New Dawn, New Year, Coming Promise

As I write this, the rain and grey has returned to the Emerald City. What a contrast to last week, with its cool, crisp sunny days…and its unforgettable sunrises.

I confess I am a morning person. I love the quiet of the predawn dark. It is such a pregnant time of the day, filled with possibility and potential. It is also a time when much of our continent has already been awake and productive, giving me incentive to start catching up. After I have been up for a bit, doing some morning tasks, I will walk out to the end of our drive and get that morning’s paper. When I am returning and getting near our front door, on a clear day, I can look right and see Mount Rainier. Last week I saw some of the most beautiful views of Mount Rainier I have ever seen. The air was so clear it made Rainier appear so much closer than typical. And the early morning rays of the just-dawning sun wrapped themselves orange around that still sleeping volcano, like a glowing, warm hug.

Thanksgiving, Mission, and Stewardship

When I have been asked what I believe is the central theme of the Christian faith, I more often than not answer that it is stewardship, for two reasons. First, everything we have is a gift, it is grace. A steward is a person who cares for other people or other people’s things. We are stewards of the life God afforded us and all that we encounter while living, for it is all God’s and we are simply managing it. Second, having been given a gift, it raises the question of what we will do with what we have been given. This determines what sort of steward we are. The range of answers to that question is wide. Do you acknowledge that what we have is, in fact, from outside ourselves? Do we consider ourselves worthy, or having earned, our life and all that it offers us? Do we care about how our choices affect others? The scriptures begin with God declaring creation good and entrusting responsibility for creation, including other people, to people. This is a theme that runs from the beginning to end of the Bible. Stewardship cannot be avoided either in the scriptures or in the life of a Christian.

In last Sunday’s epistle lesson we read these three verses.

“In (Christ) you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.… And (God) has put all things under (Christ’s) feet and has made (Christ) the head over all things for the church, which is (Christ’s) body, the fullness of God who fills all in all.” Ephesians 1:13, 22-23

A week ago tomorrow (Saturday), will be one week since I tested positive for COVID. Susan had become ill on Tuesday and tested positive on Wednesday. Susan by far had the worst case: more severe symptoms and they lasted longer. We are both on the mend and we thank you for all your expressions of support and offers of help, even as we apologize for not responding to you all individually. We are not unique, unfortunately, in having COVID in our church family. We pray for all of those who are enduring this virus as I write this, some with mild cases, some with severe, but hopefully all soon behind us.

I had mentioned in one of my earlier writings, that northern Europe in its pre-Christian era had seen the darkening days of November as a season when the light of the life and the darkness of death intermingled into the grey of Autumn. In this season, they believed, that the separation between the living and the dead became thin, allowing communication between the living and the dead. Today early, pre-Christian practices are can still be found in some places where the dead are remembered and communicated to. It is in response to this tradition that the Christian church in the West instituted All Saints’ Day, All Souls’ Day, and November as a month of remembering the dead.

This cultural approach was, and is, quite common in the ministries of Christian missionaries. Those bringing the gospel to a new people would find a theme in their culture and connect it to a theme of the gospel, in this case the resurrection of the dead and the communion of saints to these autumnal festivals of the dead.

This week’s cool temperatures seem more like October in the best ways. When I was a boy the cooler temperatures, the autumn palette of colors that carpeted the hills and valleys in my homeland all pointed not only the end of summer and first gasp of Fall, it ushered in a whole new rhythm of life. It was high school football on Friday nights, JiffyPop popcorn and watching television with family, the World Series and intramural crab soccer games after school, and anxiously awaiting the Holy Grail of gift dreaming, the Sears “Christmas Wishbook.”

It wasn’t all pleasant however. Sometimes it meant disagreeing with your parents about whether you needed to wear a snowsuit under your Halloween costume — “but no one else is going to wear a snow suit under their costume.” Oftentimes it meant being warmer than your friends while trouncing through the snow on Halloween, and feeling glad you were, but never admitting it to Mom and Dad.

In praying my morning office Tuesday morning, the lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures was from the first chapter of Jonah. In verse 5, I read, “Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god.” (NRSV) I thought it was a funny coincidence at the time of my reading. But it came back to me as tragic as I got into my car to drive home later that day. I turned the Mariners’ game on the radio before I left the parking garage—just in time to hear the sound of a game winning, three run, walk off homerun by the Astros. If I would have left the radio on after that, I just might have heard the sound of fearful Mariners crying out to their gods.

I am currently teaching a study on 1 First Corinthians at the Shores. The church at Corinth was probably the most diverse church in the first century. That church’s diversity became particularly evident when they gathered, manifesting itself in divisions. Preparing for this study has brought gathering to my mind. It also has brought back to mind one of the most profound experiences of gathering I have ever had. It was when Susan and I visited Sweden for the first time. My father’s relatives took us to the Johansson homestead. They arranged with the current owners to take us onto the farm that my great-grandfather once owned, and into the farmhouse in which my grandfather was born. After visiting the homestead, they took me to the grave where my great grandparents were buried. There I stood at the head of their grave, surrounded by my father’s cousins, their spouses, and their children; none of whom my father ever met. In that moment I had a profound sense of identity that I can only describe as feeling at home.

Gathering: From Sweden to Corinth to First Covenant—Part 1

Autumn is a season of gathering. Farmers harvest their crops gathering them for storage or for sale. Students who have been dispersed over the summer gather in classrooms again. In northern Europe in pre-Christian times, it was a time of gathering with your clan, living and dead. The cooler, greyer, less vibrant days of the year’s end marked the end of growing season. People’s lives moved indoors, bringing families physically closer together. Those shorter darker days also led those people to consider what we now call November to be a season of the dead. Christians turned that time of remembering the dead into what we know as “All Saints Day” applying the hope of Christ’s resurrection to a season of remembering and grief. As a church, we are gathering again in greater numbers as our summer travels are subsiding and we settle into life in Seattle in shorter, less sunny days. So we open this more robust season of our church’s life and ministry by gathering on “Welcome Home” Sunday.

I seem to be repeating myself. And it seems I have little control over it.

Chaplain Greg Asimakoupoulos of Covenant Shores puts together a weekly Evensong service which he posts online. More than once I have found myself “preaching” in this service —meaning, Greg found some video of me from Fuller or here at First Cov, and inserted it into this service. Most recently, he repurposed my sermon from July 10, this past summer, for this week’s Evensong video. That particular Sunday the gospel text was the parable of the “good Samaritan.” It was interesting for me to hear that sermon again at this time, as I have been thinking a lot about “being a good neighbor.”

The last two weeks “on the Vine” I have been reflecting on the nature of Christian growth or formation. I identified the unique charisms of the Evangelical Covenant Church as a part of the Lutheran Pietist tradition, that insist on the primary and initial action of God in establishing a relationship with human beings; in other words, an emphasis on grace. But we are not completely passive in our faith, instead our faith is a grateful response to God’s grace by being good stewards of the gifts and abilities God has given us. We do this by allowing God to develop our faith and gifts by the work of the Holy Spirit through the Body of Christ, the church.

This Saturday we will celebrate the sacrament of baptism for two people in our community by confession of faith. As I am preparing for that special day, I am reminded of the ancient Christian adage, “Christians are made, not born.” Martin Luther made a comment about baptism that reflected this thought. Luther said, no matter how old you are when baptized, it is like putting an infant into a monk’s robe. That is, all baptisms are something you need to grow into. It is the beginning, not the end of any faith journey, even for someone who has grown up in the faith and is baptized confessing their own faith.

“Archeology” and “nursery” aren’t two words that you think would naturally go together. But the sign above my office door gives evidence that they intersect—at least in this sign.

As you may know we have a team of young parents who are taking the care and maintenance of our nursery very seriously. This is a real gift to our church as we have a number of children who use our nursery, with more on the way. We should be equally excited by and appreciative of the work they are doing. But there are other benefits it seems. Allan Waite, while doing the hard work of clearing out the space and all of its nooks and crannies, found the sign that is now found above my office door. It reads, “If you don’t know everything in the bible, you need Sunday School; if you do, we need you! Sunday School Committee.” This sign was the fruit of Allan’s “excavation” in the nursery. A “fossil” from a previous era.

Welcome to “Life on the Vine”!

In the fifteenth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus offers a very unique take on the life of his followers. Jesus describes himself as a vine, and his Divine Father is the one who tends to the vine. (15:1) Later Jesus describes those who follow him as branches which “abide” in him as the vine. “Abide” here means to both “dwell in” and “conform to.” We are to live connected to God through Christ, becoming more like Christ as we do. In chapter 14 Jesus had already made clear that what is expected of Jesus followers will be supported by the Holy Spirit. (14:15-17) It is the Spirit that will help us abide in Christ, like the water and nutrients from the vine provided to sustain the branches, following this vine metaphor.

I have just returned from a trip to Toronto, Ontario. It is an old haunt of mine from the 1970s and 80s, growing up just south of the New York-Ontario boarder. Each time I have returned, I find it interesting to see how much Toronto has changed over the years—and how much it has remained the same.  I have always been struck by how clean a city Toronto is for its size, and that is still the case. What struck me this visit is that this very diverse and cosmopolitan city has become even more diverse. Part of the reason this visit was the number of international tourists who were enjoying Toronto and its mild summer weather.

August is upon us. It used to be the last month of summer, back when school began after Labor Day. But students are already heading off to college and K-12 faculty and staff will soon be heading back to their offices and classrooms. August is a transitional month. The weather outside tells you its summer, while your calendar and its “to do lists” tells you otherwise. August is a month to look back, look forward, and take inventory. And so, I will.

I am not a fan of change. So it is with no amount of reluctance that I write these reflections about a change in our church.

Nat Bartels was hired almost exactly three years ago, July of 2019, “as a permanent, part-time employee” whose ministry title was “Organist/Accompanist”. This past Sunday was her last Sunday as a member of our Church Staff, though she will be “filling in” at least one more Sunday in August. By the time I met Nat in 2020, she was more than just a musician. She was functioning as our church’s music director and played a vital role in creating congregational song opportunities and special music for our prerecorded worship services.

There are a lot of songs about home. In the 60s and 70s many songs were written by people touring the world at a young age and missing home. (Trivia: The world renown band Coldplay cut short its first US tour in 2001 because they were homesick.) From James Taylor’s “Isn’t it Nice to be Home Again” to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound” songs have identified “home” as a place that is an extension of yourself, and when you are absent from it, you are less than yourself. The song that has always defined home for me, was the Bacharach and David song, “A House is not a Home.” Home is where you find those you love. And when they are not there, a home becomes simply a house. Home is about relationships and identity.

I wanted to continue last week’s summer musings this week. As I mentioned last year, Summer is a season of vacating; leaving, emptying yourself of responsibilities for a short while, and hopefully returning with renewed energy and focus. And so it will be for Susan and me.

Susan was planning on going to visit her family in Rockford last week. My plans were to leave this week for Pittsburgh where I would meet up with three friends to go canoeing and camping on the Allegheny River.

Summer. It is a magical, mythical season. It is a time for play, think of Roger Kahn’s classic baseball book Boys of Summer, or your favorite amusement park. Summer’s a time for romance, think of your favorite songs about falling in love in the summer, or your favorite summer romance films. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream covers all the bases: love, supernatural, and summer coalescing into one of Bard’s most beloved plays. Summer for we moderns is time away and time off—summer vacation. We created a break from year around schooling so children could help on their family’s farm. When then-President Nixon suggested this need no longer existed and proposed eliminating summer vacation for students, the pushback was firm and decisive. Too much of our culture (and economy) assumed a magical oasis in the warmest, brightest time of the year.