Faith, Grace, and Hope

Reformation Sunday – Synod Sermon Readings:  Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 46; Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36   Dear friends in Christ and co-workers in God’s kingdom on earth,  I send you prayers of grace and peace on this Reformation Sunday from myself and the saints at Big Timber Lutheran. We remember you in our prayers and we trust that you remember us. On this day, we remember our shared history with other Christians around this world. The glory of this day does not belong to Martin Luther or other reformers, but to God, our Holy Parent, who speaks through the power of the Holy Spirit in every age to those who will soften their hearts and receive a message of reformation with a willing spirit.  The focus of this holy festival remains the same as every Sunday’s focus- a celebration of God’s faithfulness, of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, of the Spirit’s on-going work through the holy, universal church, the community of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the l...

On a drive this past Saturday, my daughter and I were playing the game, "Fortunately, Unfortunately". This is an improvisational story-telling game where you build a tale, line by line, with one person starting with "Unfortunately..." and the other saying, "Fortunately..." My daughter loves to be "Unfortunately". I was coaching her in the concept of "yes, and" and in how to make the story broad and to consider all the options open to the characters. My character, Esmerelda, was taking a walk on a beautiful day when, unfortunately, a storm blew in. Fortunately, her friend, Bob, saw her and offered her a ride. Unfortunately, Bob's "check engine" light began flashing. And so forth... At one point, when Esmerelda and Bob were floating down a flooded stream on her porch with three cats in a one cat-carrier, I commented that my daughter was being kind of rough on our friends. She said, "I'm Unfortunately. That's my ...

Isaiah 45:1–7; Psalm 96:1–9; 1 Thessalonians 1:1–10; Matthew 22:15–22 Once upon a time, there were two groups of people. Both held a lot of power, and they struggled against each other constantly. People grew tired of hearing them complain about one another because it seemed nothing ever changed. One group was fiercely protective of their home territory—very interested in national security, if you will. They were deeply concerned with both the private and public lives of the people around them. This group was considered devoutly religious, though their strict focus sometimes kept them from seeing the forest for the trees. The second group was known for aligning themselves with foreign powers. Their idea of peace came through surrendering authority to leaders far away. They were major proponents of heavy taxation. Even though they weren’t typically viewed as religious, they developed a sudden interest in religious leaders and theological issues whenever it became politically expedient. ...

Synod Sermon – Pentecost 19, Lectionary 27, Year A Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:7-15; Philippians 3:4b-14; Matthew 21:33-46 D ear Friends in Christ, Grace and peace to you on this celebration of the Lord’s Day. I thank God for you and for all the Spirit is doing in and through you. Remember, beloveds, that the work of God is not only what   we   can name with our traditional spiritual frameworks, but also the gifts of the seasons, life-giving weather patterns, and the wonder of wild things. In the shifting sounds of autumn, I would like you to take a moment to reflect on the idea of walk-up music. Almost always, walk-up music is associated with baseball. It is the snippet of a song that comes over the loudspeaker as a player approaches the batter’s box. The music is both for the player and the fans. It hypes up the player and lets the crowd join in on the excitement of who is up next. Walk-up music makes an appearance in other arenas. Some large public-speaking events have adapted t...

In June of 1939, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned to Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He had visited and studied there in the 1930–1931 school year and was returning as a potential lecturer. In the years between those visits, Bonhoeffer had been a founding member of what was called the Confessing Church, a movement of committed Christians—clergy and laity—who were resisting the state church’s alignment with the government of the Third Reich. Bonhoeffer had been offered several opportunities to leave Germany to teach and preach elsewhere in safety. When he came to the United States in 1939, he was doing so for his safety and to escape conscription into the German army. He was in the U.S. for two weeks before he realized he’d made a mistake. He wrote to his friend and fellow theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, these words: I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America this time. I must live through this difficult period in our national h...

This might be a post about ranch dressing. Or maybe not.   Last September, I was so sick. I felt awful and not being well kept going on and on. I tried to hide it as best as I could, even downplaying the situation when I told people that I wasn’t well or when I had to step back from a responsibility.  It wasn’t that I don’t know how to stop. It was that stopping meant time to consider how bad things were. I didn’t want to.  Eventually, after not quite two months, I was diagnosed with celiac disease. There were many medical tests and a lot of contradictory advice that finally led to the diagnosis. By the time I was diagnosed, I felt weak, sick, and confused. An autoimmune disorder was better than what we had thought might be happening, but learning the shape of my new life seemed like a climbing a mountain shrouded in fog. I could keep climbing, but I had no idea what would come next.  I had been in a place before where I thought I might choose to walk down a path and...

What’s the next step when you pull up to a gas pump?  What are the steps to making pasta?  What order do you put your clothes on (provided you’re not Superman)?  What happens at a stop sign?  For most of us, the way we do these things is ingrained in us. We’ve done them so many times, we probably don’t think about them anymore.  There are other situations that occur less frequently for which we need to memorize what to do.  What are the signs of a heart attack in a man? In a woman?  What are the signs of a stroke?  What to do if a rancher says the hospital might be necessary?  We CAN learn what to do in each of these situations and we should. You should know what your first, second, and third steps will be. There are fridge magnets, flyers, and all kinds of internet guidance for these situations.  Do you know what your next steps are if someone tells you that they don’t want to be alive anymore? Do you have a plan for if a friend says, “...

In general, other than at a funeral close to the time of death, I do not say prayers for people who are already dead. I pray for the grieving, for those who continue to mourn, for those with unspoken pain, for the currently dying, for caregivers, for those with vocations surrounding the realities of death, for those tending to the many tasks that come with death. All of that, yes, but almost never directly for people who are long dead.   That changed this summer as I visited cemeteries, happened upon graveyards, viewed countless war memorials, paid my respects where markers had worn away, and stood in places where blood watered fields.  I went to the cemetery that holds the mass graves and some individual plots for the victims of the  Lusitania  disaster. I wept at markers for the dead of the Great War (WW1) and the Second World War and stood quietly at markers for the lost in individual battles.  My son and I read through names on a memorial marker to the ensla...

Note of caution:  The opening story for this sermon touches very briefly on infant loss.    Grace and peace to you, friends, from the God who sustains us and maintains our connections, through the Holy Spirit, across the miles that separate us. We in Big Timber pray for you this morning and we welcome your prayers for us.  Almost 14 years ago, when I still lived in Alaska, I was in two very different online groups. One was for women expecting babies in January 2013. Connected through a larger website, we encouraged and supported one another through the experience of pregnancy and early motherhood.  The other group was a very large, international group for women clergy. This group had existed for years, shifting with the internet, and continued as a su pport group, sharing resources and even meeting in-person in small groups and for big events.  In December 2012, a tragedy occurred in my January baby group when one woman went into labor early. The baby ...

This is a sermon about Jesus, adversaries, and Dolly Parton.  When Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan”, I imagine the other disciples all sucking in their breath and averting their eyes. None of them would have imagined Peter as a red devil with horns and a pitchfork, that’s an image from much later.  Jesus is giving the disciples information they need to know about the kind of opposition, pain, and grief they are going to face when they come into Jerusalem. It is going to come from both civil and religious authorities, Jesus warns, but God’s authority is greater and trauma and destruction will not be the end of the narrative.  Peter either cannot comprehend what Jesus is telling them or doesn’t want to. The careful explanation and spiritual preparation do not comport with the image he has in his mind of the one he has already named as Messiah. The healings he’s seen, the teachings he’s heard, the miracles he’s observed, surely all of this will not end in the...

Each summer, it is a privilege and a pleasure to help with staff training at Christikon and at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp. One of my favorite things is to put out slips of paper and invite questions of all kinds. I still take (and get) verbal questions, but I receive a raft of folded slips of paper with burning questions of all types.  Here is a sample:  How can we reconcile the truth in other religions with Jesus saying He is the way, truth, and life?   What should we do with what we’ve learned here?  Why don’t we know who is going to hell?  What if one person’s definition of the Bible as a tool might act/feel like a weapon to someone else?  How should I relate to Jesus as a brother?  How can God be good, but allowed my abuse to happen?  What do you believe is the purpose of religion?  Should I fit to the church or the church fit to me?  What is your perspective and/or the Biblical perspective on utilizing violence to overcome op...