Beloved of God,

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded familiar.  “Pastor Erik, this is Kevin.  Do you remember me?” I did remember a young man named Kevin who I’d met some months before. He’d come to Seattle from Paulau with his young family and everything had unraveled.  All he wanted to do was get back home.

“Are you Kevin from Paulau?” I asked.  “No, I’m from Saipan.  This is Regina’s son.” Finally it clicked.  I’d met Regina a few years before.  She was a woman of few words but great dignity.  A mother who had raised eight children on her own.  Kevin was her second youngest son.

Kevin was calling from the Spruce Motel in Tukwila to see if there was any way I could help cover the cost of their family room for another night.  There was emotion in his voice.  He hated to be in the position of asking for help, but now that he was, he was committed to succeed.  I told him we would be able to help this time, and with a great deal of relief in his voice, he thanked me.

A month later, March 17^th, I got another call.  This time it was Regina.  Her words were clipped, her voice weary. “Pastor Erik, did you watch the news last night?  My son Kevin is dead.  He was shot yesterday morning outside our room.  Pastor Erik, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

When I arrived at the motel, police tape still marked off the area where the shooting had taken place.  Regina had moved to another room and was waiting for me with her daughter in law and other women from her community.  I heard the story and offered to help in any way I could.  Over the next week I became deeply involved with the arrangements for Kevin’s burial and ended up serving as the officiant at his funeral on March 24^th.   As of this writing, Kevin’s killer is still at large.

I can’t wait for Easter.

Death has been stalking close this Lenten season.  Susan, the younger daughter of Esther Seccombe, has lost her battle with cancer.  A dear Peace elder, Bernice Williams, whose health had deteriorated markedly in recent months, fell ill with pneumonia and died.  And this week we learned from Don Hillier of his decision to no longer seek aggressive treatment of his cancer condition but to shift instead toward hospice care.

During this run up to Easter I am more aware than ever of the deep life questions that are being lived out and reflected in the lives of people who I have come to know and care about deeply.  Does the Christian faith tradition we practice equip us to grapple with these fundamental issues of life and death?  The answer, unmistakably, is YES.

We need a Savior who has experienced the deep tragedies and terrors of life.  One who can stare death in the eye and not shrink from its demands.  Only a Savior who knows the suffering of the world and enters completely into that experience with his own self can save us.  Yet, the way of this Savior, the way of our God, is that we are not saved from death; we are saved through death.  First, death; then, and only then, comes resurrection.  This is the order.

When we understand this, then we understand that only a Suffering Servant will do, one who reaches out to all who dwell in the valley of the shadow of death and declares – Do not be afraid. I am with you.  At the end of this tunnel, there is light.  I will not leave you orphaned.  I am with you, even to the end of the age.

Alleluia!

Pastor Erik

To read an article about the Camacho family published in the Seattle PI, and to learn how you can help, go to: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/404271_tukwila26ww.html

Beloved of God,

When there are seven kids in the family, you don’t each get your own bath water.  No, you share it.  At least that’s the way it was in my family in my younger years. Saturday night was “Bath Night” at the Kindem home, a once a week trip to the tub, a mandatory scrubbing away of the week’s accumulated dirt and grime—whether we needed it or not!

Armed with Dial soap and Prell shampoo into the tub we went.  And like the animals on the ARK, we often went in two-by-two.  First came the girls, Randi and Kari, who by mother’s design always got the clean water.  Then came toddling twins Mikal and Mark—the youngest at that time.  After that it was middle son Kristofer’s turn, and by now, often enough, you could hardly see the bottom of the tub.  And that was the litmus test, I guess.  If the bottom was visible, you added more hot water to the mix and slipped on in.  If the bottom wasn’t visible, (and that depended on which season of the year it was) then you could pull the plug and start fresh.  Which is what my older brother Peter and I did about half the time.

The reason for this washing ritual, of course, was that Sunday morning was coming, and Mom was making certain that the Kindem children were as clean and as presentable as she could make us for Sunday worship.

The Christian life begins with WASHING. But unlike that Saturday night family ritual, we who’ve been called into relationship with the Triune God through baptism are washed but once. Yet this single and singular washing, this GREAT BATH of the church, becomes the means God uses for working and wending his way into every nook and cranny of our lives.

“When anyone is in Christ,” writes St. Paul, “there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” As we all know, this is not as easy of a journey as it sounds.  The section of the letter from which these verses come, [2 Corinthians 4-6] has always spoken deeply to me.  It is here, at the beginning of chapter 4, that Paul says “Since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.” And it is here that Paul suggests we carry the gospel treasure entrusted to us, in the “clay jars” of our lives.  Paul speaks profoundly of how our limitations as human beings, as many and as great as they are, are ultimately no match for God’s ambition to use these earthen vessels, in all our fragility and vulnerability, to carry the reconciling gospel to the world.

The season of Lent is a season for returning to this core conviction and the core identity that is given to us in baptism.  This is what repentance, that oft’ misunderstood New Testament word, is all about.  Not so much saying “I’m sorry—I messed up,” (though there’s nothing wrong with that, and these words need to be shared often within our lives as we practice the art of forgiveness.) But rather, “I’m ready to trust you Lord, to take myself out of the limelight, to re-orient my life according to your design.” That’s the journey we’re invited to take during these 40 days and herein lies the paradox.  For in this season we purposely and intentionally examine, on the one hand, the limits of our abilities to do what God asks us to do and the weakness of our wills, and on the other hand, the depth of Christ’s claim upon us in baptism and the boundless power of the Holy Spirit to amend and transform our lives.

The Lenten discipline of letting go—of a habit, a vice, a food craving, or some other element of our living which we would be better off without—coupled with the discipline of embracing a new habit, word, practice, or gesture which will deepen our commitment for wholeness—these are outward expressions of the Lenten paradox.  Letting go, embracing.  Turning from, turning toward.  Both partners are needed for Lenten dance, and God uses both to guide us on the journey and deepen our trust in him.

Washing, brushing, combing, and donning clean clothes—only to then receive dirty ashes on our foreheads—is an odd and yet a fitting emblem for crossing the threshold to the Lenten dance floor.  Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  These words that accompany the ashes are stark reminders that our lives are not our own.  We did not will ourselves into existence, neither will we choose when or how our lives will end.

It won’t be long before these ashes we wear are brushed aside; before we climb in the tub or hop in the shower and our foreheads become clean. Yet the cross will remain there, marking us invisibly and indelibly, and reminding us again to whom we belong.

Blessings on the journey,

Pastor Erik

Beloved of God,

Legacy is our focus for this month; the legacy we have received from God in Jesus—an identity, a purpose, and a destiny—and the legacies we have received and given from/to family members, friends, teachers, classmates, and too many others to mention.

If we imagine ourselves as the proverbial “onion” and peel away the many layers which constitute our selves, we would find that a huge percentage of who we are and how we carry ourselves in the world comes to us as a legacy from others.   Certainly this is true of our physical selves—we carry the DNA of our biological parents and embody attributes that can be traced through previous generations for millennia.

Those of us who have had the opportunity to visit the LUCY exhibit at the Seattle Science Center experienced an illustration of the long and winding trail that leads backward in time 3.2 million years to LUCY (called Dinkenesh – Wonderful One, by the Ethiopians) and other non-human progenitors of our species homo sapien.  The human story is rich and complex one, and even as new discoveries add to those layers, they raise new questions about human origins.

The Scriptures proclaim a theological, rather than a scientific, view of human origins.  According to the second creation account (Gen 2) we are “God-breathed” beings with God-given vocations to boot—tending the garden, naming the world’s inhabitants, living in right relationship with our Creator and others.

The fact that things got messed up in chapter three reminds us that legacy is a two-edged (at least!) sword.  Legacies that have led us toward lives of joy and vigor are part of the “light” side of that heritage; while legacies that have led us toward lives of fear and failure are part of the “shadow” side of that heritage.

Many of the things that make us who we are were given to us long before you had a choice.  And yet, as each of us engages those gifts, attributes, and liabilities daily, we set the stage for what our legacy will become for the next generation.

Understanding one’s legacy—both received and given—is most powerful when it is particular, and that is why I have so appreciated the testimonies of the writers who contributed to our LEGACY DEVOTIONAL.  We each have stories to tell.  Stories of gifts received and stories of what we want to leave for coming generations.  A great “cloud of witnesses” surrounds us.  What a shame—indeed, a failure beyond words—it would be if we did not find it within ourselves to commend to others the faith that is in us.

A legacy is created because a person discovers a way of life that is so compelling that it must indeed be shared. When we share the abundant life that we have found in Jesus Christ, legacies abound and bless those who receive them.

One of the most mysterious ways that we grow in faith and in our calling is to grow in giving. It is a paradox; the more we give, the more we receive. As Christians, we need to give in order to reflect our creation in the image of God, whose giving never ends.

The vision we are embracing and living into as a congregation is full of challenges.  The context of the current economic crisis and rising unemployment adds additional dimensions to those challenges.  But because the legacy we have received in Christ Jesus is one which chooses faith over fear and light over darkness, we can continue shaping our legacy even while we are continually shaped and reshaped by the waters of renewal and the bread of new birth.

I hope you will join us February 22^nd as we celebrate Legacies we have received, and the God whose “giving knows no ending.”

Blessings to you,

Pastor Erik

Beloved of God,

The New Year is here, heaped high—as always—with hopes and dreams (with a good measure of economic uncertainty folded in) about what the coming months will bring.  The parking lots at the West Seattle “Y’ are full.  Optimism for acquiring new habits is high.  Budgets and reports for annual meetings are being prepared.  Health insurance deductibles have been zeroed out. Calendar dates are beginning to fill.  The post-Christmas shift to a new calendar brings with it these and many other outward signs that a New Year is upon us.

In a few weeks we will witness the inauguration of our nation’s 44^th President, Barack Obama.  It’s hard to imagine a time when the collective burden of hope and expectation has weighed as heavily on a president’s shoulders as it does and will on his. Like all those before him, Barack and his family need to be in our daily prayers!

Some things, of course, are not new. After December’s heavy snows, the heavy rain of recent days has sent virtually every river on the west side of the Cascades into flood stage.  This is sadly predictable, and will be impacting the lives and livelihoods of many of our fellow Washingtonians for months to come.

The conflict in Gaza, which in recent days has claimed hundreds of victims, is another tragic verse in a long tragic tale.  A number of ELCA and ELCC (Canada) Bishops are in the Middle East right now (including our own Chris Boerger) on a trip that was two years in planning.  (You can read about the trip in Bishop’s Boerger article elsewhere in this addition of Peace Notes.)

On Epiphany (January 6) these North America bishops joined members of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church of Amman at the banks of the Jordan River to celebrate with a Eucharist the blessing of a parcel overlooking the river given the church for a retreat center and worship facility.  The site where they gathered was one of those believed to be where Jesus was baptized.

The Jordan River is reported to be remnant of river Jesus would have seen, having been greatly reduced in recent years by the siphoning of its water for irrigation and other uses. The shallow, narrow river is brownish green in color and exceedingly murky.  “Murky” is an apt word for describing the way forward in the Middle East crisis.

But “murky” is also an apt word for describing the world context in which Jesus began his ministry.  Yet, in spite of all that murkiness, Jesus saw with clarity the mantle God had prepared for him to assume.   Thomas Troeger’s hymn What Ruler Wades through Murky Streams (above) captures a sense of that clarion call and the depth of passionate commitment which it would require of Jesus.  The hymn reminds us, too, that God’s voice through the gospel calls you and me now to “come bow beneath the flowing wave.”

Indeed, Christ stands even now in the murky waters of our world, in the murky waters of a washed out Western Washington, in the murky waters of personal lives which have run aground, and beckons us to wade in the water with the promise that resurrection, not death, is God’s will for us.

When we gather at the end of this month to look back our collective ministry of 2008 and look forward to what God is calling us to be and do together in 2009, we do well to wade into that murky stream with our hands and fingers firmly intertwined with his.

God’s grace and call abide with you in the New Year!

Pastor Erik