100th
Anniversary of First Lutheran Church, Karlstad, MN
June 26, 2016
I Kings 19:15-16,
19-21
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.
What is it like, to emigrate from—to leave behind--the
only home you’ve ever known?
What is involved in pulling up stakes, boarding a
ship, turning your back on the land of your birth, and heading off to a land
you’ve never visited--fully intending to live the rest of your days in that new
country?
That’s a good question for us to ponder as we
celebrate the Centennial of this congregation.
It’s good to reflect on the experience of immigration,
because the Lutheran church did not originate here in North America. We are a transplanted, immigrant
church. Most of our Lutheran ancestors
arrived here on boats from northern Europe—the birthplace of Lutheranism.
Today we celebrate the fact that in November of 1916 fifteen immigrants from Norway—14 men and one
brave woman—voted to organize a
congregation they would call the Karlstad
Norwegian Lutheran Church.
To fully understand what motivated them we need to
recognize the profound difference between tourists and immigrants.
Tourists, always carry round-trip tickets with them.
They travel abroad, but always with the intent of returning to their
homeland.
Immigrants, are something else. Immigrants carry one-way tickets.
To be an immigrant is to decide that your future is no
longer in the land of your birth. To be
an immigrant is to set your face toward a new future, in uncharted territory.
What motivates immigrants is usually pain—the pain of
war or poverty or dispossession. To be
an immigrant is to hurt badly enough that you honestly consider leaving your
homeland for good.
To be an immigrant is to leave the land of your birth because
you know your destiny lies in a home you will build in a land you will adopt,
for the rest of your days.
Some ancient Vikings symbolized such radical relinquishment
by burning their boats on the shores of whatever country they were conquering. Burning their boats was a way of
saying: no turning back.
To be an immigrant is to travel light…to bring along just
enough—the bare essentials--so that you can build a new life. Our Lutheran
immigrant ancestors packed their travel-trunks very carefully--and invariably they
included three books: a Bible, a
catechism and a hymnal or songbook.
To be an immigrant is to start all over again in your
adopted homeland. And integral to that “starting
over” was the decision by our immigrant forebears to band together for worship,
confirmation instruction, and evangelical mission in the wilderness of North America.
Sometimes our ancestors even erected a church building
before they had finished their own homes on the prairie.
It’s as if our immigrant forebears knew that among the
necessities of life in this New World was the essential act of gathering
together regularly to hear God’s Word of life, freedom and forgiveness in Jesus
Christ…to center themselves around the Baptismal font….to kneel at an altar and
feast together on the Lord’s Supper….and to be sent to serve in God’s world.
To be an immigrant is to be moved more by the promise
of your future than by the memories of your past. To be an immigrant is to “set your face”
toward God’s tomorrow, to cast your lot with the New Creation that God is
always calling forth in Jesus Christ.
This
immigrant experience is the true “backstory” of your centennial
celebration. And,
when you think about it, it’s a pretty amazing backstory!!
But there is precedent for this.
This is how God operates, as we behold here in our lesson
from I Kings 19. The God we know through
the story of Israel and Israel’s greatest son, Jesus—this God embraces our
past, our present and our future.
This God calls us and empowers us to do the same: to embrace our past, where we have come from….our present, the urgent problems and possibilities of this moment….and
our future, God’s unfolding tomorrows
that beckon us forward.
Here in I Kings 19 we see the prophet Elijah having
come through a rough patch in his life.
After he triumphed over the prophets of the false god, Baal, on Mount
Carmel—Elijah was forced to flee from those who wanted to kill him.
Elijah grew so weary of running away--like a refugee!--that
he finally pleaded with God to take his life.
But God would hear nothing of that! God still had too many plans for Elijah. God let Elijah know that even if he felt that
he (Elijah!) was at the end of his rope, God was just getting off to a good
start.
God’s unfolding future included some assignments for
weary Elijah. God shook Elijah out of
his anxiety and depression by giving him a daunting “to do” list—there were
kings to anoint and a successor for Elijah who needed to be called.
God
was doing what God is always doing: looking
to the future and convincing folks like Elijah to do so, as well.
Indeed Elijah’s successor, Elisha, was proof positive
that God wasn’t finished yet. Even
after Elijah finished his assignments, there would be more work to do. Elijah’s casting of his mantle on the
shoulders of Elisha his successor signified that God was still at work on the
earth.
For Elisha the successor, it would be a kind of
immigrant experience.
Elisha, after all, had a pretty good thing going. He had 24 oxen—no small investment in
livestock! Elisha had the means to
cultivate the land on what was probably a pretty successful farm.
That was the life Elisha had known—the future he
thought was his--until Elijah came along and tapped him on the
shoulder….granting Elisha a new future—a calling as prophet that Elisha
embraced, signified by his generous offering to God of those 24 oxen, served up
on a fire kindled from the wooden yokes that would no longer be needed.
It’s
hard for me to envision this part of our text from I Kings without also picturing
the timbers of those old Viking ships burning on the shores of their new
homeland!
Here is, finally, a word for you and me on this
anniversary celebration. You didn’t
invite me to preach this morning so that I would simply tell all the old
stories of this congregation that you never tire of hearing. You have your elders, old-timers who can regale
you with tales of your history.
You
invited me to preach today because it’s my job to point you toward God’s
promised future in Jesus Christ.
In your anniversary booklet there’s an interesting
tidbit that almost passes unnoticed: for
the first leg of your 100-year journey you were yoked with four other Lutheran
congregations—three of which no longer exist.
It’s been happening for decades—congregations being
started, flourishing, declining and closing.
Some congregations in the upper Midwest choose to
close after they have made it to a milestone—like their Centennial. Some of our prairie churches choose to say, right
at the point you are at today: Mission
Accomplished! We’ve run the race. We’re calling it quits. “To God be the Glory!”
But you have not chosen that path. You believe God isn’t finished with you yet. You still have a mission: “to be
witnesses to God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ, and to serve the needs of the
world in fellowship with all other believers.”
What shape might that mission take as you embark on
your second century of life? You’ve
accomplished much since 1916: passing on faith to generations of children,
serving your community, resettling refugees, welcoming seminary interns to your
pulpit.
But one thing I didn’t notice in your history booklet—unless
I missed it—was any mention of a service of ordination for a son or daughter of
this congregation who had entered the pastoral ministry.
What if that became one of your goals for the next leg
of your journey?
I remember the old hand pumps we used to have on the
farm. There was always a tin cup
attached to these pumps—a cup that had two purposes. First, you drank from it. Second, you filled it up and left water
behind for the next user of the pump—water, not to drink, but to use to “prime
the pump.”
What
if First Lutheran church pondered all the ways you might “prime the pump” for
those who will come after you?
You can think about that, because God isn’t through
with you. God has a future for you in
this good land. God has more work for
you to do.
It is God’s work, in fact, that God will accomplish
with our hands.
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
