Fellow Earthkeepers,

I first learned the verses above as a sung table blessing when I was a child.  They were bookends: the verses from Psalm 145 (following Brother Martin’s suggestion) served as an opening grace before we ate, with Psalm 103 following our meal as benediction.  The “all,” of course, includes not only the human species but all the creatures of earth sea and sky.  This simple prayer affirms what we know intuitively: that this world God brought into being, this “pale blue dot”[1]of a planet on which we find ourselves, contains all that is needed to “satisfy the desires of every living thing.”

According to Genesis, our first vocation as human beings is to be earthkeepers (Gen 2:15).  Recently, Kai’s kindergarten class had a shared assignment.  Each student was responsible for coming up with way of improving the habitat of an animal that lived in the vicinity of their home.  A variety of creative projects took place, several involving house pets.  Kai’s involved fixing a broken bird feeder and remounting it outside our kitchen window.  Now we eat breakfast with the sparrows once more.  You could say he and his classmates were acting out their “first vocation.” Kai’s project wasn’t graded, but it sets me to wondering—if God were handing out grades to us humans based on how we’re performing in our first vocation, what kind of marks would we get?

The ongoing drama and tragedy of the Gulf oil spill has commanded headlines for over a month now with no end in sight,[2] but there are less visible but even more ubiquitous, human-generated problems assaulting the creation. A five-mile stretch of the lower Duwamish River remains a federal superfund cleanup site due to industrial wastes embedded in its bottom soils,[3] and the constant stream of “nonpoint” source pollution running into Puget Sound threatens organisms on all scales—from the microscopic to the largest.  Example: the necropsy performed on the gray whale that washed up in April on the beach just below our home revealed stomach contents that included: more than 20 plastic bags, small towels, surgical gloves, sweat pants, plastic pieces, duct tape, and a golf ball.[4] Chemicals that can be found in Elliot Bay, such as DDT; PBDEs; and PCBs and metals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium, have found their way into human breast milk.[5] The list goes on and on.  (And I didn’t even mention global climate change!)

Are these issues worth a mention in a church newsletter article?  Do the facts above have any bearing on our life in Christ? My answer, unequivocally, is YES. Christian theology in the Western world has mostly failed, through the centuries, to connect the dots between our lives as people claimed by Christ and our lives as citizens and stewards of planet earth.  But in recent decades, awareness and the desire to focus on “first article” faith have been on the rise.  Churches all along the spectrum, from mainline to evangelical, conservative to progressive, have established initiatives and task forces that lift up the stewardship of creation.

During the month of June our worship life will focus on lifting up the sentiment and the substance of our first vocation.  Through resources and liturgies first developed by Lutheran pastor and theologian Norm Habel and his colleagues “down under,” we will celebrate a new Season of Creation.[6] Eldon Olson and I are working together with the worship planning team to bring leadership to the effort this year.  If you feel drawn to this endeavor, you are invited to join us.  The themes associated with Year C (our current year) focus on wisdom in creation, and have the following themes:  Ocean, Fauna, Storm, and Universe.  Through hymnody, spoken word and symbolic gesture we will evoke the truth to which the Psalmist testifies: that our whole lives are an exercise in honoring and tending to God’s presence and providence within creation.

Blessings,

Pastor Erik

[1] A phrase used by astronomer Carl Sagan to describe the vulnerable nature of planet earth.  See my sermon by that title at: http://www.peacelutheranseattle.org/?page_id=49&sermon_id=24

[2] http://www.seattlepi.com/business/1310ap_us_gulf_oil_spill.html

[3] For more details visit the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition’s website: http://www.duwamishcleanup.org/

[4] For more details about the necropsy go to: http://www.cascadiaresearch.org/WSeattle-ER.htm

[5] See article by Florence Williams in New York Times Magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/magazine/09TOXIC.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=toxic%20breast%20milk%202005&st=cse

[6] Find more information about the Season of Creation at: www.seasonofcreation.org

One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune telling.  While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”  She kept doing this for many days.  But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.  But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them…before the magistrates saying, “These men are disturbing our city.” ~ Acts 16:16-20

Servants of God,

Motivated by the love of money, people will engage in the most selfish acts.  The recent round of Congressional inquiries into the failure of banks and the behind-the-scenes complicity and outright fraud of executives are only the most recent examples.  Greed contorts the human capacity for good judgment, common sense, and respect for the law and the neighbor. This is not a new story, but the interdependence of global financial systems around the world today means that when things go wrong, the ripples reach farther and deeper then ever before.  No doubt the debate over causes will continue to rage, but none can fail to see the effects of greatest economic recession since the Great Depression.

Jesus knew the dangers that are incubated by wealth. “No slave can serve two masters,” he told his followers, “for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Lk 16:13)  St. Paul, too, took on the subject: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” he wrote in 1st Timothy, “and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”

Notice with me that it’s not money in and of itself that the New Testament warns about, but our attitude toward it and our relationship with it. Wealth is one of those subjects about which we must be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” lest we become subject to its corrupting influences.

Alongside all the perils and temptations that come with money and wealth, we who follow Christ also recognize that the proper use of wealth can support God’s work in amazing ways. Without the vision of our forefathers and foremothers to educate young men and women for lives of service, and the generosity required to fund this vision, the 26 colleges and universities of our church would not exist.  Without the shared commitment of congregations like ours to join hands around the globe with the message and love of Christ, the worldwide mission of the church would dry up and wither.

While it’s true that God calls some to divest themselves completely in order to follow Christ wholly (St. Francis is an example), God calls the rest of us to a proper orientation to our wealth: to be wise and generous stewards of the resources we have been given (yes, it’s all gift!).  Indeed, the ongoing mission of our congregation is dependent on just such an attitude and conviction.

When Paul and Silas were thrown into prison for acknowledging a higher authority than the profit motive (Acts 16), they could have been overcome with fear and held captive by their dire circumstances.  But they had learned to anticipate God’s presence and power in the most unholy places, through the most unlikely means.  Through their faithful witness in word and song the Holy Spirit not only brought them freedom—the Spirit brought their jailor and his entire family into the circle of believers. God took a dire and desperate situation and turned it toward resurrection, one of God’s hallmark moves!

Financial strength in a congregation is one measure of its health, but it’s not the only one. There are other measures of vitality that are as or more important:  a strong sense of vision and purpose; a quality worship life centered on God’s gifts in Jesus Christ; a strong life of prayer in which many participate; an outward orientation that takes Jesus’ call to neighbor-love seriously by responding in specific ways; a growing number of people who are drawn to the congregation, its worship life and its mission.

There is much that is encouraging and exciting about what’s happening here at Peace! As we face up to the challenges and growing pains that come with funding our ministry vision, let’s not forget how the Spirit’s presence is being manifested in and through our congregation.  Let’s not become captive to fears; let’s not become curved in on ourselves.  Instead, let us affirm generosity as a defining characteristic of Peace. Generosity of spirit, exhibited in our caring for each other; and generosity of resources, exhibited in our support of the mission God is calling us to serve within and beyond our doors.  This attribute will enable us to continue to accomplish great things together!

As we mark the outpouring of God’s Spirit on God’s people at Pentecost, and witness five of our young people affirming their baptismal faith in the Rite of Confirmation, I am praying that the Holy Spirit will blow into our congregational life in new and powerful ways, renewing our passion for God’s work in this place.

Will you join me in that prayer?

Pastor Erik

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on.  But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.”  So he went to stay with them.  When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.  Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” ~ Luke 24:28-31

Beloved of God,

They had to get away from the city; to distance themselves from all that had taken place there in recent days.  What had begun with joyful HOSANNAS had ended in a grisly death.  Jesus had been betrayed and deserted.  Justice had been stood on its ear.  The City that once welcomed him with open arms had turned on him, chewed him up and spit him out.

They had to distance themselves, and yet, those very events were all they could talk about as they went down the road. And buried beneath their attempts to figure out this tragedy, there seems to be a deep yearning and a holy hunger.

They are on the road heading away from Jerusalem when a stranger joins them, and soon all three are caught up in a conversation about what had taken place and what it all means.  Cleopas and his companion don’t know what to make of this stranger. Something in their gut draws them to him.  There’s a yearning, a burning, a pulling at their hearts that can’t be ignored.  Yet they don’t recognize him.  Their eyes are closed.

Until he breaks the bread. With the breaking of the bread their eyes are opened, their hearts set free, their hope is reborn, and their world of death is transformed into life.

The Lent that is coming to a close as I write this column has been, for me, one of the heaviest ever.  I can’t say exactly why this is so; I’m at a loss to find words to describe it.  I only know what I’ve experienced, and the longing I feel—the holy hunger—to have this reality transformed. 

On any given day you and I, like those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, may find ourselves weighed down with our own burdens—and those of the world; our hearts burning for a connection, longing for God to quench our thirst for meaning, to lift our spirits, to satisfy our holy hunger.  There is but One who can turn our sorrow into joy, our tears to laughter—the risen Lord, who meets us on all our roads, and walks beside us as a companion, breaking open the gospel, breaking open the bread of the Eucharist, and satisfying our holy hungers in a way that keeps us coming back for more.

The pathway from death to life isn’t something we can engineer on our own, any more than we can will ourselves to rise from the grave.  It’s something we receive, something that comes to us from outside of ourselves—yet something that promises to reshape us at the very core of our being.  The Three Days (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, April 1, 2, 3) mark the beginning of the journey, and the 50 days that follow provide us with the opportunity to deepen our experience as we journey with Christ toward the unending life which his dying and rising has secured.

Pastor Erik

Beloved of God,

The month of March finds us smack dab in the middle of the Lenten journey, and with early signs of spring emerging all around us after the warmest winter on record it’s hard to miss the connection to Lent as “springtime of the soul.” The hymn by Delores Dufner makes that connection explicit as it invites us to prepare the rich, dark soil of our hearts to receive the seed of God’s word this season; to become hospitable and welcome hosts for the “grain God bent to sow.”

From meetings with families preparing for their child’s baptism, to elementary retreats at Lutherwood; from our LEGACY celebration March 7th to the Palm Sunday’s choral cantata, No Greater Sacrifice; from weekly webinars on neighborhood outreach to the Spring Cleaning workday and Family Promise Fundraiser on March 20th, we’re all about rooting more deeply the “grain God bent to sow.”

One of my former professors died last month – Loren Halvorson, who taught at Luther Northwestern Seminary when I was a student. I found myself in his “church and society” course when I was a senior.  In that seminary world where heady theological concepts and conversations tended to predominate, Loren’s lectures and the projects he required from us opened up a whole new world grounded in that place where seeds meet soil.  Loren was all about Christian praxis—faith based action at the nexus of Word and world, and the “infinite loop” linking our worship life (ALTAR) with our vocational life in the world (STREET).  He brought the social-ethical conversation, i.e. how the church engages concretely in the world, into sharp focus for a generation of students, and his keen intellect was always imagining new ways that the church could incarnate the lively and powerful presence of the gospel in the world.

Loren and his wife Ruth founded ARC (a play on the biblical image forming an acronym standing for: Action – Reflection – Celebration) an intentional Christian Community north of the Twin Cities.  The cedar log structure they built there with the volunteer labor and ongoing investment of many hands, hearts, and pocketbooks, was an early retreat place for my family when I was a student; providing a welcome respite where spiritual reflection, personal story telling, spirited theological conversation, wholesome foods, and manual labor provided a welcome balance to those who sojourned there.  Thirty years later, some of the recipes I picked up from the ARC kitchen continue to make their way to our dinner table.

During the final months of Loren’s life, his wife Ruth wrote a blog on the Caring Bridge website that went out to a large audience of family members, friends, colleagues and former students.  It was moving for me to receive Ruth’s nightly journal entry, and to feel through those entries that I was sitting at bedside with a teacher who had spent a good deal of his life awakening others to God’s presence in the world and who now, in his final days, was teaching us how to die.  What a legacy! Ruth’s January 30th entry included these words:

On our dining room table we have a bowl of flower bulbs sitting in water with rocks, sprouting roots and green shoots.  Since there is no soil, nourishment comes from the bulb itself.  Similarly, with food intake having been almost nil for Loren these past couple of months or more, he is drawing from his stored reserves to keep his body going and mind active. He remains content and grateful.  Tonight I would like to close with a quote from Albert Einstein printed on a beautiful card we received that says it all, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.”

Jesus taught his disciples, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)  As seeds and blossoms emerge from soil and bulb and open up their colorful and fragrant blossoms they are visible reminders of the truth Jesus spoke.  But the order is clear:  death first, then…life!

During Lent, God dares us to trust that when we enter fully into the life of his Son—the singing, laughing, crying Jesus—and open the deep, dark soil of our lives to him, his transforming presence will bear fruit in our lives; will bring new breath and life; will reconnect what has become disconnected; will unbind and free us from whatever entombs us.

Is it possible, amidst the busy fullness of this month’s calendar, that our gatherings around Word and Sacrament could become occasions for the Spirit of God to “touch and mend and rouse our dry bones from their grave”? That’s where my hope is invested!

Pastor Erik

“Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.  And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white….a cloud came and overshadowed them; and thy were terrified as they entered the cloud.  Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” ~ Luke 9:28-29, 34-35

Beloved of God,

February has arrived, bringing its own peculiar character.  The “newness” of the New Year has run its course.  Personal notions we may have had about making a new start have begun to prove themselves to be either possible or unlikely.  Collective decisions about mission goals and budgets have been made and now we begin the step by step journey of living them out.  And in the garden, crocus shoots offer a harbinger of spring.  February represents a turning point in the seasons of our faith life together as we move this year from the season of Light to the season of Lent.

The season of Epiphany comes to a climax on Transfiguration Sunday, February 14^th as Jesus and three companions go mountain climbing and their dazzling encounter on top nearly leaves the disciples speechless.  God speaks and the disciples listen, but still don’t quite catch the drift.   How do you explain mystery?  Words fail.

After this high point, we move into Lent, the springtime of the soul. Entrance into Lent begins with the Ash Wednesday service (Feb 17), reminding us of our mortality, and how our destiny, our dying and rising, is linked to Christ in baptism. Forty days of reflection and meditation begin as we follow Jesus into the wilderness.  There he again ascends to the mountaintop.  Only this time it is Satan who accompanies him.  He promises Jesus the world, but Jesus sees through the charade.   How about you and I?  Can we see through the empty promises with which Satan would lure and entice us into empty and dead-end thoughts, actions, and relationships?

In the ancient church, Lent was a time of intense preparation for those who were to be baptized into Christ at the Easter Vigil.  This rhythm of preparation is being reclaimed in congregations that practice the Catechumenate, a way and a process for accompanying those who are drawn to Christ and to the waters of baptism—either to be baptized for the first time or to affirm their baptisms.  A group of us who attended a Catechumenate training event recently at Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church are exploring what such a process might look like at Peace.  You’ll be hearing about an opportunity soon.

The season of Lent is a season for gaining clarity:  clarity about our bond with Christ in baptism; clarity about our lifelong call as Christians to discover God’s will for our lives; clarity about the power which is God’s gift to us through the Holy Spirit; clarity about our mission as a community of faithful people who have been marked with the cross forever.  As we follow Christ on his road through the wilderness and on to Jerusalem and all that awaits him there, we learn once again of the height and depth of his love for us and for all.

How will you enter this “springtime” of the soul?  One of the traditions of Lent is to simplify, to pare down to the bare essentials.  Fasting, prayer, acts of charity are traditional practices during this season.  Some folks simplify their lives in Lent by choosing one thing to let go of or give up, such as an unhealthy habit.  Others choose to add on to their routine a spiritual discipline or a giving of themselves in some other form.  The options and opportunities for spiritual growth during this “springtime” are endless.

How about you?  How will this season be marked within the rhythm of your life?   Whatever our choices, we can be assured that God’s Spirit accompanies us, within and without, just as Christ promised; coaxing and guiding us toward a deeper dependence upon God and a more accepting relationship with our neighbors.

May God’s accompaniment bring joy, peace, and accompaniment to your Lenten journey.

Pastor Erik

The Pastor’s Pen

Jesus unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the bind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ~ Luke 4:16-19

Servants of God,

Each New Year brings its own assortment of hopes and dreams and goals, and when it’s over we look back at them and begin evaluating how well (or not) the year lived up to its promise.  We go through this process as individuals and we do it as a congregation, too.  On January 31^st we will stand on that crossroads of past and future once more and make decisions about where and how God is prompting us to go in this New Year and decade.  Some level of fear and trembling accompanies the discernment process leading up to the annual meeting every year (as it should!) for we dare to say, as a community “We believe God’s Spirit is calling us to do X.” What do we base the “X” upon?  We are a community of the baptized, and because of who and whose we are, we look to the gospel of Jesus to shape our mission agenda in the world.

The passage above comes from Jesus’ first hometown sermon.  The quotation is from the prophet Isaiah.  The words are a forceful declaration of how Jesus intends to fulfill his God given mission.  And the reaction he gets?  The reaction moves from congratulations to critique to violent intention.  By the time he leaves the synagogue the congregation is ready to throw him off a cliff!  Yikes! Jesus, it seems, did not fulfill their expectations.  He did not come to endorse the status quo but to call God’s people to a radical reorientation around God’s mission—what God is up to in the world. Adopting that mission plan eventually cost him his life, and simultaneously seeded new life for you and me and all.

On January 17^th we will celebrate the life and legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who inspired us with a dream for racial equality that beckons us still today; a man who taught us that racism belittles both the perpetrator and victim alike; a man who showed us that non-violent resistance to injustice has a moral force that violent means can never match; who said, “The arc of history is long—and it bends toward justice.”

It was a different brother Martin who warned of the propensity of human communities to become “curved in” on themselves when confronted with life’s challenges.  The gospel of Jesus, this Martin said, compels us always to turn our vision ever outward toward the welfare of our neighbor.

Charlie Mays, my pastor during seminary years, who served Christ’s church in the Northwest for decades and whose death one year ago left many of us bereft, liked to say provocative things about the role of the church.  Like: the church is the only organization that gives itself away for the sake of those who are not its members.

When we review our congregational life on January 31st, and get caught up in discussions and decisions about budget line items, salaries, and how we will fund our mission, we do well to remember the larger purpose to which we have been called in Christ, and the gifts with which God has blessed and equipped us.  We do well to recall the long arc of God’s salvation story, which reaches out to us in God’s Word-made-flesh and pulls us toward a future characterized by hope and fulfillment, a future that is unfolding even now in our lives and in the lives of all whom we serve.

Blessed New Year!

Pastor Erik

The Pastor’s Pen

The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.”   ~ Luke 1:30-31

Servants of God,

Sometimes, progress toward a goal is measured in seconds. With the Winter Olympic Games coming soon to Vancouver, BC, I think of the pending competitions where seconds or even fractions of seconds will mark the distance between medalists and also-rans.

Sometimes, progress is measure in terms of months—nine months, in the case of the young Mary. (We’ve had a number of families measuring time that way this year!) A reasonable length of time to prepare home and heart(h) to receive a new life…or maybe not.  By turns those weeks may drag on, or race forward with a swiftness that leaves parents-to-be breathless, with half-finished baby preparations dogging their heels.

Sometimes, progress is measured in decades. “Four score years,” the Psalmist declared, is a generous interval for human life.  My parents both crossed that threshold in 2009, and some of you are approaching or have exceeded that mark.

But sometimes, progress toward a goal is measured not on any human scale at all. Take geologic time.  The time it took the Colorado River to carve the Grand Canyon.  The time it took the slow motion collision of the Indo-Australian and Eurasian Plates to produce the Himalayan Mountains.  The time it took the earth’s primordial land mass known as “Pangaea” (from the Greek pan = entire + gaia = earth) to spread out across the globe becoming seven distinct continents.

Within the cycle of seasons we call the church year, Advent is here once more, and with Advent comes the invitation to expectant waiting as we look forward to the fulfillment of God’s plan to unite heaven and earth under the gentle rule of our Savior Jesus Christ.  The first generation of Christians expected the fruition of God’s plan in their life times.  The delay of Christ’s much anticipated return was the subject of deep conversation among the congregations Paul founded and corresponded with, and by the time the gospels were written one can see how this “delay” challenged the faith of some.  Two thousand years later, we still await the fullness of God’s promised redemption.  How we wish that God would abandon this infernally slow timeline and adopt ours instead!

Enter Pierre Teihard De Chardin (1881-1955), a Jesuit theologian, philosopher, geologist and paleontologist, who combined his knowledge of the earth’s origins, and his studies of early humans with his faith in a divine Creator to produce some of the most imaginative and forward thinking theology of the 20^th century.  De Chardin once wrote:

If Chardin is right, (and the evidence seems to point in that direction!) God is not the least in a hurry.  John Haught, professor of theology at Georgetown University, illustrated this point powerfully in a presentation I attended earlier this year.  Imagine that each one of the Universe’s 13.7 billion years was contained in 30 volumes, and that each volume had 450 pages; and that each of those pages represented 1 million years.

Using this analogy, the Big Bang constitutes the first letter of the first word on the first page of Volume 1.  But it isn’t until Volume 21 that the earth itself is completely formed, and in Volume 22 that the first forms of life emerge.  In Volume 29 we find the so-called Cambrian explosion of new species and complex animals.  Dinosaurs don’t make their entrance until Volume 30, the final book, and become extinct on page 385.  Most startling of all, modern humans like you and I only appear on the last paragraph or so of the last page of the last volume.

God is most decidedly patient with the unfolding of this vast universe. We have no idea how many volumes God plans, but the witness of Scripture is that the Universe is moving toward a goal, an end (telos), and that this end is, finally, seeded with hope.

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.” This is Advent’s invitation. That’s what Mary did, and it in a burst of insight that can only be a gift of the Spirit, she caught a glimpse of the Divine trajectory of hope within the human story—within her story—and it rang out from her soul in a lyric of such crystal clarity that we’ve never forgotten it, or her.  [Luke 1:46-55, The Magnificat, see below.**]

In what is often the most frenetic season of the year, the words of De Chardin and the song of Mary are worth holding onto: A God of immense patience calling us into sympathetic patience with ourselves and with each other as the “spirit gradually forming within” us, and God’s hope for this world, are revealed.

O, Come, O, Come, Emmanuel!

Pastor Erik

**When a divine messenger approached Mary about God’s plan to bring Jesus into the world through her, she also learned of her cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Luke records what happened next:

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said,

Servants of God,

• Becoming core supporters and hosts of Family Promise ministry.
• Hosting neighborhood events that affirm our stance as a congregation that engages the community around us.
• Revitalizing our ministry to young people and families under the leadership of Nicole Klinemeier.
• Becoming an Reconciling in Christ congregation.
• Formulating policies to ensure Peace is a safe haven for children and vulnerable adults.
• Updating and expanding our presence on the World Wide Web, our 21^st century “welcome mat.”
• Incorporating new talents and resources, both musical and visual, into our worship life.
• Becoming more intentional about how we greet, welcome, and follow-up with guests.
• Growing in number and in generational diversity.

When Abraham and Sarah set out toward a new and unknown destination, their faith in God’s promises undergirded them along the way.  Not that they didn’t question what God was up to from time to time—they did!  (They even tried to substitute their own solutions, which proved , at times, disastrous.)  But through it all, God’s promises held fast, and God’s faithfulness proved a rock solid foundation.

We, too, are on a journey together.  But I like to imagine our journey in a little different way.  Instead of a physical pilgrimage, ours is a journey toward fully inhabiting the vision God has called us to make our own. We are, it seems to me, not unlike homesteaders who have staked their claim on a new dwelling place and, bit by bit, acre by acre, board by board, have labored to make the new habitation their home.  Not every acre is cleared; not every structure is up; not every room in the main house is fully furnished; not every space is fully realized.  But the vision is crystallizing and the new habitat is gradually becoming our own. Fully inhabiting this vision is a process that takes time and prioritizing and experimenting and ongoing investment.  And at key junctures it requires a purposeful and focused gathering of all our forces to reach a new level of habitation.

As the church council begins developing a mission budget for 2010 it is clear that we are approaching such a juncture. Our vision is robust—and our financial support and ongoing investment in that vision must continue to be equally robust in order for us to fully inhabit the vision.  I anticipate that the proposals we will see in coming months will challenge and stretch us, requiring bold and faithful—even sacrificial giving—in a manner that may be new territory for some.  There will be plenty of opportunity for conversation, and I hope you will plan now to participate.

While this challenge may feel daunting, it need not frighten us.  After all, we worship a God who risked it all by emptying himself, fully inhabiting human flesh, and who gave himself completely for the sake of the world he so loved.  When we keep our eyes focused on what God in Christ has first given us, then it becomes clear that this challenge is part and parcel of the call we have received to fully inhabit the vision God has given us: to be a community grounded in God’s grace, and called to venture beyond ourselves, so all people will experience God’s love.

Living in God’s hope, I am your servant in Christ,

Pastor Erik

British composer Ralph Vaughn Williams’ setting of Psalm 90 is forever seared in my memory.  I cannot pray this psalm without singing the music, which I first learned at Pacific Lutheran University as a member of Choir of the West.

The psalm is a community’s heartfelt plea for God’s compassion in the face of tribulations which threaten to drawn down the curtain of despair; a lament in which the human soul plaintively yearns for God’s merciful accompaniment.  Vaughn Williams captures the essence of the psalm’s longsuffering reflection on life’s brevity from the vantage point of one who has experienced the full complexity of human community.  How fitting that the subtitle of the psalm is “A prayer of Moses, the man of God,” for Moses spent the better part of his years shepherding a reluctant and complaining people through the wilderness and toward a future land of promise which he would never experience.

During my continuing education sojourn up at Holden Village last month, one of the presenters was Fred Niedner, professor of Biblical Studies at Valparaiso University.  I’m always happy to see Fred’s name on the docket for such conferences because he’s a scholar who excavates the Word deeply, uncovering hidden veins of riches which never fail to enrich my understanding of scripture and undergird my faith.

At the conference Fred reminded us that WILDERNESS is the longest story in scripture.  Wilderness is an in-between place, a place of transition. Teasing back the layers behind Israel’s constant “murmuring” at God and at Moses, Fred taught us that the Hebrew word for wilderness, mid-bar, comes from the Hebrew word for “word” (da-bar).  To get to wilderness you begin with “da-bar” and add to it a preposition that means “away from,” “apart from,” or “without.”  What you end up with, then, is a word for “wilderness” that translates, “the place where words don’t work anymore,” “the place where meaning eludes us,” “the place in which we don’t have the words for what we’re experiencing.” So wilderness, then, is to be understood as a place beyond or without words.

All of us have stood in that wilderness place in our lives, that place which no words can accurately describe; that place where our experience of loss or rejection or betrayal or abandonment leaves us “without words.” In those times it may seem to us, as it did to the psalmist, that we are bearing the weight of God’s wrath; or we may find ourselves desperately casting about looking for someone besides our selves to blame; or we may feel so numb that all the possible explanations or reasons for our experience fall hollow on our ears.

No one gets out of the wilderness without dying.  That’s the hard lesson God’s people keep on having to learn over and over again.  The life of faith is a long pilgrimage in which we continually let go, more and more, ceding control of our selves, our agendas, our possessions—all we have so carefully gathered and sought to preserve—into the hands of God, and are left standing in the buff with only a bare-naked trust to hold on to.

The leaves of autumn are instructive for us in this regard, for this is the time of year when they give what they have back to the tree, and then let go.

The gesture of thanksgiving you see me make each week during the Great Thanksgiving in the Eucharistic liturgy, is a gesture built upon the idea of lifting up what I have—what we have together—to the heavens.  The subtext of that simple refrain—LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS – WE LIFT THEM TO THE LORD—is that what we have been given we cannot hold forever.  We must give it up.  We must heave it toward heaven.  Our liturgy teaches us how to do this, week after week.  It is a rehearsal for the times when we have no words.  And when that time comes, as it has and it will, we are met by the Word made flesh, who offers his life for our sustenance, and shows us, like the leaves, what it means to give up his life on a tree.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Erik