On Holy Week Worship with Kids

(Adapted from a message sent to my congregation's parents and grandparents)

Dear Parents and Grandparents,

Just a word about Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services as it relates to children:

I have no childhood memories of Good Friday or Maundy Thursday. Of course my understanding of the story of Jesus involved the Last Supper, his death, and the cross, but my tangible, communal experience of Holy Week moved from the playful joy of the Palm Sunday processional to the redemptive celebration of the resurrection the next Sunday on Easter.  Other than my mom’s private prayerful practice of fasting half the day on Good Friday, that day didn’t register much for me.  

In retrospect, the experiential, communal, church story of Holy Week for me was mostly positivity and cheer.  It wasn’t until much later that I came to experience the darkness of the cross: the experience of God with us coming into our suffering and bearing it with us. The powerful recognition that the shadows are as much a part of our journey as the light, and that in Christ, the place God most promises to be is in those places of sorrow and suffering.  Truly, we are not only not alone, but God brings life out of the death of us.

The world is filled with fearful things. Kids do not miss this. They feel life’s pain and see it in the world around them.  That Jesus takes all suffering into himself, and into the heart of God, is a promise for all of us, no matter what age.  

My family has been coming to Good Friday service since my children were very young.  At LNPC the service is multi-sensory and moody. We read through the end of Christ's earthly life contrasting the seven last words of Jesus with the seven days of creation.  Many people in the congregation stand to read scripture, and our readers are all dressed in black. It feels different in the sanctuary than it does on Sundays, or on our cozy, warm, candlelit contemplative Saturdays. There is a somberness and solemnity to the evening, it's sad and a little bit uncomfortable, as we extinguish candles one by one and end in darkness. The service ends with a loud bang, and we all leave the sanctuary in silence. 

For my kids’ whole childhood they have attended Good Friday service, and since they were in car seats, we have driven all the way home from church in silence (beginning by hilariously reminding a toddler each time she'd forget - every 90 seconds or so...). We don’t speak until we set foot in the house.  A few years ago, I forgot this.  My kids met me silently at the church door and we walked to the car without speaking, and then I remembered, and felt grateful that they'd held the silence when I’d forgotten.  

 

We’ve talked this Lent about the “liturgies” that shape us (here, here, here, and here). The counter-forming practices of our faith tell us the real story, when so much around us tells us a different story.  God comes into all of it alongside it, to bear it with us and for us. God is not just there when things are going smoothly, or when we feel happy and upbeat.  God comes into the scary and sad parts of life – we are not alone.  This is the real story.

 

I want to encourage you not to avoid bringing kids to Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services, no matter their age. We absorb stories by experiencing them alongside others.  And Easter Sunday feels far more significant when witnessed and felt within the context of our whole salvation story.  

We are all church together, and we worship just as we are, however we are.  These worship services may open up interesting conversations in your family. At the very least, they offer a shared experience that speaks to us in music, darkness, scripture, ritual, and communal practice.

 

Blessings this Holy Week.

 

Kara

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.

Gratitude Day

Daily Devotion - March 15

I am sending a brief message each day to my congregation while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

We gathered for worship today online/phone! 
It was so good to see people's faces and hear their voices.  
Wherever we are in our journey of faith, when we come together - no matter how that happens - God meets us!



In worship:
We come to see the big picture,
to praise God, and remember whose we are.
We come to share the truth, 
as children of God, to recognize who we are.

That happened today!

Some "Kingdom of God" sightings were shared:
- People singing together from their windows and balconies in Italy
- Neighbors who help a woman who has lost mobility, into and out of bed each day, so she can stay in her home
- a teacher in Milwaukee organizing a online form for people to share resources and needs with each other
- Our own neighbors and neighborhoods, which feel we are noticing and caring for one another more intentionally this week

Where have you seen the Kingdom of God this week?

What experience made you notice people belonging to each other?
What experience reminded you of God’s nearness and love?

Sundays following worship, we are taking a sabbath break for the rest of the day - or at least a few hours.  Get outside, if you can. It's gorgeous out there.

Here's a poem, shared by Parker Palmer a few days ago, to bless your day, followed by an end of the day connecting ritual.

Peace!
Kara




CONNECTING RITUAL:

 

Perhaps tonight, before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might all say this prayer, and so join our souls:

A Litany of Gratitude 
Let yourself go, free association style.
Say your thanks until you are finished.
Wait a minute, and say a few more.
Then say Amen.
 

Thank you God for...
Thank you God for...
Thank you God for...


Amen.

Being Church

Daily Devotion for Being Apart - March 14

While we are pausing in-person gatherings, I am sharing a daily devotion email with my congregation. 

- Kara

When I was 18 years old, I backpacked around Europe for a month with two friends.  We were on our way back from 5 ½ months in West Africa and the Canary Islands.  As fun and life-changing as this adventure had all been, I was feeling a bit homesick and road weary.  We had settled in for a couple of days at a youth hostel in the middle of Amsterdam, right outside the Red Light District.  We were about two weeks from coming home; it was Good Friday, and I was craving, of all things, church.

My friends were content hanging out at the hostel, but I desperately wanted to find a church to worship in that night.  I asked at the front desk about churches in the area, and assuming I meant to sightsee, they gave me a map with a couple cathedrals circled and I set out.
I followed my way to one large church-building and found it abandoned, with spray-painted words on the bricks and the doors chained and padlocked.

From there I wandered  through twisting streets as the sun was setting, frantically searching for another church.  I gazed up at the horizon for steeples, seeking out their buildings beneath, only to find them empty, locked and dark when I arrived.



It was getting dark, and I was getting more and more frightened at being out alone at night and on the verge of lost.  Finally, not wanting to be caught alone in the Red Light District at night, I gave up.

When I arrived, frazzled and despondent, back in the brightly lit hostel, I heard the laughter and conversation from the community room, and did not feel like being with people just yet.
I was deeply disappointed, lonely, and pining for something I couldn’t put my finger on.  I shuffled back to the dorm room and climbed up onto my top bunk.
 

All the other beds were empty at the moment, their occupants down in the raucous lounge or out on the town. I reached in my backpack for a roll I had left over from lunch.  And an orange.  And I sat in the middle of my bed, peeling the orange and laying the segments in a little pile.  Then I dug out my pocket bible from the bottom of my bag and spent a while trying to find the part where Jesus broke bread with his disciples.

I finally found it and read it.  

Then I took the roll and I prayed. 

I prayed that it could be communion.
That somehow, even though I was alone, even though I was far away from the people I loved, even though I couldn’t find any community to share communion with, even though I had a dinner roll and an orange, instead of bread and wine, that somehow this moment would be communion.
 

Then I closed my eyes and ripped a chunk off the roll and put it in my mouth.

When I had finished chewing and swallowing it, I picked up an orange slice, held it in my hand for a moment, closed my eyes again and then placed that too in my mouth.

And next to the loneliness I felt a grace and warmth.
I felt like I was part of something bigger going on all over world, this eve of Easter Vigil.
I felt like I wasn’t alone.
I felt like I had gone from being tossed on the breeze like a loose kite to being firmly planted on the ground. Oddly and momentarily secure. 

I might still be swaying a bit, but Somebody had anchored my tail with their foot.

It was a sacrament -  Jesus Christ came close and united me with the Body of Christ – even though I was apart from them in the moment.  I hadn’t wanted to go see churches; I had needed CHURCH. 

WE are the Body of Christ.
Christ is present in and with us in a real way.
God’s promise to be near to the world is given form in us. 
We can’t begin to understand what this means, except to accept that somehow, when we come together in worship - even when we are physically apart - God meets us here.

We are the place. This is the touchstone.  All of us.
All of the us’s all over the world. Gathering together in worship.

All over the world tomorrow, people will be gathering together apart. The Church will be assembled, in living rooms and bedrooms and kitchens, on telephones and computers.  

If we could see a map of THAT, that would be something indeed.

Some things are sinking in for me today about the strangeness of this time we are in.  It's challenging to be in the midst of something without a clear end in sight.  When will life go back to normal?  Nobody knows.

It's hard for us not to know things. It's even harder to know that there is nobody who knows.

The temptation might be there for you, like it is for me, to read as much as I can. It's as though I think, layered under an armor of information, I can face whatever comes.

But this isn't true.
We are vulnerable. We are confused. And we don't have answers. 
That's just part of what's real for everyone right now.

What made a difference for me was preparing for worship tomorrow.  
When a few of us worked to set everything up for us to "gather" from wherever we are- by computer and phone, and worship God together, I began to feel grounded again. 

We need Church.  

Worship reminds us that we belong to God and to each other.  
Our service will be different, but it will also be the same.  
We will share prayers, sing, hear a sermon, and check in with each other.
I am so grateful that we are doing this.  
It will be good to praise God together.
It will be good to remember we belong to God and each other. 

Even though we are apart, we are not alone.
We are part of something bigger happening all over the world.  

We may keep swaying a bit, but Somebody is anchoring us all the same. 
It will be good to feel firmly planted again.

See you tomorrow, Church.



CONNECTING RITUAL:

Prepare for worship tomorrow:

• Find a candle and some matches. 
• Set up your computer or your phone, make sure you have the call-in number or web address.  
• Consider what you may want to ask prayer for, and where you've experienced God this week.  

And, perhaps tonight, before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might all say this prayer, and so join our souls:
 

Holy God who cannot be contained,
you make your home among us,
between us,
within us.

We are afraid.
But you are trustworthy
Help us in our fear.

We are weary.
But you are our rest,

Help us find our rest in you. 

We are confused.
But you hold all things.
Help us in this unknown.

We are vulnerable.
But you are strong,
and you came into weakness.
Help us in our frailty.

We are lost,
But you are the way through.
Help us trust in you.

Give us peace now as we sleep.
Hold us in the love of Jesus Christ,
now and forever.
Amen.

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 78^th 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

The Story we belong to

Romans 8:14-17, 22-27
Acts 2:1-21
To celebrate Pentecost we walked through the journey we've taken this year- from September through May through the Old Testament on a path that began outside and took us past symbols of all the stories and into the chancel, where we took a "family photo," gathered around the table for communion, and then settled in for a recap of our journey.

The world - created for a
peace prayer service

Normally, Pentecost is a great celebration of the Holy Spirit.  Which it is.  Or it is a birthday party for the church  - where it all began.  Or it is a recognition that the gospel is for all people and without bounds.  It is all of these things. But for us today, it is a chance to lift up the story – the whole story of God – because of Pentecost we, this little group of people – are part of it. Today is a day to stand in Pentecost and look back at the parts of the story we’ve told this year.

So let us begin at the beginning.

In the beginning…we met God.  The delighted artist, who created, of all things, LIFE, and then made in God’s own image those to share it with, to nurture life along with God. And all things were in harmony, interconnected and free.  And it was so very good. And we declared that God brings life out of nothing, that we belong to this God, and that God celebrates life and rests, and invites us to do the same.                                                                                                           

   

The tree, where we nailed things
that separate us from God and each other

And then we watched as in the middle of that creation God put a tree – God’s own vulnerability, the chance to be rejected, chosen against by God’s own image-bearers. And the people did so; and the relationship was broken.  But God meets us where we are and we can never drive God away, and so the story continued.

After some generations of people it seemed the world was full of evil and relationship between God and humanity, and between human beings, was seemingly broken beyond repair. So God planned to wipe out creation and start over- but first plucked out Noah and his family and some animals – a sample, if you will.

But by the time the roaring waters receded, the remorseful God repented, and hung the bow in the sky to symbolize that God would never again destroy the world that God loved. 

The people may be unable to choose God, but God would never again choose against them. God promises never to gives up on us, no matter what. 

And the Story continued.

 Some generations later God adapted strategy yet again, to bless the world through one family, and so Abraham was called to be a blessing. But true to form for the God who likes to bring life out of nothing, Abraham and his wife Sarai could have no children.  

And we sat here and listened to Sarah tell her story, and watched her grief as she struggled with this deal God had made with Abraham that both excluded her and depended entirely on her. And we shared her joy in the end when God kept the promise and she bore a son, and we bore witness to the God who keeps promises.

As that son grew to be a boy the relationship between Abraham and God changed; the promise had been given and the dynamic closeness had waned. Then God asked for the unthinkable: that Abraham sacrifice the promise, sacrifice his own son. And instead of contending with God as he had in the past, Abraham proceeded to obey mindlessly, defeatedly, leading Isaac to the mountaintop, knife in his bag.

But God had no intention of letting him go through with it, and at the last minute God stopped him.  And we wondered together if God had wished that Abraham had fought him on it earlier, and either way Abraham was reminded once again that God is relentlessly for us, and unlike the gods of the day to whom the people gave blind obedience, the true God desires a real relationship with real people.  So we learned that God wants us to talk back, we are expected to engage, participate, wrestle.

And the Story continued.

  

When Abraham and Sarah’s son Isaac was grown, he had two sons.  Esau and Jacob. And Jacob tricked his father and stole Esau’s, who sold his status and inheritance for a bowl of stew.  And it oddly appeared that God preferred the less worthy brother, and the mother helped him get away with it because she clearly did as well. 

And Jacob fled.  Then years later, when he’d grown and learned and suffered karma and also prospered, the night before he was about to face once again this brother he had deceived, he found himself wrestling, quite literally, with God, and with all the struggles of his life, all night long, and he is injured, and he wins. 

Broken down and made whole, he exchanged his swagger for a limp, and as he met his brother again we learned that sometimes newness looks like limping. 

And the story continued.   

                                                                                                        

Then we heard the story of Joseph, Jacob’s youngest son, and watched it come to life in black and white and color on canvas as we listened to his dreams, to him being dropped into a pit and sold into slavery by his brothers, and sent off to Egypt, and rising in the ranks, and being thrown in prison, and interpreting dreams, and redeeming himself, and becoming the savior of all of Egypt and many peoples beyond, and finally, being reunited with his brothers and father and making peace. 

Story of Joseph, created during worship by artist Susan Hensel

And instead of seeing God speaking or acting in drama, voice, flood, or overt instructions, God moved behind the scenes, between the people and within the situations, and we know this because all throughout the story we heard the constant refrain, “And God was with Joseph.”

And we saw that God works both within and despite us, and we can actually see God’s work in our lives in both ordinary and extraordinary ways.

  

And the story paused there so we could enter into Advent, but we saw the story continue in the waiting for a savior, in the stories of the prophets’ cry of honesty and John the Baptist’s wild pronouncements and Joseph’s living in a reality he did not have any choice in, and Mary’s dance and words of hope when she stood before us.  

And we watched God move in their lives in very different and eerily similar ways to ourselves, and saw again that this God who made it all and craves connection, and calls us to be part of all this with God is at it again, this time irreversibly, by coming, entering into it, and God is changed as much as the world is.

Then we picked up where we left Joseph and the generations that came from his brothers, Jacob’s sons and their offspring, the twelve tribes of Israel, who had prospered in Egypt for generations until the new Pharaoh was threatened and didn’t remember the story of Joseph, and enslaved the Hebrew people. 

They suffered there in slavery for more than a generation until God called Moses from a burning bush and revealed God’s name, Yahweh, I am, and then led the people to freedom. Only they didn’t go right to freedom, remember?

They stopped for 40 years in the wilderness, the liminal space, the space in between slavery and freedom, where what you were is taken out of you, and you learn what it is to be free, to be God’s people instead of Pharaoh’s people. 

And we learned that God redefines relationship, life and direction in these in-between places, and that sometimes we have to let go of the old before we can step into the new. 

And while they were there, God gave them guidance and direction for how to be free, how to live in a way different than the way of Pharaoh, and we imagined this way together with the kids at St. Joe’s, asking, if we could create a world that was as good as we can imagine, what would it be like?

And they said brilliant things like, all people would feel safe, and nobody would go hungry, and all sorts of other profound and simple things that we discovered were right in the way God had given them to live when God gave them the ten commandments, and that God still delivers us, every single day, if we let God, from slavery to freedom. And the story continued.

Then we met Ruth, and once again, God receded into the background and let the simple, ordinary and extraordinary people’s lives tell the story.

And it was a story of Hesed – that word for which there is no English equivalent but which permeates and indeed drives the whole story of God, Hesed, which brought the world into being and pulses underneath every interaction God has, Hesed, which we saw meant something like “Belongingness” – And in the Hesed of God this foreigner with nothing to offer became a great grandmother of David.

And we saw that an I-will-go-there-with-you God, calls us to be an I-will-go-there-with-you people.

And the story continued...

  

...with David, the boy who became king after Saul, after the people demanded God give them a king and God complied. And we spent an evening reading David’s journals, his laid-open, bare-naked heart when he’s sick or scared, or proud and excited, when he’s hopeful and despairing, he holds it all open to God and these words from his heart and harp became prayers that people have used for thousands of years, giving us words when we have none or when we all want to share in a prayer together.  

And we imagined together the delight of God who longs to connect with us when God hears us share our innermost struggles and joys with God in the words of one long ago who did the same.   

And the story continued.

Then we met Solomon, not nearly as nice a guy as his dad David, but who was clearly a politician and statesman, a man who got things done.  And under Solomon the people of Israel became a real nation like the others, and wealth and prosperity and security was theirs, (along with things like taxation and forced labor). 

And Solomon builds a temple with the plans his father had left behind and it becomes a glorious thing, and even though God can meet them anywhere and always has, God sees that the people need a place to come, where they know they can meet God and God can promise to meet them, and so the temple becomes that place. 

And we recognized that our temple is this shared feast, these people, this gathered community of people, wherever and however it happens. Wherever we are on our journey of faith, when we come together God promises to meet us. 

  

Lord's Prayer in many languages

And then the story paused once again, but really continued, just differently, so we could spend Lent with the Lord’s Prayer, immersing ourselves in it through many paraphrases and the beautiful unpacking of five different voices and perspectives, and discovered, among other things, that we have some pretty great preachers among us, but also that prayer is all sorts of things and that God listens when we pray. 

Then on Palm Sunday we witnessed the people’s, (and confronted our own), expectations that God come the way we think God should, and do the things we think God should, and God comes the way God wants to come and sometimes that looks like suffering and dying for us, and there’s nothing we can do about that but sit back in awe and wonder and gratitude at such a thing.

Then on Good Friday, when we heard the words of God at creation alongside the words of godforsakenness at the cross, and we left in darkness and sorrow. 

But on the third day we returned here to resurrection.  

And we celebrated.  That God who brought life out of nothing brings life even out of death, and desires so desperately to share life with us that sharing death with us became the way life prevails. And so God is redeeming, creating, and entering in every second of every day. 

We heard stories of resurrection from living prophets, three among us who shared how they had experienced God bringing life out of death in their own lives and the world around them, and then we returned to the unfolding story and hunkered down with the prophets.

And now for the past six weeks we’ve hurtled through hundreds of years of heartbreaking loss. The people kept forgetting their story and turning away from God and returning to slavery in all sorts of forms, the nation was split up and eventually decimated, and the temple was destroyed and their identity was forgotten or traded away. 

And God was angry and hurt and frustrated, and gracious and tender and patient, and impatient and sorrowing and overflowing in love, and it went on and on.  And the prophets did their criticizing and energizing thing: criticizing the dominant culture and pointing out and grieving that things are not as they should be, and energizing the people to a future found in God, in the world as God intends it to be.

 We watched Hosea embody God’s grief and commitment, and Isaiah tell the truth of God’s future like it is an absolute fact, and Huldah help Josiah help the people remember who they are and who God is. 

And we had a potter sit in our midst as we heard the words of Jeremiah who talked about God sometimes tearing us down and creating us anew,

King Nebechenezzer
& his golden statue

and then Nebechenezzer set up a golden Bieber statue right in our midst and the children acted out Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego’s refusal to bow,

and we saw how comedy exposes the empire for what it is, and how God’s freedom to be who God will be was upheld in their words, “Even if God does not save us, we still will not bow.” 

And then, finally, we arrived at Malachi, and heard within it words from a Christmas hymn and realized that when love breaks in, when God arrives on the scene in the flesh, everything after and before that moment is changed, and every part of this unfolding story, while it stood alone, also led to the moment when God would come in and redeem the past and the future, and never again be separated from the people God loves in the world God adores.                                                           

Which brings us to this moment.  Pentecost. The celebration of the church.  The Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit within and between us. The whole world involved.

photo taken at the beginning of the service

 And here’s the picture of the prophetic community. You and me and all of us, part of this rich and amazing story. 

This is your story.
And we’ve only told a tiny part of it! There is so much more! – within this book and in the world around us, there is so much more, that, as John says, “all the books in all the world could not contain it.”

So go into the world.  Be people of the story. Do what the prophetic community does:  remember. grieve. hope. talk about it with each other.

This is God’s world. God isn’t letting go.  God is doing something all around you.  Go and be part of it.  Because this story continues!
Amen.