cousin’s whole picture of how this was supposed to go down, this is Jesus’ chance to say yes to his calling.  And so he does.
He walks into those waters and submits. Come what may, I am in, he says. 
Godwithus said yes to the human journey, and everything it involves.
I am in this with you.

Look everyone! Here is the light of the world! Right here in the waters of repentence!

It is lovely to me that the Christian church encompasses the practice of infant baptism and adult baptism.  Infant baptism highlights that it is God who does the choosing and the naming and the claiming, that it is God’s work, and even before we can respond we are drawn into God’s love and adopted into God’s family, and the promise is spoken over us that we will spend a lifetime learning to receive.
In Mark and Luke’s version of this scene, God speaks right to Jesus, You are my beloved, and I delight in you!

Adult baptism highlights that we say yes to God, that we submit to the journey whatever may come, that Jesus’ life defines our life and we want that to be spoken outloud and claimed over us, as it was that day over Jesus, as Matthew’s version highlights, when God’s tells everyone there, This One is mine! This is my beloved child! Have I got plans for this one!

I was baptized at the age of twelve. In my tradition, we spoke of baptism as “an outward sign of an inward reality” – meaning, I had given my life to Jesus; I had chosen to accept Christ into my heart, to let God lead me instead of me leading me. And being baptized was the seal of that reality, a sign to the community and affirmation by them that God was my strength and my salvation, and I was putting my trust in God.

 I remember being lowered under the water, the symbol of death as it rushed over my head and the sounds muffled around me and I felt it fill my ears and pool over my eyes as the room disappeared into watery darkness.  Vulnerable, both held up and plunged under – the old is gone, the new has come, and then I was raised up, gasping into the air, water streaming off me and people applauding, into resurrection, a life defined by the resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t trust in the baptism to save him or prepare him or fill him for the job ahead of him. He comes to it only with his Yes to the ministry that comes along with being chosen and called by God. His yes, his utter need, his humanity. His willingness. His Yes.
Like Mary before him, and Joseph, and the Shepherds heeding the angels' call, and the magi setting out on their journey, and every scared and wondering king and nomad and giant-slayer and sea-parter and child-bearer and prophet and journeyer before them. He says yes to God.
Jesus comes to baptism to accept grace as grace, and calling as calling – to accept that these things come from God and not from us, that God offers them and we simply say YES.  Jesus says yes to God; and by the divebombing Spirit like a dove and the voice from heaven, God says yes to Jesus.

And no wonder, then, that it is where it all begins.  For Jesus, and for us.  
We submit to - and we hand our children over to - God’s care, God’s calling, and God’s vision for the world that we're now invited to share.
We say, we don’t know what this life will bring, but in it, we say yes to you.
We say yes to not being in it alone.
We say yes to life and light and hope.
We say yes to suffering and struggling and living fully.
We say yes, to grace, and yes to calling, not because we deserve it, but because God wants to share it with us.
We say yes to what God is doing to love and save the world and the astonishing truth that God wants to involve us in it. 
And so our journey begins, and it ends when our baptism is complete in our death.

Throughout the next several weeks in this season of Epiphany we will see Jesus revealed – the light of the world walking among us, and we will also hear the invitation, again and again, the proclamation spoken over us as the covenant people chosen and claimed and named by God’s Spirit as beloved, children of God: you will be light as well! 
The light of Christ lives in us, the life of Christ lives through us. It just does – God does this, not us. How might we keep saying yes? How will we keep watching for the light and welcoming the life?

Tonight, I invite you to hear the dual message of your baptism:
First, that You are God’s beloved child.  God says yes to you.
Second, that You are part of God’s promise, God’s love and hope, given to the world.  You get to say yes to God.

No matter what life brings, or where it brings us, the first and final word over you and me is this:
This One is mine! This is my beloved child! Have I got plans for this one!
And so the promise of the gospel is fulfilled:
 "We love because God first loved us."  


 LNPC Worship practice: Communal Celebration of Baptism
 Tonight we shared a blessing over one another.  With water from the font, we stood in a circle.  
In turn, I stood in front of each one and announced God's blessing, as they dipped their fingers in the bowl and touched their forehead in remembrance of their baptism. 
Leader: (Name) is God’s beloved child. 
All Respond: In (name), God is well pleased!
We closed this time with a prayer of gratitude and sending.

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