Heading on Vacation

Our family is headed to see my dad (first time in a year for the kids) and then to the coast for a little bit.  I've promised myself that I won't be writing while I'm away...devoting my full attention to relaxing and family.  Don't miss church while we're gone, as we have some great guest speakers lined up!  Enjoy!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Everything In Its Place

The other day on a whim I bought a pineapple.  I'd never done that before.  We usually get canned pineapple when we need some.  We don't eat it straight up, instead using it for recipes and such.  A whole pineapple would be way too much for that.  But whole pineapples were cheap and I decided, "What the heck!  Let's try it!"

I cut off the rind and made the pineapple into bite-sized chunks fairly easily.  Then it was time to taste.  Now, I wasn't expecting Hawaii-level, right-out-of-the-field excellence.  Still, it was hard to avoid thinking, "That's it?!?" as I finished my first bite.  It was OK.  Just OK.  You know...mostly pineapple-tasting.  I shrugged and stuck the rest of the chunks in a container in the fridge.

The next day I went to the fridge and saw the container there.  I wasn't that enthused about diving into it, but I figured since I had bought the thing we better eat it.  I opened it and pulled out a chunk as I was going through some mail.  

Whoa...whoa...whoa...whoa...WHOA!!!  MAN!!!!  A few hours in that refrigerator had completely transformed my pineapple!  It was cold and juicy and sweet...like CANDY!  I immediately grabbed pieces and started snarfing them down.  I even considered not telling anyone else in the house so it could be mine, mine...ALL MINE!  (I did end up eating most of it anyway, as it turns out.  Happy me!)

Faith is kind of like that pineapple.  Despite what paintings from medieval masters tell you, God's people don't usually come pre-equipped with halos over their head and a spotlight from heaven following them everywhere they go.  In fact, in most situations God's people look pretty ordinary.  But if you find the right context--the place where that person is really in tune with their gifts and the world--all of a sudden you get that "WHOA!" experience.  It might be singing or parenting or repairing something or teaching...you never know when you're going to see the best in someone come out, getting a great sense of God's purpose in the process.  Pineapple ain't pineapple until you stick it in the fridge.  People need the faith fridge to bring out the best in them too.

This is one of the reasons it's important to keep the church experience open and varied.  If you only do three things you only make room for three people.  Even if those three things are great you never draw the gifts out of anyone you don't know already.  If you make church a cornucopia of goodness then everybody has the chance to shine in one way or another.  Being different helps us see differently too and appreciate the gifts God has given us.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

2012-13 Events

Is it too soon to start thinking about fall?

Summer has barely started--at least if you measure by decent weather--but the 2012-13 year will sneak up on us before we even know it.  Planning ahead, here are some of the things I'm excited about.

• Our final Evangelism Workshop will be critical for those who missed the earlier ones.  Just had to throw that in.
• A Bible Basics course which will walk people through the ins and outs of the texts that guide us.  Most people have a pretty good idea of the main stories but don't understand how they fit together, how the Bible itself was formed, and what comes before and after.  Having a little basic knowledge about the Bible helps in your reading.
• A Lutheran Basics course which will do the same for the life and history of Martin Luther and the church his life gave rise to.  Again, most people understand that we do certain things as Lutherans but have no idea why, how, or how all of this got here.  A little knowledge puts everything into perspective and helps us realize which things are critically important and which are convention (or even mistakes sometimes).
• Faith in Movies...a look at God themes in film, understood by actually watching and discussing movies!
• Our always-vibrant Women's Bible Study, a new way of doing Sunday morning Adult Study, and the return of Theology on Tap!

Obviously we won't be doing all of these at once.  In fact already we're spanning much of the 2012-13 year.  If you have ideas you'd like to see, let me know so we can try and work them in too.  Either way, make your plans to get in some extra-curricular learning during the year to come!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Monday Morning Sermon: The Power of Love

The gospel for this Fifth Sunday After Pentecost was Mark 5: 21-43.  It's a little long to repeat here but you can read it through that link.  Suffice it to say that Jesus encountered a couple of interesting situations.  First a Jewish religious leader came and begged him to come and heal his daughter, as she was sick and near death.  Jesus dropped everything and came, a crowd of people who had come to see him following in his wake on this detour.  On the way a woman from the street touched him.  She had been hemorrhaging for a dozen years and couldn't be cured.  When she touched his cloak her condition disappeared.  But while Jesus and his followers were sorting that out news came from the leader's house.  His daughter had died.  They could forget about coming.  But Jesus told the leader to have faith, went anyway, and raised his daughter from the dead.

All you need to know about these two stories is this:  both of the situations Jesus encountered were signs of ritual uncleanness, insurmountable barriers to holiness.  A bleeding woman was not supposed to enter the temple or approach God until her blood had ceased.  If another person touched her while she bled, then that person was also considered unclean and had to ritually purify themselves before they could approach God. When the woman in the street (already a questionable character in an "upright" society just by virtue of being a woman and interacting with people in public) touched Jesus technically she was supposed to make him unclean. Those were the rules.  Instead he made her clean!  His love and his holiness were more powerful and far-reaching than any obstacle, personal or societal or legal or ANYTHING.  Nothing people said or thought about her, no condition, nothing about her could drag him down.  Instead he lifted her up, and in doing so revealed the truth of who she was:  not a bleeding woman but a child of God.

So, too, with the dead child.  Touching dead bodies also made a person unclean and unfit to be before God.  Ritual cleansing was again required.  Not to mention the insurmountable nature of this particular obstacle.  Who could overcome death?  What could possibly be this powerful?  Not only was touching that girl supposed to make Jesus unclean, it was supposed to defeat him utterly.  "Don't even bother coming" the people said to him.  They laughed at his foolishness when he arrived.  And yet what happened?  Jesus touched her and again he was neither brought low nor defeated, but she was lifted up and restored.

How many times do we judge people by their sins instead of God's intention for them?  How quick are we to believe ill of people and the world instead of good?  What do you remember in a day, fifty people who were nice or one who was rude?  What sticks with you, the hundred times someone told you that you were beautiful or the one time someone told you that you were ugly?

Why is it that whatever is most wretched, fear-provoking, ill-mannered, titillating, or rude seems the most powerful and true to us while love and compassion seem weak?  It's the other way around!  Love is the only strength and Jesus would not let anything defeat it.  We should believe the good, share the uplifting, follow those things which are compassionate and restorative.  Those are God's gifts to us, yet so often we leave them by the roadside while pursing things that seem more powerful and end up more futile.

We are more than our weaknesses and faults.  We are strength and we are love.  Nothing can overcome that.

How beautiful it was to hear this message and then come forward for Communion, bringing all of our shortcomings to the altar, being touched by Jesus through body and blood, and leaving strengthened and whole!  How wonderful it was afterwards to share a fellowship meal and converse for hours!  This message is alive every day if we bother to heed it.  God has such love in store for us!

Follow that love this week.  Look for it, hold it dear, and share it with your friends and neighbors.  You will see the world in a different way and so will they.  It's much better being strong in love than being weak in anything else.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)