from Pastor's desK
November 8, 2024
Dear Friends,
Weeping lasts the night, but joy comes in the morning. Have you ever heard that verse? It’s one of reassurance—that as long as we live, God’s invitations to doing good stands. The night ends, the morning comes.
One of my favorite literature passages as a kid was when Bilbo Baggins found himself alone in the dark. His friends didn’t know he had been left behind. He looks around for resources, and he only has the sword he got from an earlier mistake. He couldn’t see, he didn’t know where he was, he had lost all his friends. "Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up he got and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter."
There are two things I love about this. First, he does not curse his fate. He doesn’t give up. He stands up and does his best. He is afraid, and he is confused, and he is lost. But nevertheless, he accepts it all and does what he can. And second, the sword—Tolkien often puts a few grace notes in his books. Bilbo only has this sword because he almost got himself and his companions eaten by trolls—but if he hadn’t gotten them all into that mess, they wouldn’t have found the troll’s treasure trove, and he wouldn’t have the resource he does. Bilbo’s not alone, and his past misfortunes serve to help him in his present ones. Some of this scene is in his control--standing up, thinking things through, walking despite his fear and with his fear—but most of it isn’t in his control at all. Even his sword is an accident. And yet he gets up and walks in the dark.
Tolkien believed in something he called the eucatastrophe, which is a good catastrophe. He believed Christ’s resurrection was the fundamental eucatastrophe that informed all of reality. The sudden turn, he called it. Bilbo’s standing up in the dark is a mini-eucatastrophe. But for Tolkien this was real — life is like this because God melds our stories into the good catastrophe. We don’t know how, and we can’t see how sometimes. But we know later.
By now you’ve figure out the metaphor here. But it’s something I believe with all my heart. "Go back? No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up we get, and we trot along, taking whatever help we have at hand, with fear, and despite the fear, because we trust in the goodness of God.
You’ll hear about this a bit on Sunday—Elijah is the eucatastrophic prophet par excellence. He’s often found in despair. But God says to him, let’s go. Let’s keep going.
Go back? No good at all. Go sideways? Impossible. Go forward? Only thing to do. Let’s go.
Pastor John
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November 1, 2024
Dear Friends,
If you’re reading this before Saturday night, you still have time to purchase discount tickets for the Fall Ball. Just click this link right HERE. You’ll note that we have slots for kids, too, who will be playing in the gym while the event is going on upstairs. There will be jazz music, a silent auction with everything from fine art to Le Creuset dishes, and great food and drink. We just learned we have to replace at least 75 stones on our façade, and we have three more sides of the building to go. So, when faced with a challenge, it’s good to try to have fun with it if you can—and the Fall Ball should be a fun time for a good cause—our community’s house. If you can’t come, you can go to the giving section of our website and make a donation there.
The day after our Fall Ball is All Saints' Sunday—but today, November 1st, is actually All Saints' Day. This day we remember all who have died before us and are celebrating at God’s eternal banquet. We don’t just remember the famous saints (some of whom probably had really good PR campaigns), but also people like my uncle Jeff, who recently died. Jeff was not a perfect man, but he was a faithful one, who did his best to live in trust and faith in God. In many ways, I find those examples more inspiring than the heroes we so often name. Most of us have no desire for fame, but for stability, love, friendship, and the sense that we are being useful. Jeff was like that. In all of our own complexities, many of us will find that we are like that.
In the Lutheran tradition, we believe that God makes us holy (or hallowed), which is the English version of the word ‘saint’. We are not holy because of some superhuman effort, so particular goodness. We are holy because God’s grace makes it so. We share in every human’s brokenness, but yet God’s grace can mend any human life, and bring all our broken edges into harmony. We call this communion of saints, the unity of the holy ones. It is not that we—whomever we mean when we say we—are holy, but that grace makes us holy.
We receive that grace and trust that it does what God promises. One of the ways Protestants think about ethics is in a sort of risk-taking, experimental sense. We know and affirm that we are flawed creatures, with imperfect knowledge. We know we will make many mistakes and fall into many temptations. So what? We keep going, trusting not in our flaws but in the excellence of God’s grace. That means we keep trying, keep improving, keep going, keep loving our neighbor as best as we can. We are like toddlers learning to walk—a few steps, a fall, sometimes tears. But there is a loving parent with us every step of the way.
Like any child, we long for our parent’s embrace. But to be a saint, to be hallowed, means that God’s embrace and loving hand always surrounds us, always holds us. That’s what being a saint means. It means, like a child, turning in love and trust to God, and resting in God’s arms.
See you soon,
Pastor John
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October 25, 2024
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Dear Friends,
Thank you for showing up on Sunday to hear the Bishop preach and listen to his presentation on the Holy Land. I’m sorry I was not able to be there—as many of you know my uncle died quite suddenly and I had to fly out for his funeral. We’re back to our regularly scheduled programming this week—except that it’s actually Reformation Sunday, when we celebrate the continuing reformation of the church by, uh, singing centuries old Lutheran hymns.
I have spent a large portion of my ministry being very uncomfortable with Reformation Sunday. I’m congenitally, unfailingly, unflappably Lutheran and probably will be to the day I die, but I also know Martin Luther did not want to start a church in his name and would probably be absolutely horrified that over 89 million people across the world go to churches with his name on the sign. His whole life was trying to remind people that Jesus saves, not Luther. And as he was quick to recognize his own failings—at least the ones he noticed—so should we. And all of us mainline Protestant denominations face a new challenge, which is the kind of reform that we need to undergo so that our churches will thrive in the coming decades.
My uncle was a pastor, like most of my mom’s side of the family, and he worked hard for the message and meaning of Jesus: loving your neighbor. He was especially passionate about loving your LGBTQIA+ neighbor, but his church in Honolulu was about as diverse and inclusive as it could be, given its location and context. I think so much of our faith boils down to that one command: love God, love your neighbor. To do those two things is to put your trust in God, to have faith. The Reformation—the one in in the 16th century—was an attempt to bend our attention away from ourselves and out to our neighbor and God. I think my uncle did that for many people—I hope we also do that here at OSA.
I also want to mention that we are having a neighborly gathering here on November 2nd: our annual Fall Ball. You can buy tickets HERE. Please come and invite your friends, as many as you can. You’ll have good food, hear great music, and have the opportunity to bid on some pretty great silent auction items, from Pastor John’s Ugly Pie to Uptown Clay Pottery, and two movers for a day. All of this will benefit our ongoing repointing project, which is replacing some crumbling stone and mortar. We need you come in so that we can have fun and raise funds. Please don’t miss it.
See you soon,
Pastor John.
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October 18,2024
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Dear Friends,
I’m away this weekend to go to a funeral. I’ll have more to say when I get back, so this week I just want to offer two invitations:
Please join us on Sunday here at OSA, where Bishop Paul Egensteiner will be preaching and leading a discussion about our church’s relationship with the Holy Land. Church is at 11 am as usual, and the discussion will follow.
Second, please come to our Fall Ball {purchase your ticket here}. This is our annual fundraiser for capital projects, and hoo boy do we have big one going on now. We have to repoint a great deal of our building and replace a great many stones in the facade. But as we always do, we like to tackle these projects with joy and thanksgiving—because we love this community God has called forth and we want to share the love with everyone. So please come on November 2nd to our Fall Ball—enjoy some food, live music, and our silent auction. And definitely bring friends!
Pastor John
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October 11, 2024
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Dear Friends,
Below you'll find a link in red letters to Lutheran Disaster Response, our denomination's, well, disaster response organization. They are always first to arrive and last to leave, wherever or whenever there's a disaster. Of course, they're not the only group that shows up when things go bad: the Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, FEMA, neighbors--the key is to pitch in somehow. If you click that link or use the QR code, you'll be able to send money to where it's needed most. You don't have to give to Lutheran Disaster Response. You can give to any of the other good organizations showing up and helping out. This includes our friends at Uptown Clay, who are having a ceramic sale October 23rd from 6pm to 8pm. All proceeds will go to relief efforts in North Carolina.
One of the themes of our readings this week is the Word of God, which Hebrews compares to a knife that butchers and flays an animal, laying out ever part for examination, or the point of a dagger, which makes a criminal face the crowds on the way to punishment. It sheds light, in other words, on us and our lives. It's clarifying and brilliant. All truth comes to light in it, truth both beautiful and ugly.
The Gospel story functions as an illustration of this--a young man comes to Jesus and asks how he might be saved. He follows all the commandments of God, but yet still wonders and fears that God will not accept him. Jesus says, "You lack one thing: go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." Our initial reaction is always, "Oh no! I can't do that, why would he ask that guy to do that, no one can do that, and it's a really bad idea anyway!" But this week I'd like you focus not on what Jesus asks him to do, but the direction of the deed. The man is concerned with himself. He wants to know if he himself is OK. But he is wealthy and there are many poor people, and he is not asking about them. Jesus, no prince or entrepreneur, simply asks him to turn his attention away from himself. Give what you have to the poor and follow me, as his disciples did--althought it is true that some of his disciples were poor themselves.
The Word of God shone on the young man and revealed him to be closed, and indeed even selfish and fearful. But also opened a path--yes, a scary path, but a path that would transform him if he could summon the courage to follow. I believe the Gospel implies that the young man does not follow Jesus, that he loves his wealth too much. But the window of change stays open--for God all things are possible.
I have never seen such a climate of disinformation in my country. Apparently there is truly a large swath of people who have been reflecting on the unprecedented nature of the hurricanes and saying, "This never used to happen. Something has changed." Of course climate scientists have been warning us for years that we can expect more frequent and intense storms. But given the choice between climate science and the wild idea that Democrats control the weather, well, they chose the latter, just as many people chose to believe that immigrants in Springfield were eating dogs and cats. It's important to know that there is both misinformation, which is mistaken information, and disinformation at play here. Disinformation is deliberate falsehoods, deliberate lies--the lies about the 2020 election and the dog dinners of Ohio were told for a reason: to summon loyalty and to flood the zone of information, to make us give up on truth and settle into a numb cynicism about everything.
The Word of God will not allow that. It is a fierce bright light burns disinformation away. It gives us a rock-solid foundation. It's a beam that evaporates the fog, sends darkness fleeing. It's a call to help your neighbor, to see in your neighbor the face of God. The ring of truth echos on all the other words in the world, and by the echo you'll know when you hear lies. They won't ring true. It will bend your heart to your neighbor, and you will be transformed by God's compassion.
Please support the work of all the volunteers and aid workers responding to the disasters south of us. Someday we will need people here to help us. If you can't go yourself, send prayers and blessings and money to those that can. And where you are, do what you can to work for a fossil fuel free future.
See you soon,
Pastor John
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October 4, 2024
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Dear Friends,
Today is St. Francis of Assisi Day! St. Francis seems to be one of everybody’s favorite saints: he was almost like a wizard, speaking with animals, caring for the poor, and even attempting to end a crusade by traveling to Egypt and meeting with a Sultan during a cease-fire. This last effort was a failure, and he probably contracted trachoma and malaria, which killed him upon his return to Italy. But the holiness of his way of life was inspiring for everyone—he was very quickly recognized as a saint and is celebrated by both the Catholic and Protestant traditions.
I think he is so inspiring because he focused on the holiness of the world as it is: on human beings, on the forces of nature, on all the creatures of God. Every one of them is worthy of care, every one of them requiring human patience and understanding. It’s interesting to see how science has shifted its views of animals and plants over the past decades: we have become less focused on which animals have reason, and more focused on how other creatures receive the world, how they understand it. One of the craziest things I’ve watched this past year was a documentary on dogs called Inside the Mind of a Dog, in which a scientist uses word buttons that allow dogs to use words to communicate to human beings. In one clip, an ambulance went by, and the dog got up and tapped “crying” and “car”. We’ve known for so long that dogs can understand as many words as toddlers, but only recently have we discovered they can use the same words by tapping buttons. It’s mind blowing, but any dog owner can tell you that dogs really do try to talk. You just have to learn how to listen.
As much as we know about this world—and we know a lot more than we ever have—we are also discovering how little we know. A sign of wisdom is discovering that the more you know, the less you know you know, if you know what I mean. And we are also discovering how much we’ve forgotten—the science of indigenous peoples, the assumption of human beings within creation rather than above it: perhaps that humility is the most important thing we are recovering now. We’ve split the atom, but we’ve also split from the right way of living within God’s creation. I think, more than anything, we need to recover that.
Turns out Francis was right to call the animals his brothers and sisters, and he was right to try as best he could to live in harmony with them all.
Today from 4-6 I’ll be doing a blessing of our sisters and brothers in the garden in honor of God’s beautiful creation and his servant, St. Francis. Blessing is a way for us to draw our attention to God’s mighty works—one of them was placing us in the created world, surrounded by an almost unfathomable world of beauty and majesty. And also cats.
See you soon,
Pastor John
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September 27, 2024
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Dear Friends,
There’s a very aggressive and didactic little hymn called “The Lord Now Sends Us Forth” which has one verse and chorus that goes like this:
The angels were not sent
Into our world of pain
To do what we were meant
To do in Jesus’ name:
That falls to you and me
And all who were made free.
Help us, O Lord, we pray
To do your will today.
This will be helpful to remember when we worship this Sunday, since this is one of the years when St. Michael and All Angels Day lands on a Sunday. Technically, this is what’s called a Lesser Festival, which is kind of like a holiday that isn’t a federal holiday—maybe a day of awareness for some particular cause. Still, the church kind of nudges us to celebrate it—although angels are somewhat touchy subjects for 21st Century Americans.
Angels, really, are kind of embarrassing. People will tell you about their guardian angels, or just throw a dump truck’s worth of Precious Moments Angel Tchotchkes on top you, or something else. Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings sort of stuff. And indeed, there’s a lot of sentimentality around angels that really doesn’t belong in the church.
But for all of us folks who deem ourselves educated and grounded, there is one thing we need to know: angels are there at the oldest part of Scripture. They have roles and functions and need to be acknowledged as part of our Scriptural heritage. So what—in Scripture at least—are angels?
Angels first of all, are members of the heavenly household. Whether you want to call it a court, which may be more suited to the ancient times, or God’s Parliament, which may better reflect our times. But they are also God’s heralds, that is, they communicate with and guide God’s people. I think herald is a better term than messenger, because a herald comes with more duties than just communicating—a herald also represents an authority. And that’s what angels also do in Scripture. They also function as bringers of light and justice, defending the weak from the designs of evil. St. Michael, in particular, seems to function as a defender.
Angels can appear as humans, but when they show up in their splendor, they always say four words: “Do not be afraid.” Angels are holy, and holiness makes humans realize their unholiness, and thus causes fear, just as Adam and Eve became afraid of God after they had sinned. But usually this encouragement, angels also usually say something along the lines of, “Stand up and do not worship me: I am not God.”
And that’s still the point. Modern interpretations of this day emphasized the vastness of the cosmos and the ignorance of humanity—there is so much we don’t know. But God holds the universe in his hands. And it is God that speaks to us, through the Word, to open our eyes to God’s presence and, most importantly, God’s love for all that God has made.
The angels in Scripture are signs of God’s love and care—they are, like us, God’s servants. They do not deserve our worship, because they are not God, and, like humans, their service always points not to themselves, but to the one they serve.
And if anyone wants to be called an angel, that’s what you should strive to be: somebody whose service shows God’s love.
See you soon,
Pastor John
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