God and Country

When I lived in Japan as a missionary many years ago, I heard a lot of stories.  I heard stories of Japanese Christians, and how they came to faith.  Some of the stories were from the time immediately after Japan lost World War II.  It was a time when the Japanese people did a lot of soul-searching.

I heard one story about man who had been in the military during World War II.  I no longer remember his position, but I still remember the American pastor pointing to the pew where this man always sat, every single Sunday.  He threw away his Shinto "god-shelf" when he became a Christian.  He no longer venerated his ancestors as you were bound to do, as a good Japanese man.  He was all in.

What had finally convinced him of the truth of the Christian faith?

It was the story of the creation of the world.  The Shinto religion only had a creation story for the creation of Japan.  But the Christian faith -- their creation story told of the creation of the whole world.  Therefore, the Christian God must be the greater God.  The Christian God is the God of the whole world, not just one country.

The Christian faith is a tiny minority in Japan.  All of the churches where I worshipped were small, just fifty or sixty people making a congregation.  Yet there was a witness of the good news in Japan, good news of great joy to all the people:  not just one country.

After three years of living and working in Japan, I returned to the United States.  I remembered this man's story, although I'm not sure exactly why.  Perhaps it was so odd to me.  I am used to testimonies that focus on the grace of God in Jesus.  I'm used to hearing stories that focus on personal redemption.  And all of that might have been there.  But the final piece of the puzzle for this man -- was that the Christian God created the whole world.  A god bigger than his country -- that was a god he would follow.  A God who created the whole world was a god worth believing in, a god worth following.

A God who created the whole world.  A God who loves the whole world.  Not just one country.  That is the God we confess when we come to church every Sunday.  That is the God we claim to follow.  So as much as I love my country, as much as I love this place I call home, I have to believe that God has wider concerns.  God loves the people fleeing violence in Central America, the displaced children in Syria, people who are starving, no matter their country.  God wants them to be fed.  God wants them to know God's love and grace.

In the Scriptures there are stories of a promised land and a chosen people:  Abraham and Isaac, and the nation of Israel.  But the chosen people were always set within a larger story:  the story of a God who created, and loves, the whole world.   Not just me, but you.  Not just American children, but children from Syria, children from Guatemala, children who are hungry, children who are afraid.  Wherever they are.

Tonight I am thinking about that Japanese man, the one who threw away his god-shelf and went all-in, who never thought that being Japanese and being Christian were the same thing.  Maybe it was easy, in a country where there were only a few Christians.  But even here in the United States, where there are many more Christians, I think we need to make a distinction.  I need to make a distinction.  I need to throw away my god-shelf and go all in.

I believe in a God who is bigger than my country.

The Old Neighborhood

Earlier this week, as I was visiting shut-ins those in the hospital, I ended up in the Old Neighborhood.

Not my Old Neighbor, at least not exactly, but my dad's old neighborhood, where he grew up, and the community that formed him, or at least, his faith.

I was at the nursing home across the street from the church where he was baptized and confirmed, Augustana Lutheran Church in downtown Minneapolis.  It is now situated across the street from the Metrodome Stadium.  The nursing home where I visited was begun by the church many years ago.  It's a large complex, with different kinds of nursing facilities, assisted living, and apartments. 

But the church itself is very small, or, at least it is now.  In fact, I heard recently that the church building is up for sale, and that the tiny congregation is looking to move to another location not so far away. 

Like I said, it's not my Old Neighbhood exactly; it's my dad's old neighborhood.  He grew up at this church.  In fact, when my parents were first married they belonged there.  I was baptized at Augustana Lutheran Church, and started Sunday School there.  I remember climbing up the many steps to the sanctuary, and having one of the ushers hand me a bulletin.  That old entry with many steps was closed up many years ago; too hard for the elderly members to navigate. 

I remember the large sanctuary and the tall ceiling, and the man who spoke from the pulpit (but I couldn't see him).  I remember getting picked up for Vacation Bible School by the associate pastor and his family.  They had a station wagon.

When I was in first grade, we moved to a church in our neighborhood, away from the city, into the suburbs.  It was the first great migration, and many of the families that belonged to Augustana moved as well.  They enlivened the churches in those first ring suburbs, the churches that are now experiencing decline, and wondering what their mission is.

Augustana became a small congregation, but it did not have a small vision.  As I went in the door to the Augustana Home last Wednesday, I considered the ongoing legacy of care.  The church may be tiny, and the church may even die, but Augustana gave itself away for the sake of the gospel.  They gave themselves away starting mission congregations, too, some still going strong out in the suburbs.  But at they gave themselves away most of all for the sake of the mission of caring for the elderly, for the vulnerable, for those who could no longer care for themselves. 

It seems to me that there are worse things that could happen to a church.  A church could disappear without ever giving itself away, preserving itself until everyone is gone and the doors are locked.  The only legacy would be the building standing unused. 

Of course I wish that Augustana Lutheran church, and those hardy Swedish immigrant like my grandparents could have found a way to reach out and  be a vital worshipping community to the people who live there now.  There is another church, I hear, who wants to buy their building perhaps.  I wish that of all of our churches, in fact -- that we could learn a way to welcome one another, worship together, offering the bread of life to people who are our neighbors, even if they aren't Swedes or Germans or Irish anymore. 

But it seems to me that there are worse things that can happen to a church than what is happening to Augustana.  The faith of the our ancestors continues to bear fruit there, in the Nursing Home, in the Assisted Living Center, in the chapel where people gather.

I hope we can say the same when we are done.  I hope they will say of us that we had dreams worthy of the mission of God, that we gave ourselves away for the least and the lost.

I Skipped A Day

Someone tell me if it's ok to post twice in one day somewhere down the line to make up for it.

I'm trying to do this "blog a day" thing, but yesterday really got away from me. We had a morning-long session on racism for our local Ministerium. The worship preacher was this incredible African pastor. That was wonderful. The conversations we had afterwards, and the issues of race that came out were also painful, but necessary.

I was also growing this enormous migraine. So I went home, took medicine and went to bed for part of the afternoon.

I got up in time to get back to church and work on aspects of our upcoming Children's Sabbath. (Those in the know: I know this is later than it is supposed to be, but our October was filled up with Stewardship.)

African-American Pastor and I met with two members of the community council, seeking out places where we can work together for the common good. Very very preliminary meetings.

Then went in a long Leadership Board work meeting.

I was up some in the middle of the night, thinking: I hate when that happens. I was thinking about the possibilities and difficulties in being a disciple: how I want to equip people to be passionate disciples in the world; how can I get ahold of busy people long enough to give them the tools to be followers of Jesus in all their lives? Do the members of my parish consider me to be passionate about my own faith? Why or why not? Do I think we should have after-school tutoring at our congregation? (we are across from the middle school). Do I have time or ability to learn Spanish? (We have a lot of immigrants in our community.) What about my writing? I think in order to hold myself accountable, I need to find a writing group. I am up in the night thinking about these things.

This morning I had a backache and a headache again.

Immigrant Church

This is a picture I recently discovered of my dad, from around 1949. You can't tell from the picture, but I remember the neighborhood well enough to know that he's standing outside his home Church, Augustana Lutheran (at the time it was called First Augustana, because it was the first Augustana church in Minneapolis).

Standing next to my dad is his friend Carlton, who was also associate pastor at the time. He looks like he's getting ready to preach, doesn't he? I remember that Pastor Franzen used to come get us for Bible School in his station wagon. When I was very small, our family also attended Augustana Lutheran Church with my parents and grandparents.

My father's parents, as some of you might recall, were Swedish immigrants. Folke and Judith found a Swedish Lutheran congregation after they settled down here. Augustana held services in Swedish and in English; I believe they still hold the traditional 6:00 a.m. Service on Christmas Day in Swedish.

So, we're just thinking about reaching out to immigrants in our community, simply because we have suddenly looked around and realized that there are a lot of immigrants in our community. And some people are saying, "Why did they come here? What are they doing here?"

And I look at this picture of my dad, and I think, you know, it wasn't so long ago, and they were probably saying the same things about us, "Why did they come here? What are they doing here?"

It wasn't so long ago that we were the immigrants.

"The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God." Leviticus 19:34

We're In New York....

Well, actually, we're staying with friends in a charming town not far away, in New Jersey. It is really a lovely place, and these friends are about the most gracious people in the whole world. This town is home to a prestigious college and seminary; they live about two blocks away from the train station, which takes us into Penn.

Yesterday we went to Ellis Island. More about that later. We were to meet friends later in the evening in Greenwich Village. He was playing in a band. We were so tired after Ellis Island that we went home and I fell asleep. I could not get myself back in gear to go back into the City. I feel very badly about that. I called our friends and told them we wouldn't be able to meet them. I feel old just now. It takes a few days to get used to living by train schedules, and we never have more than a few days.

Our digital camera is broken. I feel badly about that too. Does anyone know if they can be fixed, or if the camera stores tell you just to "buy another one"? (we did get pictures of Ellis Island.)

We are getting a late start today. Will go in to the City soon, hope to see a show tonight. I'm trying to remain flexible, although we are currently hoping (as many know) to see The 39 Steps. We'll see.

Don't know about tomorrow or Saturday yet.

Sunday Sermon

This is possibly the last sermon I will post. I've been thinking about beginning to preach more from notes than from a manuscript.

"Fear Itself"


Just last Tuesday afternoon, I found myself in a place that – before Tuesday – I had no idea existed. I think it’s probably a well-known place to people of a certain age (that is, significantly younger than I am), and from its advertising, it is one of the best places to have fun in the Twin Cities. The place is called “Pump It Up!” I was there to help chaperone a number of our Vacation Bible School children for a field trip. Perhaps some of you are wondering what kind of fun you have a t a place called “Pump it Up”. I at first thought it must be some kind of body-building experience, but in truth it is a kind of gymnasium full of inflatable sports equipment, from bouncy slides to basketball courts, obstacle courses, and what they call “bounce houses.” I witnessed children of all ages throwing themselves into the equipment, bouncing as high and as hard as they could, running back and forth between play stations with big smiles on their faces.
For about an hour the children could play as hard as they wanted to, jump as high as they wanted to, with as much energy and enthusiasm as they could muster – without any danger of serious injury. Everything is bouncy, but that means everything is padded too. There aren’t any hard surfaces to run into. And for extra measure, there were a few spotters wandering around the area as well, keeping an eye out for sparrows, making sure everyone was following directions, making sure all of the landings were soft ones. So everyone played fearlessly – because they knew no matter what they did, they could not really get hurt. And I caught myself thinking, wouldn’t it be great if life could be this way? We could set to the tasks, the responsibilities, even the fun of our daily lives with no hesitations, no worries, no fears, because we would know that our landings would be soft ones.

In truth, we have been given no such guarantees, have we? That’s clear from our gospel lesson today: a curious mixture of hope and warning, of promise and peril. Jesus speaks frankly to his disciples about the dangers that go along with following him. He tells them that as he will be mistreated, so they will also sometimes be mistreated; as he has been misunderstood, so they will be misunderstood; as he has been opposed, so they will sometimes be opposed. It will not be easy this life of being a disciple. They will need every bit of courage they can muster to live the kind of life he is calling them too – a life of welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, comforting the grieving, and standing with the poor. They will need every bit of courage they can muster to live the life he is calling them too, because, let’s face it, this life will also involve sometimes not just welcoming the stranger, but being the stranger, not just feeding the hungry, but being hungry, not just healing the sick, but standing in need of healing themselves. They will strengthen the weak, but sometimes they will BE the weak ones. They will shelter the homeless, but sometimes they will be homeless wanderers themselves.

And it also seems that, to start with, there are a lot of things that Jesus is not promising them. He’s not promising them safety for one thing. He’s not guaranteeing that they will never be injured when following him. And he’s not promising them financial security either. I’m not saying that disciples won’t be secure: there are just no guarantees. He’s not promising that they will never be forsaken or abandoned by their friends or family. And He’s certainly not promising that they will never fail or fall down in their discipleship.

I’m reminded of a story about St. Teresa of Avila, famous 17th century mystic and nun. It seems one day that she was on her way to a meeting somewhere. The road she walked on was muddy, and as she went on her journey she prayed, as she often liked to do, that she would not fall into the mud. But wouldn’t you know, even while she was praying, she fell into the mud. Teresa scolded God then, for letting her fall and get dirty. God replied, “I treat all my friends this way.” To which Teresa replied, “No wonder you have so few of them.”

As Jesus calls his disciples, even today, there are many things he does not promise, many things he does not guarantee. He does not guarantee our safety or our success. He does not guarantee soft landings, with no possibility of injury. He promises a life of service, a life of meaning: but he does not guarantee that everyone will be happy with us when we stand up for him, when we do justice, do kindness. He does, however, exhort us to live fearlessly. “Do not be afraid!” he tells us. But how can we ever manage it?

In his first inaugural address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the nation in the midst of a deep depression. He said at that time, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He meant of course, that our worst enemy is fear itself – worse that our fear of failure or abandonment, worse than our fear of danger or injury. Fear can keep us from going forward when we most need to; fear keeps us from doing important work that needs to be done. When we act out of fear, we fail to see a vision of the future. We only see possible nightmares.

Recently I’ve been reading a children’s book I picked up on vacation. It’s a book mainly about the immigrants who came through Ellis Island, and it gives fascinating facts about immigrants during the time from 1892 to 1924, when Ellis Island was closed. For example, did you know that from the 1820s until 1924 nearly 35 million people came to America from other countries? They picked up and left everything they knew and many of their loved ones and set out for a new land, a place they had never seen before, a place they had only heard about. They endured hardships, hunger, sickness sometimes on the long journey here. They overcame the fears that must have entered their minds: how? What gave them the courage to endure and to come here? I’ll tell you what: it was hope: they had hope that in America a new life with new opportunities awaited them. Perhaps they heard that the streets were paved with gold. Perhaps they heard that in America everyone was free. Perhaps they heard that in America there was work for everyone. They came because of their hope for a new life, and this hope overcame their fears, and gave them courage to endure.

It’s true; there are many things that Jesus does not promise us: he doesn’t promise us success or riches, popularity or security. But he does promise us life: the best life, the only life, a new life in a new kingdom. And he gives us a vision of this kingdom as well: it is a kingdom where the poor will be lifted up, where the hungry will be fed, where the lame will leap for joy, where the dead will rise, where even sparrows will be valued and protected. And it is our hope for this promised new life that overcomes our fears and gives us the courage to follow Jesus and to live for him.

But as if that were not enough, that is not all that Jesus promises us.

I was struck by the stories of those immigrants, the ones who were so brave, who came here hoping for a new life. They had crossed an ocean and left much behind; they had overcome their fears – but upon arriving, do you know what their greatest fear was? Their greatest fear was that they would be examined and found not worthy to stay, and be sent back. And you know, some of them were turned back – because they were too poor, too sick, too old, couldn’t read.

Jesus promises us that he will never turn us away – no one is too old, too sick, too poor. If even a sparrow, the lowliest of birds, falls under God’s watchful eye, how much more do each of us? That is the meaning of Jesus’ words: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your father.” You may not wear the best clothes, and you may not know the best people, and you may not live in the best house: but you are one of God’s treasured people, and in God’s eyes you shine. And you may consider yourself discouraged and bedraggled, rundown and worn out, but God considers you a beloved child, a star, of more value than many sparrows.

The children know the secret: they live fearlessly, jumping as high as they can and as hard as they can for as long as they can. They live fearlessly, believing that as long as they are loved, they can never really get hurt. And in a way that is the truth. For in the end, not even death can separate us from God’s love.

So do not be afraid. Jump as high as you can and as hard as you can for as long as you can. Run through the obstacle course. Welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, comfort the grieving, Jesus promises eternal life and love to you, and to all sinners, strangers – and sparrows. Not one of us falls to the ground apart from him. And he will never turn us away from his gate. AMEN