Not a Weapon of War, but Proclamation of Peace

          There is an apocryphal story about the Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo; when he first presented the statue of David to a group, they asked him, “How did you ever sculpt such a magnificent masterpiece?”

         To which he replied, “All I did was chip away everything that didn’t look like David.”

         And our lessons this Lent having to do with Covenants, do something of the same
—they chip away at everything that has to do with God’s relationship with Humanity, the Earth, and all of Creation
—until all that remains is that famed “New Covenant” that the Prophet Jeremiah writes about, that we Christians describe as the magnificent relationship between Creator and Creature, 
established by God through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

         For these five Sundays in Lent, we’ll be chipping away at assumptions and affirming right imaginings, 
until we can see this Good News of God from many angles, 
see what our Relationship with God is, and isn’t. 
What God’s Covenant is not… and is… 
(So here’s what we’re going to be doing for the next five Sundays)

1.      God’s Covenant is not a weapon of war, but the proclamation of peace.

2.      God’s Covenant is not exclusionary rules, but trust permeated by hope.

3.      God’s Covenant is not Diktats to the Enslaved, but Freedom in Community.

4.      God’s Covenant is not Wages for Human Work, but Our Whole Life, a Gift from God.

5.      God’s Covenant is not a fragile, scattered, shattered relationship, but continually being drawn into internalized, intentional, renewed relationship.

         Let us pray

 

         God’s Covenant is not a weapon of war, but the proclamation of peace.

         A surface level reading of Genesis points us to an awful story, echoing Pagan Myths (Gilgamesh and the like) that this story is told in order to neutralize and relativize—stories of a war against humanity—an attempt to kill us all.

         It is a war like any war—Regional, worldwide, cold, civil, or otherwise, fought not daintily, but viciously.
A war in which Divinity drowns all of creation.
         It is the massacre of the wicked to smother the spread of wickedness
—a war against humankind. 
         Not only that, it is a culling of “the sons of god” from three chapters earlier, who brought corruption to these befuddled humans
—a containment operation to save creation from contamination by evil angels.

 

         I know I once encouraged our Sunday School to make Origami Ark animals, 
but Genesis 9 isn’t really a story for kids
—it’s almost a horror story!

         Imagine Noah, terrified, body unbearably clenched, holding his breath after the first storm after THE STORM—The Flood. 
He wonders, was it just a truce? a Cease Fire? Is the DMZ between Divinity and us about to explode?

 

         He looks in the air and sees the bow! The awful bow! A weapon of war.

         If you’ve seen any coverage of the Super Bowl Parade shooting, you’ve heard the interview with the guy that tackled one of the shooters, he was shocked when he saw the gun sort of tumble out into the air. 

         And I think we were all shocked when we found that the two shooters were kids with guns! 
21 shot, 11 of them children, 1 person dead
—because of two kids with guns.

         That’s the kind of horror Noah feel when the bow appears in the sky… 
but he looks up and sees that this bow is not taught, 
it is not strung, 
it isn’t at the ready to kill and to slaughter
—no! Remember! It’s a sign of peace.

         

         When I was a little guy living in Brussels, we’d travel all over Europe
—I’ve been to every continental country that wasn’t communist before the fall of the Berlin Wall, save Greece. 
But of all the things I saw, I remember best this giant statue of a Lion. It was made out of cannonballs, and it commemorated the end of the Napoleonic Wars
—these wars, it is argued, were the first experiences of total war in Europe
—not just professional soldiers skirmishing in fields, 
but everyone was part of these wars.

         Cannonballs transformed into a sign of peace—the wars are done!

         God’s Covenant is not a weapon of war, but the proclamation of peace.

 

         Peace between God and God’s Good Creation! 
Peace an eternal promise—not a temporary cease fire. 
Peace an unconditional offer—never again shall I flood the earth.
Peace between God and every living thing that resides upon the earth. The earth itself at peace with God.

 

         And not only the earth itself, we see, the whole world and beyond! All flesh, and all spirit as well! That’s 1^st Peter’s message.

         If the author is thinking of the Genesis 6 crew—rebel angels turned rebel spirits
—Christ is then in process of redeeming the powers and the principalities, 
taming and transforming them… 

(Because we are in the year of Mark, and Mark is all about Exorcisms, 
and we just finished up a Bible Study on Revelation, and Revelation is all about worship in little congregations scattered here and there echoing in Heaven and impacting every power on earth
—we’ve talked about this type of stuff before)

         Everything that is bigger than an individual: 
be it an addiction, a corporation, a nation, social structures like Apartheid or Segregation
—they have a Spiritual impact… 
and need to be opened to the love of God, 
they need to be ministered to, 
and the primary way the Church does this, is by our witness to collective possibility and love. 
Our Spiritual heft as the Body of Christ is to be a role model for their redemption. 
When “angels, authorities, and powers” know that we are Christians by our Love, they can find themselves joining in the song of all of creation!

 

         If the author is thinking these spirits in prison are all those who died in the flood
—then we are seeing God’s unconditional promise to all the earth overflowing!
The seeming Human O’ so Human impulse to wiping everything out in disgust
—severing every relationship to reboot, to start again… 
that too is redeemed. 
Even Divine violence, is vanquished by the compassion of the God we find in Christ. 
         Christ’s appeal to God for all flesh and all spirit proclaimed to us all!

Truly, there is an unimaginable wideness to God’s mercy!

 

         So there you have it, the first hammer blow as we chip away at this marble block, 
and eventually find the statue within
—the New Covenant, 
the way God is in relationship with us.

God’s Covenant is not a weapon of war, but the proclamation of peace. Amen.

The Devotional So Far

 Hey all.

I just wanted to start of by saying it is not too late to start reading the 7 Central Things Lenten Devotional Blog. At this point it is all preface, all building blocks and road maps. Starting Sunday it’ll begin to follow its pattern.

So far, I’ve introduced the blog in a broad sense, then pointed to two pieces of scripture that point to the 7 Central Things, and then shared my big idea of what the church is wrestling with these days—7Cs, 3Ds, and a Small Catechism, which I’ve shared with long time readers of this blog before. Starting Sunday I’ll be looking at what it means to Gather with a few different lenses. If you read this blog, I’d encourage you to migrate over to 7 Center for Lent.

A Lenten Devotional Blog

Hey all. I’m going to be doing a daily devotional blog about the 7 Central Things of Worship during the season of Lent.

This isn’t exactly a new direction for me. Back after Hurricane Sandy knocked power out in my area for a couple of week, I created a prayer pamphlet for my congregation that eventually became Read, Reflect, Pray. Somehow this work launched me into a place where I was able to assist in editing the current edition of Minister’s Prayer Book.

Since then, I’ve dabbled with doubling down on writing about the 7 Central Things, even creating a series of 21 questions that, that I think could help liturgical churches answer the big “what’s next?” question hanging over all of our heads.

At one point, I hoped to do a Sabbatical in which I’d spend 10 weeks focused on writing a book about the above questions and how Paul, as we understand him in light of the New Perspective, might answer some of those questions, or at least give us some fresh rhetoric to use when talking about worship these days. I thought it might be a book that could save the Church!

At another point, I’d planned on doing a D. Min. focused on the 7 Central Things; three years studying early church liturgies in hopes of discovering how the central things of worship might be decentered and scattered out into the world, being salt and light. I imagined such a thesis might provide scaffolding for a liturgy for the post-Covid post-Christendom world.

Instead of all that, I’ll follow the Hip-Hopper KRS-ONE’s advice, “Know the story of your own success, or you won’t be successful.” I’ll go back to writing some simple devotions.

I’ll be publishing 47 reflections on the 7 Central Things of worship. Each series of reflections will begin in scripture, point to a personal experience, mine a thinker who engages with the aspect of worship, poke at the “what now?” question, give a broad-brush summary of the subject, and close in prayer. I hope this devotional blog speaks to people’s hearts, possibly provokes some faithful thoughts, and may be a first draft of something more in the future.

Elijah, Elisha, and the Bands of Prophets

        Have you ever heard of the Rule of Three?

Simply put whether you’re telling a story or singing a song or coining a phrase
—it will be more memorable if it contains groupings of three.

         Three things or events or people 
are enough to establish a pattern, or break it, or just surprise you in general! 

         Think of the stereotypical Baptist sermon—Three Points and a Poem.

         Or popular slogans: 
-Stop, Drop, and Roll, 
-Government of the people, by the people, for the people,

-See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

         Or children’s stories like:

-The Three Little Pigs,
-The Three Bears,
-The Billygoats Gruff

 

         Today’s story of 
-Elijah, Elisha, and the Band of Prophets, 
-traveling to Bethel, Jericho and then the Jordon 
-Elisha refusing to leave Elisha three time
is one of those stories that can stick with us if we let it. 
         It lulls us into a pattern, 
bursts that pattern open at the end, 
and leaves us mourning, and blessed, and called
—just like Elisha.

Prayer

 

--

         Dear dreadful despairing Elijah has suffered much, 
miraculously survived the ongoing persecution of the faithful in Israel by pagan royalty, 
has been a fiery righteous, perhaps even self-righteous, Prophet of the LORD our God.

         By the end, he believes himself to be completely alone, 
none are faithful save him… 
so lonely he could die!

         And God responds by saying, “You’re done! Well done! There are others who are faithful, so you are done!”

         

         Elijah then announces to his disciple Elisha, “Stay here, I’m going to a place where God acted on behalf of his people.”

         Stay here. You don’t want this life—it is so hard that death seems soft.

         Stay here. This path is a guarantee of loneliness.

         Stay here. I am the last faithful one.

         

         “I will not leave you!” Elisha responds.

         Fine! If he goes he will at least be clear eyed about the challenges 
and the hard things that God has asked of the Prophets, 
and will surely ask of him, my successor.

         So, they go to the place, and there
—a posse of prophets await, 
they wait for the only remaining prophet of God. 
The many wait for the One.

 

--

         Eager Elisha, Loyal Elisha, Elisha—Elijah’s Shadow. 
Plucked from plowing by the old Prophet, 
he slaughtered his cattle and made a feast out of ‘em.

He didn’t need them anymore, 
not a farmer anymore, 
he would devote himself to ministering to Elijah instead.

 

         And Elijah said to him, “Stay here, Elisha, I’m going to a place where God acted on behalf of his people.”

 

         Elisha responded, “I will not leave you!”

         I will not, because in your despair, you’ve become curved in on yourself, and I can not leave you alone!

         I will not, because you need to make it there, and see these saints, they’re all waiting for you!

         I will not, because I need to see that place, know our story, I need to make it my own. Our story is instructive, inspirational, inspiring.

 

         So they go to the place, and there is the cluster of prophets, a crowd waiting for him, the many faithful waiting for the one faithful.

 

--

         They had been gathering, 
a host following him by the last trek, 
those who had stayed faithful in the face of much resistance and persecution and violence.

         “Stay here; for the LORD has sent me to the other side, the ultimate example of God acting on behalf of God’s people!”

         “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live yet, I will not leave you!”

         And the two of them went, the gathering, now numbering fifty, 
stood at a distance as Elijah’s mantle 
dissected the water and revealed 
dry ground.

 

         On the other side, the two men, had a heart to heart. 
“What can I do for you, 
before the inevitable happens, 
I am taken from you.”

         

         “Give me a double share of your spirit. 
What has made you great, may it make me greater still. 
Make me faithful 
like you were faithful, 
like all those prophets of the past were faithful!”

 

         “If you see me as I am taken, you shall receive such faith, if not, you will not.”

         And they walked on the way, until horse and chariot and so much flame, separated them.

         And Elijah was plucked up to heaven.

         And Elisha, eyes peeled wide, watching and shouting said, “Father! Father! Father! Chariots! Horsemen! Of Israel! 

 

 

         And yes, he mourned, 
and yes he took up his master’s mantle 
and yes he melted the sea before him like Moses back before them all.

         He did indeed fit into the flow of the history of those places they visited.

         Elijah performed 8 miracles, Elisha 16—truly a double portion.

         The best is yet to come, the kid was alright, accompanied by the company of prophets God’s works continued.

--

 

Stay here. I will not leave you. Look a whole company of prophets! 

Idols and Spirits

 

            Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit at his Baptism, having called his disciples, goes to Synagogue 
and runs into a man with an unclean spirit. 
The Spirit is surprised
—there is a Clash Between Holy and Unholy, sacred and profane
—and Jesus throws the Spirit from the man… 
And darn it, Mark’s Gospel doesn’t let us see this as a one-off
—no, one of Jesus’ main acts as God’s Anointed, 
in Mark’s Gospel in particular
—is exorcism. 
Jesus is an exorcist.

            So too, the Early Church spends a lot of time wrestling with worship of Idols. And this was very practical
—most meat in the ancient world was butchered, 
as part of a sacrifice to this god or that god
—to emperors and to idols. 
From Paul’s letters, to the Acts of the Apostles, to the Book of Revelation
—Christians struggle with the existence of Idols 
and how to interact with them without losing their souls.

 

            Spirits and Idols… 
subjects that might seem far from our immediate experience of the world. Creatures from the TV show Stranger Thingsor a statue snatched by Indiana Jones…
It might even feel embarrassing that we read aloud about them in the year of our Lord 2024... and yet, 
-anyone who has been captured by something bigger than themselves, 
-anyone who seeks to be made whole by something that is unholy,
-anyone who has been in awe of something that isn’t God,
-anyone enmeshed in a system with a screwed-up spirit… 

            can tell you that the way scripture describes and deals with demons, with overflowing grace,
            and the way the Church relativizes idols, by being gentle with each other…

            It’s a word that still needs to be heard.

Prayer

 

            There is a famed study of Spirits, Demons, Powers, and Principalities by the Theologian Walter Wink. His conclusion is that scripture is describing the Spiritual Heft of an organization, nation, or system—what it does to people enmeshed in them. 

Think Corporate Ethos, 
or Zeitgeist—the Spirit of the Time.
            That those things have a weight to them that we don’t notice, 
because we’re in the midst of them… 
we’re like fish
—we don’t know water is wet, 
because we’re swimming in it.

            The main example Wink used was the Apartheid regime in South Africa
—a totalizing system bigger than any one person, or even group of people, 
that made individuals behave in ways they never would have, 
had the system not existed. 

            There is an awful spiritual significance to that kind of thing.

            Think of family systems people get caught in
—the “Bad” daughter leaves town,
so all of a sudden, 
the family treats the next-door neighbor as the “bad” daughter
—and she become that very thing
—possessed by the system’s power.

            Or think of the goal of political parties and campaigns
—getting masses of people to fit every opinion in their heads with a particular ideology 
and to identify in a deeply personal way with an individual politician, 
unable to see where their self ends and the party begins.

 

            Luther too studied scripture and re-named, re-defined, a key concept
—in his case Idols… 
He declared that Idols are those things we 
fear (awe), love, and trust that aren’t God… 
those things we treat as the Creator, but are in fact part of creation.

            The example I often to use to get at Luther’s meaning with Confirmation Students is to invite them to watch an hour of TV and focus on the Ads. 
What do the ads promise will make everything better? 
What piques your Greed or is declared to be something you need? 
-If you had clear skin everything would be perfect, 
-if you had faster broadband internet your children would respect you, 
-if you don’t keep up with this trend you are irrelevant,
if, if, if…

            As Paul writes, “there are many gods and many lords.”

What are you being told would make you whole? 
That is a thing that you need to be careful of, 
you could be tempted to worship it.

 

            Part of why the Unholy, Unclean, Spirit is surprised by its encounter with Jesus 
is that Jesus flips the script on how Holiness works
—traditionally the question is “what holy thing has become impure by being touched by an unclean thing?” 
Instead, the way Jesus practices Holiness, is that Holiness is catchy… 
How is the impure, mundane, and unclean, 
made holy, because it encounters with Jesus?

 

            Wink understood the Church’s job is to be 
a system, organization, Ethos, 
with its own spiritual heft
—a holiness that offers an alternative way of being
—an overflowing holiness that is catchy, 
that, in fact, redeems the powers and principalities.

            We’ve been going through the book of Revelation in Bible Study
—and one of the neat things about that book is how it describes the Church’s work musically
—there is the worship of the congregations John the Revelator is writing to, 
which is then sung in heaven, 
which echoes out among the angels,
 and then fills all the earth with praise for the Lamb of God.

            Or thinking of Dr. Wink’s experience, 
when congregations in South Africa worshipped together, black and white, 
they were challenging and transforming the Unclean Spirit of Apartheid… 
Holiness is catchy….

 

            Paul’s response to the idols of his age, 
was to recognize that they have no power, 
other than what people gave them… 
AND ALSO that there were folk who were still stuck, 
or at least gravely tempted, 
by eating meat sacrificed to idols. 
And that these “weak” these “least” these “little ones” 
needed to be noticed and protected.

            Idols, these things of greed and need, 
offered false and hungry promises of wholeness, 
and the church needed to offer an alternative of gentleness, 
the uplifting of the lowly. 
            In the face of stumbling blocks and stone idols, 
we are called to be a living temple.

 

            Idols and Spirits
—overcome with gentleness 
and redeemed by the catchy holiness 
of God’s community sung into the world.

Amen.

Follow and Fish: Our Vocations

         “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

         Follow me
—notice how near God’s rule can be! 
Focus on that, not the extraneous stuff! 
Isn’t that good news?

         Turn to what God is up to, 
Trust that God is making you part of it,
and be transformed.

         

         Transformed, not in some ephemeral way, that melts in moments like snow in July, 
but in the concrete world in which we live
—after all God uses means to be gracious, 
word and water and meal, yes… 
but also flesh and blood humans, in all our vocational capacity. 
Fishermen, a father, nets and boats
—the whole works
—all of our roles, relationships, and responsibilities
—all of ‘em, shot through with the Spirit.

         That’s one of those central Lutheran claims
—God’s holiness isn’t found ONLY among us collared types, 
mediated by the Pastor, 
pounded out in prayer
—no, as Luther wrote, the Holiest thing he ever did, 
was his Fatherly duty
—change his son’s diapers.

 

         Now, all of you have written something down, persons, places, and things
—Relationships, Roles, and Responsibilities…
find a neighbor and share with them a little bit about those 
Vocations where you’ve experienced God doing something in your life.

 

Prayer

         “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

 

         Follow me
—Repent
—turn 180 degrees, so you’re focused on God’s actions, 
make a U-Turn, or at least make a turn on the jug handle, 
and get headed in the right direction. 
You’re GPS is saying re-calculate, 
so that you can find what the Spirit is up to in this moment, 
and join in the flow of it!

         …Feels like more than a flow, doesn’t it?
—it feels like you’re going against the current, 
against the grain, just to gain the right trajectory?
         Yeah—that’s because those Vocations of ours, are tricky thing… 
those spaces God works through, can also be the Devil’s play place. 

         We can take our vocations, and make them gods—Idols
—we can start to think of them as ends unto themselves, 
the goal not the journey.
We can be captured by them, instead of called to them by God.

 

         Our Relationships can enslave us
—How many messed up behaviors by adults come from bad relationships or misunderstandings with parents from childhood.
How many songs have been written saying that you just gotta find a good man, or good woman and everything will be fine, ecstatic even? 
–I know back when I was single, there were times I wanted to be in a romantic relationship more than I wanted to be alive!

 

         The Roles we take on can take us over. 
Think of the way some clergy hold so tight to their titles, 
that you’d think it was their ordination that brought them into the body of Christ, 
not their baptism!

 

         Responsibilities too can callous our hearts to the calling of the Kingdom. 
“We’ve always done it that way” or 
“I was just following orders” or 
“I gotta take one for the team.”

 

“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

         Repent of those ways your vocation makes you veer off course, because they can be redeemed, transformed! 
Fishermen will become Fishers-of-Men, of People… 
         After all the boat James and John were on makes later appearances 
ferrying Jesus to and fro.
Those nets Simon and Andrew cast aside, 
will be cast again to catch a multitude on the other side of the resurrection, 
and surely Father Zebedee was not abandon—he’s got a feast day after all…

         Our vocations, once relativized, 
are moved from being Idols to being part of God’s creation, 
and therefore Good and Very Good!

         

         Think of those relationships that drew you closer to God. 
How did that happen, what was that like? 
Perhaps the ways those people were models of the faith for you, 
the ways they brought you along to never be alone, 
can be models for the way you share your faith with others too!

The way God drew you to the faith might be where God is calling you now… 
sometimes these things kind of rhyme or echo
—and now one of your relationships might be a channel of the Spirit’s work 
in a similar way to those relationships that shaped you!

 

         Consider too those roles you inhabit—those identities you have. 
Just as the fishing boat was left and returned to, repurposed in light of the Good News, 
so too, you might leave and return to a role. 

         This sometimes happens in retirement: 
a trucker becomes a school bus driver, 
a Pharmacist or Nurse becomes a medical relief personnel, 
a Doctor becomes one without borders. 
         Alternatively, something done as an amateur, can take center stage
—a passion for guitar becomes a gig becomes a service to God and neighbor,
an early interest in ocean animals becomes a call to conservation,
a flare for the dramatic blossoms into the inspiration of millions,
a role you once loved, becomes your New Old Love.

 

         Finally, our responsibilities, bereft of goals or a larger purpose, can become no more than drudgery or a deflated kind of duty. 

         Why fix the net, why keep fishing?
         But, when there is a WHY to what we do, 
when we have a purpose, a goal, a good that gives us meaning 
it ennobles our duty, 
Tasks can become callings.

 

         I always think of the largest funeral I ever attended
—he was a bus driver in West Philly, 
he was known for being so conscientious, 
always making sure his riders got home safe, 
and when he had the heart attack while driving,
he instinctively pulled his bus over, because he had a responsibility to his riders. 
         There was a meaning to his duties
—caring for people was his purpose
love was his why and his goal.

 

         Jesus says to us: “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Amen!

Revelation Chapters 2-3 as a handy dandy chart

 

CITY	Ephesus	Smyrna	Pergamum	Thyatira	Sardis	Philadelphia	Laodicea
JESUS	The One Who Holds 7 Stars	The One who is the first and the last, who was dead, but now lives!	The One whose tongue is a Two Edge Sword	The One who is God’s Son, whose eyes are flame and feet are brass	The One who possesses the Seven Spirits and seven Stars	The One who is Holy and holds the Keys to the Kingdom	The One Who is the faithful and true witness! He is the Amen!
CONGRATS	You recognize and rebuke false apostles, and are patient	You have suffered and been impoverished, you’ve been singled out by your Jewish siblings for persecution by the state	You stay faithful despite living where Satan reigns, you’ve even kept faithful in the face of the execution of Antipas	You are loving, faithful, patient, and serve	X	Your work speaks for itself. Despite being singled out by your fellow Jews for your trust in Jesus, you’ve not recanted. Hold on!	X
WARNING	You lack love!	X	Some of you follow a leader who entices you to pagan practices around feasting including participating in temple prostitution	Some of you follow a so called prophetess, a self styled “Christian Temple Prostitute” She teaches you to commit all kinds of idolatry!	Don’t you see you’re essentially dead! Save what you can before it is too late. You’ve been ambushed and taken unaware in your dirty clothing	X	You are lukewarm! You think you’re rich, but you are actually miserably poor! You need to grasp true riches and need to be healed, because you’re broken!
PROMISE	Continue to follow Jesus and you shall receive the fruits of the tree of life!	Continue to follow Jesus, and you shall conquer the second death!	Continue to follow Jesus and you shall receive hidden food from God and an invitation to the Feast of God	Continue to follow Jesus and you will be like a royal victor, and it will be a new day!	Continue to follow Jesus and you will be clothed in beauty and your name will be written in heaven	Continue to follow Jesus and you will be an unwavering pillar of God’s temple in the New Jerusalem!	Continue to follow Jesus, I’m knocking! I’m eager to feast with you! You may reign with Christ!

Sermon: Butterfly Wings

 

         Have you heard of the butterfly effect? It is the idea that small events can have big effects.

         The term was coined by a meteorologist who explained that weather prediction is hard, because you have to take into account a butterfly flapping its wings… or to quote the title of his papers: Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? 

         This idea has outgrown its initial boundaries of weather prediction, as an all-encompassing term to talk about small changes having large consequences.

         For example, did you know that the first Bishop of the ELCA became religious in the first place because his dad was fired for smoking on the job, 
and part of the family making ends meet involved little Herb Chilstrom—the future Presiding Bishop—ringing the church bell of the local Lutheran Church at 6pm every day
—and the rest, as they say, was history. 
Small events that have larger consequences
—the butterfly effect.

Let us pray

 

         Philip tells him, 

“I’ve found the one we’re looking for! 
I’ve seen him! 
The one of whom scriptures sing! 
Jesus of Nazareth!”

         To this Nathanael scoffs: “Nazareth? What good can come from Nazareth?”

         There are different theories why Nathanael is down on Jesus’ hometown… 
-perhaps it’s just not Nathanael’s home town, and that’s enough of a strike against ‘Nazareth. 
-Perhaps he’s read his scriptures so literally that “Nazarene” has to be a type of vow, not a town. 
-Perhaps he’s prejudice against that little town sitting in the shadow of big city Sephoras.

         Or maybe, Nazareth is just too real. 
Too concrete
—when God acts, God will act in a fairytale place at a fairytale time
—Once upon a time… 
a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.

         I know when I’ve visited Nazareth it seemed… 
less than pristine
—dirty even, 
walls with shards of glass baked in to keep out intruders, bars on every window, sketchy. 
I’d went hoping to see where Jesus once resided… 
and the place was full of people, living breathing people, people just living their day to day life…

 

And that’s where we often end up when we seek God
—there is a famous poem “The Preacher’s Mistake” about a preacher who climbs up on a church steeple to be closer to God, 
and stays there until he is at death’s door, at which point… 
well let me just read the end to you all:

In his age God said, 
“Come down and die!” 
And he cried out from the steeple, 
“Where art thou, Lord?” 
And the Lord replied, 
“Down here among my people.”

 

         We can get this idea, that to be part of God’s story, you need to experience something grandiose, 
we need to climb up to heaven where it isn’t sketchy or small or clogged with people…

         There is a religious impulse to seek God in the tornado—in big grand acts, 
and our lives are too little to contain such things—we affirm: 
Our stories are too small for God to be at work there, right!

         And when we do that we miss seeing the butterflies moving the world, taming or inflaming the tornadoes.

         We miss seeing God, we miss our moments to point and say, “Look, there is God at work!” because we’re caught on the steeple.

         I’ve told you about this study before
—but I repeat myself, because I hope you hear what I’m saying
—there was a study where folk were asked to watch an inning of a baseball game, and then asked what jumped out at them as strange, and they replied “nothing” but there was a man in a gorilla suite walking back and forth across the field the whole time
—people weren’t looking for it, so they didn’t see it, they couldn’t find anything out of place… 
so too with God,
God at work in our lives, 
if we don’t know to look for it, we’ll never see it!

 

         And just so, Philip says to Nathanael, “Come and see!”

         Have you thought about the strange ripples of butterfly wings that get Nathanael to Jesus’ side?:

-Nathanael heard about Jesus from Philip, 
-who was a neighbor of Peter.
-Peter, heard from Andrew, 
-who heard about Jesus from John, 
-who heard it from the Holy Spirit…

         Come and see, 
and be seen, 
and found, 
and find 
and follow 
after him in whom God is doing a new thing!

 

         I can think of my own Come and see moments
—An ordained minister in Rural New Jersey because 
-a faithful first call in central Jersey that lasted a decade, because,

-Communities in North West Baltimore and West Philly trained me up on internship and Field Ed, because 
-Dr. Falk and Pastor Kegel shepherded me through college in Oregon, because
-Pastor Sarah preached about a Gracious God and took my questions seriously in Wyoming, because 
-I was obsessed with the musical Jesus Christ Super Star for longer than was probably healthy, because
-my grandma sang “Jesus loves me this I know” to me when I fell asleep at her house in the summer, because
-my parents entrusted me to a wild eyed, chain smoking, chaplain in Fargo, who baptized me, because… because… because

 

         Take a look at those cards you filled out—who shaped your faith? Find someone near you, tell them at least a little about that person you are thankful for, for their because, that they flapped their butterfly wing and it kindled your faith!

 

         Butterfly wings
—I think of one of Bishop Chilstrom’s most moving moments as Presiding Bishop
—he was about to go to Ethiopia to celebrate the church there, 
and he remembered a note in his mother’s Swedish Psalm-Bok, that had been in the family for generations. 
In the back there were some notes, family trees, that kind of thing, and a special note about donating a few pennies to a collection for “the black man Onesimus in Stockholm.” 

         Onesimus, who would later translate the Bible and Small Catechism into his own language and is seen as one of the founders of Lutheranism in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Church, which is now the largest Lutheran body in the Lutheran World Federation.

 

         The Butterfly effect—God showing up in Nazareth. 
The Butterfly effect—the spirit prompted words “come and see.”

         The gift of seeing beyond prejudices and visions of grandiosity. 
Seeing what is right in front of our nose. 
Being seen by God and found through the gentle witness of our neighbors
—sharing God’s story with those all around us. 
Amen.

Reflections on "A Journey of Grace" by Herbert W. Chilstrom

               Reading Chilstrom’s book was a joy and a revelation! It was both wonderful to learn about the man who was the first Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, and to learn a thing or two about the inner workings of my denomination from the time before I joined, as well as some of the character of predecessor church bodies.

 

A Lived Theology

              I met Bishop Chilstrom once, at the Churchwide Assembly in 2009. I didn’t fully get who he was at the time and so I did not understand both the awe and vitriol being lobbed his way by our dining companions. I wish I’d had a chance to talk with him in a more meaningful way, in his book he comes off as a compelling and thoughtful figure.

His relationship with his brother, David, who was mentally disabled, and how his brother’s life exemplified for Herb an incarnational ministry and the Theology of the Cross, put flesh on some pretty heady concepts.

On one hand, David was the famous local son, not Herb, because he lived such a relational life, deeply embedded in the lives of everyone who lived within walking distance of the facility where he lived for decades. It reminds me of that mind blowing truth that all but the end of Jesus’ ministry took place in a 7 mile by 13 mile area.

On the other hand, Herb tells the story of his parents sending David off to a special needs school. Herb lost his best friend that day, and for the weeks and months that followed he cried himself to sleep, wondering, “How can this be? Where is God in all of it?”

As Bishop Chilstrom, Herb, writes, “I believe this experience was the beginning of what I later came to understand as the theology of the cross. I could not believe that God, as I had come to understand God in family and Sunday school, would cause things like this to happen. Instead I came to see that God comes to us at our most distressing moments in life, helping us to see that Christ, the Suffering Servant of God, understands our deepest sorrow because he has taken it to the cross.”

              Additionally, I appreciated reading about the pathos of being a Bishop. It is “lonely at the top” especially when also being a first. Then there was Bishop Chilstrom’s struggle with the tension between his role as bishop and his personal feeling regarding church policies, especially the ELCA’s 30-year conversation/fight over Human Sexuality. Chilstrom’s conscience told him homosexual relationships were no more innately sinful than heterosexual relationships, but he had to enact the policies of a denomination that wasn’t there yet. At times he considered quitting and becoming a Lutheran DJ—no literally, that was his plan at one point!

 

The Leak

              Speaking of the ELCA’s 30-year conversation about sexuality, I understand it better now. I’d always assumed the distrust and animosity that swirled so savagely through the ELCA around the subject had to do with just that, the subject. After all the questions around inclusion of the LGBT+ community seemed to pit grace against scripture, and talking about very personal, important, and relational parts of a person’s life can be uncomfortable to say the least. All that is true, but the other dynamic at play was the leaking of the first draft of the ELCA statement on sexuality.

Get this, most ELCA pastors heard about what was in the original draft document on the national 10 o’clock news. Someone leaked it to the press! As the news tends to do, it focused on the most controversial parts of the statement (Masturbation and Homosexuality) and didn’t offer any nuance (for example, that this was a draft social statement, not a change in “doctrine”), and the statement was still in the mail, so no ELCA pastor could comment with any certainty about what the draft contained! 

I may have heard about this situation before, maybe even in Seminary, but now as a lightly seasoned pastor, I get on a gut level what a betrayal of trust that was for everyone involved.

You are shaking hands after worship and family after family asks about the statement, and you have to reply, “I don’t know,” and they don’t fully believe you, because you should know something about it; the Synod wouldn’t leave you flat footed! Some people shout at you because they had to explain a sexual term the news presenter used to their child; they’re angry and they have to attack someone, and you’re the easiest target, and the softest too, because they know you, and they know you’ll forgive them even if they’re nasty to you.

Other folk whisper in your ear that they have a cousin who is “that way,” and you don’t know how to respond, because they have expressed bigotry toward gay people in the past… and that family doesn’t come back the next week, and don’t answer your phone calls.

The confirmands can’t stop talking about hairy palms, and it is so bad that you can’t get through the lesson about the second article of the Apostle’s Creed with them. Do you make that session a teachable moment? Well… you don’t have the statement itself to work off of, and if you’d talk about something that sensitive there would need to be some pre-work, probably parental permission.

The next week is a council week and there are some unexpected guests at the meeting, a group of concerned members who want to know why you didn’t prepare them—they wonder what they pay you for, if you aren’t at least the person in the know about what “they” are doing in Chicago.

Maybe you did text study with a colleague or two. They want you to join them in sending a formal complaint; there is a consensus that this would never have happened if we were still LCA.

              Imagine that experience repeating itself over 10,000 churches. Yipes! Talk about a self-inflicted wound! No wonder questions of human sexuality consumed three decades of our life together. No wonder when we as an organization have idle hands we return to those fights and cliques that were developed during the argument. The ELCA was traumatized by that event!

 

Predecessors & Polity

              Finally, there was a lot of talk about the various Lutheran Church Bodies that existed before and alongside the ELCA. I’m a young one, relatively speaking; I’ve never not been an ELCA Lutheran.

Prior to the ELCA there were four major strands of Lutheranism floating around that shaped the ELCA:

The Lutheran Church in America. This denomination was more top down and clergy focused. When they talked about Christian unity and ecumenical dialogue they tended to think about uniting with the Anglicans, the Roman Catholics, and the Orthodox traditions. Broadly speaking it was “liberal” and East Coast centric, and the baston of “German confessionalism.”

The American Lutheran Church. This denomination was more congregational and lay oriented. When they talked about doing stuff with other Christians, they talked about doing stuff with folk from the Calvinist tradition and with other protestants in general. As a rule, it was a more “conservative” and midwestern denomination; many members came from Norwegian or German pietist traditions.

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. This denomination is decidedly conservative and hyper-confessional to the point that they don’t consider ecumenical dialogue or doing stuff with other Christians as something Lutherans should do. At one point the leader of the LCMS was a relative of the leader of the ALC. There was a moment where those two church bodies may have united, but that ship sailed. They are a very German denomination.

The American Evangelical Lutheran Church. This is a group of people and congregations who left the LCMS. They left after several LCMS seminary professors were essentially tried for heresy and the students at that seminary revolted—This situation was called Seminary in Exile, Seminex. This much smaller group’s goal was to unite with the LCA, or become the hinge for the formation of a new Lutheran Church.

              As a minor point of interest, Chilstrom believes he became Presiding Bishop mainly because, while he was LCA, he was from the Midwest and came out of the Swedish Lutheran tradition, that was simultaneously very confessional (like the LCA) but also had a Scandinavian pietistic streak (like the ALC); additionally, his wife was a minister in the ALC. So, he was a great bridge between two of the streams of tradition feeding into the ELCA.

              One of the what ifs I wonder about is what if the AELC/LCMS split had gone a little differently, or Seminex never happened? What if the ALC/LCMS cousins had forced a merger? What if the LCA had scooped up the AELC quickly? But, that’s not what happened. Instead, the ELCA was formed by the merging of the AELC, LCA, and ALC. We are a denomination that is neither top down nor bottom up, but instead interrelated in three expressions: Congregation, Synod, Churchwide. Chilstrom acknowledges that this is an expensive church, as all of the expressions are fully functioning, funded, and empowered entities.

One interesting point about paying for all these expressions, or more to the point not paying for it, is that the ALC had a dual giving pattern; each congregation gave to their district (think Synod) and Churchwide, whereas the ELCA’s giving patter is that congregations just give to the Synod, who in turn gives to the national church (though as I wrote elsewhere this isn’t always how it works out). It seems that after the merger most former ALC congregations, while giving to the Synod in the same way they used to give to the District, chose to retain locally the money that they used to send on to Churchwide. For the sake of unity, no one on the Churchwide staff was comfortable pointing out that former ALC congregations were being less generous than former LCA congregations.

There are two major players on the Churchwide level, in addition to the Presiding Bishop and their staff, the Church Council who have a lot of authority, but no power, and the Conference of Bishops who have a lot of power, but no authority. While the Conference of Bishop is theoretically an advisory group, Presiding Bishop Chilstrom found they could act as a surprising brake on his decisions when they disagreed with him. At times the structure of the ELCA felt to Bishop Chilstrom like it did not live up to its interrelated design, and instead took on the character of a federation of 65 synods and 10,000 autonomous congregations.

This review may have gone into the weeds, but I assure you that has to do with yours truly, not the book I'm reviewing. It is well worth a read. It features encounters with such varied people as Mikhail Gorbachev and Billy Graham. It is a faithful and kind telling of the formation of the ELCA and the formation of Chilstrom's faith.