The Church has left the building

Daily Devotion - May 31

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays) 

while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Acts 2:1-21, 38-47

We made it through the night. God is here with us now. In the darkest moments of night this week, when the voices of rage and sorrow have been drown out by the violence of evil and destruction, God was here.  In the brightest moments of the day, where collective mourning took the shape of people showing up to help each other, to protest together, to clean up neighborhoods and deliver food, to weep and serve and love and raise voices and repair what is broken, God is with us.  In all things, God is with us. We are not alone.

When something awful happens, or awful things that have been happening for a long time come to light, once again, in all their ugliness, and claim our attention, the whole world momentarily takes on a micro focus on that crisis.  

We care and we rally, and then we're whiplash shifted onto the next crisis. A dangerous, global virus fell off the radar at the horrible killing of George Floyd.  And the spotlight on the vital cries of outrage at the deep and abiding injustice and racism that needs to be rooted out of our nation, our city, ourselves, shifted to our protests being infiltrated by violent outsiders, the summoning of the national guard and institution of a curfew, and last night’s surreal preparation for street warfare.  And in the midst of all this our daily lives, with our own struggles and joys and are still unfolding.

We human beings can’t hold all these things at once.  We shift our attention to the next one thing, and our despair and exhaustion build, and so does the pressure to focus hard on the specific thing in front of us. 

But the gospel speaks to ALL OF IT - and the message doesn’t change.  

At Pentecost, the Church is born. It’s the beginning of the people whose whole identity and purpose is to remember that the world is loved by God, that we all belong to God and each other.  That is the enduring message through everything else. 

It’s a wide, wide lens that takes in all of it - tyrants rise and fall, crises come and go, continents divide, there is mass destruction and amazing rebuilding, corruption and righteousness, death and rebirth - this being human is a terrible, glorious thing. 

And throughout every moment of it, our God is so relentlessly for us, and made us to be so relentlessly for each other, that into the deepest divides, and the most horrific brokenness, the most impossible situations where no hope can be seen, God came. 

God comes.  

Jesus comes into death to bring life for all. Death does not prevail. The final word is life.  

The world belongs to God.  The world is loved by God and is being redeemed by God. That is our hope, that is our future, that is our calling, that is the gospel, that is our message.  That is the church’s message. 

Always, and now, and always especially now.

We trust this. We live this. 

Pentecost is the celebration of the Holy Spirit moving in us to cleanse and heal and renew and empower us to embody God’s love and redemption. Pentecost is the day the Church left the building, and was born into the world. 

I woke up to a post from Holy Trinity Church this Pentecost morning, that said, in part:

We had plans for another video worship service this week, but as the days unfolded it became clear that everyone's energy was needed in the community and our worship became the daily work of the congregation. 

We typically have 200-250 people worship with us on a Sunday morning, but this past week it's been somewhere closer to 10,000. Our communion became our ordinary round tables, spread out on the lawn where thousands of neighbors brought their offerings of food, water, diapers, and tools, and thousands more came to take what they needed. Our hymns became the shouts of the protestors, our healing stations became those providing medical relief, our sharing of peace became listening to the needs anyone who found their way to our sanctuary. It's not the worship we had planned, but the church's witness and work became the worship that we needed.

And here's a holy choir:
Mennonites singing at Minneapolis protest

____________

Here is a list of clean-up events, food drives, and places to donate.  See how you can help. 
This Facebook group: Southside for mutual aid is keeping current.

Here is a S. Mpls. coordinated list of needs that also keeps changing and remaining current.  
 

---

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Is it possible that since the moment the breath was violently forced from George Floyd’s body, we have not taken a deep breath?

Grief and horror have been followed by sorrow, anxiety, anger, fatigue, worry, tension, shame, fear, and ongoing pervasive sadness, and maybe all week we’ve been clenched tight, waiting for whatever is coming next?

I want to invite you to a moment of silence.  After each line, let whatever thoughts or feelings want to arise in you come and go. And then breathe deeply, all the way in, and all the way out, before reading the next line and sitting with that.

This is part of the story.  BREATHE.
This is not the whole story.  BREATHE.
The world belongs to God.  BREATHE.

Maybe you need to do this a few times.
Let this be your prayer.
Let God meet you here.

What's rising up

Daily Devotion - May 30

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Last night was filled with destruction and devastation. The impact is staggering.  Beyond protesters, and even rioters, are those who are taking advantage of our city's pain to sew more division and hate.  The emergency responders are overwhelmed; the nights are feeling long and dangerous.

But the mornings are different.

Neighbors are coming into the street and cleaning together.  Business owners whose restaurants or stores were damaged are being surrounded with love.  Organizers are organizing. People are responding.  

Belonging runs deeper than division, and we are here for each other.
Here is an example:

Yesterday, Kate Kunkel Bailey posted this on Facebook:

 

But this is why I love Minneapolis.

If you drove down Lake Street today, you would have seen literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of people cleaning up. You can start to imagine in your mind how it might not be long before the corridor is prettier than ever. Maybe you would have joined in, and you would have been welcome. The air smells acrid still—anguish does not immediately disappear simply for having been released. But a cool, fresh breeze is blowing, and birds are singing, and you would start to believe that healing can happen.

And if you followed Minneapolis folks on Twitter today, you would have seen the community rallying to care for its own. What problems do we face today in our city? Grocery stores and public transit are closed. In food deserts this matters. We need diapers, formula, food. It might be days before we can get out of our neighborhoods, people said.

And here you would have seen the organizers stepping in. Here is what to bring. Here is where to drop it off. Here, Minneapolis, is how we care for our own.

And when you dropped off your donations, here is the bounty. You were not alone, wanting to help. Our neighbors are fed.

We will do this again, if we have to.

I know that it’s hard to think of rioting as anything other than wasteful, but look at what is already rising up from it. It is not relevant, whether you condone or condemn rioting. It has happened. What is relevant is what you do next. We do not have to waste this moment.

What I know of my city is that it is good at making much with little, when it needs to. What I know of my city is that radical love lives here, too, amid the corruption and pain.

What I believe is that love wins.

Photo credit: Patty Mathews

This is part of the story.  This is not the whole story. The world belongs to God.
The pain and anger and sorrow, the destruction and fear and violence, the deep, systemic inequity and generations-long injustice, the longing for peace and justice that comes out in both wise and terrible ways is part of the story.  So is the love and care, the resurrection breaking through, the way that from these ashes a new city will be born, is already being planted right now with brooms and gloves and tears.  That's part of the story too.
 The world belongs to God.

____________

Here is a list of clean-up events, food drives, and places to donate.  See how you can help.

If you are looking for a specific, local, no-contact way to help, Sanford Middle School has this request:Teacher Elizabeth Berry Novak shares:
The school that I teach at is facing some hardships right now due to the murder of George Floyd.
There are 168 kids from Sanford Middle School living in the 3-block radius of the 3rd precinct. Many have younger siblings. Public transit is closed and their walkable stores have been destroyed. School Nutrition Services are also closed and many of these families need food and basics. We’ve also learned that some have tested positive for COVID19. Here's how you can help, and please share this:
- SUNDAY May 31 from 10am-noon: Drop off of food kits (see below) in brown grocery bags to the Sanford parking lot, 3524 42nd Ave S, MPLS. (curbside, you don't have to get out).
As far as we know, these grocery stores are still operating; pls check hours, and remember the curfew at 8pm: Longfellow Market, E. Lake Street MPLS; Lunds, Ford Pkwy St. Paul; Whole Foods, Snelling Ave St. Paul; Cub Foods, Hiawatha and 46th Street, MPLS.
WE NEED: 85 food kits! A good list follows; please make sure each kit fits in one brown grocery bag:
- 1 loaf of bread
- 1 package tortillas
- 1 bag rice
- 2 cans beans
- 2 cans soup
- 1 small bag apples
- 1 bag baby carrots
- 1 box cereal
(Note: non-refrigerated items in case power is still out and/or it takes an extra day to deliver)
WE ALSO NEED: Small jugs laundry soap and diapers. Just pick a diaper size, we'll figure it out.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

 

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Guide me through today, Lord.
Help me watch for the whole story.
Help me take in the terrible parts.
Help me take in the beautiful parts.
Help me see the part I play in the story.
Root out the sin and division in me,
plant me in your love and fill me with hope.
The world belongs to you.
Amen.

Stay here

Daily Devotion - May 29

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Deep breaths, beloved ones.

Here's a psalm for you today, from the paraphrase, Psalms for Praying, by Nan C. Merrill. 

Psalm 90

Eternal and Immortal One,

You have been our refuge in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth,

before You had formed the earth and the world, 

from everlasting to everlasting,

You are the Alpha and the Omega.

When our days on Earth are ended,

You welcome us home to your Heart,

to the City of Light,

where times is eternal

and days are not numbered.

You gather those who love you

as friends returning from a long journey,

giving rest to their souls.

You anoint them with the balm of understanding,

healing wounds of the past.

For our days on Earth are a mystery,

a searching for You,

a yearning for the great Mystery

to make itself known.

The years pass and soon the 

Harvest is at hand,

a time to reap the fruit of

one's life.

Who has lived with integrity?

Who will reflect the Light?

Who can bear the radiant beams of Love?

Who has reverenced the Counselor,

and opened their hearts to the Spirit of Truth?

Teach us, O Beloved, to honor each day

that we may have a heart of wisdom.

Awaken us, O Holy One! 

Too long we have been asleep!

Help us to wait in Silence

listening for your gentle Voice;

Strengthen us with courage

to face the fears within.

I, that we might be converted in our hearts

and walk together in peace and harmony!

Let your Love be known to the nations,

your Glory to our children's children.

Let the grace and gentleness of the

Holy Spirit be upon us,

guiding our feet upon paths

of Love Consciousness

Increase the Light within us - 

O Beloved, hear our prayer!

Amen.

Right now, there are many emotions. So many emotions that we don't stop to tease out what they are.  The feelings point to needs that are met or unmet - deep values, qualities for life's flourishing as it was made by God for all human beings.  But we don't stop to look at what those needs are either.  

Let's stop and hear our hearts. 

In listening to one another, among us the feelings include: grief, heavy-hearted, worried, afraid, ashamed, hopeless, overwhelmed, guilty, open-hearted, torn, angry, perplexed, disturbed, outraged, devastated, anxious, numb, mistrustful, distracted, despondent, numb, angry, stunned, overwhelmed, sad, anguish, uneasy, dread, baffled, burnt-out, enraged, sad, compassionate, tender, exhausted, apprehensive.  

We are feeling these things because shared human needs are not being met, and we are deeply longing for: closeness, stability, to know and be known, connection, community, harmony, integrity, security, consideration, safety, to understand and be understood, justice, value, equity, belonging, mutuality, rest, cooperation, equality, respect, closeness, competence, contribution and mourning.

What are you feeling right now? (This list can help).

What are you needing?  In other words, what are you longing to see fulfilled?  (This list can help).

It's hard to bear grief. It's painful to sit in sadness.  It's hard to feel lots of things all at the same time.  We want to find a way out of the feelings, and right now there isn't a way out.  In hanging up the phone with someone today, I found myself starting to say, "Hang in there," but that felt weak, like avoidance somehow.  So I changed it to, "Go be sad."  

Mourning is holy work.  

Feel the feelings. Name the needs. Breathe.  Return to the truth that we all belong to God, and we all belong to each other.

Lament. Repent. Pray. Repeat.

Let's try to stay right where we are. Right where God can meet us. 

Tonight we hold our city in prayer and love, trusting from death will come new life. 

______________________________

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

This is an important one. The news feeds are relentless, the interpretations and analysis are plentiful, the emotions are high and the shock is real.
Most of us have not been still or silent. Most of us are reeling and flailing.

So if that is you, please do this tonight.
And if it's not. please do this tonight for us, holding the rest of us in peace and love.

Sit somewhere comfortable.
Light a candle if it helps you be present and remember God is present.
Set a timer for 5 minutes.

Take two deep breaths, all the way to the bottom of your lungs, and let the air out slowly.
Sit in silence.
God is here.
Listen around you.
Listen within.
God is with you.

Amen.

Part of the Story

Daily Devotion - May 28

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

(photo of 12 inch chunk of ash from the Lake Street fires 

on parishioner's grass, several blocks away).

Today the riots in Minneapolis have spread around the Twin Cities. Things are unfolding quickly.  The Cities are is in anguish.  

Some of us feel paralyzed by sorrow.  

Yesterday I found a way forward in in "lament" and "repent." Today added "pray."

This morning a congregant texted me. (I share this with her permission).  "I woke up to the smell of smoke from my open windows. At first I didn’t know if someone had a bonfire or if it was coming from Lake Street. The more I read, the more likely it seems to be from Lake Street."  

I couldn't respond. I was just then taking in the news from last night - the widespread destruction, the death, the unquenchable anger and sorrow, holding up Martin Luther King Jr.'s words, "Riots are the language of the unheard." We are watching the city wail. I felt unmoored by it.  I tried to gather my thoughts to respond to her, but before I could type anything, she texted again,

"This is not the whole story. This is part of the story. The world belongs to God."

These are the words we printed out on cards and mailed out to each other when the pandemic began. These are the words hanging on my fridge.  

When I read them, I felt myself land.  Physically, I actually felt a ka-thunk in my body.  YES.  Her words brought me back.  I felt myself breathe again.  I know this. I trust this.

We can look right at it all--and we should--and say, "This is part of the story."

Oh Lord, hear our prayer! God, have mercy!

But we also say, "This is not the whole story."  

Because it isn't.

For the next few minutes, we found ourselves supporting each other, she and I. With humor, reminders of God's presence, dipping in and out of our morning routines, and with the deepest truth and last word: "The World Belongs to God."

She said, "I keep looking at my backyard. It’s so green. There are flowers everywhere and the peonies are starting to bud."  

"And yet there is stench."

"The discord between the stillness and beauty and the faint but persistent smoke smell."

"The kids toys are sort of strewn about the yard, which adds promise of movement."

"And then I smell smoke again."

I took it in. I breathed. It felt holy.  

"God, in your mercy."  I responded.

Gratitude welled up in me. The moment felt sacred.

I had been seeking solutions, the right words, a place to stand, something to do, answers, a place for the confusing mix of emotions.  And she gave me back the deep reminder, and the holy work.

"This is prayer." I replied. "What you are doing right now. Noticing. Taking it in. You are praying."

And so, that is our holy work today.  

We pray.

We pray. We don't have to have answers, theories, conclusions, clarity, or even words. We don't have to solve, or understand, or know how to process what's happening, or know what to ask God for.

We just have to notice.

To hold in our gaze all the things and let them in.

The joy and pain, side by side. That life is filled with horror and beauty, both. 

We notice, we hold it up and see it.

And we trust that the world is loved by God. 

We trust that God is here. This part of the story is  honored, shared, joined, held.

And then we trust that there is more to the story than this.  That we allbelong to God. We all belong to each other. As broken or lost as that sometimes feels, it cannot be broken and will not be lost.  And even in the brokenness, healing happens. This is an important and painful part of the story.  This is not the story's end. 

All day I have felt myself saying, "God, in your mercy..."

I've been lamenting, repenting, and praying.

That means also receiving the gifts of this day - the beauty, the way life renews itself all around us at every moment. I've stopped by houses and seen faces I haven't seen in three months. That filled me with joy. I planted new green things into the rich, black earth, under blue sky.  These things are part of the story too. And they are not the whole story.  

Both-And.  

But no matter what, now, and always, the world belongs to God.  And the end of the story is love.  It's the love we are longing to see right now.  

So we watch and we pray.

_____________

Can I help in some way? 

If you are looking for somewhere to donate, something to do to help in some way, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, a block from the center of yesterday's riots, is serving as a medical site and response team. For more, and a link to donate, see this facebook post today from my colleague, Rev. Ingrid Rasmussen, pastor at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church.

______________________________

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other:

Tonight, perhaps we can practice both lamenting and repenting, through speaking or singing these words, until we've felt ourselves emptied out and filled up.

Prayer of Noticing:
What can you notice today?
What feelings, longings, moments, events rise up?
 Let whatever arises come.
Respond to each noticing with, "God in your mercy..." or "Oh, Lord, hear my prayer" or "Thanks be to God."

Breath

Daily Devotion - May 27

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays) 

while we are pausing gathering in person. 

- Kara

Our city is grieving, angry, weary.  I have written and erased so many words. I am grieving, angry and weary, and I don't have any words today. 

But my friend, Pastor Jodi Houge, shared this with her congregation today, and it spoke to me. I am grateful for her words.

Breath

The amount of time that we have all spent thinking about breath lately seems staggering. I'm not interested in virtue signaling or an echo chamber because it doesn't lead us anywhere we haven't already been. And I'm tired of the loop.  It's Pentecost this Sunday--and the Spirit blows so hard on those gathered that it feels like everything is coming apart. Perhaps it's time for this to come apart?

We already have a virus that steals breath. And now, we are surrounded by images of a kneeling police officer squeezing the very breath out of a man named George Floyd. While I can't actually find someone to blame for the virus, I do know the collective sin of white supremacy is one I inherited, benefit from and want desperately to be free of. I want things to change because I love your kids and your babies and the expectant parents on the cusp and I want them to grow up without fear. I don't want anyone to have to fight and beg to breathe.

Scripture tells us: "We shall not kill." Lutheran theology takes us to task with a proactive regarding that commandment: "We are to fear and love God, so that we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbors, but instead help and support them in all of life's needs." Baseline: do not kill one another. Next level: help one another live. Racism, church, does not help us live. Not any of us. I have waves of panic when I think specifically of our sweet adolescent boys who are brown or black skinned. George was someone's baby.

Now, there are 10 million actions steps you can take--they are all being heavily circulated right now. But perhaps first we take a minute, a breath, to repent. Because none of those actions steps create real change unless there is change within our own hearts and minds. And as a person of faith, I believe that is holy work. That is the Spirit. That is God-breathed and will bring life.

________

OK, a few words, after all...

When God breathes into dust, life comes where there is no life.  I want to join God in building a world where our belonging to God and each other is the lived reality.  

Our faith gives us two responses, both of which we avoid because they're uncomfortable, and they're honest; they make us face and feel our powerlessness instead of giving us the illusion of power.  But these holy tasks return us to the core of our humanity, and empower us to participate in God bringing life. They are Lament, and Repent. 

When we lament we bear the grief and don't turn away from it. Mouring upholds our shared humanity; it honors the ones who are lost. It keeps us connected to how things should be by bearing the pain that they are not that. 

And when we repent, we confess the brokenness around us, the sin and lies we have absorbed and perpetuated. We come honest to our hearts, so Holy Spirit can cleanse and ready us for the freedom and newness God wants to bring in us and through us.

So today I am returning to breath. I'm lamenting and repenting. 

God, breathe life into the dust of us.
Amen.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Tonight, perhaps we can practice both lamenting and repenting, through speaking or singing these words, until we've felt ourselves emptied out and filled up.

Breathe on me, breath of God.
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love
what thou doest love,
an do what thou wouldst do.

What I'm loving...

Daily Devotion - May 26

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays) 

while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

I asked Rev. Jenny Warner, from Valley Presbyterian, in Portola Valley, California, if I could share this poem she wrote on Sunday.  She said yes, and then said she'd just shared something I wrote too.  One thing I am loving about this time is those moments the Church feels bigger, feels more like it really is.  I'm seeing people supporting each other beyond our own lives and communities, finding connection and inspiration all over, and bringing it to each other.

What I love about Jenny's poem is that it feels brave and daring to use "love" in this way. I don't love this time. It's easy to feel like I don't love anything about this time. I am enduring this time, finding moments of contentment, and even glimpses of joy, in this time. But loving?? No.

But when I ask myself, "What do I love about this time?" I feel a different kind of space open up in me.  And I made myself write it above, "One thing I am loving about this time..." It shows me that there actually are things I can say next.   It makes me want to spend more time with that prompt.  It makes me view my day with a little more curiosity, a tiny bit more openness to wonderment and gift.  I am grateful for the possibilities that arise there.  

What I love about the masks

What I love about the masks
Is they are a visible indication
Of an internal decision to protect,
to guard,
to say your safety is more important
than my lipstick
or even my smile.

What I love about six feet apart
is that I see you
and I honor the space you may need
to remain whole,
to celebrate the next milestone,
to feel my reverence
at your very being.

What I love about staying home
is that your unvarnished face
has become more beautiful.
Your presence,
the never deserved,
but always welcomed
declaration of a Good creation.

May all of this distance
be a drawing near.
That I may guard your soul
as I guard the droplets flying from my mouth.
May this distance
create a sacred seat in my soul,
always awaiting your arrival.

Another child of Grace
seeking wholeness,
finding a little more peace,
knowing your blinding glory.

Jenny Warner • May 23, 2020

CONNECTING RITUAL:
Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

God, here's what I hate about this time:
I hate... because I am longing for...
I hate.... because I am longing for...
I hate... because I am longing for...

Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy on me.
Tend my soul in my sorrow.
Give me grace for myself in my grief.

God, it all comes back to love.
Even what I hate points me back to love,
by showing me what I care deeply about,
and reminding me of the gift of living.
My life is a gift.

So, God, here's what I love about this time:
I love.... because...
I love... because...
I love... because...

God, thank you.  Christ, keep my soul in your love.
Thank you, Lord.

Amen.

What ended up happening instead

Daily Devotion - May 23

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)

while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Acts 16:6-15, 40

When a story unfolds, it’s impossible to say it could have happened any other way. Think of your own stories of childhood, or college, or career, the places you’ve lived and the friends you made and the choices that have shaped your path.  Taken together, they are your story.  Would you be the same person if things had happened differently? 

If you had said yes to the other job offer, or come a few minutes earlier and met different people in the school registration line? If you’d gone to the camp the week before or after and missed the speaker whose words lit up your soul?  

I can play this game with my life very easily.  What if I hadn’t stopped spontaneously for that DQ blizzard which I ate in hours-long, standstill traffic with the rest of session, and instead had been ten miles further up the freeway where the terrible accident occurred?  What if my seminary roommate hadn’t gotten sick, and the person she was proofreading for hadn’t had me pinch-hit in her place? (spoiler- I married the guy.)  What if I had ended up randomly assigned to a different group at that conference in New Jersey twelve years ago, where I met someone who would become one of my closest friends and colleagues? (shout out, Jodi!).  

If any one thing in any of our lives were different, the whole story would be different. 

 

That happens to Paul in our scripture today, and to Lydia too.  First of all, the story begins with a pretty bossy Holy Spirit, who keeps shutting down Paul’s plans and pointing his group in directions they hadn’t planned to go.  But by this point, Paul is used to the Spirit’s wily ways, and has learned to pay attention to curious things, like dreams.  And then he gamely goes wherever it seems like he’s being led.  And so they end up in Philippi.

 

When they get there, who knows why Paul didn’t start with synagogue there like he did other places?  Why were he and his companions wandering along a river outside the city on this fine Sabbath day, instead of checking in with the powers that be in their local religious gathering?  What had they heard about this “place of prayer” that they set off to discover it?  And when they first saw it, it was nothing to them.  They had no way of knowing then that it would become a sacred place for them, a quiet and holy place they returned to often. 

 

And surely, as they walked along that day, they had no idea their lives would be changed by a person they were about to meet “by accident.”  And she didn’t know her life was about to change either.  This “seller of purple cloth,” an established businesswoman who happened to be in this place of prayer that Sabbath day, was a worshiper of God- meaning, a Gentile who followed the God of Israel.  She had joined with other women on this day of rest in a place they liked to go pray and talk about God together.  In other words, without yet knowing what it was, they were being Church.  And on that one innocuous day, God brought together these two leaders.  God had plans they could not possibly have imagined.  

 

All over this story we see the fingerprints of God, the breath of the Spirit, blowing the story along, leading and prompting people into situations they could never have imagined, and yet, looking back, could never imagine their life without. 

 

So Paul meets Lydia.  And when he tells her about Jesus Christ, God opens her heart, and she knows what Paul is telling her before she hears it. The message he shares resonates deep in her being; it is meant for her, she is meant for it.  

 

She knows right then this is her story, and she’s ready to live it.  Immediately she is baptized – her whole household is, in fact.  And she urges Paul’s posse to stay with her, and then once again, their plans shift.  I love this wording, “she prevailed upon us.”  She prevailed and they relented.  So they stay at her house and are embraced by the lavish hospitality of the first Christian convert in Europe.  

 

This Jesus-follower’s house becomes for the road-weary little band a kind of home base, a place to eat home-cooked food and sleep in clean sheets and wash their clothes, a place they return to for comfort and care, where they go to find themselves again. 

 

Lydia quickly becomes for them the friend you keep in touch with over years and distance, the one you can send friends to when they’re passing through town and she will throw open her door and hug a stranger over the threshold.  “Any friend of Paul’s is a friend of mine!” she’ll laugh as she takes your coat and boots.  That will be Lydia’s house.

 

And later on, when Paul and Silas are locked up and then released from prison, Lydia’s house is where they’ll go to rest up and get sent out again.

 

God invites Lydia into ministry, quite apart from Paul’s initial plans or intentions. Then, from different paths in different parts of the world, God weaves together these two souls, so that one day, if they were to look back they would not be able to imagine who they would have been, or where their lives would have gone, if they hadn’t met one another in a seeming coincidence on that one day back then.  

 

And it wasn’t just the two individual lives that were changed, but the Church that was coming to life.  Here and there, spreading and growing in homes and communities, in lives changed and hope shared, the Church was shaped by Pastor Lydia, Leader Lydia.  Lydia’s house, Lydia’s table and her message, her influence and her energy, her hospitality shaped the Church in Europe.  She embodied the gospel message that Paul wandered around telling people about.  

 

And how did the message Paul preached get jolted and altered when, instead of the Jewish man from Macedonia he’d dreamt about, expected and intended to meet – the person God introduces him to is a Gentile woman who already knew, but was waiting for an introduction to, Jesus the Christ?

When Paul wrote to the Church in Philipi, his letters most likely got delivered right to Lydia’s house, and can you imagine our bible without the book of Philippians?

 

We have plans, and God overrides them.  We have expectations, and God thwarts them. We have assumptions, and God rearranges them.  We have our ideas of what makes a good life, and God gives us a good life, sometimes quite in spite of and apart from those ideas.  This God of love and redemption is never not up to something.  Even here, even now. 

Here and now especially. 

God is always bringing the world to wholeness, bringing people back to God and each other, and this cannot be stopped.  

 

One of the joys of this life is that we get to look back and see how what unfolded is how we got where we are – especially those things we hadn’t planned on or prepared for.  We get to notice how the things that happened along the way were part of God’s work in us. And we can see how some deeply meaningful people and impactful moments were often not things we set out pursuing or expecting, but were what ended up happening instead.

 

This time we are living in right now was on none of our calendars. We had other plans.  We had ideas about what makes our lives good, and for most of us, it wasn’t this.  But here we are.  What will God do with us in this place? How will these weeks and months get woven into our stories? How will they alter the meaning or direction of our lives?   And what will God do not just in us, but through us, because of this unexpected turn?  Each of us, but us together as well - how will the ministry of our congregation be shaped through what unfolds in this unusual and unforeseen chapter?

 

The breath of the Spirit is blowing our story.  All over our lives are the fingerprints of God. These days hold moments that, one day, we will never be able to picture our lives, or our church, without. God has plans we could not possibly imagine.  I look forward to looking back and seeing what they were.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

God, I had not planned for this time,

but here I am.

Thank you for the ways you've prepared me, like...

Help me through the parts that I'm finding difficult right now, like...

Thank you for the gifts I couldn't have anticipated, like...

For what you are doing that I can see, thank you.

For what you are doing that I cannot see, thank you.

For the future you have in store for me, and for all of us,

thank you.

Amen.

5-4-3-2-1

Daily Devotion - May 23

I will send a brief message each day 

(except Monday) while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

The world smells magical in Minnesota right now. Lilacs and Lily of the Valley and lots of other flowers and plants I don't know the name of permeate the air with boldness. To walk around my neighborhood is to pass through one scentscape after another.  And the colors, everywhere you look, are vivid: vibrant greens below and above, and flashy flowers left and right.  The earth feels alive and joyful.

The world sounds magical too. The birds are loud and busy.  We've opened our windows, so right now, in addition to the raucous birds, I am hearing the neighbor playing scales on the clarinet, a lawn being mowed, a dog barking in the distance, and Andy chatting to the neighbor over the fence.

Some moments are hard. For me, most of this morning was hard.  But some moments feel easy. And this one right now, that smells like joy and sounds like summer, is a gift. 

This is reminding me of a common practice meant to help deal with anxiety, but which can also help ground us again in our life, and let us experience gratitude for what is - or at least notice what is so we can receive it.  

It's called 5-4-3-2-1.  It goes like this:

 

5: Acknowledge FIVE things you see around you. 
Say them to yourself, "I see my window frame. I see the tree outside the window..."

4: Acknowledge FOUR things you can touch around you. 
Your hair, the texture of your chair, your feet on the ground, the table in front of you...

3: Acknowledge THREE things you hear. 

The refrigerator humming, your stomach growling, the dog scratching, a child laughing...

2: Acknowledge TWO things you can smell.
What smells are right around you? Or go somewhere with more scents - smell soap in your bathroom, or step outside and sniff the Spring air.

1: Acknowledge ONE thing you can taste.
What does the inside of your mouth taste like—coffee, or the sandwich from lunch?

In the hard moments, this is available to us, grounding us again and letting us be receptive to God's presence with us in the moment. But it's also available to us in the easy moments, when we want to truly receive and not overlook the gifts right here and now.


CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

A prayer of gratitude, using 5-4-3-2-1 in retrospect:

God, thank you for this day,
come and gone,
the only May 23, 2020 I'll ever have.
For five things I saw today...  I thank you.
For four things I touched today... I thank you.
For three things I heard today... I thank you.
For two things I smelled today...  I thank you.
For one thing I tasted today... I thank you.
Thank you for your company today,
in what I saw, touched, heard, smelled and tasted,

I thank you.
Rest my soul this night,
and ready me for tomorrow.
Amen.