“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.

He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 

But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee;

there you will see him, just as he told you.”

– Mark 16:6-7

Beloved of God,

The final steps of our wilderness journey lead us, with a handful of faithful women, to the edge of a rock-hewn tomb.   This is not how it’s supposed to end!   Our leader, dead.  Our hopes and dreams, crushed.

But then—do our eyes deceive us?—the stone has been rolled away! And a messenger announces the news:

“You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”

Mark captures this intersection of defeat, surprise, and alarm so powerfully in this “unfinished” ending to his gospel. (Mark 16:1-8)  Resisting the temptation to neatly tie loose ends together, Mark affirms the truth that the reality of Jesus’ empty tomb takes sorting out.  The church has been about that sorting ever since Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome made their journey that morning to anoint his body.  We never cease asking the questions – What does it mean that the tomb is empty? What does it mean that Christ was raised from death?  One thing is certain—it cannot mean business as usual.  It cannot mean that we go about our lives as if his resurrection never happened.

Something fundamental is at stake in how we answer the questions raised by the empty tomb—and answer them not with words alone, but with our lives.  Let’s keep sorting it out together, as we meet the risen One at Table and Font, as we go about embodying Christ’s work of reconciling and healing the whole universe.  Christ is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Pastor Erik

“Very truly, I tell you, 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

Beloved of God,

This journey of Lent is a journey through wilderness territory, and this year we’re hearing about some contemporary experiences of wilderness that are prominent within our culture.  Oh, how deeply our world stands in need of healing!  (If it feels like a bit of a slog, imagine Israel doing this not for 40 days but for 40 YEARS!)

While within the three year lectionary cycle this is the year of Mark, during Lent and Easter we get generous doses of John.  On the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Sundays in Lent when we hear from John, Jesus gives us three different metaphors for talking about what his work is about.  (1)  He is about the deconstruction and reconstruction of access to God; (2) he is God’s love offering to the world who bring the promise of life eternal; (3) he is God’s seed which must die in order to fulfill its true purpose.  By giving us these images, Jesus is inviting us to use our theological imagination to see where God is at work engaging and transforming wilderness into Promised Land.  Whatever our particular experience of wilderness may be, Christ is there working to transform it, bringing new life.  In order to do so, something first has to die.

Ten years ago, on one of the last bits of land ringing the Polar Sea, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened for business.  Its mission: to house backup copies of all the world’s food crops – 2 billion seeds in all—and to protect those seeds for thousands of years into the future.  Built on the island of Spitsbergen, the vault lies under hundreds of feet of permafrost and Arctic rock, so that even in the worst-case scenario of global warming, the seeds will remain frozen naturally for up to 200 years. Part of an unprecedented effort to protect our planet’s rapidly diminishing biodiversity, the first deposits into the vault contained 268,000 distinct seed samples–each from a different farm or field in the world.  Together, they represent the most comprehensive and diverse collection of food crop seeds being held anywhere.[1]  If seed crops are lost due to natural disasters, war or simply a lack of resources, the seed collections from Svalbard will be available to reestablish those crops, to help maintain plant diversity and, ultimately, to feed the world.

We human beings do everything we can, using all the technology we can, to extend life, and often with mixed re­sults. But the voice of Jesus in Lent declares: “Unless a grain falls into the earth and dies, it cannot bear fruit.” Jesus says this soon after entering Jerusalem for the final time with his disciples to celebrate Passover.  Enemies both within and beyond his inner circle are scheming for his arrest, and every move he makes is under suspicion.  It’s in this context that Jesus lifts up an image from the fields to tell those with him about the nature and necessity of what’s about to hap­pen, about his own impending death. “Unless I die,” Jesus seems to say, “my life, my way, my testimony, cannot bear fruit.” More simply, “The life I offer the world can only arise from my death.”

The millions of seeds cached in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will never fulfill their purpose or potential while they’re sequestered away there in sealed, moisture-proof pouches.  It’s only when catastrophe comes, and those seeds are brought out from the permafrost and buried in the earth that they will fulfill their true purpose—because only then will they germinate, only then will they sprout, only then will they grow to produce new fruit, new seed, a new harvest, to keep humanity alive.  As we journey with Jesus to the cross and empty tomb, our calling is to put our trust in God’s logic, God’s way, which in this case is akin to nature’s way.  By journeying together, we can support each other in that process.  That gift of community, of consolation, of companionship, is a gift that keeps us going in the hardest of times.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

[1] For more about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, visit their official website: http://www.nordgen.org/sgsv/

“Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves.

And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white.”

– Mark 9:2-3

“And immediately [after his baptism] the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness.”

– Mark 1:12-13

Beloved of God,

From the mountaintop to the wilderness. That’s our trajectory this month.  The season of Epiphany culminates with brilliant light on the Mount of Transfiguration as Jesus holds council with Moses and Elijah while Peter, James and John try to make sense of what they’re experiencing.

Some things are more challenging than others to put into words—and this seems especially true when numinous moments break into ordinary time and we find ourselves awestruck, disoriented, or overwhelmed.  These experiences are often fleeting, leaving us wondering whether what we experienced really did happen, or if it was that extra glass of wine or something else that lay behind the otherworldly encounter.

In his book, Convictions, in the chapter entitled God is Real and is a Mystery, New Testament scholar Marcus Borg—perhaps best known for theological approaches to the Christian faith that challenge traditional ways of understanding God and Jesus—shares a mystical experience he had later in life while flying on a plane from Tel Aviv to New York.  The experience, he recounts, lasted about 40 minutes, the longest and most intense experience of this kind in his life.  Suddenly, he recounts, the light in the plane changed and became golden, and everything was filled with exquisite beauty.  Under the influence of this spiritual moment Borg saw that everyone looked wondrous—even the man pacing the aisle who was perhaps the ugliest man Borg had ever seen—even he was transformed in that golden light.

Last night our family went to hear the St. Olaf Choir at Benaroya Hall.  Entwined throughout the program were texts and music—ancient and modern—which wove the same golden thread and sublime conviction into a seamless whole.  There was a setting of St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun, powerfully embroidered by violist Charles Gray; and a song based on the words of Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Bahá’í faith, testifying to God’s “most mighty grace…infused into all created things,” and calling us to reconcile differences and “with perfect unity and peace, to abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness.”  I experienced what I can only name a deep resonance and solace throughout the evening, and particularly so with the setting of William Blake’s poem, Can I see Another’s Woe? [1]

Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too?

Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear, and not feel my sorrow’s share?

Can a father see his child weep, nor be with sorrow fill’d?

Can a mother sit and hear an infant groan an infant fear?

No, No! never can it be! Never, never can it be!

And can he who smiles on all hear the wren with sorrows small,

Hear the small bird’s grief and care, hear the woes that infants bear,

And not sit beside the nest, pouring pity in their breast;

And not sit the cradle near, weeping tear on infant’s tear;

And not sit both night and day, wiping all our tears away?

O, no! never can it Be! Never, never can it be!

He doth give his joy to all; he becomes an infant small;

He becomes a man of woe; he doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not though canst sigh a sigh and thy maker is not by;

Think not thou cast weep a tear and thy maker is not near.

O! he gives to us his joy that our grief he may destroy;

Till our grief is fled and gone he doth sit by us and moan.

The God to whom the choir testified is a compassionate companion to the suffering; a LOVE-infused Lord who blesses us and all creation with unfathomable grace; a beautiful Savior. This God not only rightly evokes our songs of GLORY and PRAISE; this God invites us to take up the song in our own lives.  This God beckons us beyond petty arguments and turf mongering to a place where forgiveness reigns; a place of mysterious, wondrous light which illumines the Other whom we encounter across the table, across the street, and within our own selves, revealing all to be Beloved.

The artistry of the choir allowed this union of text and melody to touch us in the audience in profound ways.  At the end of the concert, after a long ovation, the choir’s conductor Anton Armstrong spoke heart to heart with us about the universal language of music and its power to unite people of every race, tongue, political affiliation, and creed.  His message, and the gift we received last night, is that music breaks down barriers; it grounds us in unity and civility. “If we could go to Washington DC and teach those politicians how to sing together,” he said, “the world would change.”

I heartily agree. In the words of Henry Van Dyke,

“Music, in thee we float, and lose the lonely note

Of self in thy celestial ordered strain,

Until at last we find

The life to love resigned

In harmony of joy restored again;

And songs that cheered our mortal days

Break on the coast of light in endless hymns of praise.”[2]

Experiences such as these remind us that beneath all the surface issues which dominate our days, our agendas, and our conflicts is an abiding light, and pulsing heart that names us BELOVED and calls us into community with all living things.

Lent begins on February 14th this year—Valentine’s Day.  I like the pairing.  It calls us to carry this heartfelt conviction with us as we move with Jesus from that Mount of Transfiguration into the Wilderness of Lent.  Lent is a season for returning to our basic covenant with God of baptism, and entering into disciplined patterns that lead us, by the Spirit’s guidance, back to the one who is the ground of our being.  This year our Green Team is offering a new approach to the old rhythm of fasting during Lent—a CARBON FAST.  We human beings have begun to awaken to the deeply negative and consequential impacts our patterns of consumption are having on creation, and our responsibility to address those impacts with faithful actions.  Perhaps LENT this year can be a time when the LOVE associated with Valentine’s Day is expanded beyond human relationships to encompass more of God’s beloved creation.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

[1] The piece mingles melodies written by J. S. Bach and Martin Luther, in a setting by John Muehleisen.

[2] To Music. Choral setting by David Conte.

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,

the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,

while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.”

– Genesis 1:1-3

John came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

– John 1:7-9

New Year’s Greetings!

The calendar turns and once more we’re at a place of new beginning. It’s true, the challenges, concerns, and crises we faced in 2017 within our families, communities, and world are not magically wiped away as the New Year begins. Yet HOPE is dawning for the Word-Become-Flesh has pitched his tent among us.  The “true light,” has come into the world, and promises to companion us come hell or high water (or “bomb cyclone” for that matter!), of this we can be confident.

Our first worship service in this New Year marks the Baptism of our Lord by John in the Jordan, and this year, we’ll welcome a new brother—Mark Gilbert—into the Body of Christ during worship. Water—the most essential and lifegiving element on this planet home—serves as a reminder of the ever-present blessing of the one whose Wind/Spirit/Breathe brooded over the face of primordial waters, calling light and life into being.  In baptism God’s promise moves IN, WITH, and UNDER the water—infusing it with grace and spirit, calling us to a new life oriented around our Lord and his way of being in the world.  As we begin the year recalling Christ’s baptism and remembering our own, we ground ourselves in our identity and purpose as sisters and brothers in Christ.  Let’s make this baptismal identity the lens through which we look at our families, communities and world.

And speaking of our baptismal vocation, on page two below you’ll read about a proposal for Peace to become an Advocating Congregation affiliated with Faith Action Network (FAN).  Plenty of energy and conversation has gone into the process that gave birth to this proposal.  Please read the proposal carefully and feel free to approach council members with any questions you may have.  The proposal will be on the agenda for our January 28 annual meeting.

January always begins with a flurry as annual reports are assembled and preparations are made for the unfolding year.  The NOMINATING COMMITTEE is hard at work looking for people among us who are willing to serve as Council leaders. A shortage of candidates last year compounds the need for even more council members to be elected this year.  For congregations to remain strong and healthy, good leaders are required.  If approached, I hope you’ll consider donning the mantle. If you want a preview of the council’s proposal for FUNDING OUR MISSION in 2018, plan to attend the budget forum on January 14th, and to participate in the Annual Meeting on January 28th.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

“Comfort Ye! Comfort ye my people! Says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her

that her warfare is ended, and her iniquity is pardoned.”

– Isaiah 40:1-2

Beloved of God,

Daylight is precious these days, and growing more so. By 4:20pm on December 1st the sun has gone over the horizon, and each morning on its low arc through the sky it rises later as it moves relentlessly toward the winter solstice—the northern hemisphere’s shortest day and longest night.

As a kid, I loved venturing out this season of the year in the wildest blizzards Mother Nature could conjure.  Bundled against the elements with nothing but a slit for my eyes, I would trek through the neighborhood, tromping through swirling snow drifts, awed and exhilarated as the storm propelled me into the experience its dark fury.  After such a foray into wild darkness, returning to the light and warmth of home and hearth was a revelation:  Ah! What grace!  What wonder!  What gratitude!

We mark this holiday time with displays of glitz and glitter and erect strings of lights on our homes and businesses that will shine through these December nights.  But behind these displays is, I think, a primitive urge to do what we can, in whatever way we can, to fight against the encroaching dark.  And that darkness comes in many forms: headlines that scream crisis after relentless crisis; project deadlines at school or work that sap declining energy; struggles in family life and health issues that keep us awake at night; anniversaries of loss.  These somber realities leave their mark even more deeply during this season of sun-challenged days.

The ancient Greeks didn’t know about light displays in December, but they knew the nightmare scenarios that populate the human story. It began with their old myth about Pandora, who opened a beautiful box only to discover it was packed with all the ills and evils the gods had trapped inside.  Amid the ensuing racket of pain, anger, and quarreling, Pandora heard another small voice inside the container. When she lifted the lid again, HOPE came forth and began to soothe humankind’s new wounds and heartaches.[1]

The Bible’s oldest word for hope, Fred Niedner points out, is “tikvah,” which also means cord or thread.  It was once standard practice for Midwest farmers to fix a line between farmhouse and barn during the winter months.  When properly secured, the fixed rope could be a lifesaver, providing guidance and a safe traveling route through the most debilitating blizzards.  The meaning of the Biblical cord, like that fixed line, is obvious. “In the darkness, beset by fears, threats and enemies known and unknown, we sometimes find ourselves clinging to a single thread [or rope] that keeps us going from one moment to the next. Without hope, some solitary cord from which to suspend our lives, the darkness would have us.”[2]

The words from Isaiah 40 served as that cord, that TIKVAH, for a whole community of people who had come to know the darkness of exile. This exiled community, notes Walter Brueggemann “came within a whisker of being able to imagine its future only in the terms permitted and sanctioned by Babylon, a sure program for despair and diminishment.”[3]

But then, onto this scene bursts a new voice: “Comfort Ye! Comfort ye my people! Says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem…” God’s exiled people couldn’t imagine this language, much less invent it.  It had to come from OUTSIDE them, and it did.  And what was so radical about it and radically new, is that it pointed them toward a future that the prophet said God was creating for them!  For some folks, this word of hope must have sounded like so much commercial hype about how life will improve if only you purchase this item or invest in this product, and they wanted nothing of it.  In fact, Brueggemann points out, most exiles stayed with the empire, which seemed to have all the goodies.  But some few took a chance on the poetry.

How are we to imagine our futures?  Where is God beckoning us to go?  Where does the TIKVAH lead?  These are Advent questions, and crucial ones for this time in which we live.  When we light the candles of the Advent wreaths at home, we repeat one simple phrase that grounds us in this season of dark nights: “Jesus Christ, you are the light of the world, the light no darkness can overcome.” The cord to which we fasten our grip must be anchored in something beyond ourselves—and it is. The line leads us to Jesus.  It is, in the end, the one line which will endure even when we do not.

Ever with Hope,

Pastor Erik

[1] The image comes from Fred Niedner’s article in the Indiana Post Tribune: http://posttrib.suntimes.com/news/niedner/9156003-452/fred-niedner-amidst-the-dark-and-fear-hope-still-appears.html

[2] Ibid.

[3] Brueggemann, Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000). Pages 65, 66.

“Lord, thou hast been a refuge, from one generation to another.

Before the mountains were brought forth or ever the earth and the world were made,

 Thou art God from everlasting and world without end.”

 ~ Psalm 90:1 KJV

Beloved of God,

The moving choral setting of Psalm 90 by Ralph Vaughn Williams echoes through my mind as I write to you.  It’s a piece I learned while singing in the Choir of the West at Pacific Lutheran University (with Jon Lackey!); a song that, after countless rehearsals and numerous performances, has etched itself in my soul.  Vaughn Williams wrote it as a double choir piece, which means that half of the choir sings one part while the other half sings a different but complimentary line.  Choir One sings of humanity: “In the morning it is green and groweth up, but in the evening it is cut down, dries up and withers.” While Choir Two sings the familiar chorale: “O God our help in ages past.” (Isaac Watts, based on Ps 90).  The effect is stunning: one choir gives voice to the human cry for meaning in the face of the brevity of life and in recognition of the God who is beyond all knowing; the other choir gives voice to the human plea for God’s accompaniment as a “shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home.” The music and texts combine to create a powerful portrait in song of the human condition and our longing for redemption.

November is a season of remembering and yearning; of endings and beginnings. As we mark All Saints Sunday this year I’ve been acutely aware of endings, having attended the dying processes of members of our community, including four in the last two months.  Death is never generic; it’s particular.  Each person’s final days have their own character.  Through the years it’s been my experience that when a person approaching death is able to talk with loved ones about this “final journey,” they significantly impact the experience and memory of those they leave behind.

On November 5th we will intentionally mark endings as we lift up All the Saints, especially those who we have known and loved. But we will also mark new beginnings, for All Saints Sunday is also a Baptism Sunday this year, and we’ll be welcoming three boys into the body of Christ—Milo (age 9), Lawrence and Harmon (twins age 3 ½ months).  There’s something powerfully resonant about having both death and new life lifted up in one worship service.  Of course we do this every week when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper—recalling the night Jesus was handed over to death, and remembering how his willing death and surprising resurrection brought (and brings!) new life to all who lean on the hope of his promises.  While memorial services are scheduled for each of the first three weeks of November, we’ll also be welcoming 16 new people into our fellowship through the Rite of Welcome on the last Sunday of the month.  And so the cycle of death and new life continues.

How will we hold these days? Are we living fully into the image which God has formed in us?  Are our lives dominated by fears and anxiety about what the future holds?  Do bleak weather forecasts and the growing darkness undercut our ability to hope?  In her book My Grandfather’s Blessings, Rachel Naomi Remen writes:

“Sometimes we live in ways that are too small, and in places that focus and develop only a part of who we are. When we do, the life in us may become squeezed into a shape that is not our own.  We may not even realize that this is so.  Despite this, something deep in us that holds our integrity inviolate will find ways to remind us of the breadth and depth of the life in us and assert its wholeness.” [p. 53]

Remen’s words invite me to take stock. Am I living too small?  Stuck in a squeeze play?  Am I brave enough to sit with the questions and wait for the answers?  The “something deep in us that holds our integrity inviolate” has a name in our tradition:  Holy Spirit.  There is a difference between being carried along in the current by to-do lists and family and work obligations, and being carried and accompanied by the Spirit.  In the calling and claiming and naming of baptism, that Spirit, which “reminds us of the breadth and depth of the life” in ourselves, was planted firmly within us.   As life surprises, challenges, thrills, and at times alarms us, we cry, Lord—you have been our refuge—don’t stop now! And when we take time to listen deeply, another Voice responds, I was there to hear your borning cry, I’ll be there when you are old, I rejoiced the day you were baptized to see your life unfold.  What a privilege it is to sing and to live that promise together!

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik