God of Remembering, you ask us to love you with all
our soul, all our strength, and all our mind.We ask in this prayer for clarity of thought and memory, that we may remember
your goodness to us and in turn remember others.
Lord, we pray for those who are distant from you, and
those who do not know you.We lift to you all who need your
saving help and friendship.
We pray for all those who are in need of your
healing in mind, body, and spirit. Remind us that when we care for the sick, we care for you.
Loving God, in the
communion of Christ, we are joined with the sufferings of all. Be with
those who are enduring the effects of the fires which are burning in our area
of witness and service. Protect those in the path of danger. Open
pathways for evacuation and shelter. Help loved ones find one another in
the chaos. Provide assistance to those who need help. Let your love
be made known in those who seek to bring order in the chaos. Help us to
shoulder the burden of suffering, and make us bearers of the hope that is your
healing gift.*
Our Heavenly Creator, you have given us reminders all
around us, as all creation tells of your glory.Help us to remember that the earth and the creatures on it are under our
care, a trust given to each of us by you in creation.May we take this responsibility into our
hearts and minds and act upon it in love.
Lord we ask your blessing upon our community of
faith, and we ask that you look with favor and be gracious
to our guests, members, and leadership.May
the love of Christ compel all us to turn out of ourselves and be ever
increasingly mindful of others.
We ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ
our Lord and Savior.Amen.
*Italicized section from the ELW Armed Services Prayer Book, distributed this week to the Sierra Pacific Synod of the ELCA by Bishop Mark Holmerud in response to wildfires throughout California.
So this scene -- If you
haven’t seen the movie “Goonies,” I guess it doesn’t make much sense.But if you HAVE seen the movie Goonies –
well, let’s be real, it might not make very much sense either…
Chunk and Sloth… best
names ever… they’re just so different.I
mean, so much so that it doesn’t really need to be said, right?Sweet white kid from the suburbs – poked fun
of because he has had too much food available in his life… Versus man born with
extreme birth defects into an evil family who has kept him chained up and
starving…
When they first meet,
Chunk is terrified, of course – at the end of the movie, Chunk vows to bring
him into his family.
Even in a story, how can
people this different be reconciled together into family?
So Chunk and Sloth are so
different that reconciliation together seems impossible – but they are both
human beings.How different, then, is
God from us?We are created in their image
– but we are definitely not God!The
distance is probably even beyond our comprehension.
And we humans – well,
sometimes we are not very good at “different.”Not good at it, but oh how we LOVE
different --We embrace it with outright
glee sometimes.
Giants fans versus –
well, everyone else…
Country music versus pop
fans… Team Edward vs Team Jacob… Coke versus Pepsi…
And one of my personal
favorites – Chicago Theological Seminary vs, say… Luther….
Some of these are fun, no
doubt.But what about when they’re just
not?
What about
“conservatives” and “liberals?”CNN vs
Fox?Light skinned versus dark
skinned?Latino immigrant vs European
immigrant?Sleeping on a bed vs sleeping
on the street?Sick or healthy?College educated versus trade school
educated?Poor vs Rich?My family…. vs your family?
Yeah.We love differences.
Sometimes that enjoyment
is surface and all in good fun – And sometimes we embrace it as our very core,
as our birthright – this is ME and MINE – and that is THEM.
But God – God does
something else.RADICAL, even.
He sees our incredibly
other-ness and loves that other-ness.And not only this, but Paul writes that he
reconciled with us while we were GOD’S ENEMIES.
Enemies.An enemy actively works against another
person.
Yet it is when we, you
and I, are actively working against God’s purposes that Jesus loves us and dies
for us.Jesus refuses to enter into the
“US vs THEM.”Jesus says “WE” and then
proves his commitment to that “we” through his death.
And maybe that should
have been the end of it, right?It is
shocking, radical – I mean, really – it’s straight up nuts –
Jesus walked into rival
gang territory and said “no more division” – all the while completely knowing
that he was going to be killed on sight.
That sounds pretty
futile.Was it a useless gesture?Jesus laying his life down for God’s enemies?
It may be obvious by the
fact that I’m standing up here that MY answer to that is a hard “no” – and with
Paul I’m also very willing to argue that that isn’t the end of the
conversation.In fact, Paul goes on to
say that we are reconciled by Jesus death – and that we are saved by his life.
Now if you’d like to have
a conversation about all the cool twisty and turny ways of thinking about that
statement, I am definitely your girl and I will meet you in my Starbucks office
any time…
But, as much as I would love
that as conversational fun, I think the real point is a lot simpler.I think the point is that God is at peace
with us – but Jesus give us clues during his life of how to live into that
peace and fulfill God’s vision of what that looks like.
And Jesus tells us a lot of ways to do that, but there is one
way that he says is the very first, and that no way is greater – “Love your
neighbor as yourself.”
We can hear this in a lot
of ways – and those ways are influenced by where we were born and where we live
– independent individualism is highly valued in our culture—and this passage
can trip people up because of that.In
fact, I heard in a group this week, “some days I hate myself, why would God
want me to think of others like that?”
But I would suggest that
this is not the way we should look at this statement.Jesus wasn’t speaking to a person with our
individualism values – in fact, he was quoting a much more ancient text –
Leviticus.And Leviticus 19:18 in the
Hebrew reads “Do not bear grudges against other tribes but love your neighbors
as if they are yourselves.”
Not singular.Plural.Love your neighbor as yourselves.Love people of a neighboring tribe as if they are YOUR tribe.
Love the people next door
as if they are the people living in your house.
Wait – what?Who says I have to be responsible for my next
door neighbors like I am for my family?I mean, one side is easy – it’s the Walthers, and they ARE part of my
church family – but the other side?Who
are they?I mean, they’re not unfriendly
– but they are NOT family.
But Jesus says love the
people that are not family as if they are your family.Care for the people outside your tribe as you
do the people inside your tribe.
If you’re a Giants fan –
love the non-Giants fans as if they are.
Love the Buddhists as if
they are Lutherans.
Love the Colombian or Syrian
as if they are Americans.
This is the first,
foremost, greatest commandment, according to Jesus Christ.
I would say – and maybe
this is too bold, but it is my perception—that right now our culture is
experiencing a descent into protective tribalism.Divisions – angry divisions – seem to
characterize our discourse.
I am not talking about disagreements.Or even criticism.Healthy
disagreements and vigorous conversations about them is one way we progress as individual
people and as a culture.
But that’s not what I’m
seeing.I’m seeing that we are in a
hamster wheel of vilifying those who disagree – simply deciding that those who
hold different views on politics or religious or social issues are evil and
maybe not even as human as we are.
That is creating an
oversimplified us and them.We are
dividing along tribal lines and losing a sense of unity and community.It’s true that God doesn’t tell us not to
have tribes – as I said earlier, I think God knows how much we love them – but
we are not treating other tribes the way God commands us.
In fact, it seems more to
be the case right now that if you are not part of my tribe, I am free to treat
you with disrespect, or with violence, or as less than human – using
dehumanizing language in public spaces such as “illegals,” or “deplorables,” –
“Drumpsters,” – “Libtards” – This is not healthy disagreement or productive
criticism.This is separating my tribe
of human beings from your tribe – not human beings.
God knows that this is in
us.But the first commandment – and
Jesus never says this about anything else – the first, he says, and none is
greater – the commandment that should be the very top of our list – before pray,
before confess, before show up at church, before “do this in remembrance of
me..” –
First, the Lord your God
commands you – love the other tribe as if it is your tribe.
Easy words – extremely
difficult actions, right?I mean, I dare
you – next time you’re at Rawhide, sit with all your local fan friends and
cheer super loud for the opposing team.That’s going to be really fun, right?And when it’s something that you feel is deeply important for the future
of your country, or your church, or your children – well, it gets exponentially
harder.
But the good news is that
Jesus doesn’t command us to monitor other people’s actions or obey this
commandment for anyone but ourselves.He
commands us to do it.And there are small
changes even in our hearts and thought patterns that obey this
commandment.We are given opportunities in
which we are confronted with other tribes constantly.How will we respond?
David Frederickson, who
is one of my favorite professors at Luther, said something during my summer
class that I haven’t been able to shake in the six weeks since I was there – he
said, “If you want to experience God in your life, find the radically excluded
and stick to them like barnacles.That’s
where you will find God.”
“If you want to
experience God in your life, find the radically excluded and stick to them like
barnacles – that’s where you will find God.”
I think he’s right. I think Jesus is telling us this when he
tells us to seek out and love those who are outside our tribe. He echoes it when he tells us that when we feed
the hungry or clothe the naked or visit the sick that we are doing all those
things TO HIM – when we treat those outside our family like they are our family
we will find God.
And we want that,
right?How many of us have struggled
with times when God has seemed distant?How many of us long for closeness with Jesus Christ?And here, right here, he gives us a road map
with a big giant X on the treasure.Find
the excluded, the ones outside your tribe – love them and you will find
God.A promise with no conditions on
it.“Here I am,” says Christ.Come and love me.
2 I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. 3 And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— 4 was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. 5 On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6 But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, 7 even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep[a] me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.[b]8 Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, 9 but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power[c] is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
(2 Corinthians 12:2-10)
Something weird about me
and certainly a few other people in this world is that I enjoy paradox.Those things that may seem logical but lead
to an impossible conclusion – or situations that combine things that contradict
each other and themselves – they make my brain hurt, and it feels so good when
it does – and even that is a paradox!!! Have you heard the one
about the impossibility of motion?That
to get somewhere you must always go halfway, and then halfway again and again
and again – therefore never actually reaching your destination? Or the question – if a
person says “I always lie” is that statement true or false?Heh yeah, just think about that one for a
moment!Doesn’t it hurt so good? But my very favorite
paradox is right in this passage from 2 Corinthians...We usually remember
Paul’s conversion story as told by the author of Luke-Acts – riding the horse,
bright light, voice of Jesus, blindness – but here in Second Corinthians is Paul telling us his version.He was caught up – and he tells us two times that he doesn’t know if he
was in the body or out of the body as a vision – into the third heaven, into
paradise. And there he heard
wordless words – some translations say “inexpressible” or “unspeakable,” but
the Greek has “word” in both – wordless words – now THAT’s a paradox to make my
heart go pitter pat, but it gets even better!!The next thing he says is that these wordless words are not permitted
for people to speak – and then he spends the rest of his life trying to
communicate them.Epic paradox, even if
we don’t go on to power found in weakness and the rest of this incredible
passage. I think the reason that I
love this particular paradox so much is because I think that it encapsulates
all of what ministry is – trying to communicate these wordless words that can’t
be spoken – because they hold a message of life and joy and salvation.These wordless words tell us about God, about
us, about the mysteries of life and death – and I would say that there is no
way to adequately communicate these ideas.So instead, pastors take snapshots.Try to communicate a tiny piece – in a sermon, a prayer, a hospital
visit, in communion, in an encouraging word.We hold this incredible infinite jewel and try to communicate one tiny
facet at a time that points to the whole.It’s impossible.It’s a paradox,
trying to communicate something infinite and unspeakable in finite moments and
in words. Paul was comfortable with
paradox.Wordless words, communicating
the unspeakable, power in weakness – and I think Paul’s paradoxes were beyond
the human mind but solvable not because of who he was but whose he was. The thing about pastors,
ministry, and churches, is that the “who” changes an awful lot.But what never changes is the “whose.”We are in a state of constant transition with
infinite stability.And that stability
is provided not by us or anything we do, but by God.The church is not defined by who is in it but
by whose they are. But even in that there is
an incredible, glorious paradox – you see, the church may not be defined by you
and me and our pastors or our neighbors in the pews – but what we do is
incredibly important.It is desperately important
for us and for the world that we are here.It means something. Yes, in a hundred years,
there is almost a 100% guarantee that none of us in this room will still be
living this life – but the church will still be, and what WE do makes a
difference.What we do today in this
church makes a difference in how the love of God is communicated to future
generations.What we do makes a
difference in how the church is perceived and received in the world. What we do as people of
God matters.Sometimes in small ways as
we encourage people, but sometimes in huge ways that we don’t even realize make
an impact. One of the things that I
do at Christ Lutheran is lead what I call “Reconciliation Groups” – they are
basically small discussion groups for CLC host members and members of our
community who are gay or transgender who have been hurt by the church at
large.They have stories to tell, we
have a willingness to ask for forgiveness on behalf of the Christian church.It’s powerful, it’s healing. One of the things that
has been most difficult for me in leading these groups is hearing stories of
abuse to young people that are attached to “I’m doing this because God loves
you and doesn’t want you to go to hell.”This abuse ranges from psychological and isolation to beatings to systematic
sexual abuse to show people that “they aren’t gay.”I have to be honest, I was naïve.I had no idea when I started this ministry
what would come up.That stuff, if I
even conceived it, was “out there” somewhere, and not in my community.Not sitting with me and my church family
trying to figure out how God’s love is present in all of this awfulness. But I told you all of
that to tell you THIS.Every one of the
abuse and trauma survivors say that they are on a journey to becoming healthy
and whole people because someone intervened along the way.And the ways of intervention can be seemingly
microscopic.Someone who asked if they
were having a bad day, whether or not they answered honestly.Someone who told them, even in a small way,
that they had worth, that they deserved love, or that they were loved.Someone who believed them when they tried to
tell them what was happening, even if that person was powerless to stop
it. Every single one of these
individuals has a story of a small way in which their story was re-written by
another person.They say that those
small moments are what prevented them from staying in the pattern and becoming
abusers themselves.The people who gave
them those moments usually have no idea.But the ripples of healing and are incredible.Not only for these people but in those they
interact with, their families, and the pathway into breaking the cycle of
abuse. Whose we are and how we
behave, what we do because of that has an eternal impact.It is another paradox.The church may not be defined by the
individuals within it but when those individuals act upon their identity as
followers in Jesus Christ they then define what the church will be for future
generations. Whose we are matters.Whose we are means that we can bring love to
individuals and to our community.Whose
we are means that at all times we are part of a bigger picture, an epic story,
and an eternal plan.Whose we are never
changes though all around us might. So I encourage you to
enjoy times of transition. Enjoy
your stability in all the changes. Enjoy
the paradox! For the rest, my friends, rejoice, be
restored, be encouraged, have purpose together and be at peace, and the God of
love and peace will be with you. Amen.
Your Son calls us friends, you call us family. In this time of prayer we bring to you our
earthly family, our friends, our neighbors across the church and across the
world, and ourselves who need your care.
Lord,
we pray for those who are distant from you, and those who do not know you, who need your saving help and friendship.
We
pray for those who are in need of your healing in body, mind, spirit, and relationship.
God
we come to you in gratitude for your peace and mercy in the world.We give thanks for the end to the state of
war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.We
thank you for the many people committed to understanding and reconciliation
between peoples in our country and across the world.
God
we ask especially today for your blessing on this community of faith, that we
too may be representatives of your justice and mercy in the world.God we ask that we may see you in the hungry
and give them food, that we may see you in the sick and give them help and
restoration, that we may see you in the abandoned and give them solidarity and
accompaniment, that we may see you in the thirsty and give them water, that we
may see you in the desperate and give them hope.
Our
Heavenly Creator, you have blessed us with your presence; you have not left us
trapped within ourselves, cut off from one another and from you.
May
this love of Christ compel us to turn out of ourselves and become part of the
new creation which you have invited us into.May we be part of your re-creating work where the world is stale and
dark; to the needs right in front of us, in our church and our streets, to
friends and family, to the voiceless victims, to the creation all around
us.Make us ready for the dawn that
awaits the groaning world, when we will see you face to face.
We
ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.Amen.
And immediately, coming out of the synagogue they went
into the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. The mother in law of Simon was lying down and
having a fever, and immediately they are speaking to him concerning her.
And, when he approached, he raised her, taking her by
the hand. And the fever left her, and
she was serving them.
When evening came and the sun set, they were bringing
to him all the ones having illness and the ones demon-possessed. And the whole city was gathered together at
the door.
And he healed many that had illness, various diseases
and he cast out many demons and he did not permit the demons to speak because
they had known him.
And very early at night, having gotten up, he went out
and went away to a desolate place and he was praying. And Simon and the ones with him searched for
him.
And they found him and they say to him, “all are
looking for you,” and he says to them, “let us go elsewhere into the
neighboring villages, so that I may also preach there, for I came for this
purpose.”
And he came preaching and casting out demons in the
whole region of Galilee and its synagogues.
Have you ever had a nagging feeling that you left something unfinished? A project… a conversation… maybe something happened and the way that you…….. -- wasn’t all that you could have done? Maybe something was said and you just couldn’t come up with the right…. – until it was too late. Maybe someone approached you, you felt you needed to do something, and you just didn’t know how to…….. Grace and peace to you from God our Creator and Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior… Amen. That was almost painful, wasn’t it! When our response, or how we respond, is left out -- we have an unfinished story. A discomfort. It can nag at us. Whether a moment ago you were shouting the unsaid word at me in your head, as I would have been doing, or you just wondered “where is she going with this…? There is some level of unease at an action without any response. Our very biology is built on this. We eat food and our body responds with digestive chemicals and hormones that tell our system to extract nutrients. When we are too cold, our body responds with a shiver that warms us. Socially, we are very attuned to the responses of other people. When we spoke, did the other person smile? Nod? Frown? And then we respond – based on THEIR response. This passage is full of responses! The entire town responds to the news that there is a healer at Simon Peter’s house. The whole city! Can you imagine the commotion? Each and every personin the town of Capernaum has some kind of brokenness – an illness, an injury, a demon possession, which in this era might be something we’d call mental illness. The need for healing is a universal fact in this moment. And here they are, nearly breaking down the door, in order to come to Jesus. But before the commotion, before the word gets out and the dust is kicked up and the house is crowded and smelly and full of desperate humanity – something quiet and important happens. Simon’s mother in law has a fever – she can’t even sit up, and she is lying in bed. Adult fevers in ancient Palestine were not a simple thing, nor something usually recovered from. Without antibiotics, infections quickly overwhelmed a person, and by the time she was unable to get up things were probably looking pretty grim. In fact, when Jesus came into the house, “immediately,” Simon speaks to him concerning her. What happens next is remarkable. Jesus grabs her hand – and the word here is not gentle, in fact the same word is used when the soldiers “seize” Jesus and arrest him -- and raises her up. And the fever left her. This is also an unusual word in this Gospel, “raise up.” In the Greek text this word is used in the gospel of Mark two other times – in 5:41, when Jesus “Raises” the daughter of the leader of the synagogue – and they have already confirmed her to be dead and started mourning for her – and, in Mark 16:6 – “he is not here, he is risen.” A special word. Some would argue that this is the first resurrection from the dead story in the Gospel of Mark. It’s important. “The fever left her,” the text says, “and she was serving them.” I have to be honest – I got stuck here! I mean, What kind of sexist garbage is this? This poor woman has been to death and back and the best she can do with that experience is get right up and wait on the guys that have just barged in to her house? Well – maybe it is. Maybe it is the best she can do. Jesus heals a lot of people in Capernaum on this day. He has been to the synagogue and taught – and then healed to show that his teachings have authority. Immediately after the synagogue he comes to this house and then the whole town comes. He heals them all and we are told that he warns the demons not to speak because they know who he is. But what about everyone else? They are amazed at his teachings – they are feeling better – but just like those awful unfinished sentences I spoke a few minutes ago – they don’t DO anything. They don’t respond. Simon’s mother-in-law is different. She didn’t ask for help – she was too sick to even participate. Yet he pulls her from death. Pulls her into new life. She was in a desperate situation, but then she has an encounter with Jesus -- and she responds. She responds by serving him. She responds to the new life given to her by serving Jesus Christ. There is really nothing sexist in this line of text. As the disciples bumble around trying to follow Jesus and figure him out, Simon’s mother-in-law is the first person in this Gospel to really “get it.” Mark tells us that the truest response to an encounter with Jesus Christ is to serve. Simon’s mother-in-law understands that at the very core of her being, and without even thinking about it, shows us true discipleship. She shows us what it means to follow Jesus. And just look at what happens next. She serves them, she is restored to her rightful place in the household, and what happens? Here comes the whole town. Through her restoration and subsequent service an entire town is restored to life and health and wholeness. This Jesus – he comes for us. He strives for us. He pulls us from the brink of death. This is Christ’s work. All we get to do up to that point in the story is be dead. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…” But then – then, just look how much our response matters. Our call is to discipleship and to service, even if -- maybe especially if – the entire suffering and broken town is then on our doorstep, seeking healing, seeking acceptance, seeking community. Seeking Jesus. Remember that 1980s movie “Field of Dreams?” It’s the only movie I can think of that has a genre description “American Fantasy Drama Sports Film.” Kevin Costner plays a corn farmer that hears voices and thinks he needs to build a baseball diamond in his corn field. The voices have told him, “if you build it, they will come.” And they do! Shoeless Joe and his team. They play ghost baseball while Kevin Costner’s wife, who never believed in the nonsense, looks on teary eyed. It's great, isn’t it? So hopeful! But we don’t need to build a baseball diamond – or even a church – for Him to come. The good news is that Jesus is present with us here and now, seizing our arms and fighting to pull us into new life. So then what? All we have to do up to that point is be dead – but afterwards, after he raises us up, what is our response? Maybe then is when we do the building. Maybe we need to build a community that serves and opens our hearts to the lost and brokenhearted and hurting – a community so strong in service to Jesus Christ that we can take in those who the rest of the world has only offered a sense of worthlessness and rejection and love them into healing and restoration and knowledge of their worth to God. Think, for a moment, of where you fit in that community. Have you had an encounter with Jesus Christ? I didn’t grow up in the church. In fact, I grew up in a family that was actively hostile toward Christianity. My late teen years were marked with a lot of loss – friends to suicide and to car accidents; an important mentor to AIDS; grandparents; and there just wasn’t any accompanying hope. There wasn’t a future beyond this world, and there didn’t seem to be much meaning in it. But when I was twenty years old and working my way through school I was offered a job in a Lutheran church conducting the choir part time. I thought that actually having a job using the skills I was in school for sounded like a great idea. They interviewed me, never asked anything about faith. Crazy. I loved that job. I wanted to do it well, and I would spend lots of time matching lyrics and messages of songs in the choral library to the sermon texts. Suddenly I was reading about hope, a future, and this man named Jesus Christ that people had spent my entire life telling me was irrelevant but whose words reached into my very core and showed me that it was empty and dark. A place of death. The words “existential crisis” are maybe thrown about too much but really, I was living it. By Christmas I was acutely and desperately aware that something was missing from my life that I really needed in order to continue. By Easter I was truly experiencing the resurrection. Jesus had fought for me and raised me into new, real life. I didn’t know anything about the theology of discipleship at that moment – but what I did know is that my teen years would have been a lot less awful if I had had accompanying faith. Compassion for kids and teens that didn’t know God became my life’s focus; using music, since it was what I knew how to do. My mind didn’t know how to respond to my encounter with Jesus – but my heart did. Have you been lost, broken, grieving, or hurt and felt him seize your arm? Has he fought through all of that pain, suffered with you, grieved with you, died with you in order to raise you to new life? Will you leave that story unfinished? Will you remain in the unease and discomfort of having done nothing? Or will you respond? How will you serve him? Simon’s mother-in-law did not make any radical changes. She used the gifts, talents, and skills that she already had and turned them toward Christ and toward support of his ministry. She saw what was needed and she responded with what she had to offer. I encourage you to look around. What is the need here? What does this community of faith need? What about the neighborhood? The whole town? How can we support Jesus Christ’s work of restoration and healing? How can we serve others in order to bring restoration and healing to our home, our work, our church, our community? It’s true that once our eyes are opened to need it can seem overwhelming. But the good news is that Jesus asks us to serve using the uniqueness that God has given us. For Simon’s mother-in-law, that was restoring the household, ministering to Jesus so he could continue to minister to others, and providing hospitality so those who needed healing had a place to come and get it. And she is held up, shown in these few lines to be the first person to truly understand what discipleship means. There are no prerequisite skills, there is no act of service too small or too ambitious. The only requirement is to have been raised to new life by Jesus Christ. This gives us the qualifications to be true disciples, and to turn our hearts, minds, skills and strengths to his service. If you are here this morning you have had some encounter with Jesus. You are called through that encounter to serve. The first part of the story has been written, and the next chapter is eagerly waiting to be continued. It’s your story to tell, and it’s kind of exciting to have the opportunity to write the next chapter with our unique… … …response. Amen
Closest to my heart... Reconciliation Ministry at Christ Lutheran
This next week begins the second trip through a four week Reconciliation/ Discussion Group for LGBTQ+ community, allies, and members of Christ Lutheran Church. This ministry is so close to my heart, and the "beta test" during Lent was an incredible experience -- for me, for hosts from CLC, and, I hope and think, for participants as well -- individuals invited to name their hurt and begin to reshape their stories into healing and forgiveness -- understanding their deep worth to God their Creator and the grace of Jesus Christ as well as we can show it.
Reconciliation Ministry Goals:
First, to inform members of the LGBTQ+ community in our area that Christ Lutheran is a safe place where they have a free and open space to explore their spiritual identity and their relationship with Jesus Christ and what that means for them.
Second, to begin a healing and restorative dialogue which begins to restore the reputation of the church within the LGBTQ+ community and begins to address and atone for the pain, rejection, and psychological damage that has been done to members of the LGBTQ+ community in the name of Christ.
Reconciliation Ministry Vision:
Acknowledging that the Christian church has a lot to answer for, by perpetration or by silence, to bring members of the LGBTQ+ community , allies, and members of CLC together in a healing, controlled atmosphere where they can share food and LGBTQ+ community members can safely tell stories. Using food, storytelling, art, “survivor mantras,” corrective theology Q & A time, and other activities in a four-week group, to bring broken and damaged people into an awareness of their acceptance by Jesus Christ and this community of faith, and, when desired,, to enfold them into the larger loving community of the congregation.
Please message me if you have any questions... or would like to participate in an upcoming group!
