New Beginnings

 

Epiphany: Matthew 2:1-12, Journeying through the Bible: Numbers 27, Joshua 1:1-9, 3-4

So here we sit at the beginning of a new year. New years are funny, because things are no different on January 1 than they were on December 31. But it’s a new beginning nevertheless, because from where we started counting, the world is now 2025 years after the birth of Jesus Christ, instead of 2024. 

Actual new beginnings happen in our lives all the time, tangible shifts that redefine and redirect us, like starting college or a new job, retiring or moving to a new state, being given a new diagnosis or a new grandchild.  And then there are the new beginnings that become a new beginning because everyone treats it as one, like new years. So, happy new year!

Our culture would have us seize hold of this declared beginning; new year new you! It’s a new chance to take control of our lives, to start over where we’ve slipped in our self-improvement projects. To set new goals, buy new stuff and subscribe to new apps. There is nothing wrong with setting goals or using tools to help us meet them. But the story we are sold about what a good life is tells us it’s all about us, and all in our hands, and even newness must be managed and controlled. 

Who wants to hear about what we can’t control? We got the genetics we got, were born to the place and people where we started, affected by whatever is currently polluting the air or water or zeitgeist, and our lives are tangled up in larger systems and structures mostly beyond our say so. And we are each limited, singular humans, with only so much time, only so much capacity, only so much ability. But good grief, what kind of new year message is that? Being honest about limitations is zero fun. Being vulnerable, or needy? blech. So, let’s keep reaching for control instead. And starting over at it every year! Maybe one year we’ll master it all. 

All our scriptures today are new beginnings. And, surprise! They tell a different story about what a good life is, and who shapes our lives and the world. 

It’s Epiphany, so we meet again our regular new year’s visitors: Magi, traveling from afar, bringing gifts to worship God coming into the world. This was never in their life plans or new year’s resolutions. But they lived open to the direction of something outside themselves and responded when the call came. They ventured into the unknown, deferential to the uncontrollable, obedient to the call, and in the home of a peasant woman and her carpenter husband in a nowhere town 500 miles from home, they met God incarnate face to face.  

The magi departed from that place changed. They were set on a new path, with a new perception of the universe and everyone in it, and belonging to a new, small and very diverse community of those who had been in Christ’s presence, and who would now be watching together what God was doing in the world as ready and willing participants in God’s unfolding story. 

Next, we jump backwards 1400 years before the birth of Christ. Where we left off our journey through the bible, the people of God, called to be a blessing to the world, were living in the wilderness, learning to trust God to take care of them, and allowing their identity to be reshaped from slaves who existed to prop up the empire to the people of God called to be a blessing to the world.

We meet up with them today in a new beginning moment. They’re ready to enter the promised land and settle in the new home God has for them. We didn’t read the first story assigned to today, but it is depicted in our picture for the day, so it feels only fair to summarize it. As the leaders began planning for how land would be divvied up once they got to their new home, following the male family lines, 5 sisters with no brothers whose father had died came to them and said, why should our family line die out in the land because our father had no sons? We should be given land too. So, Moses brought their case to God, and God said, They are right. Change the law. When the people entered the promised land, they did so with a law that was more just, because these sisters spoke up, God heard them, and the leaders listened.

So now we come to the threshold moment, the old is ending and the new is about to begin. The people of God called to be a blessing to the world have been living in liminal space, neither here nor there, biding time, learning trust and being shaped by God. And now they will be going home. 

But to go from wandering to settled, they will need to cross the swollen, raging river. They will pass through waters of rebirth, waters of deliverance, waters that remake identity. For us, these waters are baptism. For them, the waters that had released them from the death of slavery and ushered them into new life 40 years before was the red sea, which had parted miraculously so they could cross over into safety in the care of God. This is the story that has shaped them, the experience of God’s saving hand of grace to the generation before them. Their own understanding of God and trust in God has been shaped by their parents’ stories of God’s faithfulness. 

Now it’s their turn. In front of their eyes, the water separates, and God makes a way where there was no way. 
And the presence of God and care of God is known not just in stories now but felt in their own bodies– their feet pressing into wet sand and slimy stones, the smell of the damp river bottom, the hot sun and wind on their faces, the astonishing sight of the water itself participating with God in their new beginning. 
God who has been faithful before is faithful now, and will be faithful again. When they came out of the waters they were changed, set on a new path, with a new perception of creation and their place in God’s order.  They were God’s people, called and led, who would now be watching together what God was doing in the world as ready and willing participants in God’s unfolding story. 

They mark the experience with a symbol, stones from the riverbed stacked up as a signpost, and Joshua tells them, “Your children will ask about these stones, and you are to tell them about God parting the waters here as God did at the red sea. Worship God always.”

Inside an ancient story, the same faithful God is always bringing new beginnings. They don’t come from our efforts or control. They come in our endings, our impossibilities, our stuckness, arriving in our places of death and loss that feel like they might define us forever. Sky and water, stars and rivers, strangers, babies, sisters, leaders, long, arduous journeys and staying still for long, long stretches all are part of God’s work. God’s beginnings surprise us, leading us into the lives of new people, like the watching, ready Magi. God’s beginnings use our vulnerability and voices to change the way forward for others, like the brave sisters. God’s beginnings bring us home with continuity and hope, like the children of God coming out of the wilderness into the promised land. However it happens and whomever it involves, God is always bringing salvation and healing, new life, hope and renewed belonging. Always. 

As we begin this new year, lots will be changing in our country and our government, in the global landscape and in our neighborhoods, in our work places and relationships, and in our lives and even our own bodies in ways we don’t yet know and can’t yet see.  

But hear the words of God to the people of God standing on the brink of a new beginning: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.’

Maybe instead of naming all the ways we intend to be strong and courageous because we’re so self-guided and goal-driven and in control, we might admit we’re not really in control, and enter this new beginning honest with ourselves about our vulnerabilities and fears, truthful with each other about needing one another, and open to God incarnate who is with us wherever we go, who leads us where we might otherwise not go, and who will meet us face to face where we could never imagine. 

Maybe we enter this new beginning listening, open, watching and ready, helping each other remember and trust that God who has been faithful before is faithful now, and will be faithful again. 

God’s new beginnings are personal, but never individual. When redemption, hope and new life happen to one of us, other people are always involved, and even sometimes creation, and the newness impacts not only us but blesses the world. The Holy Spirit changes us, sets on a new path, gives us a new perception of the universe and everyone in it, and we are rooted more deeply in our belonging to an old, vast, and very diverse community of those who have been in Christ’s presence, who are watching together what God is doing in the world, ready and willing participants in God’s unfolding story. 

2025 years after joining us in person, how will this faithful God show up this year? 

I can’t wait to find out.

The way we decide

 Acts 1:1-17, 21-26

Things have been a little weird and intense for the disciples since Jesus was murdered by the state and came back from the dead. Judas has died by suicide.  The community has been pretty much in hiding.  Then the risen Lord started popping up places.  He’s kind of the same but different, both unrecognizable and completely familiar, both available and not. For a little over a month, he’s been showing up here and there, walking along with some of them down a road, coming through locked doors and eating fish, hanging out with them day after day and teaching again like before. And now, he has just literally vanished into the sky before their eyes.  
 
This weekend we celebrate the Ascension – the day Jesus disappears into the clouds and leaves the disciples staring up into the sky with their mouths hanging open. They can feel his absence where his presence once was. And yet he promises he will be there with them in a different way, guiding them nonetheless.
  
So now a new adjustment, a new assignment: Jesus said to Stay Put and Wait for the Holy Spirit, whatever that means.  That’s their job.  So that’s what they are doing. Constantly devoting themselves to prayer, it says, coming together, helping each other learn to trust that God is here now, and God will lead them into what is next. 
 
And then we are given a bizarre and delightful illustration of this trust in action. They are trying to decide who should replace Judas in their leadership.  And they have two good options before them, Justus, and Matthias, both followers of Jesus, who knew Jesus in the flesh, both men of integrity, both willing to serve. Whom should they choose?  
 
Do they make pros and cons list? Debate with Robert’s Rules of Order?  Launch campaigns and take a vote, the 120 or so of them?
 
No! They draw straws! They flip a coin, roll the dice, “cast lots.” They use a game of chance to take things out of human hands.  
 
There is nothing intrinsically spiritual or holy about this.  We don’t think flipping a coin at the beginning of a football game is asking God to choose which team should start. We don’t think God is involved when we play paper, rock scissors over who has to put the kids to bed.  Casting lots was just used by the soldiers two months before to divide up Jesus’ clothes among themselves while he hung dying on the cross, so it’s not like lot casting is some inherently God-seeking process.  But when it comes time for the followers of Jesus to pick a leader in witnessing to Christ’s resurrection, they roll the dice.
 
They don’t ask themselves WWJD – What would Jesus do if he were here?  Because Jesus is here!  He’s as real among them, among us, as when he walked the earth in the flesh. They’re learning to trust that this is so.  So why not ask Christ to pick and then flip a coin? 
 
The Ascension means that Jesus can’t be captured and boxed up, marketed, claimed, or relegated to the past as a venerated historical figure we make reference to but never address directly.  Jesus is risen and ascended.  Now the community has to learn how to live in the paradox of our faith: that Christ is not here but is HERE. They have to look for Christ, learn to be present to the presence of Christ, listen for the voice of Christ, in and through, and alongside one another. We can’t see him, we can’t touch him, and yet, when we are present with each other, acting with and for one another, Jesus Christ is right here in that space, energy, connection between us.  We are the body of Christ.
 
How do we hear God?  Sometimes it feels like a quiet little nudge that leads us just the little next step, or the wisdom that sinks into our soul when something in us says, “Yes. That is right.” But mostly, we hear God by listening together. By surrendering together.  Waiting for the Spirit to direct us. And then acting.  
And then surrendering and waiting again.
 
This way of discernment is brazenly different than the world’s way – which is fast and decisive.  Wayne Muller reminds us (in his book Sabbath), 
 
"The theology of progress forces us to act before we are ready. We speak before we know what to say. We respond before we feel the truth of what we know. In the process, we inadvertently create suffering, heaping imprecision upon inaccuracy, until we are all buried under a mountain of misperception. But Sabbath says, Be still. Stop. There is no rush to get to the end, because we are never finished. Take time to rest, and eat, and drink, and be refreshed. And in the gentle rhythm of that refreshment, listen to the sound the heart makes as it speaks the quiet truth of what is needed." 
 
We talked this week in catechesis class about trust – how trust is the core of it all. Our security in life or status with the divine not about cracking a code, earning a prize, or figuring out the rules. To be in relationship with a living God must begin with trust—that God is real, and that God wants to lead us all toward love, toward healing, toward forgiveness, toward righting wrongs, and bringing justice, and birthing hope right in the places of utter despair.  
 
So maybe God makes the coin flip one way and not the other.  God is certainly capable of that.  May we too have such trust in God.  
 
Or maybe God thinks it is cute that they are so intent on replacing Judas, as though having 12 disciples like Jesus had originally chosen when his ministry began, a reflection of the 12 tribes of Israel, is essential for what is to come. As though their structures and containers are vital. Of course they have no idea that just days from now that wild Holy Spirit is about to bust the gospel out of its confines and jumpstart it’s spread to the ends of the earth through witnesses who have never seen the human Jesus with their own two eyes, nor heard his voice speaking in a language they wouldn't understand anyway, but who will definitely hear the message their hearts recognize beyond all else, and see the risen Lord transform their very souls.  And they don't know it yet, but the 12 are actually the 120 of them, and about to become 3,000 in one day, and Matthias is never mentioned again in the bible.  
 
So perhaps when they cast lots God chooses for them.  Or maybe it doesn’t matter one way or another to God, but God appreciates their intention just the same.  God is with them even now, as they faithfully seek to do God’s will, and that in itself is beautiful and holy. Whether their decision has any effect on things or not, that they would surrender and seek is shaping them all the same.  
 
Their imaginations can’t begin to grasp what is to come, and so they faithfully make their decision, and then suddenly the whole landscape shifts, and then they will seek God’s direction for the next thing. What more faithful way to live is there than that?
 
We are not building a movement, standing up for values, or shoring up an institution. We are joining in the Kingdom of God. We are witnesses to resurrection, learning to recognize and share in the healing work of the living Christ that is happening right now.
 
Yesterday the youth cleaned out the sanctuary, or got started, at least. After 14 months of emptiness and clutter, regular dust and construction dust, and spiders gleefully given free reign, it was a big, big job, and the youth made a big dent in it. When they peeled down the images of the bible characters we began journeying with in Advent 2019, and unpinned the Psalm river hanging on the back wall from not last summer but the summer before that, I was struck by the ways we’ve grown in our own faithfulness and discernment.  There are things we thought mattered a great deal that turned out not to be important at all. And there are things we had no idea would be significant that have turned out to shape us considerably. 
 
We are not the same congregation we were when we last sang and prayed together in that space. Case in point, when we left the building we had only just discerned, after a year of prayer and listening, that our building was indeed part of our mission, and we would say Yes to the preschool.  Now we will return to their presence already among us.  And we ourselves are different. We have lost beloved members and gained beloved members.  Our ways of feeling connected have changed and, in many ways, even deepened.  
 
When the whole landscape shifted we never, ever could have imagined what was to come, so we had to seek God’s direction, surrender and wait for the Holy Spirit, and then act. And here we are again, on the cusp of another huge shift, a new adjustment.  And our imaginations can’t begin to foresee what is coming.  But as witnesses to resurrection, who know the power of the risen Lord to bring new life into our lives and our world, we will keep helping each other learn to trust that God is here now, and God will lead us into what is next.  And we will keep learning to recognize and share in the work of the living Christ that is happening right now. 

And what more faithful way is there to live than that?
 
Amen.
 

Dying to Labels, Rising to Love

St. Joseph & Baby Jesus, by Jason Jenicke

ADVENT 4: Love (Grace Embodied, Part 4. Go here for Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3)

Matthew 1:18-25

Our text says Joseph is a good man. A righteous man.  He has an impressive pedigree and follows God’s ways. On paper, he seems like a solid choice to be the father of God incarnate.

This is comforting right off the bat, because we like to know who are the good people, and who are the bad ones. These are really helpful categories in our world. Knowing what makes people good and what makes them bad helps us aspire to be good people, and also  to know who the bad people are upfront so we can reject them in good conscience.  

It really messes with us when those we thought were good turn out to be bad, or those we thought were bad do something good. 

We like our categories clean. We like our aspirations clear.

But in the bible, when we start out thinking people are good, we often discover they’re not.  And more often, the people God chooses don’t even start out good to begin with – consider Adam and Eve, Sarai and Abram and Hagar, Solomon and David, the judges, kings, and prophets, and every one of the disciples.  "Good" is not something the biblical narrative is concerned with upholding.  In fact, it seems eager to tear it down.  Perhaps because if God chose the good people, the always upright, clearly worthy and obviously noble people, we might assume that their goodness is the reason they are included in God’s plan.  And while we often tell the story of our faith that way, that is not at all how the scriptures themselves tell it.

If God cared about upholding some standard of goodness God could easily have waited a few months until Mary and Joseph were properly married.  Nothing unsavory or disreputable, no need to put Joseph in such a conundrum or make things awkward and potentially life-threatening for Mary – who could legally be stoned for being pregnant by someone other than her husband.

But God is out to shatter our belief in what is right and true, what is earned and lost, important and marginal, and pull us instead into a different reality, one of wonder and mercy and trust, where God sets the terms, not us. We are creature; God is creator. We are made to receive ministry and share it with others, by a God who ministers to us in our need. We are not made to earn, or prove, or uphold something on our own.

God moves in impossibility, and not through our credentials or categories, or whatever ever false gods or measures - whether outside or inside religion – that we have erected to judge ourselves and separate ourselves. 

To participate in God’s backwards and upside down reality, we have to shed the upright and clear-cut ideas we’ve put our trust in, the ones that tell us who we are and how we should be, and whether we are good or bad. In order to be ministers, we have to release what we thought we were or should be. We have to face and let go our false selves, in order to find our true selves loved by the source of all Love.  

Our good-personness must die, and we must be resurrected into the grace of God who claims us, not because we are good, but because God is love. 

Joseph starts out this story a good person. And then he becomes a good person in an impossible situation.  His contracted fiancé is pregnant. It is not his child. He prays and frets and grieves and then he resolves to do the only good thing, the right thing in the eyes of God: to dismiss her quietly.  Dissolving their marriage contract will cause her as little risk or embarrassment as possible, and it will preserve his own dignity, honor and reputation as a good and righteous man before God.  This is what God would want him to do.

Nope. The angel tells him. It’s not. God wants you to do something else entirely.

God redefines "faithful" for Joseph. It doesn’t mean good. It means coming-alongside.  Getting your hands and your reputation dirty. It means living in impossibility.  

This is not your child.  And yet he will be.  You are to name him and raise him and love him.  And you will walk in the shadow of the whispers your whole life.  Up against your doubt, inside of this foolishness, you will live, right there against your own fear and questions and inability to even to control your own life or narrative, you will be asked to be faithful.  To accept what God is giving you and follow where God is leading you.  And you will take on guilt. You will appear to be something that you are not – this child’s father, and in so doing, you will become his father after all.  

Joseph goes from upstanding, ethical guy, good person, to one who must constantly trust up against his doubt. He must trust again and again that there is more going on than we can see, and must be willing to live into the unknown where the rules that made sense yesterday no longer hold sway. He will let go of who he thought he was to become who he is meant to be.

But it’s not just his understanding of himself that must change. It’s also his understanding of God.  Before he proceeds, he needs to decide who will be God- the god who he thought god was?  The one that called him to be a decent human being, a good person who minds his own business and is worthy of admiration and respect, in a world of competition and scarcity and judgment and fear and earning God and human favor, where women get stoned for adultery and the “right” thing to do is to dismiss her quietly and go about your business? 

Or the God who comes to him in angel and dream telling him that there is something beyond what we can see and hear and touch that is impossible but real? The  God who invites him to step into a different reality from here on out, one defined by love and standing-with-you-ness, and grace unearned and forgiveness unmerited, where everybody has enough and nobody is dismissed, quietly or otherwise? The God inviting him into a future that is unfolding right before him in foolish and backwards and extraordinary ways?

When he gets up from that dream, and does what the angel tells him to do, he enters into a conspiracy with God that undermines the whole system by which the world operates, and so he will forever be outside it, judged and misunderstood, but he will also be set free.  

The old way is dead for Joseph. And he has no choice about that.  The new way opens up before him and he gets to say yes to that.  He will join Mary and Elizabeth and Zechariah, in bearing this secret, this absurd glory, that nothing is impossible with God, that the creator of the universe is coming into this world, alongside us. 

And you, Joseph! You will be the first to hold him in your arms! You will give him your parentage and so also your lineage- through you he will be in the line of David as prophesied of the Messiah.  

And it will be your job to name him “God with us,” and raise him, not as a good person who is respected in society and honored in the community, but as a vagabond and a subversive, who dines with outcasts and sinners and operates by a different playbook. He’ll live and preach not good and bad, but grace and redemption, forgiveness and freedom, connection to God and each other, abundance, gift and shalom-wholeness for all.  

So do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.  Love her. 

Name the child Jesus.  Love him.  That is your calling.  

And so Joseph wakes in the world a different person than he lies down to sleep.  His old life dead. He rises to into a life defined by love.

God’s love is where it all begins and where it all ends. A force so great it has no opposite, love made us, claims us, and draws us in share it with each other and find our true selves in that sharing.  Love is the reason God created, the reason God came in. That nothing might keep us from this love.  Not even our efforts to be good, and worthy of such love.  

To participate in the way of Christ is not to seek to be good and avoid the bad, but to be faithful, that is, broken, honest and real, to trust up right up against our doubt. It's learning to trust again and again that there is more going on than we can see, and being willing to live into the unknown, letting go of who we thought we were to become who we are meant to be.  It's lonelier and more uncomfortable than just going along with the clear-cut labels and aspirational categories the world provides.

But it’s also what sets us free to truly receive the vast and bottomless love of God, the love that comes spilling out in forgiveness and mercy and peace, hope, and joy, and moves through us into the world. 

Tonight we lit an Advent candle for Love.  Come and find yourself held in that love.

Dear Congregation...

(Pastor's Annual Report for Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church)

Sunlight streaming in the glass wall between us and the lake, we were sitting in the library of St. John’s Abbey, pondering, What describes our life together right now? We had all just shared what characterized our own personal lives, the themes we were seeing unfold this year for each of us, and now our attention had turned to LNPC.
What is God doing in and through us in this chapter? 
How is God leading us to respond? we wondered.

Every year the leadership team of LNPC goes on a retreat to discern and plan for the next year.  This year the stories that came out were about new babies and new visitors, about Marty’s illness and our longing to care for him well, about some of our older members moving out of their homes.  We began to envision ourselves as a circle, like a donut, the community forming a loving and protective ring, with our most vulnerable members in the middle as our center, our guides in ministry.  And some of those who used to be in the center, we noted, like our younger members, were now moving to the outside. They were able to help care for others and take on expanding roles and leadership, while some who had been strong for others now shifted into the center where they could be held by the rest of us with attention and compassion.  This flowing shape of movement, change, strength, vulnerability, care and hope was a vision we all shared, and what we felt described who we were called to be this year as a congregation.

I love looking back on that day, and seeing that indeed, we’ve lived into that calling this year.  Caring for one another in our vulnerability, belonging to one another and to God – being the people who define ourselves that way and practicing it with each other- has been the focus of our life this year, the shape of our hospitality.

So, now to the question I asked each of you to answer...

How have I experienced God this year?

I personally experienced God profoundly in the care of the congregation when I was laid up for two weeks after foot surgery: prayers, cards, visits, food…  It’s excruciating for me to feel helpless; I am much more comfortable giving than receiving. This was a beautiful learning and growing experience for me, and a chance to glimpse church from another angle. Thank you.

When we gathered around Marty on Palm Sunday and laid our hands on him (a ring of children touching Marty and the rest of us surrounding them), and commissioned him to a Ministry of Dying, I felt God’s presence.  I continue to experience God in Marty’s ongoing courage to share honestly with us his journey of dying, and his willingness to allow us to be in it alongside him as it unfolds.  He is teaching us how to live even as he is facing death.  I am so grateful for Marty, his strong and gentle spirit, and his desire to live fully and wholly.

Marty on election day,
showing off his collection of
campaign pins from the past

I experienced God in Lee Widga’s funeral – which felt in some ways like the end of an era, a generation that has shaped this congregation with love and tenderness, handing it on to those who are to come.  The patterned dishes his beloved Agnes helped pick out decades ago and the silver tea set were used to host his funeral, the way Agnes had hosted for so many others, for so many years.  God’s faithfulness glimpsed through the light of Lee’s life.  It was a holy day.

I experienced God in the vibrant life and wiggly newness of this year – Helen's and Robby’s baptisms, Baby Louisa’s birth, Jonathan, Brittney and Laurel Anne’s joining, the cohort of tinies and their parents that have made us their community of worship: Helen, Ava, Laurel, Ben, Robby, Svea, Louisa: This is your church, little ones, and we are so blessed to be your people of hope and faith!

I experienced God in our Saturday services, worship designed to give space and rest for prayer and connecting with God.  As a pastor, I am trained to help shape people’s beliefs and thinking about God, (and I do love preaching)! But in these services, it’s my job to hold the space and get out of the way, letting God encounter each person however they need to be met.  That takes courage, and trust that the Holy Spirit is the one who mediates our encounter with God (not the pastor!), which I believe, but it makes me practice and renew that belief on a regular basis.  Every time, I am humbled and grateful, and reminded that when we stop, God will meet us. This is true.

I experienced God this year in the “milestones” times in Sunday worship, sharing the ordinary, notable moments of our lives with each other, and in the prayers, being able to hold each other’s grief and joy, and lift up our prayer for the world in a way that feels shared and powerful.  We are not alone.  And again, God is right here.

I experienced God in Sunday school with our kids, who, in case you didn’t know, are paying attention to life and God and questions.  And I get to sit in that with them, and we wonder together, and explore together, and think about how we are going to teach you grown ups the things we are wondering about and exploring each week.  That is a gift.

            I experienced God in the way the community has supported and empowered me to share our life and learnings with others.  I led a marriage seminar with Andy in Michigan in February, led worship for a Pastor Sabbath event in Kansas City in April, and was the keynote speaker for another Sabbath event in October.  In November I served as a Spiritual Director at an annual youth ministry conference, doing one-on-one what I see my role in ministry as with our whole congregation, that is, noticing together what God is up to in our lives and in the world, and seeking to join in.  Every year when I do this, I feel regrounded in my calling and strengthened for my work with you.  I also led a Sabbath workshop there that was attended by forty-some tired pastors and youth leaders, who left feeling hopeful and inspired by the stories of our life together.  I wish so much that you all could see the ways God is using you in the larger church to bring a message of restoration to so many other congregations and individuals.  Our life together is more unique than you may realize, and people are hungry for experiences of rest, belonging, and trusting in the Way of God instead of the Way of Fear. 

Our story was shared by the Duke Journal of Leadership, Word and World Journal, and Horizon’s Magazine, including visits from a reporter and photographer for a few weeks.  I coached two other pastors through beginning their own Sabbath pattern in their congregations, and gave ongoing advice and direction to a pastor and D.Min. student designing a Sabbath retreat component to congregational ministry with parents and children in his large congregation.  Session recognized these things as an extension of LNPC’s ministry and my own calling, and shifted my job description in October to begin formally including 10 hours a week on “special projects,” with the front and center goal for now being to write a book.  I want to tell you I have begun this, and it is really hard, and I am really grateful for the encouragement and accountability the elders are giving me.

 I experienced God in the many ways other people and communities intersected with us this year.  We joined with six other South Minneapolis congregations to host a racism workshop by Penumbra Theatre company, (a follow-up to our series in Lent on racism), and hosted a half-day grief workshop for the community with Beth Slevcove, author of Broken Hallelujahs.  Iris Logan’s mosaic

Westminster's Day Camp!

pieces and Anne Tiller’s quilts provided the backdrop for so much joy and life within the walls we share.  Westminster’s children flooded our space with songs, games, and stories for their weeklong summer camp (And even though Westminster’s building construction will be finished then, they want to come back next year!).  The young people from St. Joe’s came over for Movie Camp for the 6^th delightful year, finding themselves and their world within the parables of Jesus.  Did you know a whole class of spiritual directors from Sacred Ground were trained in our space this year?  And that classes for women coming out of prostitution were held here too? Did you know that La Leche League has been gathering in our building for years and years, and every Tuesday I get to see new little babies come through our doors?  Did you know that a spiritual director meets with clients upstairs, actors practice in the basement, Girl Scouts gather here, and there are so many other people we never see, who think of our space as their own place of sanctuary, learning, support and hospitality?  Speaking of this, I am so thankful for Central Fellowship and for Iglesia Fuego Pentecostes, for whom we get to provide space to gather as church, and with whom we share trust in God’s love and a calling to love others with unrelenting faithfulness.  Gorgeous.

Of course, one amazing way I experienced God this year was through Lisa’s own journey of discernment and eventually ordination to Minister of Word and Sacrament, where another one of our crazy “what if…?”s became a reality.  Not daunted in the least by a financial barrier, session moved forward in trust with what they knew God to be calling us to, and the money followed.  And we got to hold this enormous party, welcoming friends from around the country to celebrate with us what we experienced all along but now made official: Lisa is a pastor to this community.  I say it every year, but I am grateful beyond words for her collaboration, creativity, and depth of care for this community. 

When Dee had to move to assisted living, the community rallied, visited, brought housewarming gifts and treats.  Dick hung pictures and Sue drove over some furniture.  Lisa supported Dee’s niece, Kathy, as she did the hard work of getting Dee to accept a new home, and even though it wasn’t easy, it was a good thing. 

Visits with those who can’t come to worship have been lovely.  Remember when we tried to sneak a visit in on Lee, but he was such an avid internet guy at 95 that he’d read the announcements and knew ahead of time that we were coming, and told us when we got there that we were an hour early?  And not just visiting, but all those who drive with others, picking folks up for worship and special events! I experience God in all the ways this community is in it together – meals, prayers, cards, calls, chomping at the bit for a turn to pay for housekeeping for Marty – you all love each other so well and it is beautiful to behold.

I experienced God in our garden blessing for St. Joseph’s Home for Children at the end of May and our neighborhood prayer walk service in July, moments of recognizing God’s presence and sharing God’s blessing in the world around us.  

And what great conversations we have!  From our chatty Coffee and Donuts with the Pastor, to PW’s theological digging around the women of the Bible over yummy cakes, to Adult Ed discussions, Connections monthly gatherings at Fireroast Café, and our summer Home Church services, we find solidarity, learning and support with each other in conversation. We are lively talkers.

I experience God in the generosity and faithfulness with which LNPC handles money.  Did you know that, between our monthly tithes and our monthly food shelf giving, (which alone totaled $4000) when the year is out this little congregation (with a 2016 budget of $160,000) will have given over $20,000 to other small, shoestring ministries, organizations and congregations this year?  The thank you notes we get back tell stories of God’s ministry unfolding all over our city and country, and we get to be part of that! At the same time, others are part of what God is doing in and through us – Westminster, in particular, continues to be a huge cheerleader and financial supporter of us.  We all belong to each other, and it’s all God’s ministry; we are the grateful, joyful participants.  

And did I mention yet the wisdom and thoughtfulness of your session? Discerning and intentional, we had some deeply memorable experiences together this year – particularly I am grateful for our meetings with Brittney and Jonathan, and Chris and Jen.  Bearing each other’s joy and pain, your leaders are leading with integrity, insight and compassion.

I experience God through those who sneak in and do things around the building to make it more hospitable for others – Gary repairs things regularly and Kathy keeps things clean. Folks from Fuego Pentecostes come in early Sunday mornings and scrub down the basement, then go home and change into church clothes and come back in the afternoon.  Remember on Palm Sunday, when we arrived and the glass front door had been smashed? The police with their dog checked out the building, then, during Sunday school a few people swept up glass, a few more built a temporary wooden replacement, another person called a glass repair shop and by that afternoon the door was good as new.  Every week Linnea and Jose change the sign, and they serve as hosts to parties that rent the basement on weekend evenings.   Linda D. has slipped in countless times and sorted and organized choral music. The water cooler gets magically filled, the coffee cups in the gathering room get washed from time to time, the sanctuary gets decorated, the communion bread gets baked, the front walk gets shoveled, and it’s not always the same person!  What an impact those with quiet gifts and hidden blessings have on our community.  “We all share responsibility for the ministry of the church” is one of our guiding convictions, and I witness this in action all the time.

I experience God in the unexpected moments that spring up out of nowhere.  On our family vacation to the Black Hills, I found myself on a side journey to visit Dick’s son’s grave, outside the former sanatorium where he lived as a child.  It was so moving, and a deep honor to pay respects there.  
A couple of weeks ago Jeanne and I found ourselves sharing conversation, soup and coffee with a homeless couple who had stopped by the church building.  They ended up keeping one of the crosses from our collection – a cross Barb Day had donated some time ago that said, “rooted in love,” that brought the woman great comfort to imagine carrying with her. When I emailed Barb in Florida and told her about this, she wept at the thought of that gift being a passed-along blessing to someone else.  I am telling you, we DO belong to God and we DO belong to each other, we humans, and that is not a shallow or simple thing.  It calls us to be deeply present, willing to suffer with each other and see each other, and willing to allow ourselves to be seen and known as well.  We meet Jesus, who is with and for us, when we are with and for each other.

In more ways than I could describe or count, I experienced God this year in our life together. We are not trying to be perfect, but to be present, to remember that we are free to be for one another and God.  And we learn from our missteps and keep adapting as we go, seeking always to keep asking, What is God doing now? And now? And what about now?

I am so grateful to be your pastor and co-journeyer in this messy and exquisite life of noticing God, following Jesus, and being with and for each other.

Here’s to another great year!

Kara