The Story of Princess Buttercup

Princess Buttercup on the left with her brother Tubby snoozing beside her.

As Christmas approaches the Deckard household we find ourselves embroiled in busy times.  We have an excited 6-year-old, a newly-excited 3-year-old experiencing her first conscious Christmas, plus a dad and mom running everywhere to make sure meals are made, presents wrapped, and Christmas Eve services accounted for.  The hustle and bustle is in full swing!

But it was not always that way for me.  As I beam in gratitude for so many people surrounding me, family and friends both, during this joyous holiday I hearken back to a time when I was all but alone on Christmas.  It was my first Christmas in Iowa, six months after graduating from seminary and accepting my first call.

You don't get to choose where you will serve when you leave seminary.  You can put in a request for the church to send you to a favored location, but it's kind of like the army.  You ask, you hope, then you go where they tell you to.  Being from Portland, I requested the church call me somewhere in the West.  Apparently western Iowa was as far in that direction as they could imagine, because there I was in frosty December.  Family and friends were back home.  Fellow seminary students had scattered to the wind, serving their own calls.  When the 25th rolled around the only person in my house, or anywhere in reach, really, was...me.

As you can imagine, this was a semi-depressing situation.  My family had mailed gifts but that actually made the loneliness worse.  Without the presents I could have pretended that this was just another day...a day off for me, in fact.  But when the postman delivered those presents I was stuck.  I couldn't ignore them, nor did I want to.  But you have not lived until you've opened Christmas presents on a wooden floor in your living room alone...no tree, no stockings, no nothing.  The gifts almost become ironic, highlighting the situation instead of alleviating it.

But as I sat down to unwrap the parcels I realized I wasn't quite alone.  You see, when I graduated from seminary I promised myself two things.  First, I'd save enough money to get a satellite dish so I could watch my beloved Portland Trail Blazers.  Second, I wanted a cat.  It didn't have to be a fancy cat, just one like I had growing up...something to say, "Hello" to when I came in the house, someone to sit on my lap and purr when I watched TV.

A month prior, right around Thanksgiving, I had made both my dreams come true.  DirecTV installed a dish and I saw my first Trail Blazers game in years.  Plus I made a trip to the local shelter to get a kitten.  Sadly they didn't have any at the moment, just grown-up cats.  I asked the attendant when she thought they might get in more kittens but as I did so my hand accidentally drifted towards one of the cat cages.  A soft paw came out and curled around my fingers.  The paw drew my hand to the cage bars where a little tabby-cat face peeked out.  When my fingers met the bars the tabby cat nuzzled them with her cheek.  I stooped down to look and met a hopeful gaze staring back at me.

Well, why not?  A kitten would probably be too much trouble anyway.  Besides, this cat was only two years old and she was small enough to be a big-sized kitten.  I asked to take her home.

Being a young-ish male apparently made me a person of suspicion to the cat-minder at the shelter.  She asked sternly, "Now, you are going to take good care of this cat, right?"  Ha!  She didn't know me very well.  I named the kitty "Princess Buttercup" and we immediately became best of friends.  She greeted me at the door, sat on my lap, curled in my arms, and even played fetch upon occasion!  We quickly grew to love each other.

But it wasn't until that first Christmas alone in Iowa that I discovered Princess Buttercup's best trick of all.  She loved...and I mean loved...opening presents.  I took the brown parcel paper off of the packages my family had sent, revealing ribbons and brightly-colored wrapping paper beneath.  And suddenly I had company.  Princess Buttercup pounced on the first present and began opening it with her teeth.  I couldn't help it.  I laughed out loud.  She didn't stop until all the paper was off of that box.  I opened it and saw what was inside.  She didn't care about that.  She was waiting for me to pull out the next box.  As soon as I did she went at it again.  She and I unwrapped every present my family had sent together.  She was as happy as a clam and I was smiling too.   I had made her Christmas and she had made mine.  I wasn't alone after all.  As long as she was around, I never would be.

We had liked each other plenty before, but that Christmas Day ended the getting-to-know-you period for Princess Buttercup and I, making us family.

Eventually things changed, of course.  I got married.  (Though one of the litmus tests for Careen was whether Princess Buttercup liked her.  Fortunately she did.)  Pocket and Tubby came along, which took some adjustment for both Princess Buttercup and I.  We moved to Idaho, cats in tow.  Then Derek and Ali came, human family members to supplement the feline ones.  But through it all Princess Buttercup and I stuck together.  She was my kitty.  I was her dad.  And every Christmas since has reminded me of our first together, mostly because I dare not put presents under the tree until the wee hours of Christmas morning lest they get unwrapped early!  And even then I pretty much have to sleep by the tree to guard them.

Those memories will be especially poignant this Christmas.  Princess Buttercup is old now and has been failing.  Having just checked on her, it seems like today is the day I have to take her to the vet to say goodbye.  I wanted to wait until after Christmas, to have one more together, but it doesn't look like we'll be able to have that.  So I gave her the little kitty bed I bought her this year.  I lifted her into it and we'll cuddle for a while, then it'll be time to go.

It's OK, though.  Everything has its time.  Her life has been long and happy, as has been my time with her...almost certainly more happy than either of us would have been had we missed each other that day in the Fort Dodge, Iowa Animal Shelter or had I stuck to my original idea of getting a kitten.  Besides, Christmas isn't really about the presents, no matter how much you love opening them.  Christmas is about the promise that joy doesn't end, it's about hope coming true, light shining forth, goodness living forever no matter what.  The baby Jesus would have sad goodbyes too, but they wouldn't last.  Afterwards would come a new hello.  I know this, and I've told it to Princess Buttercup while stroking her head.  She'll be OK and so will I.  And in a little while we'll get to be together again.

She's been a good cat, the Christmas Angel messenger who declared to a wayward shepherd that he didn't have to be alone.  Thank God for that message, and for angels wherever we find them.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

  

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is almost upon us...one of the prettiest and most meaningful services of the year.  I have a soft spot in my heart for Christmas Eve worship.  It helped set me on the path to where I am today.

I didn't have a bad time growing up.  I was kept safe. I was loved.  We always had a roof over our heads and 2.5 square meals a day.  If we were short on money, us kids seldom knew it.

I did have a bit of a fractured childhood.  My parents were divorced.  Our family had...interesting dynamics.  You weren't sure who you could trust, who was on the ins or outs with somebody this week.  Outwardly we had hugs and smiles aplenty but unguarded affection was rare.

Christmas was one of the immediate casualties of this fracturing.  We had two: mom's and dad's.  Sometimes we had another besides with other family members.  The presents were fun enough but those family undercurrents flowed through them all.  We kids "aged out" of Christmas too, as is natural.  You remember near-ideal Christmases when you were 5 or 6 and then you have the 16- or 17-year-old version.  The latter pales in comparison.  It just isn't the same.

So I remember one Christmas...I think I was 17.  By that time I'd had 5 years of split up Christmases, several rounds of my parents not "getting me" (as is typical for teenagers), and I knew that no present in the world was going to make this Christmas ideal.  What was there?  It was like the most cherished institution of my childhood had become meaningless.  And I needed a cherished institution or two to hold onto, to provide stability or hope.  What a bummer!

Fortunately I had discovered a home away from home in my high school choir, with whom I had recently started singing.  My choir director had taken a job at a downtown church and invited me to come and sing in her choir, to be a "ringer" of sorts.  I'd take the bus down there and she'd usually drive me home.

Christmas Eve came around and naturally we were all singing.  So I went to church, ready for just another service.  Mind you, worship was great there.  The messages made plenty of sense.  The music was excellent.  The people were friendly.  What's not to like?  But I wasn't prepared for the beauty of Christmas Eve in a church.  Candles glowed everywhere.  People sang in harmony, knowing the hymns well.  The sermon talked about unreserved, unending love.  Everything clicked.

And all of a sudden I understood.  I was going to lose some things in life.  Institutions might crumble--family fractured, innocence departed, Christmas de-mystified--but God's love and God's giving would endure.  Hope would endure.  Light would endure.  Beauty could be found in the moments you least expected it, in ways you didn't even look for.

That Christmas Eve message of hope, love, and beauty is important.  You never know who it's going to touch.  I'm glad we get to share it again next Tuesday.  Worship starts at 7:00 p.m. with a musical prelude at 6:45.  See you there!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Getting Through a Day

Stress can mount up quickly this time of year.  It seems like an opportune time to share Pastor Dave's Tips for Getting Through a Day.  This is more homespun wisdom than theological assertion, so take it as you will.  This is just how I try to make it through each day with some sense of graciousness as the wolves of worry are nipping at my heels.  I'm not claiming 100% success, but still...

Start Each Day New

In my experience, most stress comes in the form of baggage dragged with us from yesterday.  Failing that, we worry overmuch about tomorrow, as if we knew our future and could control it.  God's baptismal covenant promises that each day we are made new.  As we rise yesterday's burdens are washed away, drowned in the baptismal waters, and we are given new life.

This means every day is a fresh chance.  Old problems may follow us, but they don't have to have the same shape and weight they carried the day before.  If I worry all through the day, carry those problems with me through a restless sleep, and then wake up weighed down just as much as I was before, I haven't given the new day a chance.

Instead I wake up trying my hardest to trust that this day will be new and different.  If familiar problems arise, well, new opportunities will too.  I don't want to miss my calling in this day because I'm still carrying the last one front and center.  Each day when I wake up I say a quick prayer that God will relieve me of my burdens and show me what he wants me to do in this day.  Privately I also ask that he'll relieve me of the folly of forcing  every day to be exactly the same and then wondering why nothing ever changes.

Plan For Big Things

Part of acknowledging the new opportunities God gives us is admitting that they just might matter.  Even if I pretty much know what I'll be doing in a day--for better or worse we live by schedules and tasks--I don't assume that I know how all those things will go.  I'm prepared for them to make a big difference.  I'm ready for something significant to happen.  Maybe I meet a new person.  Maybe I see a person I've met before in a new way.  Maybe I'll say something, or hear something, that will change a life.  Maybe I'll be delighted or disappointed.  Whatever happens, I've never experienced this day before.  

Life is kind of like a board game in this way.  You know the basic forms of Monopoly or Yahtzee just like you know the basic pattern of your life.  You're familiar with the cards and categories.  But you never know how those elements will combine each time you play.  You can't predict how the dice will roll, how landing on a certain space or filling in a certain line on the sheet will change the game.  It's the same way with your life, your job, your relationships.  Each morning is like setting up a new game board.  I may know the rules and I may have seen most of the cards, but I'm going to be interested in how it plays out and I'm going to do my best to play well.  Who knows if this will be the round where something special happens, creating a story that will last a lifetime?

If the Big Things Don't Go Right, Make the Most of Little Things

Sometimes things don't work out like we hope.  Life falls apart.  Hopes go unanswered.  Worries come true.  Stress increases.  We don't always get good days.

When this happens my first thought is, "If I can't have a good day, can I maybe find a good 10 minutes in there somewhere?"  Even one or two things going right can give you something to lean on.  You have a cup of coffee with a friend.  You stop for an ice cream cone.  You hear a song that you love.  Somebody smiles at you unexpectedly or lets you cut ahead of them in a long grocery store line.  Even a small reminder of goodness can be enough to get you through a bad day.  Yucky stuff happening for 23 hours and 30 minutes doesn't rob us of the ability to appreciate the other half-hour.  Given a choice of what to build my life on, I'm going to take the good 10-minute experience over the yucky, day-long drag.  That good event still happened.  Goodness still exists.  If I hang on through the other stuff, even if it's a crushing, inexorable burden today, then eventually I'll find the good again.

If the Little Things Don't Go Right Either, Get a Hug and Pray

Sometimes things just don't go right in a day, not even one little bit.  Overwhelming bad news, unexpected sorrow, a series of unfortunate events, at times it's just too much.

In these situations I need a hug, maybe a pat on the back...just some kind of human contact.  I also need a little divine contact in the form of prayer, even if that prayer is just, "Help! I can't do it!"  Most folks see that as a sign of failure.  That's actually the purest, truest prayer we can offer to God.  "Help! I can't do it!" is the reason Jesus suffered and died on the cross for us.  None of us can do it even though we spend much of our life pretending we can.  When we couldn't do it ourselves, when we were lost beyond hope, Jesus came to us and saved us.  Those moments when we have nothing else end up being the moments we're closest to God.  We don't necessarily feel it, but it's true.

It should be mentioned that hugs and prayers are available in plentiful supply from your pastor and most of your friends at church too.

It's also interesting to note how many of those days come when we literally have nothing left but to get a hug and pray versus the number of days we call "bad".  For most people the former situation is far more rare than the latter.  Stress accelerates us down the ladder more quickly than circumstances do, which is why it's important to head back up to the top of the list and start each day fresh and new.

Here's hoping your stress level is low and your contentment-and-love level is off the charts during this holiday season.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Thanks for Singing With Us!

I want to thank everybody from the community who came to our Christmas Song Sing-Along on Sunday.  We had a great time!  Singing with all of you was fun and it was great seeing people from different churches and different families come together in song.  The energy built throughout the event and that ending was unforgettable!  I feel more in the Christmas spirit already!

I'd also like to offer special thanks to our musicians:  Jennifer Parkins, Emmy Parkins, Phoebe Rigg, Phyliis Kanikkeberg, John Marone, Warren Akin, Robert Rigg, and Patrick Adams.  How often do you get to see a multi-generational, multi-gender group of people having so much fun?  Thanks to Chloe and Susan Rigg for preparing the food and to everybody who donated cookies to the event!

We'll almost certainly do this again next year.  It was too much fun not to repeat!  What a great time, and what a blessing to be in Genesee at Christmas!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Get in the Christmas Spirit!

This Sunday at 3:00 we're putting on a community-wide Christmas Song Sing-Along!  Guitar, percussion, keyboard, bass, singers...we've got the whole band in gear.  We'll be doing favorite Christmas songs, everything from Rudolph to Winter Wonderland to Angels We Have Heard on High.  You can sing with us or just enjoy the show!  We'll have Christmas cookies, hot chocolate, and plenty of fun.  What better way to take a break from the stress and get ready for the holidays?  It'll be fun for the whole family so come and enjoy!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Advent Collage Which Represents Themes of Advent Season

Attached is a short video of Jenifer singing and Rosanna offering her symbolic art to help us better understand this Advent season.

Being Right vs. Being Loving

Last Sunday we read from Matthew, Chapter 3, in which John the Baptist prepared the way for the coming of Jesus.  The key concept from his message:  "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand."

We don't think about it much, but the two clauses of that sentence actually talk about conflicting impulses.

To "repent" means to "walk again", "pent" being the root of the word for walking.  "Repent" is another way of saying, "Turn around, do it over, change direction!"  Something is not quite right here.

This is part of our human story.  Most of us try to be good (especially this time of year with Santa just around the corner!)  Most of us want to do what's right.  But we always seem to mess it up.  Into our noblest, purest acts and intentions creeps some kind of selfishness or blindness.  What we want to do we don't actually end up doing, at least not perfectly.  Desiring the right, we can't manage to get there.

Most people read "repent" as saying, "Stop doing wrong!  Do right instead!"  That's not accurate.  In fact, it's impossible to fulfill that command.  Instead you should read "repent" as, "Give up on the idea that you are right and can be right.  Stop following yourself and your own flawed instincts and pretending that they are The Way."

The reason for this turn-around is simple.  The actual Way is at hand.  Contrary to popular belief, the kingdom of God does not mean just heaven or the afterlife.  That's part of the definition of kingdom, the final flower of it, but it's not the whole story.  The kingdom of God is a living presence, in John's case embodied physically in Jesus Christ.  The kingdom of God is present wherever love, grace, forgiveness, and joy are brought to life among us.  This is what we follow and walk towards, not what is "right" by our own definition but what is loving by God's definition, not our own example but his.

Theoretically "right" and "loving" should be the same thing.  What is loving should be what is right and vice versa.  In practice that only holds true for one being in the whole universe: God.  God is wholly right, completely loving.  There is no distinction between the two in him.

For the rest of us, though, sin clouds our vision, makes us short-sighted, causes us to fall short.  We have to choose.  We can either be right or we can be loving.  Every once in a while we're blessed with a great moment when the two impulses come together.  These are gifts from God, moments when we feel in tune with the world, the universe, heaven, and everything therein.  Those brief glimpses aside, we're forced to decide what will be the bedrock of our life: our own righteousness or God.  We cannot follow both.

Part of the reason we can't have both is that love and right require different actions and a different outlook.  Being right makes you stand still.  You've got it!  It's clear.  You are right.  Why move?  Being right causes you to stop your journey, build up walls, protect yourself from anyone who would change you, or even just try to change your mind.  If you're right there's no need to hear, no need to transform, and no need to follow.

Love, on the other hand, requires motion, attention, sacrifice.  Love moves you beyond what you were before, not just for your own sake, but for the sake of the one you are loving.  Love is nothing but hearing, nothing but transformation and growth, nothing but following...following God in dutiful service and following the person you're sharing love with.  After all, how do you know how to love someone if you don't follow them for a while, walk a mile in their shoes?

Being right always causes you to stop.  Loving always causes you to move.  The two cannot happen at the same time.

Scripture is pretty clear about which of these is the correct approach.  You can listen to Paul tell you, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" or you can listen to John say, "When we say we are without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."  Both are telling you the same thing.  You can't stop.  The moment you call a halt to the journey you have to make compromises with the sin that's within yourself and the shortcomings inherent in the place where you stopped to camp.  It would be like the people of Israel stopping in their wilderness journey.  They may find a nice oasis in the desert somewhere but it's not suitable for living forever; it's not the Promised Land.

We are not called to camp in a spot of our own choosing, but to keep journeying towards our ultimate destiny: the kingdom of God, perfect love and grace and forgiveness and joy.  When faced with a choice between right and loving, we choose loving.  Otherwise we miss the kingdom even when it stands right in front of us.

Understanding this, it becomes clear what John was asking his followers to repent of: not just their sins and wrongdoing, but their idea that they already knew what "right" means and that they were capable of achieving it themselves.  This is reinforced a couple verses later in Matthew 3 when John scolds the Pharisees, folks who followed the Law scrupulously but also thought that they knew (and were) right in every matter.  John calls them a "brood of vipers", snakes huddled in their nest, unwilling to come out, likely to bite anyone who tried to roust them.  That's exactly what happened when Jesus met the Pharisees.  They didn't see him as holy, nor did they care about his message.  Instead they plotted to kill him because he had the temerity to tell them that something in the universe was more important than them being right.

Right or love, which will you choose?  Each of us is confronted with this decision every day.  Those who are married know that the #1 rule of married life is that you can be right or you can be in love but you can't have both.  You'll either be right and sleeping on the couch or be loving and have a marriage.  The same holds true in different ways for relationships between parents and children, friends and neighbors, co-workers, and even strangers.

Turn on the radio or TV and you'll hear a host of people trying to convince you that they're right, that a certain point of view is right, that this is all you need in order to prosper in the world.  The ones you already agree with (better: who agree with you) seem quite seductive, quite "right".  Our culture will prod you mercilessly, convincing you that right is the answer: hold the right political opinion, invest in the right stock, buy the right Christmas present for somebody.  Funny, those never provide the answer...at least not the ultimate one.  Whatever happiness and security they bring is only temporary.  For the most part, they give way to more fear, more division.

Love is the way.  The kingdom of God is still at hand.  The problem isn't that it's disappeared, nor that it was only embodied in one person who lived 2000 years ago.  Jesus brought it to the world that it might grow through all of us, transforming our lives and the life of everyone we love.  The problem is, we don't see it.  We're too busy trying to be right.

The opposite of faith is not doubt.  The opposite of faith is certainty.  Every moment we spend being less certain and more loving--every moment we sacrifice our selfish desire to stop the journey at a convenient place and instead walk it in love--is a moment faith becomes more alive in us. This is how we prepare the way of the Lord.

Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand...today, tomorrow, and always.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Giving, Part 2

Last time we talked about the narrative budget, how telling the story of our financial gifts gives us a clearer picture of our stewardship than just listing numbers.  In order to understand the process we need to see our gifts in action, not lying in some column on a page.

But there's a problem with the narrative budget in a church with our size and our spirit.  If you just look at the surface of it, that action appears to amount to one word: salary.  Most of our budget is bare-boned.  People donate nearly everything we use from office supplies to kitchen supplies to communion wine to Sunday School curriculum.  Those things don't show up as spending items in the budget.  If you look at the percentages on the official ledger, salary and benefits dominate, as if most of what's given around here funnels to Pastor Dave.

Treasurer Susan and I were discussing these matters one day and she basically said, "This isn't an accurate picture!"  The numbers don't lie but they don't show the real, dynamic motion of giving in our church.  Our official budget doesn't tell the story.

It quickly became evident that in order to tell the real story of our giving, we were going to have to do something radical.  We couldn't just give a narrative budget based on our church numbers.  We had to give the narrative of where those funds were going after they left the church.  We also had to talk about how much was being given by our church members outside the budget...giving when things were needed like the folks did who bought our new copy machine this year.

Since much of our official budget goes into salary, the first step in describing our community's giving was revealing what happens to that salary.  This meant revealing our spending and giving...the narrative budget of pastor's paycheck.  As you can imagine, this was neither entirely instinctual nor entirely comfortable for me.  We live in a society where finances are private (just like religion, ironically).  We've never broken that barrier.  But without it, the story died on the vine.  So we did it.

I'm not going to go into specific figures here on the internet, but to summarize: approximately 45% of our salary, which amounts to nearly 70% of our take-home pay after taxes are deducted, went back into the church or church work this year.  We re-invest 7 out of every 10 dollars that touch our bank account into helping the church and the community.  Needs include everything from helping people with rent to buying stamps and office supplies, gas for visits and pop for kids.

For perspective, most people consider tithing--the standard goal for giving presented by many churches--as 10%.  Even in pre-tax dollars we're 4.5 times that.  The good folks at the ELCA financial advising and pension department will encourage you to save 10% of your take-home pay, give away 10%, and live on the other 80%.  We're about 7 times beyond in the giving department by that measure.

Numbers aren't the important part of this discussion.  The numbers are there to set up a couple of important points.

First, even though the budget says "salary" many of those dollars are actually going to ministry.  You're not giving to fill a bank account but to support ministry, even in the salary line of that budget.

Second, the amount of giving is less important than the why.  It's less important to understand that we're spending 70% of our take-home pay on the church right now than to understand why that's necessary.

For us, giving is not determined by dollar signs.  The dollar signs follow the need for giving instead of determining it.  Our giving is about three things:

1.  We believe and trust in God and in the people here.

Our community is faithful.  Our community is valuable.  Our community is irreplaceable, as are the people in it.  Without giving we wouldn't get to see our Confirmation students, Olee's tablecloths, Patrick's music, the children coming up for the children's sermon, or have great discussions in Bible Studies and Theology on Tap.  We wouldn't get to eat Mary's caramels or look at Rosanna's pictures or hear Louise play the organ and Jennifer sing.  Our gifts make a thousand other wonderful gifts possible...the lack of which would impoverish our lives greatly.  God is showing us blessings every day through all of you.  We give in response to that, in appreciation for it.  We're not giving to a "church".  We're giving because the things we experience in this community from God and  the people around us are beyond any price tag.

2.  We give because it needs to be done.

This is no different than walking in the kitchen and seeing dishes that need to be done or walking into fellowship and seeing the coffee out but no cups available on the table.  You don't see a need and pass by with it unmet.  When somebody needs rent and has fallen through the cracks of all the other options, you make sure they get rent and keep a roof over their heads.  When the church copier is empty, you get paper.  Find a reason to say "no" once and you'll soon find reasons to say "no" every time.

And speaking of...

3.  We give because we dare not refuse to.

Our society teaches us that the core of our security and happiness is money...that money is the most important treasure we have, to be guarded and used with infinite care lest we end up unfulfilled.  God simply asks us to trust him.  That's above all things, including money.

If we hold back in this one way, we might as well have held back in all of them.  If we can't bring ourselves to trust God here, do we really trust him at all?

Our lives will follow the pattern we set in this decision.  Either trust or fear will guide us.  There's no in-between and no mistaking the two.  Giving one cent less than is needed or called for because we're afraid of running out is a decision based on fear, not on faith.

Giving becomes reminder to us that God and faith are the core of security and happiness...that God is showing us the most important treasures every day in the faces and voices of our neighbors...that we are called to use infinite care in tending to those things, letting the dollar signs fall where they may instead of using infinite care to tend to our dollar signs and letting the gifts fall where they may.

Giving disciplines us and puts a check on the part of us that wants to fear and worry selfishly.  It's our security against idolatry.

Is giving so much a sacrifice?  Yes, it is.  But it is possible.  And that sacrifice pales beside the one our Lord made for us on the cross.

These why statements need to become more a part of our giving, a part of the discussion surrounding stewardship, than they are now.  We need to get our whys straight and let the finances follow rather than starting and ending our stewardship discussion with the finances.  Our success cannot be measured by a line in a budget.  It's measured by how much we all trust in, believe in, and sacrifice for God, each other, and the ministry here.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Giving, Part 1

Before worship last Sunday we had a chance to go over some material in preparation for our Annual Meeting on January 26th.  Since stewardship is our ongoing focus, most of the presentation centered around that topic.

The "Narrative Budget" is one of the recent, and helpful, developments in explaining church stewardship.  Traditional budgets focus around numbers and columns.  They give you information (at least if you're inclined towards spreadsheets) but they don't tell a limited story about a church's financial resources.  They encourage people to think of stewardship as a matter of digits and the church as an institution little different than a bank or investment firm.

A narrative budgets still gives you numbers, but it tells the story of how the church's resources are being used, not just by column and committee but in ministry involving real goals and real faces.  "Worship Committee spent $500 this year" is a far different kind of presentation than, "We hosted a cluster-wide gathering, added large-print hymnals to our pews for those who can't see the normal version, and used a brand new liturgy for our Lenten evening services."  The former just tells you how much.  The latter answers the question, "For what?"

This is an important step in our stewardship journey together.  Coloring an budget line red or black doesn't encompass what we do here.  It's almost like there are two churches: the warm, supportive, and intriguing gathering we know and love and the cold, demanding, bottom-line institutional machine that demands support so it doesn't "fail".  We enjoy the former but when we think of giving, we usually envision the latter.  That disconnect has to be bridged.  The church we give to is the same church we love.  The other image is a false construct.  We don't give money to an institution so we can do the things we enjoy and benefit from.  We give to each other and God as we enjoy the same way we give to family members and friends as we experience our relationship with them.

We all budget in our daily lives for food, shelter, Christmas gifts, and everything else.  But few of us say, "I am feeding you dinner, spouse and children, so that you will remain my family and I can experience a relationship with you."  Instead we share with our family because we love them and they love us, because it's a joy to do so, because that's what we're called to do.  Our giving is intimately and naturally connected with the people we give to and among.

That's exactly the way church giving is supposed to be.  We're like an extended version of your family.  Theoretically people shouldn't be giving just to meet a budget.  The budget sets the bar for what we need, but it's a step in the stewardship journey, not the ultimate goal for it.  Instead we should be giving in the name of God and for the benefit of each other and the world around us.  We give because we trust and believe that God gives blessings more powerful and enduring than money.  We sacrifice so that others might have a chance to experience something good.  We give so that our friends and neighbors can feel secure and confident sharing their gifts as well, not just monetary but investments of time and talent as well.  We don't give to support an institution or viewpoint, we give so that ministry will come alive (and continue to live) among us.

Giving is an intimate, joyous experience.  We miss out on all of that joy when we disconnect it from the faces, talents, and loving generosity around us and make it just about numbers and columns.  Can you put a price on hearing the girls sing on Sunday morning?  I can't.  Which column should that get filed under in the budget?  Or should we instead agree that God is showing us reasons to trust, reasons to celebrate, and reasons to give all the time?  And perhaps we should also agree that fencing away a part of our life--in particular our financial life--from this process is a less than ideal response to the grace he has shown us.

Tomorrow:  Soul-baring on my part.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

The Blank Slate

In this morning's Women's Bible Study we got a chance to read the second chapter of Mark.  The 18th-22nd verses made us think particularly hard:

Mark 2: 18-22

18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
19 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
21 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”

In these passages Jesus chastises people who mistake outward signs of piety for true faith.  Folks assumed that since the Pharisees and the disciples of John fasted while Jesus' followers did not, the Pharisees and John were holier, more reverent, closer to God.  Jesus reminded them all that God can't be contained in any ritual or sign.  Rituals like fasting are meant to point to God, but they are not God.  God is with people who fast and people who don't.

Jesus follows this up with an interesting paragraph about not trying to repair old garments with new cloth, nor putting new wine in old wineskins.  Fasting (or the lack thereof) wasn't really the issue here.  The real problem was that people thought they already knew who God was and what he wanted so they weren't prepared to see or hear him when he showed up in a way they didn't expect.  They shoved God in a box too small for him.  When he slipped out and tapped them on the shoulder to say hello they wouldn't believe it was him because the were sure he was still in their box.

This short paragraph reminds us that we are supposed to approach God as a blank slate, ready to be written upon.  Our rituals, habits, and preconceptions can be useful in pointing us to God.  Ritual and habit remind us to go to church every Sunday, for instance.  But once we're actually together with God we have to be ready to change.  God transforms us.  He makes us new every day.  Refusing to be made new is the same as refusing God.  We cannot come before him saying, "It's good to see you but don't touch this, don't change this, and don't transform any of these six things."  When we do that, we're not really ready for God.  We already have one: all those things we're protecting.

When we approach God in the words of the Bible we should be prepared to read them new and fresh even if the words are familiar to us.  We don't open the Bible already knowing what it says, but asking what it's going to say to us today.  Each sermon should be an opportunity to think new things, to open new avenues of understanding and service.  Each time we come to the altar for communion we should regard that as a transformation, a fresh start.  We do all these things out of habit, but the substance of them is so much more.

This extends to our daily lives as well.  We shouldn't wake up each morning already knowing what we're going to do.  Even if we have a schedule and it's the same as it has been for as long as we can remember, we should be ready for God to touch us in new ways through familiar tasks.  We shouldn't assume we already know the people God sends into our lives, even those we are closest to.  We need to open our eyes, be prepared to see some new facet of them in this day.  We should not allow our relationships to get in ruts even if they're comfortable ones for all involved.  Here, too, refusing to be transformed is refusing to hear God's voice.

Each day is a new opportunity.  God calls us to see it that way and act accordingly.  The new wine is ours and the old, familiar wineskin of our lives won't hold it without bursting.  Maybe it's time to get a new skin, a little roomier, and take a fresh look at the world God has given us and the people therein as well.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Important Announcements!

Some important announcements for this week:

Thursday Night marks our final Lutheran Basics class for this session!

Saturday Night is Theology on Tap at Rich and Jennifer Parkins' place.

Sunday is the last morning to take tags for the Christmas for Kids program, helping out families in need of Christmas gifts.  Those gifts are due back in church on the 15th, the Sunday following.

We also need adult helpers for the Christmas Pageant this year.  Come at 9:00 on Sunday morning to see how you can help us out!  It won't be hard but it will be fun!

The final rehearsal for our Christmas Sing-a-Long on the 15th is this Sunday at 5:00 p.m.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Council Minutes for November

Genesee Lutheran Parish Council Meeting Minutes For November

November 12, 2013

In attendance: Patrick Adams, Susan Riggs, Jennifer Parkins, Linda Chilson, Gayle Rossebo, Doug Cartwright, Dan Carter, and Pastor David Deckard

Jennifer Parkins called meeting to order at 7PM.

Financial Report:

Susan Riggs gave a report on the financial status with cashing in the one CD that was not gaining any growth we are doing ok. Dan pointed out that from the financial report she gave us that it would seem that we are on track for doing somewhat better than last year. The shortfall this year is closer to $8500 rather than what it was last year. 

Susan and Pastor Dave are going to put together a narrative budget that will give a bigger picture of the services we get from Pastor Dave and other church members. This will show that not only are we receiving offerings but also the volunteer time many give to the church.

People seem to be doing better at turning in their receipts so that Susan can record those.

New/Old Business:

We discussed moving forward with getting a bulk mail permit. Pastor Dave reported that we would have at least 4 bulk mailings a year. Susan has used PNW up until now, we could continue to use them but it would also just be handier to have our own permit since the cost is minimal for the permit. After some discussion Dan Carter moved to get the permit and Patrick Adams seconded it. There was a unanimous vote in favor, Susan will now move forward with obtaining the permit.

Patrick Adams reported on his findings for getting a hotspot set up for internet at the church. Jennifer reported that at this point none of the Sunday School teachers would be using it since the curriculum they are using would not require any internet usage plus our numbers are pretty low in the middle group of Sunday School students that would be most likely to use it at this time. Pastor Dave mentioned also maybe checking into a router booster that could be used off of the parish internet. Patrick was going to do some more checking into it and will report back next.

Jennifer also brought up that we have not a couple of quarterly meetings and we discussed how we were going to do that since it is also so close to time for an annual meeting. It was decided that we would have a quick quarterly meeting consisting of a financial report at the beginning of church on the December 1^st. The annual meeting with be on the last Sunday of January.

Committee reports:

Doug reported that the work has begun on the Community Garden that is located by the perish house.

Jennifer reported that Erica Grieser will not be continuing as worship committee chair, for now Phyllis will help with it but we do need to look for someone to take that position.

Pastors Report:

Both the girls and boys discussion groups did well with an attendance of 4-5 per group. He felt that they enjoyed it and would possibly encourage their friends to join them in the future.

He would like to look into getting a men’s group started after the first of the year.

There was also discussion on starting a youth group of 3^rd-6^th graders once a month on Saturday. Susan and Linda are going to look into getting this started. Susan thought that possibly some community services would be a fun thing for them to do as children of that age often enjoy doing that. They will also have some other activities that would hopefully draw some of the children in the community to join us. This will not be started until after the first of the year also.

Rather than doing the cookies as we have done in the past few years this year we are going to have a community concert and sing-a-long at the church on the 15^th of December with a tentative time of 3PM.

Mission of the Church:

Jennifer came up with a mission statement for the church and council:

To support the ministries of the church

by celebrating the love of God

through giving of time, talents and monetary gifts.

We had a discussion on it and Patrick moved to accept this as our mission statement, Doug seconded it and it was voted in unanimously. 

Jennifer also gave some ideas on how we can maintain our mission:

To show our faith through giving that promotes the mission of our church

To feel connected to each other because what we give is celebrated

Focusing on giving as a way to honor what God gives to us

Provide scripture based guidance for monetary giving

Openly communicate the ways money in the church is used for the missions serving others.

As we all share we all connect and grow in our faith. No one greater than the other, each understanding the spirit of and the intention or purpose of what God is asking us to do.

Meeting was adjourned at 8:30 PM.

Early Thanks

Posts might be a little sparse this week.  There's the holiday plus I need to finish my pre-Thanksgiving visits plus finish decorating the yard.  However I wanted to open the week with a thanks.

As every Thanksgiving cook knows, thawing your turkeys early in the fridge is the key to a happy Thanksgiving.  If you've ever made the mistake of pulling that bird out of the freezer on Wednesday afternoon and saying, "I wonder how long this takes to thaw?"...well, you only do it once before you learn.

In the case of church Thanksgiving, the turkey turns out perfectly if you remember to move it from the freezer to the fridge on Sunday after church.  As usual, our Thanksgiving turkeys were in the church freezer this year.  But with music, boys, more music, and then more boys yesterday my day was too jammed for me to eat dinner properly, let alone think ahead to Thursday's dinner.  I smacked myself in the head this morning.  "YOU FORGOT TO TAKE THE TURKEYS OUT OF THE FREEZER!"

I rushed over to church to free the birds from their icy prison and...and...and...some wonderful angel had already done it for me.  There, as nice as you please, sat our Thanksgiving turkeys in the refrigerator, happily thawing and ready to go.

I love being in the kind of church where we quietly help each other out, making up for each other's oversights...including the pastor's occasional absentmindedness.  That's so much better than a church where people complain or wait to see things go wrong before they fix them.

So thank you, Thanksgiving Angel!  We'll all appreciate you on Thursday afternoon!

Don't forget that everybody is welcome to join us at 4:00.  We'll have plenty of food!  We also have a large and distinguished guest list already, so don't miss the party if you feel inclined to come!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

More On Authority

Yesterday we talked about authority in theological terms.  Today I want to take a more practical approach.  How do you recognize true authority when you encounter it?

As people of God, scripture is our ultimate authority.  God comes to us through his word.  That which follows God's word holds authority for us.  That which does not, cannot.

But we have to be careful here, because God's word isn't a monolithic set of rules as some people paint it.  Too often you'll hear people claim authority by saying, "The Bible says THIS and if you don't believe THIS you are WRONG!"   The Bible says definite things.  Those things cannot be bent to our convenience.  However the Bible often argues against itself.  In different times and places in scripture the "THIS" looks different.  Thus "an eye for an eye" rests in the same pages as "turn the other cheek".  Each is appropriate in its time and place.  Our job is not to champion one over the other, drawing authority from our unassailable, correct position.  Our job is to ask, "What time is it?  What place are we in?  Which message was meant for this situation?"

When Derek takes one of Ali's toys and won't give it back to her, one of the most effective ways of getting him to realize the wrong is demonstrating how it feels.  Instead of arguing with him I usually say, "That's fine.  You keep that toy.  But we're going to give Ali all of your toys."  Weighing the balance, he opts to give her toy back.  (He's 5.  He has cooler stuff than she does.)  That's totally an eye for an eye, which is not my preferred theology.  But telling Ali to turn the other cheek in that situation will only perpetuate injustice.

On the other hand if one of the kids calls the other a bad name, I do ask the offender not to say such things but even more I counsel the offended party to let it go.  In most cases a stray word will only harm you as much as you let it.  When someone calls you a "booger" you can rob them of power by shrugging and turning the other cheek.  You certainly don't gain any victory, or any peace, by calling them a name in return.

Even in one small family with a reasonably-theologically-aware dad, the Bible doesn't always counsel a single approach.  Therefore when someone brings up the "THIS!" that you have to agree with or you're an infidel, they're not opening and explaining scripture, but cutting it apart and closing it down.  You should interpret such an assertion as, "I SAY the Bible says THIS and if you don't believe LIKE ME you are wrong."  Notice what you're being asked to agree with is not scripture for the sake of God and the world, but an individual person for the sake of themselves and their own beliefs.

Therein lies the key for discerning whether a person is speaking with authority.  Scripture may counsel different approaches at different times but one thing remains consistent through all of it: in everything we do we are commanded to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of God and the sake of our neighbor.  Turn scripture into something that uplifts you for your own sake and you have broken it in the same way the Pharisees did.  Follow it into service to God and others and you have fulfilled everything it asks.

Authority doesn't lie in how well or forcefully you speak.  Authority doesn't lie in how passionately you believe your convictions either.  It's possible to speak well, forcefully, and passionately about something that's dead wrong.  Authority lies in the direction the speaker's words prompt you to go.  If the direction is inward, towards the speaker, supporting only him and his institution for its own sake, the words are not authoritative.  If the direction is outward, driving you all--including the speaker--to render love, grace, justice, and mercy to others, therein lies authority.

True authority does not work for its own aims.  True authority turns us outward to follow something bigger and better than any of us are alone.

When you hear someone speak and you get the feeling it's all about him or about supporting his institution and point of view, you're right to be suspicious.  No matter how good he sounds or how much you might agree with his position, that isn't real authority.  The humblest person who encourages you to serve something beyond himself speaks with real authority, even if he can't seem to put two words together straight.

It's worth noting that while Christians have a unique and irreplaceable view on true authority, such authority is not monopolized by Christians alone.  Plenty of self-proclaimed "Christian" folk speak without authority even when claiming to speak in God's name.  Plenty of non-Christian folk actually follow the precepts of scripture without knowing or claiming it.  Distinguishing and naming these things rightly is part of our job as people of faith.  The impoverished person who comes to our doors and says, "I am hungry" actually speaks with more authority than the Bible thumper who is ready to tell us definitively who's going to hell or not.  That's why we follow the hungry person and not the preacher...not because we have pity but because the hungry person leads us into service beyond ourselves while the preacher only makes us more satisfied with ourselves.

The first question any of us should ask when trying to determine whether someone has authority is not whether they sound good, whether they appear to have knowledge or a position or authority in our culture, or whether we agree with what they're saying.  (That last is perhaps the worst measure of all, but it's the one we employ the most nowadays.)  Instead we should ask, "In what direction is this leading me, and for whose sake?"  If it's sacrifice of self in service to God and people beyond the speaker and audience themselves, that's true authority.  If it's sacrifice of everybody else for us and/or sacrifice of all of us for the speaker, his institution, or his point of view, that's not authoritative.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Speaking With Authority

The wonderful Wednesday morning Women's Bible Study has embarked on a journey through the Gospel of Mark.  In the very first chapter of that gospel we found a curious concept.  Verses 21 and 22 say:

21 They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22 The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. 

And again in verse 27 we read:

27 The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority!

This brought up the question, "What does it mean to speak or teach with 'authority'?"

Authority is a tricky concept.  We know it when we sense it but it's hard to define in the abstract.  In English the word has connotations of power, expertise and knowledge, reliability.  It derives from the Latin word for invention, advice, command.  In Greek the word means the power to act, to move in accordance with God's design.  Authority is the difference between being a prophet--directly conveying God's word--and being a mimic, simply repeating the words that somebody else has already taught.

When Jesus says "the Kingdom of God is near" at the beginning of Mark he's actually bringing the Kingdom, enacting it before the people, rather than just reporting on something that's already happened.  A weatherman talks about rain that might or might not happen.  If that weatherman actually made it rain with his voice, just by speaking the forecast, that would be the kind of authority being spoken of here.

Jesus is the source, the inventor, the maker...he doesn't just talk about God's word, he embodies God's word and makes it real among us.  The scribes spoke of God's word as something apart from them, a second-hand account with cemented definitions, dry and brittle, favoring their lifestyle and opinions.  Jesus brought God's word, made it alive, poured it out upon everyone he met like a living fountain.  That's authority.

What does that mean to us?  Authority is not just a matter of speaking about something, even if that speaking is done in fine style and with reasonable accuracy.  Authority comes when you embody that which you are speaking about, demonstrating it and enacting it for the world.  Last Sunday we acclaimed as a church that the Knights of Columbus had authority that morning, cutting short our worship service in order to participate in their breakfast benefit for Grayson Esser.  We stopped talking about God and lived him out instead.  In doing so we became part of that authority that we were following, making a difference to our neighbors.  As hundreds of people gathered for the same purpose, they became part of that authority themselves, following it and sharing it at the same time.  Gathering together we were fed.  Gathering together we also fed each other, supporting the event.  Most importantly we supported the Essers, giving to something beyond ourselves.  Our small action conveyed a big message.  That's authority.

In our modern culture we tend to ascribe authority to those who agree with us.  We claim authority for those who sound good, who speak well, whether or not there's substance behind their words.  These definitions bring us nothing that we didn't have already and thus don't make a difference in the world.  They don't move us or change us.  We settle for being pleased instead of being transformed.

Jesus did just the opposite.  His authority didn't please people, it moved them.  It brought them into new and right relationship with God as he lived it out and explained it to them.  It shook up their lives, changing fishermen and tax collectors into disciples, changing sinners and prostitutes into Children of God, changing "good" people into blind fools in need of discipline.  Ultimately Jesus' authority changed dead people into living as he gave his life on the cross and rose again three days later, breaking the power of death and opening the path to everlasting life.  That's authority.

We, too, have transforming authority as long as we walk that path, following Our Lord and living out his teachings in word and deed.  That authority doesn't always come wrapped in a sermon.  It comes when peace is shared, food is donated, neighbors are uplifted, sins are forgiven, power and privilege are put aside for the sake of someone in need.  Authority doesn't shove aside the beggar and the leper, saying, "I have the power to be better than you."  Authority comes when we put on the clothes of the poor and the ill and vow we will walk beside them no matter what comes, no matter where the path leads.  In doing so we create a new path, brighter and more powerful than illness or misfortune.  We help create a new life in Jesus Christ just as he creates a new life in us.  In those moments the Kingdom of God is near for us too.

In the end authority doesn't just mean power, knowledge, or the ability to command.  Authority is the gift of making the heavenly reality of God alive here on earth among God's people as we practice his disciplines of forgiveness, healing, teaching, and sharing his love.  Authority is the ability to live out that which is real in a world obsessed with too many things that aren't.

What authority will your words and actions carry today?  Something worth thinking about...

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Relationships

Apparently we're on quite the childhood theology kick these last couple weeks because today I noticed something about Ali, our little 3-year-old, that made me think about our relationships with each other and God.

Ali's favorite toys are her Fisher-Price Little People.  They're small figures that fit in the palm of her hand.  They're cute, kind of chubby, like a baby-faced version of adults.  She absolutely loves the Disney Princesses.  She has several:  Belle, Ariel, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and so on.  She also has a few male characters like Beast and (from another set) Superman.  But her favorite guy is Prince Eric.

Now Price Eric came in a box with Ariel.  They're the couple from The Little Mermaid movie.  (Ali hasn't actually seen most of these Disney movies, by the way.  She loves these characters sight unseen.)  Ariel and Eric have a fantastic carriage, pulled by a horse, which they're supposed to ride around in.

But you see, in Ali's world, Prince Eric has a problem with, well...constancy.  Long after Beast has retired to his chambers and Superman is busy saving the bottom of the toy box, Prince Eric will be riding around in that carriage with anyone and everyone who comes by.  Already today Eric has been on rides with Rapunzel, Snow White, and Cinderella.  That guy just doesn't care!  He's a fool for carriage riding with pretty princesses.

Now obviously we have some Sixth Commandment issues going on here, but I want to put those aside.  Ali is three.  Adultery doesn't exist.  She's not dating until she turns 40 either, so she has a long time to figure out that kind of relationship.  It doesn't factor into this discussion.

Again:  Nothing I am about to say is meant to paint Eric as husband and Ariel as wife.  We're talking about broader relationships/friendships here.  Just being clear.

With that established, I have noticed two things about Prince Eric that resonate theologically.

First, in the simplest sense, how nice to live in a world where you don't have to distinguish between people so much.  For Eric a carriage ride with Belle is just as fun as riding with Ariel.  Life should be more like that.  We spend too much time picking and choosing friends and B.F.F.'s and people inside circles and outside of them.  One of the values of participating in church is having those circles widened.  Connected by God, we can leap over the divisions that usually keep us apart.  One of the neat things about church is that you can be raking leaves or serving tea with a person you didn't know well and, starting only with that "God and service" connection, you suddenly end up friends.  Though certain people get along better than others naturally, in theory you should be able to strike up a conversation with anybody in church and end up better for it on the other end.  That's what we do for each other.  That's how God connects us.  I'm not sure we take full advantage of the potential friends God is providing us like Prince Eric does.

Second, it strikes me that I haven't seen Ariel in quite a while.  I suspect she's exploring under the couch or something.  Whatever the case, it would behoove her to remember that connection and reassurance are an integral part of any friendship.  Sometimes we let our daily duties overwhelm us and forget to touch base with the important people in our lives.  This is true of our relationships with family, friends, even God himself.  If you don't maintain a relationship it's hard to grow into that relationship.  This is another value of church, our Sunday carriage ride.  It connects us intentionally with God and with each other.  Missing out on that connection will inevitably lead to a deterioration of the relationship.  We value what we put time and energy into.  So maybe it's time for Ariel to come out from under that couch and go on a carriage ride or two if she's so inclined!  I suspect Prince Eric misses her.  Their wardrobes do match, after all.

Maybe this week we should all think about connecting with an unexpected friend and spending some time and energy intentionally building relationships.  Who are you going to take a carriage ride with today?

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

More Unexpected...Blessings?

The other day I talked about the joys and challenges of the new Lego Era in our household, an exampled of unexpected blessings.  Last night we had even more!

Whenever we drive somewhere the kids like to listen to the radio.  "Dad, can you turn on the music?" is a common refrain in our car.  I always tune to the oldies station because, you know, it's safe for 5 and 3-year-old ears.  Well...mostly.

Derek and Ali don't always agree on their favorite songs, but lately they found one they both dearly love.  Much to daddy's amusement (or chagrin) it's "Spill the Wine", a 1970 hit by Eric Burdon and War.  You may recall that it has a catchy Latin-Funk beat and a nice bass line over which Burdon describes a weird dream in which he's whisked away to a strange land with all kinds of girls surrounding him.  It's somewhat questionable subject matter for kids, I suppose, but what do they know?

Except...

The chorus of this song is quite catchy.  It consists of only two lines--"Spill the wine, take that pearl"--repeated over and over again.  Neither of the kids has any idea what a pearl is.  To them it sounds like "girl".  So now I'm treated to my five-year-old singing "Spill the wine!" at the top of his lungs, to which his three-year-old little sister responds, "Take that girl!"  They do this quite well, perfectly synchronized to the song and in tune.  The only hitch is when Ali sometimes changes it to, "Take that boy!"

So tell me, what's a well-meaning father to do?  Should I be overjoyed that my children are getting along, expressing themselves musically, and enjoying themselves?  Or should I be concerned that they've bonded over alcohol and somewhat-inappropriate relationship impulses?

Life is funny like that.  With every good thing comes something questionable.  With almost everything questionable comes some sort of good...if only in someone seeking good through admittedly wrong ways.  Sometimes we're able to filter out the bad.  Sometimes we have to call a halt to the proceedings, admitting that the bad in a situation is too significant to continue and needs to be addressed.  But most of the time our faith discipline calls us to take things in the best way, uplifting the good and refusing to give weight to (maybe even forgiving) the bad.

"Spill the wine, take that girl!" makes the dad in me cringe.  It also makes the dad in me giggle.  My life and the life of my family will be better if I give in to the giggle and let the cringe slide by.  If Derek and Ali are drinking heavily and kidnapping folks for nefarious purposes when they get older, I guess I was wrong.  Darn you, Eric Burdon!  But likely they'll just develop of love of music and maybe learn that singing together is way more fun than singing alone even if nobody really knows the words in the first place.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

What Is Real?

This Sunday's gospel came from the 20th chapter of Luke:

27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless.30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

This gospel is somewhat difficult for folks to understand.  The confusion is amplified because as soon as we read it we start asking questions about marriage and husbands and the like.  We don't realize that in doing so we're jumping on the train with the Sadducees who posed the question to Jesus instead of listening to Jesus himself.  Once headed in the wrong direction, we never find our way to the right.

The Sadducees were a clever bunch.  They did not believe in the resurrection of the body after death.  Holding this core conviction they came to Jesus looking to prove it.  In order to do so they created a logical problem out of the sacred texts of Moses...the Law that held together the fabric of their society.  That law said that if a man died childless his brother would have to marry and conceive a child with his widow.  That child would then be raised as the dead brother's heir.  So the Sadducees invented a scenario in which this happened seven times, then all seven brothers and the wife were resurrected in heaven.  She had married all seven brothers.  Whose wife would she be?

Having the brothers not marry the woman would have been against the law.  Having seven men married to the same woman in the afterlife would have been against the law.  The Sadducees thought this proved that there could be no resurrection.  Jesus was wrong, they were right.  End of story.

In his response to the Sadducees, Jesus pointed out their basic mistake.  It wasn't really a mistake about marriage.  That was just the cover topic they created to disguise it.  Instead their failure ran deeper, and it's a failure we all carry with us.

The error of the Sadducees was coming to Jesus thinking they already knew the truth instead of coming to Jesus listening and seeking to understand the truth.  They had their logic, their core beliefs, and their earthly experience.  They thought that this was enough to let them understand everything.  They expected the universe would conform to whatever they thought...up to and including the Son of God.  If he didn't conform to their beliefs, then obviously he wasn't the Son of God.

The world tells us many things are "real".  Money is real.  Jobs are real.  Weather is real.  Our worth is defined by numbers in a bank account or signatures on pieces of paper.  If we don't get ahead in life other people will trample over us.  The path to safety involves insulating ourselves from everything beyond our control, building shelters (house, family, church) in which we can hide when the storm rages.  Worry about how you look.  Worry about how many people think well of you.  Worry about retirement, keeping up with the Joneses, grades, winning, fashion, fame, and so on.  That stuff is REAL.  Faith?  That's a nice idea, helpful when it works...maybe something you get to when all that other stuff goes right.

In order to understand the Sadducees all you have to do is think, even for an instant, that church is nice enough but "real" life happens during the rest of the week.  All you have to do is hear something in church, think it's a good idea, then leave the building and not really do it.  Who among us has not done that?

The Sadducees assumed that what they knew of the world was real and nothing beyond existed (thus no resurrection).  Jesus explained that not only was this life not all of reality, it wasn't even the best part of reality.  We will be resurrected.  We will live a life of peace, love, and joy that does not end.  That is as certain as if it had already happened.  Indeed, if you pick apart the concept of time a little and pay close attention to what "eternity" means, it may already have happened.  That we are heavenly people is not in doubt.  The problem is, we spend our whole lives pretending we're not...pretending that something else matters (and defines us) more.

Instead of assuming that their current state, current knowledge, and current belief defined all of reality, the Sadducees should have known that they were something more than they could currently see.  That's what Jesus reminded them of.  We need to hear that reminder too.  Our job isn't to figure everything out and then make God conform to our beliefs.  Instead we need to trust in that heavenly life, understand that we're growing towards it, and change this life to conform as much as possible to that one: breaking bonds and abandoning beliefs that would deny God's reality and make us less than we were meant to be.

This is what the Law of Moses was doing when it talked about marriage.  If a brother, whom you love and to whom you are obligated, dies without anybody to carry on his name, memory, and inheritance you divert your life from where you thought it should go and give both him and his widow the gift of a son.  That may not be your human desire but in that culture it was a heavenly gift, brought to earth through your sacrifice.  To follow another way would put your selfish desire above the good of your brother and his family...following something unreal and abandoning the real and life-giving.

In church we are called to sacrifice, love, make peace, uplift, heal, and live a Godly life.  Some of these things call us to change our ways in our Monday through Saturday life too.  When we fail to do so we, too, put our selfish desires above the good of our neighbors, following the unreal and abandoning that which is solid and life-giving.

The world will tell you, "Faith is nice, but this is real life."  As people of God, we know the opposite is true.  Faith is the enduring truth.  Everything else is an illusion, temporary sand which will be blown away by the winds of time.

Without this understanding we approach Jesus the same way the Sadducees did: sure of our convictions, ready to follow God as long as he supports them.  We will never find God that way.  Headed in the wrong direction, we never find our way to light.

Instead we should be asking ourselves, "What is real?  Who defines reality?  Who am I really following?"  The answers to those questions will probably turn out disturbing to most of us, but they'll also set our feet back on the way of truth.

God is not the God of the dead, but the living, for to him all are alive.  Do we embrace that vision, living by its assurance, spending our days alive?  Or are we too busy worrying about something else, brushing aside God when he gets in the way of our "reality"?

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Unexpected Blessings

This weekend we crossed an irrevocable boundary in our household.  The kids' Nana and Papa came to visit from Boise...always a great event!  Because the Boise crew won't be here for birthdays or Christmas, Nana and Papa brought presents.  The kids got to open them early.  What fun!

The irrevocable boundary crossing came courtesy of Aunt Laurie, Careen's sister.  Derek and Ali opened their bags from her and saw twin boxes of...Legos.  We are not unfamiliar with building toys in our household.  Derek has some Tinker Toys.  Both the kids have the big, toddler version of Legos, the Mega Bloks.  Those are relatively harmless.  The pieces are big, easy to find and pick up.  Both the kids have a habit of leaving their Mega Bloks on the floor.  Clean-up sessions and the difficulty of keeping all the parts intact and in a single bag led us to decide that the time for tiny and numerous Legos was...not yet.

Except...Merry Christmas!  Happy Birthday!  And now we have Legos.  And of course both the kids love them.  What are you gonna do?  Prepare to sweep under beds for small parts, to hear rattling noises in your vacuum cleaner, and to hear constant choruses of, "Dad!  Can you help me build the thing in this picture?"

But you know what?  That's a good thing.  Even things you don't expect become teaching moments.  Like, "You know those pictures are just suggestions, right?  It's much cooler to build your own thing."  You don't have to be ready for something, let alone control it, in order to benefit from it.  Not everything in life happens in the way you expect.  Happiness and well-being don't depend on anticipating events correctly as much as how you deal with the events you didn't anticipate.

Legos are cool.  We're going to have hours of family fun with them.  I'll have even more fun watching Derek and Ali create with them.  No amount of small pieces in the vacuum cleaner can take that away.  Let the Lego Era begin!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)  

What Does Church Mean to Me

When Pastor Dave asked me if I could write something about what church means to me it really made me stop to think. I am not sure I have really thought about it before to actually put it to words. For me it is more a feeling; a feeling of sharing, joy, contentment, and sometimes agony. Agony in that I sometimes thing of things that have happened, things I have done and things I should probably do and though I know I can’t change things other than what I should do it still makes me sad. It then gives me contentment in the fact that I learn every week that despite my short comings and some of the things that have happened there is redemption in the end and there will come a time when I will understand why those things have happened so that leads me into joy.

It is a wonderful experience to get to share my insecurities, my doubts, my not understanding, and my accomplishments with my church family. Our church family at Genesee Lutheran Parish is one of the best I have ever had as they do not make me feel less of a person because I don’t understand something or the doubts I may have instead they help me with those. I feel like I can discuss most anything with them and they are still going to accept my family and me. Their wonderful support during the rough times are what got me through. If I had not attended this church and gotten to know these people that support may not have been there.

I put this question on Facebook for my friends to answer and it is amazing that most everyone came up with basically the same answers. I would like to include the answers I got:

•  A time to worship our Lord. A time to be with our church family. A time to sing Praises to the our Lord, A time of Peace from every day life. A time to learn and share. A loving time. 
•  Love, peace, family, acceptance, forgiveness and no one judging you.
•  A sense of community, acceptance, understanding, shared views-but different variations of the same view, peace and a much needed crying room:)
•   A church is an organization in which established doctrines and principles are taught. The authority of God to effect ordinances necessary for salvation can also be found in His church.

As you can see and I could see most of us see church as a family or community and we think of it as love, peace, acceptance, a time to learn, and forgiveness. One of them put no one judging, that has not always been my experience with all churches I have attended some were much better than others. When I have that feeling of not being judged it makes the experience of attending church a more desirable experience and one I want to continue. The judgment has not always come from just the congregation but also from the clergy, the thing is I basically do not have very bad things to be judged on most of them were for little things and that always made me wonder what they were to do if I did something really bad. When a place you come to worship and find contentment is filled with judgment it cannot be a place to find that peace, love, family, acceptance, and even to be able to share views. So when I am move to a new place I have tried to find a church that can fulfill my needs and makes me feel like I really want to worship there. I really want to feel like I can be one of that church family, as writing this I am finding that that is one of the most important things to be, it is that sense of family and belonging. After all aren't we all part of God’s family and as being part of a family we want to be accepted for who we are?

So what does church mean to me? I go back to the beginning and can strongly say it is feeling; a feeling of sharing, joy, contentment, sometimes agony, and belonging.

The Importance of Sabbath

Our Sunday School teachers met last week to discuss the Third Commandment.  Exodus 20 reads:

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

In Hebrew, Sabbath means "stop" or "cease".  It's the day of ceasing, or as we call it, the day of rest.  The commandment asks us to do no work on this day...to complete our routine tasks in six days and put them aside on the seventh.

Nature itself speaks to the value of rest.  We sleep somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of our lives.  We awaken renewed and refreshed, capable of continuing.  It's not like we can just skip the sleep and keep doing our daily tasks.  You might make it for a day, but as sleep deprivation extends our ability to function--mentally, physically, emotionally--dwindles rapidly.  Pull one all-nighter studying for that big test and you might do better.  Pull two or more in a row and welcome to your lousy grade...and being cranky with everyone around you...and having to hunt to find where you put that #2 pencil...and falling asleep involuntarily while waiting for your lunch.  Rest helps us bear our burdens, sets us straight again, allows us to tackle our problems in the best possible way.

And speaking of, sometime when you're at church ask Jake S. how he builds muscle and helps U of I athletes do the same?  I'm guessing he will tell you that the first step is working those muscles: training and lifting daily.  But you know what comes after that?  You also have to rest.  The work actually damages them.  As you rest the body repairs itself, creating new, better, and bigger muscle tissue to meet the demands you're placing on those muscles.  If you train the same muscles every day without ever stopping you won't grow them, but damage them.  Rest isn't about starting all over again in the same fashion.  Rest allows for growth.

Theologically speaking, rest is a reminder that the universe doesn't depend on us, but on its Creator.  Once you get enmeshed in the work of the world getting out is hard.  Our daily tasks seduce us.  They appear to give us importance.  If we don't cook dinner nobody will eat!  If I don't drive my child to practice she'll be kicked off the team!  If I don't attend every single game my son will grow up thinking I'm a bad dad!  If I don't file these six reports in exactly the right way the office will fall apart and my boss will be mad and I'll be fired and we'll go broke and lose our home and life as we know it will be over!

These things have a degree of truth to them, but we also need a day...a time to say "No" to all that.  The world can survive for one day without me being in charge of it.  The globe still spins, the sun still rises and sets, none of my friends and neighbors spun off into space today because I wasn't doing the same thing I do the other six days.  Maybe...just maybe...the most important realization is not that I do what I have to do, but that God takes care of us all no matter what we get done or don't.  Maybe the thing that binds us together isn't how well we perform for each other but our identity as Children of God.  We don't need to scramble to look or feel blessed and important through our daily tasks.  We are blessed and we are important because God loves us.  Knowing that, we can then approach our daily work in a different way: loving and serving through it instead of extracting and controlling.  We come to each day full instead of empty, looking for opportunities to give instead of validation.

That's a whole new approach to life...a perspective that only comes when you understand and respect the sanctity of the Sabbath, the ceasing and resting, the holy discipline of laying down the yoke and celebrating freedom.  It takes trust.  It takes commitment.  It even takes training people around you to accept something new...something friends and family might have a hard time understanding.  But setting aside a day for God, for renewal, for doing something different than the other six pays back in ways beyond mere time and rest.  That one day changes the other six and everything we do in them.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

BIG DEAL on Thursday!

Thursday Night we begin our four-week course on Lutheran Basics.  This was a fairly innocuous study group when we started last year, but it blossomed into something more stirring and amazing than anybody could have anticipated.  I'm not sure what kind of wacky theological chemistry made that happen, but man...we're ready for it to happen again!  If you missed out on it last year, you'll really, really, really want to come this year.  Some of those who participated last year are doing it again because it was so interesting.  Have you ever heard the like?  A study group back by request?

Anyway, you won't regret it.  Thursday night at 7:00 begins our look at the origins of our denomination. Even if you think you've heard the story before you've not heard it like this.  And if you haven't, come and get insight into what makes us tick!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

What You Can Learn From Church in Just One Day: Part 4

Today we conclude this week's series on what you can learn in church in just one day...in this case last Sunday, October 27th.  We've already talked about some of the things we learned in Sunday School, Worship, and Confirmation.  But after all that came one more event.  The boys came trooping and driving up the hill to play D&D.

We actually didn't play at the church this Sunday.  Instead we carpooled down to Clarkston to play with our friend Grayson, who is staying there as his house in Genesee is remodeled.  It's always great to see Grayson and it's ten times as fun now that he's closer to home!  We gathered as friends, shared some pop and snacks, and got to playing!

D&D is a cooperative game.  The players don't play against each other, but against a scenario in the game.  The challenges they face can be tough!  Mostly it boils down to thinking ahead, communicating clearly with your team, and taking advantage of each player's strengths.  If you don't manage that--if even one person goes off the rail or is in it for themselves--the players usually end up in disaster.  When that happens they have to roll up another set of characters and start all over...sad face.  But when it all comes together, when the plan is good, and when they get just the right roll of the dice to make it work, cheers resound.

This Sunday was a pretty good day for the guys.  They started off a little random and rocky but by the end of the day they had gotten in the groove and managed to persevere.

In a way, what the players go through on a given day is not too different than what a family or workplace goes through.  You have a hundred different possible goals and a hundred ways of trying to achieve them.  The players have to come to a consensus agreeable to everyone.  One person holding out usually scuttles everything.  They talk, negotiate, then work hard together once the plan is set.  In the end it matters less if you agree with the plan or like the process that got you there.  Working together is the thing.  Everybody pursuing a less-than-ideal plan with good intentions and full commitment will usually end up better than people following a fantastic plan but only half of them committing.  I'm thinking that someday when these young men have children, jobs, and all that stuff in their lives they'll have already been prepared to work through the steps necessary to prosper.

We could go more into the things you learn in D&D but we won't make this too long.  The points of this whole series have been three:

1. You learn something from every experience at church.

2.  In each example we've cited, we've covered only one or two things people learned...not even scratching the surface.  Actually being there offered the opportunity for much more.

3.  Missing even one day means you miss a lot!  The process will repeat this Sunday with Sunday School, Worship, Fellowship, more D&D, and Girls' Discussion Group.  The beat goes on.

Don't forget Theology on Tap tonight (Saturday) at Brent and Verna's.  See you there!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)