Prayer for Justice

"Prayer for Justice"

Rotunda--Minnestate State Capitol

Joint Religious Legislative Coalition "Day on the Hill" 

February 21, 2013

 

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made. Your mercy encompasses all, your compassion washes over your whole creation. You are always laboring over this good earth and all who call it home.

In your mercy, you bestow on us the awesome responsibility to reflect your image in caring for your creation, treasuring our neighbors and pursuing passionately your way of justice and peace.

You have taught us today about the deep challenges and the promising opportunities that face our state.

You have inspired us with the examples of others who have tirelessly served the common good.....those whom we have just honored as well as those champions of justice who have passed from among us over the last year,like the late Msgr. James Habinger, former head of the MN Catholic Conference and JRLC board member.

Now you call us to step out in the freedom that is your gift to us—to give voice, in this great hall of justice, to our deepest faith commitments.

As we engage with those who have been elected to serve all the people of Minnesota….let us remember that we are your voice, your hands, your feet in the world.

Enable us to listen thoughtfully, think clearly and speak boldly.

Empower us to bear winsome, courageous witness to your way of justice and mercy.

Open the hearts and minds of those with whom we will converse.

And bless them as they seek to fulfill their callings in public service.

Remind us, every step of the way, that we speak and act not for ourselves but on behalf of others who need your watchful care and keeping—the poor and the sick, the elderly and the youth, the stranger and the sojourner, the disadvantaged and the marginalized.

In your powerful name we pray. Amen.

Picking the Right Kind of Fight

Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Sebeka, MN

February 3, 2013--Epiphany 4

Luke 4:21-30

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Today—February 3, 2013—is a big day.   It’s the Lord’s Day, when we gather for worship trusting that God will show up among us in Word and Sacrament and a gathered community of sinners who are also saints.   That’s a big thing.

And speaking of sacraments, it’s Baby Brigid’s Baptism Day.   Another little Stout will become a Christian, and not a moment too soon.   That’s a big thing.

Oh, and I hear that there’s some big football game later today down in New Orleans, the 49ers vs. the Ravens and  all the hoopla that will go with it.   That’s a big thing.

And then there’s something else happening “under the radar” all across the Upper Midwest today.   Pastors are heaving a sigh of relief because (with the exception a few congregations like yours) today normally marks the end of “annual meeting season.”   

Now that might not seem like such a big thing to you….but it’s a really big thing to most pastors.

Because, you see, annual meetings make pastors nervous.  

Annual meetings have the reputation for being occasions when even  Minnesota-nice Lutherans don’t always behave like adults.    Annual meetings are often long, drawn out, pointless and conflicted.   A pastor friend once told me he referred to his congregation’s annual meeting as “The Night of the Long Knives.”

So, many pastors think that the best annual meeting is a short one in which nothing happens.   

Twice within the last week I heard pastors extolling the brevity of their annual meetings, with 15 minutes being the new record for the shortest, sweetest annual meeting ever!

But is an annual meeting of a Christian congregation that’s short and sweet, in which nothing basically happens--is that necessarily a good thing?   Is it a sign of faithfulness or fruitfulness as God’s people?

Do we gather for worship, do we come together as church, just to be comforted—never to be unsettled?  Is every conflict that bubbles up within the community of faith a disaster?    Did God the Father send his beloved Son into our world simply to soothe us and lull us to sleep?

What about Jesus when he lived on earth?   Did he always keep things on an even keel?  Or did Jesus evoke disagreement?   Did Jesus call forth questions and challenges?   Did Jesus even go so far as to pick fights—in order to agitate, to shake up his hearers?

…..which brings us to our gospel lesson for this morning.

This is the second half of a “to be continued” gospel reading from Luke chapter 4.   We heard the first half of the story last Sunday.  Jesus as a young adult, returns to his hometown Nazareth and attends worship in the Jewish synagogue.   He reads from the Prophet Isaiah, taking the prophet’s vision as his own, Jesus’ own, mission statement.

Jesus says that proclaiming release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and the dawn of the Lord’s year of favor—Jesus says that all of that is his work, his mission, his goal.

And at first that sounds just great!  

But then, ever so subtly, the synagogue crowd starts to turn.    They move from their first reaction—“All spoke well of him and were amazed at [his] gracious words…”—they move from affirming to wondering:  “Is not this Joseph's son?"

And Jesus, reading their faces and discerning their wonderings, Jesus refuses to leave well enough alone.

So Jesus pokes at the folks in Nazareth’s synagogue.  Jesus prods their questions, and then he does something really provocative—he tells them a couple Bible stories from the Old Testament.

And by the time Jesus is finished with all that, the crowd becomes so ticked off, so incensed that they’re ready to haul Jesus out of the church building and drag him to a cliff—not a metaphorical cliff, mind you, not a “fiscal cliff” but a real, PHYSICAL cliff--in order to hurl Jesus down to his death.

Now that’s a church conflict to beat any church conflict I have ever seen!

So what are we to make of this?    Three things:

1.    Let’s not immediately assume that the worshipers in Nazareth’s synagogue were a dysfunctional congregation that needed to learn family systems theory or go through group counseling for anger management—though their response is definitely “over the top.”  Let’s assume, not that they were especially “sick,” but they were human, which means that sin was fully operative there on that Sabbath day when Jesus came to church.

2.   Let’s also not assume that this is just a story about Jesus being a smarty-pants provocateur—someone whose chief mission in life was to get under people’s skins and make them upset.   One of my college roommates was like that.   He was always ready to needle me about something, anything, just to get a rise out of me.   Jesus, though, didn’t show up among us to annoy people.

3.   Instead, let’s assume this:   that Jesus came bearing the full Word of God to the worshipers in Nazareth’s synagogue….and when that full Word of God--a Word that always both accuses and liberates---when the Word has its way with us, we will resist it, we will try to keep it at bay, we will realize we’re under attack and feel the need to lash out at it….before finally that Word finds a home in our hearts and sets us free.

This is what was playing out in Nazareth’s synagogue so long ago:  the Word of God in all its glory, unleashed by him who was the embodied Word of God, proclaimed release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, the year of the Lord’s favor dawning upon us.  

“Bring it on!” we say, at least at first….

But when Jesus starts to spell out just for whom this Word has come, then he encounters the deadly pushback from his fellow worshipers in Nazareth.

Because release, recovery and freedom sound great if you and I are the intended recipients…..but what if God has something bigger in mind?

So Jesus tells Bible stories about all the wrong kinds of people also being drawn into the orbit of God’s gracious favor.  

Jesus painfully reminds his hearers that when famine covered the land the Lord’s prophet Elijah went not to the house of a good Jewish mother….but to the hovel of a despised Gentile—a poor widow and her starving son.

And Jesus pointedly reminds his hearers that when Elijah’s successor Elisha healed a leper—in a land filled with deserving Jewish lepers!—it was a hated Gentile leper, the commander of Israel’s Syrian enemies, who was healed of leprosy.

Release, recovery and freedom don’t sound so great when we learn that God’s going to give such gifts to “those kind of people,” too!

And that’s why the crowd stormed out of the synagogue, ready to lynch the preacher Jesus.

….which brings me back to a question I asked earlier:      Do we gather for worship, do we come together as church, just to be comforted—never to be unsettled? 

And because we are regularly unsettled in the church, maybe we need to ask:   are we unsettled about things that matter—especially, things that matter to God?

So here’s an example.    I was just with some folks from one of my favorite congregations in our synod. 

I love these folks because they have a really, really good fight at every annual meeting of their congregation.

And here’s the question that sets them off:  “How can we get behind God’s mission in an even bigger way this year?”    This congregation “fights” about how they can increase their offerings for mission beyond their congregation, how they can do even more than what the church council proposes in the annual budget.

This congregation doesn’t fight about the color of the carpet or the heating bill or whether the pastor is attending enough high school basketball games.    They don’t fight about what someone else did wrong.    They fight about whether they themselves are being faithful to their faithful God.

What a great thing to fight about at an annual church meeting!   Why—it might even be worth investing more than 15 minutes, if we get to talk about things like THAT!

Jesus comforts AND unsettles us always—thank God!

God’s Word is always accusing us in the same breath that it is setting us free.

And God’s people are forever fighting, if the truth be told.  

The only question really is this:  are we fighting about things that matter to God?

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.

The Great Agitator

Trinity Lutheran Church, Moorhead
January 20, 2012 (Global Mission Sunday)
Second Sunday after the Epiphany
John 2:1-11

Two weeks ago today I worshiped at Iglesia Luterana Santissima Trinidad (Lutheran Church of the Most Holy Trinity) on the island of Puerto Rico.   It was a big deal, because it was a major holiday—Tres Reyes Day, “Three Kings Day.”

Our Spanish-speaking friends treat the coming of the Magi on January 6^th like a second Christmas—complete with gift-giving, special sweets, and a fiesta where everybody gets just a little carried away.

And during the worship services, three kings actually show up, process down the center aisle, help lead the worship, distribute the gifts of Christ’s Body and Blood….and then—like rock stars!—have their pictures taken with any worshipers who want to pose with them.

That’s because on Puerto Rico and throughout Latin America, these are not your ordinary Three Kings.  

They look nothing like our pale imitation Wise Men here in the Midwest—three young boys or three embarrassed men who got talked into putting on their bathrobes and donning “crowns” that look suspiciously like giveaways from  Burger King.

No, but in Latin America the kings are decked out like royalty in the flesh…with rich, flowing robes:  deep purple, royal blue, scarlet red robes….gaudy, jewel-bestudded crowns, and ZZ-Top-length beards that really make the Tres Reyes look like potentates from half a world away!

Seeing them took my breath away and moved me to tears as I beheld this part of the biblical story unfolding as I had never experienced it before. 

Because as I witnessed these exotic travelers in worship on January 6^th, it dawned on me how during the season of Epiphany, God is forever agitating God’s people, shaking us loose from all our assumptions about who’s in and who’s out….and reminding us that God and God alone decides who “our kind of people” will be.

Left to our own devices we will always circle the wagons and draw the lines between “us” and “them” more sharply, more defensively…..while God is forever flinging wide the doors to let in all the wrong crowd.

God the Great Agitator is always mixing it up and mixing us up, so that God can reveal once again how Jesus Christ, God’s beloved Son, our Savior, is for everybody, that Christmas spells good news of great joy to all people, and that God consistently expands the circle wider and wider than we would normally allow it to be.

The season of Epiphany used to seem like “filler material” to me…..a way to survive the frigid wintry Sundays between Christmas and Ash Wednesday.

But now, later in life Epiphany has become one of my most treasured seasons in the church year, because during the Epiphany season God just keeps sharpening the image of what happened when the Word became flesh.   God simply  continues to surprise us, week by week, during Epiphany…unfolding revelations that all seem to say: “You thought I was this way, but I’m not….I’m more, I’m up to more, and I’m accomplishing more in your presence than you could ever imagine.”

THAT’s what’s going on in the Epiphany season.

First, on the Day of Epiphany, the magi barge into the domestic tranquility of Mary, Joseph and little Jesus….bearing over-the-top gifts of wealth (gold!) and wonder (frankincense!) and foreboding (myrrh, a spice used in burials).

Then, we shift to the Jordan River (in last Sunday’s gospel reading) where a fully-grown Jesus turns up in the last place anyone might expect him….with sinners coming out in droves to be washed clean in the water by John the Baptist….and Jesus joins them, hobnobs with the unworthy, shows himself to be the sinners’ best friend.

And now today, in our gospel lesson from John 2, Jesus and his disciples show up at a wedding of all things.  In the ordinariness of a first-century Jewish marriage feast….the unexpected plenitude of God’s lavish grace overflows—quite literally!—in the form of an abundance of exquisite wine.

God the Great Agitator, Jesus the surprising Disrupter of Business as Usual shines through, comes to the rescue, and reveals that God is up to something huge.

That’s what Epiphany is all about….which is why faithful churches like Trinity view the Epiphany season as “prime time” to step back and look beyond the four walls of this magnificent edifice, in order to behold the global reach of the Good News…..to celebrate all the ways that God is forever redefining “our kind of people” through the life, death and resurrection of God’s beloved Son, Jesus.

And as we do that, taking our cures this morning from the Wedding at Cana story, we will notice at least three things:

First we will notice, and be overwhelmed by the sheer abundance of God’s lavish grace, shed upon the whole world.   Abundance breaks out at Cana’s wedding feast when Jesus offers an over-the-top solution to a simple problem.   The wine has run out early and the guests are about to turn surly, when all at once there’s plenty of wine, too much wine really, perhaps 180 gallons of wine which may have transformed a feast on the verge of petering out prematurely into a party that just might never end.

The Good News of Jesus Christ, spread around the globe over 20 centuries is like that.   God never gives us just enough for here and now.   God always overdoes it, grace so overflowing like the old Sherwin Williams paint logo—that it literally “covers the earth.”  

This past November, traveling with a group of 19 from our synod in India, I heard again why the story of Jesus Christ is so captivating to the Dalits, the untouchables in India who make up 95% of the Lutherans of India.  In the dominant faith story told in India, you see, the Dalits don’t even register—they have no place in their own national faith story.   But the Good News of Jesus has changed all that, washing over them abundantly with the astonishing message that in Christ, you have a place in the story from the very beginning and all the way through to the final ending.

Second, taking the Wedding at Cana story as our cue, we will taste the richness of this wine.   John’s gospel reveals the confusion of the wedding steward—you usually start the celebration with the good wine (when everyone ‘s taste buds are wide awake) and then you taper off, as the guests get a little sloshed, bringing out the rot-gut later when no one will notice.  

But not when Jesus is the wine steward!   No:  “You have saved the good wine until now”—in this end of all ages, the Good Stuff shows up, the Word made flesh for the life of the world.

Celebrating the global span of the Good News of Jesus Christ we can’t help but taste the richness of the global church.   I love our congregations here in Minnesota, the land of God’s frozen chosen; this is and always will be my spiritual home.  

But I also love visiting our exotic, far-flung cousins in the Body of Christ, as I’ve done over the past year...from the soaring arches of Durham Cathedral with its magnificent organ and choirs….to the toe-tapping Dixieland jazz of New Orleans….to the fireworks and flamenco dancers of Nicaraguan rural churches….to the haunting, soulful Telegu chanting of the psalms in our companion synod, the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church of southern India.   This is rich, rich wine!

Third, as we drink the abundant rich wine of the gospel, we realize afresh how God is making all things new, all across the globe.  

Here in John 2 those six stone water jars each hold 20 to 30 gallons of water for the old purification rituals of traditional Judaism.  But then Jesus comes along and retrofits these huge water jars.  Without even asking permission Jesus fills these old jars with fresh, exhilarating wine—the wine of God’s Kingdom. 

So also, celebrating the global church, we behold the every-day-newness of God’s grace.   God is still reclaiming tired old stone jars and retrofitting them for God’s new creation in Jesus Christ.   Jesus, and the Jesus way of life, you see, is infinitely “translate-able” into every fresh context, every dawning era.  

So Indian Christianity looks both Christian and Indian, and Latin American faith has a Gospel tune with a salsa beat, and Tanzanian believers revere Jesus while depicting him as a very brown Tanzanian.   And rather than degrading the gospel, such “translation” enhances, adds value to the Good News for us and for all people.

Please join me in prayer:   “Stir us up, O God.  Agitate us with a fresh revelation of your all-encompassing mercy in Jesus Christ.   Open our eyes to behold the abundance, the richness and the newness of your divine life, poured out for the sake of the whole world.   In Jesus’ name.  Amen.”

Disrupting Christmas

Disrupting Christmas
New Hope Lutheran Church, Alvarado, MN
Advent 3C/December 16, 2012
Luke 3:7-18

 

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.

 

I rarely start a sermon by commenting on the latest news, but this morning it simply feels wrong to skirt the profound tragedy unfolding in Newtown, CT.

I’m guessing that you’re with me on this. 

Our eyes have been focused on the TV, the newspapers, the Internet these last couple days.   We have needed a Kleenex or two, the tears have simply welled up.   And we imagine the same sort of thing playing itself out in homes all across our world.

Our President has spoken movingly for us all, his own identity as the parent of two young girls showing…as he has reflected with us on the horror of so many young lives disrupted so suddenly, so cruelly, so senselessly.  And isn’t that what grabs at our guts—this horrific realization that violence can erupt anywhere, even in a small, safe, rural community like Newtown, CT?

Violence erupts….and disrupts our lives, all too often….

And it’s all happening at what’s supposed to be “the hap-happiest time of the year.”

The tragedy in Connecticut is disrupting Christmas, and not just this Christmas of 2012, but for the community of Newtown, and particularly for the families and friends of the victims, this tragedy will continue disrupting Christmas for as long as they dwell on this earth.

And what good could ever come out of disrupting Christmas?  

We want Christmas to be the ideal holiday we remember—a time of soft light, candle warmth, family closeness, peace on earth—but somehow, every year, all of that longed-for “Christmas” gets disrupted.    As I think back I recall a host of events and circumstances that have disrupted Christmas, the idealized Christmas I long for…

….and as if that were not bad enough, we in the Christian church actually orchestrate such disruptions, even in how we observe this season of Advent.

Because, for some strange reason, every December we invite disruption into our lives, by coming to church and hearing from that great disrupter of quietude, John the Baptist.

And here we have him once again, this morning in our gospel lesson from Luke 3.   John the Baptist shows up disrupting the peace and joy of this season with his rasping voice and sharp invective, throwing cold water on our burning yule-logs.   

Do we really need this fiery preacher invading our sacred space this morning?   With our own lives feeling disrupted enough by the school shooting out East, do we really need John the Baptist, too—disrupting Christmas for us once again?

Oddly enough, I think the answer is Yes.  

We need John the Baptist’s jarring presence and arresting testimony, perhaps now more than ever….

….because even though John doesn’t do much to get us ready for the idealized Christmas we all long for, he does do a masterful job of preparing us for the Christ who comes at Christmas, the Christ who entered into this world’s story to give us boundless hope, even when we are fixated on 26 coffins in Connecticut. 

John doesn’t really prepare us for Christmas, but he surely does prepare us for Christ….and this morning, we need Christ more than we need Christmas….and, in truth, as we become prepared to receive Christ, we’ll find that Christmas takes care of itself.

So what does John say to get us ready for Christ?

He says, first of all, that Christ always comes to us as a pure gift, born out of sheer grace.    John says this, though, in a most disruptive way, by shaking us loose from imagining that we can make any claims upon God.

John’s fiery talk about “bearing fruits worthy of repentance” unfolds in the context of cutting out from under his hearers any sense of “entitlement” they might have.    For good first-century Jews, being “children of Abraham” entitled you to make a claim upon God.  

Today we have our own ways of expressing such a sense of entitlement:  “I am a faithful Christian, after all.  I am a confirmed Lutheran.   I seek to do God’s will in my life—surely that has to count for something with God!”

But John will have none of that.   John’s first word here is that we have no claim upon God—nothing that we are, nothing we do, makes God “beholding” to us.  

We don’t have a claim upon God—but thank God, God has a claim upon us….and this claiming, naming God chooses to open up in our lives the way of repentance, setting aside all obstacles between us and God, clearing away all the rubble that thwarts our trust in God, our love for our neighbors and our care for the earth.

God makes a claim upon us, and in so doing God bestows on us a new rhythm--the rhythm of repentance—clearing away the old to make room for the New that always meets us in Christ Jesus.

But what will such a way of life look like? The crowds here in Luke 3 want to know…and John the Baptist is only too happy to sketch out for them, in broad contours, what this new life will look like.

But once again, John does so by delivering a jarring, disrupting word.   He addresses real flesh-and-blood human beings, engaged in work that not everyone considered honorable—those whose work gave them food and clothing to spare, those who collected taxes for the occupation forces of Rome, those who shouldered weapons in the army….what would it look like for them to live in the newness that God was ushering into the world in Christ?

Oddly enough, John the Baptist doesn’t tell these folks to quit what they’re doing and find other employment.   John doesn’t enjoin them to impoverish themselves, to stop colluding with the enemy, to refuse to bear arms.

In short, John doesn’t command his hearers to withdraw from the world as we know it….but rather, he invites them (and us!) to live in this world, but in ways that align with the startling newness of God’s unfolding Kingdom.

·      So if you have the goods of this world, don’t give them all away (reducing yourself to a pauper)…but embrace a life of sharing, discerning the meaning of “enough,” and routinely giving away what you don’t need  (because it’s all gift anyway!)

·      And if you’re thrust into a position of financial power over others, collecting taxes for Rome (for example), do that work but in a new key, following a new Master, refusing to abuse your position of trust to line your own pockets….

·      And if you’re commandeered into military service, conduct yourself in that station as a child of God, resist the urge to over-step your authority, or to use your power for violent, selfish ends…remember that you are called to protect and serve.

All three of these examples open up for us windows on what it means to live our lives in the world as we know it—but now as persons who bear the light of Christ, who know that in Christ everything we have and everything we do are gifts, sheer gifts from God above.

John’s disrupting presence and witness caught the attention of his hearers.   They sat up and took notice, just as we are doing this morning, because John was pointing the way toward the One who was coming after him….the One who would drench us in the Spirit of God’s very presence, burning away all the “chaff” that separates us from God, opening our lives to Him who even now is making all things new.

Yesterday morning, I heard a Catholic priest in Newtown, CT being interviewed on MSNBC.  The interviewer asked the priest how he helps persons deal with such immense grief…and I halfway expected the priest to talk about psychological tools or counseling techniques.

But instead the priest spoke naturally, compellingly about Christ.   

“Most of all, these people need Jesus,” the priest declared. 

And where is that not the case?

In the end the people of Newtown, CT and Alvarado, MN and every other community simply need Jesus.   Jesus will heal us.    Jesus will lead us forward.   Jesus will usher us into the fullness of God’s light and love and light.

Jesus will lead us (by way of the Cross and the Empty Tomb)…Jesus will lead us into the broad, free, open space we call the Kingdom of God…where there will be no more persons whose personal demons break out in violent ways, no more children who are senselessly murdered, no more parents whose grief seems inconsolable, no more disruptions in the abundant life God wills for us all.

What do the people of Newtown, CT, need this morning?   They need Jesus.  

And so do we.  Jesus will bring us home.

And that is enough.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

For the Life of the World

Where Are You Leading Us, Lord?

For the Life of the World

"Arisee, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”  
Isaiah 60:1-3

“Savior of the nations, come; virgin’s son, make here your home.
Marvel now, O heav’n and earth:  God has chosen such a birth.”
Ambrose of Milan (340-397 A.D.), translated by Martin Luther (1483-1546)   ELW #263

One church year gives way to the next, as the rhythm of our weekly worship invites us to contemplate Big Things—the consummation of the work of Christ the King, following quickly by the Advent of the One who is most assuredly not best described as “my personal Savior.”   No, Christ comes to save all sinners, to reclaim the whole universe, to make all things new.

Herein lies the best antidote to our natural tendency to “cozy up” during Advent and Christmas.   Whether we’re are drawn into gauzy nostalgia about holidays past or cocooned in the intimacy of tightknit circles of family and friends, the witness of the scriptures and the church is that this season—and the entirety of our life in Christ--is always about more.

Christ comes to Bethlehem’s manger, Christ comes to us continually in Word and Sacrament, and Christ will come again in the fullness of time, not just for “me and my kind” but for the life of the world.

So, we ask ourselves one last time in 2012:  Where are you leading us, Lord?   Let our December answer be clear and simple:  Christ leads us into a mission that spans the world, imbuing us with a global consciousness that resists any domestication or privatization of the life of faith.

The Global Horizon of Advent and Christmas

From the very beginning of the Christ-story, the scriptures make clear this global reach of God’s love in the Christ Child.   Indeed, the whole prophetic tradition of the Old Testament (the prequel to the Nativity story) envisions a coming Messiah who will do more than restore the fortunes of Israel.   Isaiah’s witness is pungently prescient:  “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”  (Isaiah 60:1-3)

When the Holy Infant arrives, the angelic announcement is broad and far-reaching:  “‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”  (Luke 2:10-11)   Days later, when the Child is presented in the Temple, old Simeon sings of the universal salvation God is ushering in:  “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,  a light for revelation to the Gentiles    and for glory to your people Israel.’” (Luke 2:30-32).

The birth of Christ may have taken place in the backwater village of Bethlehem—“one of the little clans of Judah” (Micah 5:2)—but this birth has cosmic reach.  Just so, the community of Christ will always, always, always envisions itself caught up in a mission that is globe-spanning.  (Here’s something to try during Advent and Christmas this year:   pay attention in the hymns and carols of these precious seasons for references to the globe-spanning, world-saving work of Christ.)

Global + Local = “Glocal”

One of the most discouraging things I hear, with surprising regularity, goes like this:  “Bishop, we need to remember the mission in our own back yard  first.   It’s nice to care about people who live around the globe, but charity begins at home.”

What I find discouraging about this isn’t so much that it’s not true.   Indeed, the mission field starts right outside the doorway to all our church buildings.   And God’s mission certainly includes redeeming and reclaiming the close-in corner of the world where God has planted us.

But why, oh why, do so many of us consider engagement in local mission and global mission as mutually exclusive possibilities?  Indeed, this is not an “either-or” choice.   It is always a “both-and” opportunity, and unless our concept of God’s mission is both local and global, it will be truncated and incomplete.   For this reason, our own ELCA Global Mission unit has been lifting up a provocative new term—“glocal”—to describe more accurately the whole mission before us!

Some Ways to Widen the Circle

God’s call to us—as we wonder where God is leading our congregations—is to ponder together all the ways we might do justice to the universal scope of Christ’s redemptive work.   How might we so “widen the circle” of our attention and engagement, to enrich our participation in God’s rescue and renewal mission in the world?   For starters, consider these possibilities:

·        Learning about God’s work in other lands, traveling abroad (or assisting those who do so on our behalf) and welcoming visitors from global partners in ministry.   Because of our naturally tendency to turn inward and see little more than what’s right in front of us right now, we need regular opportunities to lift up our heads and behold the world God loves so achingly in Christ.   Fortunately, our synod has been blessed over the last two years with opportunities both to receive representatives of our companion synod, the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC) of India (in September 2011) and to send nineteen representatives of our synod to visit the AELC just last month.   Many of our congregations also have an “oar in the water” in terms of international exchanges, mission trips and global ministries that you have “adopted.”

 

But such global mission awareness needs to be cultivated in all of our congregations.   So, if your congregation doesn’t already have one, draw together a global mission team/committee to spearhead your church’s engagement with God’s work across the world.   Subscribe to the ELCA’s Hand in Hand quarterly newsletter about our shared global mission work at http://blogs.elca.org/handinhand/    Invite one of the nineteen travelers to our companion synod in India to speak in your congregation during 2013—send your request to nwmnsnyd@cord.edu.    Invite a global missionary on home leave or a member of a global church to visit your congregation at least once a year.    Cultivate relationships with Christians in other lands via social networking websites like Facebook.  

 

·        Praying for global mission ventures and international service ministries in the weekly prayer of the church.   Time and time again last month, as we pilgrims from the NW MN Synod met with members of the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church in India, we received this invitation:  “Please pray for us.  Pray for our church, the AELC, as we elect a new bishop next year.  Pray for India.  Pray for peace in our region and across our world.”   The NW MN Synod team plans to facilitate a way (using Northern Lights) to invite specific, weekly prayer concerns for the AELC and its ministries.   You can also download the current Hand in Hand Annual for a listing of ELCA global missionaries and global partner churches—then pray for one of them each week:  http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Global-Mission/Engage-in-Global-Mission/Support.aspx. 

 

·        Sponsoring global missionaries and supporting global ministries of evangelism, mercy, and healing.   Hundreds of congregations across our ELCA have found how gratifying and enlightening (for them) it is to have a face and a name that matters to them in one of our global companion churches.   The Hand in Hand Annual referred to in the previous paragraph provides information on the all the ways that individuals and congregations can provide financial support to ELCA missionaries.   Pay attention, too, to the many fine opportunities in the ELCA Good Gifts catalog at https://community.elca.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=607.   As your congregation  approaches its annual meeting get ready to propose a congregational goal for the ELCA Malaria Campaign, as we implement the synod assembly resolution (from last May) committing our synod to raising at least $225,000 toward the whole ELCA’s goal of $15 million by 2015.   For more information go to http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Responding-to-the-World/ELCA-Malaria-Campaign.aspx.   Pay attention, as well, to the expanding work of our synod’s re-newed Hunger Table, advised by Pastor Steve Peterson, assistant to the bishop—contact him at speterso@cord.edu to find out how your congregation can get involved.

 

In this regard I also want to encourage your deep engagement with Lutheran World Relief (LWR).   The mission of this fine inter-Lutheran organization goes like this:  “Affirming God’s love for all people, we work with Lutherans and partners around the world to end poverty, injustice and human suffering.”  Many of our WELCA groups already contribute quilts, health kits and school kits through LWR.   But LWR does so much more across the world, as we learned from LWR Executive Director, the Rev. Dr. John Nunes at last May’s synod assembly.   Find out more at http://lwr.org/site/c.dmJXKiOYJgI6G/b.6319053/k.BDBF/Home.htm. 

• Advocating for peace, justice, religious freedom across the world and prisoners of conscience wherever they suffer for the sake of Christ.   During Advent and Christmas we thrill again to the globe-spanning witness of Isaiah:  “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor,Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”    With good reason, our hearts and prayers will focus on the “state of the world” that God has created and is re-creating in Jesus Christ.   This too, has implications for how our congregations and church members develop a global consciousness for the sake of God’s mission.  

 As newly-elected (or re-elected) leaders assume their duties in our state capitol and in Washington, DC, in January take time to write to them, urging them to make decisions on behalf of the common good—across our state, our nation and our world.   Freedom House is “an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom around the world.”   One of this organization’s programs monitors the state of international religious freedom—find out more at http://www.freedomhouse.org/program/international-religious-freedom.    Pay attention to world events via reputable news sources, e.g. to stay up on what’s happening in our companion synod, go to the website for one India’s national English-language newspapers, http://www.thehindu.com/  (click on “News,” then click on “States,” and in the drop-down menu choose “Andhra Pradesh” state, where the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church is located).

Thank you, dear friends, for using this Bible study and the others in this 2012 series on the question:  “Where Are You Leading Us, Lord?”   I encourage you, especially as you do mission planning in your congregation for 2013, to make use of the whole series which is available on the synod website at http://nwmnsynod.org/series/where-are-you-leading-us/

My wife Joy and I wish you all a blessed Advent and Christmas.  With you, we wait eagerly for the birth of the Christ Child who is the hope of the whole world:

“Our hope and expectation, O Jesus now appear;

Arise O Sun so longed for, o’er this benighted sphere.
With hearts and hands uplifted, we plead, o Lord to see
The day of earth’s redemption that sets your people free!”
Laurentius Laurenti (1660-1722)  ELW #244

Your brother in Christ,

Bishop Larry Wohlrabe
Northwestern Minnesota Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
God’s work.  Our hands.

For reflection and discussion: 

1.      Why are we tempted to “domesticate” or “privatize” the saving work of Jesus Christ?
2.      How is your congregation already fostering a global consciousness among its members?
3.      What is one thing, suggested in this Bible study, that you’d like to see your congregation start doing in 2013?
4.      What phrase from an Advent hymn or Christmas carol best helps you remember that “Christ leads us into a mission that spans the world, imbuing us with a global consciousness that resists any domestication or privatization of the life of faith?”

This is the twelfth in a series of monthly Bible studies during 2012 focused on the question:  “Where Are You Leading Us, Lord?”   These columns have been designed to equip the disciples and leadership groups such as church councils, for faithful and fruitful ministry.   Feel free to use the column for personal reflection or group discussion, e.g. church council meeting devotions/discussion.