Ordinary Miracles

This was the last part of my sermon this morning….

Here it is:  All Saints Sunday, and one of the things I love about this day is that it is all about ordinary miracles. 

            All Saints Day is not a day to remember and celebrate famous people who have done great things, but it is a day to remember and give thanks for the ordinary miracles – the ordinary saints – in our lives.   Some of them we will name here in a little while.  Some of them we will name in the silence of our hearts.  Some of them are well known to our whole congregation.  Some of them are only known to a few of us.  They are ordinary people, but they were washed in the waters of baptism, and the light shines of Christ shines in them.  Their names are Don and Jan, Jean and Jim, Grace and Herlanda, Ivar and Emil and Otto and Marian and Gisela.  Some of them sang in the choir, and some of them worked in the kitchen, and some of them fought in wars, and some of them took meals on wheels to shut ins.  Some of them were healers, and some of them were teachers, some of and some of them – like the little girl who told Naaman about the prophet Elisha – some of them have names known only to a few people, or only to God.  Some were important, like Naaman – but all of them are saints because this ordinary miracle happened to them – they were washed in the waters of baptism, they were cleansed from sin, they were named children of God, and the light of Jesus shines in them.  Today we remember them.  Ordinary saints.  Beloved by God. 

            Today I am thinking of so many saints, so many ordinary, holy people.   To be holy is to be set apart for a particular purpose.  I am thinking about saints and what I learned from them.  I am thinking about Harriet, who made it her simple practice to name ten blessings every day.  Ten blessings.  And who taught me to see blessings in unexpected places.  And people.  I am thinking about Jim, who considered going into the ministry.  He became a teacher.  And he DID go into the ministry.  He was set aside for this purpose.   I am thinking about Pearl, who reminded us that Jesus is in this place with us, even when we are fighting and arguing with each other.  I am thinking of Gil, who taught me that to be passionate about the gospel and to be passionate about social justice were the same thing, part of the same discipleship, sharing the love of God with the world.  And I am thinking about Jean  and Jan, who were healers by vocation, and who knew the difference between being healed and being cured,

who knew that even though they were not cured, they were healed, because the hope of Jesus living in them never died. 

            I am thinking of so many ordinary miracles.  Including you. 

            Each one of you.

            Someday we will all worship around the throne of the lamb in the place where there is no more death, and no more pain, where the lamb will be the light.

             In the meantime, each of us here is a miracle. 

            By some miracle, Jesus lives in us and Jesus shines through us. 

            Right here and now.  Alleluia.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN

If I Don't Write it Down, I Might Forget

Not long after I arrived at this current congregation many years ago, we began to get a phone call every Saturday afternoon.  The caller always asked who was preaching that weekend.

The Saturday receptionist started getting curious, so the phone calls got a little longer.  The caller was an elderly gentleman who usually came to the early service on Sunday morning.  He wanted to know if the associate pastor was preaching.  He liked the preaching of the associate pastor, and would make sure to come she was the one who was preaching.

We had a little joke about it.  The receptionist called him my "fan."  It is nice to have a fan, I decided.  If I was in the office when he called, sometimes she would transfer the call back to me.  When I saw him on Sunday morning, I would say hello to him and ask him how he was doing.   He had a round face and thick glasses and a great smile.  He looked like an elderly scholar.

I know that he had a family, because he talked about them, but I didn't know them.  I never met them.  He came to church by myself.  There were a few other widowers who liked to come to the early service.  They always sat together.

I don't remember his name any more.

At some point, the Saturday afternoon calls stopped.

We did a little checking, and found out that he was in a nursing home nearby.  We put him on our shut-in list.  I asked to visit him, but we had a seminary intern at the time, and the other pastor felt that it was better for the seminary intern to be the regular visitor, since he made other visits at the same nursing home.

Even so, I did stop by on occasion, especially when I was leading a church service at the facility.  He seemed to move around a lot in the nursing home.  Or, maybe I just didn't visit as often as I should have.

One day, when I came into his room to visit with him, he looked at me over his thick glasses and said, "Who are you?"

It broke my heart, just a little.

And then, one day, I went to visit him and he wasn't there.  He had died.

No one called us.

I don't remember his name any more.

I'm writing this so that I don't forget.  And if I do, maybe someone else will tell the story.

Telling

Last week, I was preparing to preach on the gospel from Luke 24:  the road to Emmaus, the conversation with the stranger, the breaking of bread, the burning hearts.  I was preparing to preach on that resurrection story, and I thought I even had a pretty good angle, thinking about the very end of the gospel and how he was made known in the breaking of bread, and it wasn't even communion.  It was just an ordinary meal, except with Jesus.  He was made known.

I thought I had a pretty good angle, that is, a good opening, and I thought the sermon would "write itself" (it never does).  I was bemoaning the fact to a colleague one evening late in the week, when the sermon was not writing itself (except for the clever beginning), and out of the blue, my friend asked me started telling me about Biblical Storytelling, and wondered if I would like to try to 'tell' the gospel story instead of reading it.

As if I didn't have enough to worry about.

But I have always been attracted to storytelling, Biblical or not, ever since, in the 8th grade, we were all supposed to tell a story for speech class.  (I still don't remember why I thought it was a good idea to take a speech class in 8th grade.)  Up until then, I had been horrible at giving speeches, all sweaty palms and rapid speaking and forgetting what I was going to say.  But when I told the story, something happened.

I got a good grade.

So my friend asked me, "Why don't you learn the story?" and I asked her what she meant.  "Do you embellish?"  No, she said; you might play with the wording just a little, but basically you learn it as it is in your favorite translation, or the one your church uses.  It's not exactly like memorizing, but it is sort to that way.  She lead me to some web sites that gave me an idea for how to go about learning a story, and then she said,  "if you don't have time to learn the whole thing, why don't you just learn the ending?"

I don't know why, exactly, but that is what I did.  I started at the end, and worked backwards, from the last two verses, and then the last three, and then the verse about the burning hearts, until they were sitting with Jesus at the table.  I just learned that last section of the gospel reading, practicing as I walked up and down the hallways of the church, practicing in front of the daughter of the President of our Leadership Board.  I tried telling the last verses of the gospel reading on Saturday night at our small chapel service, and again on Sunday morning.

One thing I discovered was that many people are busy looking at their bulletins during the gospel reading.  While I was telling the story, their heads were in their bulletins. I wondered if they could tell the difference between what I had done with the first part of the reading, and those last few verses.

However, I did notice that there are people who do not look at their bulletin during the reading of the gospel.  People learn in different ways, and I noticed, because I was telling and not reading, because I was looking at the congregation while I was speaking, that some people were not looking at their bulletin.  They were listening and they were looking back at me.

Finally, I noticed something happening in me, both in my preparation, and while I was telling the story to my congregation.  Something was happening in me, as if the story was getting deeper inside me.  This was a story I already knew well, of course, with a few words and phrases already dear to me.  I could already see those two disciples stopped in the road, looking sad.  I could already imagine the stranger walking alongside them.  But it seemed to me that the story got bigger, and it was inside of me, but also that I was inside of the story, walking around inside the story.

"Were not our hearts burning within us, when he was talking with us on the road?"

On Sunday, when I spoke these words, it was as if I was remembering something -- and not just remembering my muttering repetitions of the last two days.  It was as if I was remembering the times my own heart burned, but I did not realize it until later.  It was as if I was knew that, somewhere deep down, I had broken bread with Jesus before so many times without realizing it.  It was as if, when I was telling the story that I was telling them what I had seen and heard myself.

I don't know what happened in my congregation when I told the story, instead of reading it.  But I know that something happened in me.  I told the story, but the story told me.

So I'm eager to continue to learn to tell the stories.  I'm just starting on Pentecost, now, and wondering what the story will tell me this time.  But I wondering now as well, if I should be the only storyteller in my congregation.

What if we all learned to tell stories to one another?  What would we learn, and what would we hear, and what would we remember, if we told the ancient stories, if we learned to walk around in them, hearing the cries and dreaming the dreams, hoping against hope?

Rev. Clarence Solberg: 1917-2012 "By Heart"

Today was the funeral of our beloved former visitation pastor, Clarence Solberg.  I didn't preach, but I wrote a few words that I shared at the funeral.  Here they are:

"By Heart"

A year ago at Christmas I was making a visit to my friend and colleague Pastor Clarence Solberg and his wife Jeannette.  I will tell you that sometimes there was a challenge when I would go to the Masonic Home.  the challenge would be to find them, as they did not stay put much.  They might be playing Bingo (which Clarence often won), they might be joining a sing-a-long, they might simply be out in the front lobby, where Pastor Clarence liked to shake hands and greet everyone he met.  This day, however, they were across from the chapel, sitting at a little round table.

Since it was almost Christmas eve, I decided to read from Luke 2.  For some reason, I had brought my confirmation Bible, the OLD Revised Standard Version, that day, and as soon as I started to read, "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled"  -- Pastor Solberg began reciting right along with me.  Once in awhile he would drop out for just a few words, but he would come right back with the next phrase, all the way to the end of the Christmas story.  He was especially strong whenever I came to the phrase about the b aby, "wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

All of those many years, repeating that story again and again, had gotten the words of Luke, chapter 2 deep into his heart.  All of those years telling the story to his many  congregations meant that he knew the story by heart.  "God is with us."

That wasn't the only thing he knew by heart of course.  Sometimes he would recite the words of institution with me, or raise his hands and say the words of the benediction.  "The Lord bless you and keep you/the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you/the Lord look upon you with favor/and give you peace."  He was such a pastor; he lived and breathed his vocation, and knew it by heart.  His calling was to speak the Word, and those words were deep within him.

Memory work has fallen on hard times these days, but I can't help thinking how important it is to know things by heart:  the verses of a song, a piece of scripture -- who we are.  Clarence Solberg knew who he was -- he was a pastor, he knew it by heart.  (Of course he wasn't just a pastor, he was also a husband, father, grandfather, and proud owner of Toyotas).  I heard someone say that he tried his hand at farming -- he was even good at it.  But he wasn't a farmer.  He was a pastor.  He could be opinionated:  he let me know on a few occasions when he disagreed with me (just a few!).  And I remember early on that he told me he wasn't quite convinced about women pastors, "but you're ok", he said.  I think he finally came to the conclusion that the most important thing was to preach the gospel.  Gender:  not so much.

Pastor Clarence and I shared a fair amount of funeral ministry, so I can't help thinking that some of the words that we have heard -- and will hear -- were some of the most dear to him.  "When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death."  "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear."  Saying them again and again, he came to know them by heart.

By heart:  it's also how many of us know Clarence.  We know him by heart.  There are many stories we could share.  I hope we do.  Memory work has fallen on hard times these days, but we know how important it is to know "by heart" -- not just words, but to know one another "by heart".   It is, after all, how God knows us.

"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, goodwill to all."

Forget it

I've been reading Isaiah 43 all week, even though I had pretty much decided to preach on the anointing story in John 12. I love all of these anointing stories; we read Luke's version at a Bible study on Saturday morning. The trouble with stories I love sometimes, though, is that I don't see the continuing ripples in them.

But enough about John....

I've been reading Isaiah 43 all week, as well, probably because of the phrase, "I will make a way in the wilderness." I was thinking about the desert, connecting the scripture to my trip to the desert last week, and that phrase about the wilderness kept coming into my mind, perhaps too obviously.

But last night, and today, as I read Isaiah 43, this is what I heard:

"Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old."

And this right after God reminds the people of how he saved them from the Egyptians through the Red Sea.

"Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old."

It seems that our faith is built on remembering. The Jewish people remember the Passover; their basic identity is formed by the story of how God saved them from slavery, how God set them apart. Each week we gather to hear the story of God in Christ, and to taste God's love, "The body of Christ, given for you."

But today, instead, we heard, "do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old." Today we were encouraged not to get out the photo albums and reminisce, but to close our eyes and imagine: God is about to do a new thing.

There are so many exhortations in the Bible about remembering. I don't think that God wants us to forget the forming stories, the stories that tell us who we are. I don't think that God wants us to forget the old photographs and the stories of courage and cowardice we find there. But perhaps sometimes when we spend too much time on the past, we forget that the past only serves to prepare us for the future, for the vision that God is creating, that is more than we can imagine.

A wandering Aramean was our father, a humble carpenter is our Lord, the wilderness is where we began, but in the end there will be the river of life, with its streams for the healing of the nations.

God is about to do a new thing. That's what Isaiah promises.

There will be streams in the desert.

Visiting my sister, we were mourning the rainfall. We wanted sunshine only during our brief stay. But my sister, with the perspective of one who actually lives in the desert, was rejoicing. "We've been in a 14 year drought," she told me. They know as only those who live with scarcity know, that water means life.

In the meantime, North Dakota is in a flood watch, reminding us that water can destroy as well as give life. It was water that drowned the Egyptians so long ago, when the Israelites escaped on dry land.

But do not remember the former things, God says. I am about to do a new thing.

Just for a little while, put away the photo albums, and don't think about your ancestors. Instead, close your eyes and imagine the future, God's future, a new thing. Enemies become friends. The lion lies down with the lamb. The dead are raised. Love wins. Waters bubbles up from deep wells, and waters comes down from the sky, and water flows from clear rivers.

Forget all those voices that tell you that the future has to be just like the past, that the things that have bound you will always hold you down, that you'll never change.

God is about to do a new thing.