Thank you to all of the contributors who make the newsletter possible: Phyllis, Louise, Rosanna, Devanie, Linda, Darlene, Pastor Dana, Hannah and Bryon, and Verna. Anyone may contribute to the newsletter, and all suggestions and articles are welcomed.
Showing posts with label People. Show all posts
Showing posts with label People. Show all posts
Friday, August 17, 2018
GLP Newsletter is coming!
The printed September 2018 edition of the Genesee Lutheran Parish newsletter will be available at church on August 26. For those of you who do not pick up your copy, we will mail the copy to you so that you know what's happening with the parish. Emailed copies will go to all members with email addresses.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Gospel Gatherings
Brent and I rode with Pastor Dave and Linda to Troy to join Louise, John, Patrick, and Randi for Gospel discussion.
I'm so grateful for those of you who participate in these discussions. By listening to each of you as you share your ideas and insights and questions, I am aware that I often take the readings at face value: the story is told, and I am like the little Sunday School girl who listens to the story and thinks, "Cool." And that's it. And when I hear the Gospel read during worship services, I don't have much time to mull the message. So, when I participate in these discussions, I allow myself time to think about the stories and ideas and to reflect on the ideas which the others have.
I recommend this discussion group to all of you are in my quandary: not enough time to attend weekly Bible study sessions or time to adequately reflect on the messages which are being shared during worship.
Thank you to all of you who DO participate, and thank you to all of you are willing to open up your home to us so that we can visit!
I'm so grateful for those of you who participate in these discussions. By listening to each of you as you share your ideas and insights and questions, I am aware that I often take the readings at face value: the story is told, and I am like the little Sunday School girl who listens to the story and thinks, "Cool." And that's it. And when I hear the Gospel read during worship services, I don't have much time to mull the message. So, when I participate in these discussions, I allow myself time to think about the stories and ideas and to reflect on the ideas which the others have.
I recommend this discussion group to all of you are in my quandary: not enough time to attend weekly Bible study sessions or time to adequately reflect on the messages which are being shared during worship.
Thank you to all of you who DO participate, and thank you to all of you are willing to open up your home to us so that we can visit!
Monday, January 7, 2013
Tuesday Morning Sermon: The Epiphany Star
This Sunday's gospel came from the second chapter of Matthew. It told the Epiphany story, the tale of the wise men from the East visiting King Herod of Jerusalem and finding the baby Jesus, following a star to pay him homage.
The rest of the story in the verses following is quite sad. Herod, furious that he's been outwitted by the Magi, orders all boys in Bethlehem 2 years of age and younger killed. Jesus' first welcome into this world came from cows and shepherds. His second greeting was genocide. Only a quick flight to Egypt let him escape...until he turned 30. Then he was hunted once again and eventually killed.
We're familiar with, and accepting of, the story of the Magi themselves. It's part of our Christmas pageant. Everybody knows "We Three Kings". The gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh foreshadow our own Christmas gifts of Hello Kitties, Hot Wheels, and iPads. We're less sanguine about Herod, his kin, and their pronouncements. We skip over that part of the story, never answering the clear and resounding question: WHY?
Why in the world would Herod and the people of Jerusalem, upon hearing news of the long-awaited Messiah, be disturbed (frightened)? Why did they react the way they did?
The obvious answer, for Herod anyway, is that any new king threatened his power. Heavy weighs the crown, as they say. Kingship is only good if you can hold it. Any number of people, including some of his closest family, would have been more than happy to depose Herod and take his place. Between internal schemers and having to answer to the ruling Romans, Herod's lofty perch must have seemed quite tenuous. Now news of a new king arrives? No matter who sent him--even God himself--this guy has to go! He threatens the structure. He confuses the issue. He makes everything unsafe, at least by conventional definition.
Therefore it's not surprising that Herod reacted the way he did. Eliminate the threat! Preserve life as you know it. Stay in control, keeping your eye on the outcome you desire and not letting anything get in your way. Is this not the very definition of strength?
The historical event is disturbing enough. The sad lesson here, though, is that the gospel reveals far more than just history. It shows us something about us, about our relationship with God and the world, that isn't pretty.
As we've mentioned several times before, most of us draw the circles of our lives very small. Especially in this day and age when technology has given us power and choice over nearly everything, we only associate with the people and things we select. Once upon a time we had to listen to 82 songs on the radio before the one we were waiting for came on. Now it's 99 cents at a downloading service and the exact song is on our .mp3 player, repeated to our heart's content. We never have to hear anything else. Once upon a time we had to socialize in groups, often of semi-random makeup. Our familiar friends would bring their annoying spouses and distant cousins to dinner parties. Now we have Facebook friends, private messaging, and the rest of the world on "ignore". What purpose do the walls of our houses have, let alone the slats of our fences, except to define who is in our inner circle and who is out, what is ours and what is beyond our concern?
We allow people and things into our lives based on three criteria:
1. That which we can control.
2. That which we love and/or are interested in enough that it appeals to us despite our lack of control over it.
3. Things we've gotten used to over time so that we don't feel the need to control them, as they don't threaten our basic way of life.
Consider your spouse or anyone you've had a long-term relationship with. Serious reflection will probably tell you that at different times they've fit into all three of these categories. When you first met them you had to decide if you were compatible, which is another way of asking if the edges of their life fit with the edges of yours well enough that getting together wouldn't disturb you in a way beyond your control or desire. After a while you progressed to Category 2, wherein you discovered that you loved the person enough to find their differences and faults appealing in an odd way. After 10 years of marriage that changed and you once again found those faults annoying, but by this time you've become so used to them that they don't threaten to spin you out of control anymore. When you pick up dirty socks off the floor for the 632nd time you just sigh, you don't run in fear. You'll never change this, but it's not going to change you either. Had those dirty socks been a prominent feature of Stage 1 of your relationship, however, you probably never would have gotten married!
Most everybody and everything in our lives goes through this process. If at any point something doesn't fit--if the changes are too great or the differences too dramatic--we simply leave and find something else more acceptable. We shop at a different store. We attend a different church. We get some new Facebook friends. Welcome to modern life.
Here's the problem: God doesn't fit any of these stages. God can't be controlled. God doesn't always do things in ways that we expect or that appeal to us, ways that leave our lives untouched and bother-free. And God won't settle for us getting used to him, packing him away in our little, closed lives. Instead his whole purpose is to open up our lives, to transform them, to transform us. God's grace doesn't await our convenience. God's grace shakes the world in a most inconvenient way, revealing how little of it we've seen and understood so far.
Knowing God is like having the most amazing, annoying friend ever...the kind that shows up on your doorstep without warning and says, "We're going to that new Guatemalan restaurant that just opened!"
"But I had spaghetti warming on the stove."
"Well turn it off! My car's running!"
"Wow," you say. But also, "WOW!!!" You know? That's God.
The question is, how will we react when God sends us a message unexpectedly? How do you respond when your child says, "I'm not going to Law School, I want to be an artist"? How about when your spouse says, "We've been married 20 years and I've always had this dream. I know it's going to change our lives, but I want to pursue it"? Sometimes best friends say, "I feel very differently about this issue than you." Other times you read a passage in scripture that you have a hard time agreeing with, or meet somebody in church you just don't get along with.
We know how Herod and the people of Jerusalem would react. "No, son, you're going to Law School. Too bad, honey, we can't disrupt the family. Goodbye, best friend, I'm going to find someone who agrees with my point of view. I don't care if the Bible says this, I make up my own mind. And by the way, I'm finding a different church because I can't stand that person." They would view these things only through the lens of their own comfort, prerogatives, privilege, plans, and will. Too often that's what we do too.
You know what we're supposed to see instead? The Epiphany Star, taking us on an wholly unexpected journey. It's hard to see such inconvenient things as a message from God, let alone a guiding light from him. It would be much nicer if he only spoke to us in ways we could easily accept. But then we'd never move.
Our reaction to the unexpected, inconvenient, and even (from our view) occasionally wrong-headed is not supposed to be, "No! Stop! Get this out of my sight!" Rather it's, "Grab the frankincense and camels, honey. We're going on another journey." (Memorize that phrase now, those of you who have teenagers.) As annoying and sometimes traumatic as these journeys can be, they're the only way our lives grow beyond our own stunted vision and self-will. They're also the only way we ever get to see and understand the Messiah who, in the end, is too large and glorious to be contained in the static understanding of any individual.
God is sending your Epiphany star in many ways every day. Do you see and do you follow or are you in the business of shutting out, shutting down, and killing off anything that's going to change the life to which you have grown accustomed?
Our life's journey ultimately leads to the Messiah. The only question is whether we'll walk it with eyes open, enjoying and marveling at the strange and lovely trip, or whether we'll shut our eyes tight and deny we're taking it at all. Which world will you walk in, the safe and confining one you create for yourself or the glorious, infinite, and somewhat scary one into which God is calling you?
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
The rest of the story in the verses following is quite sad. Herod, furious that he's been outwitted by the Magi, orders all boys in Bethlehem 2 years of age and younger killed. Jesus' first welcome into this world came from cows and shepherds. His second greeting was genocide. Only a quick flight to Egypt let him escape...until he turned 30. Then he was hunted once again and eventually killed.
We're familiar with, and accepting of, the story of the Magi themselves. It's part of our Christmas pageant. Everybody knows "We Three Kings". The gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh foreshadow our own Christmas gifts of Hello Kitties, Hot Wheels, and iPads. We're less sanguine about Herod, his kin, and their pronouncements. We skip over that part of the story, never answering the clear and resounding question: WHY?
Why in the world would Herod and the people of Jerusalem, upon hearing news of the long-awaited Messiah, be disturbed (frightened)? Why did they react the way they did?
The obvious answer, for Herod anyway, is that any new king threatened his power. Heavy weighs the crown, as they say. Kingship is only good if you can hold it. Any number of people, including some of his closest family, would have been more than happy to depose Herod and take his place. Between internal schemers and having to answer to the ruling Romans, Herod's lofty perch must have seemed quite tenuous. Now news of a new king arrives? No matter who sent him--even God himself--this guy has to go! He threatens the structure. He confuses the issue. He makes everything unsafe, at least by conventional definition.
Therefore it's not surprising that Herod reacted the way he did. Eliminate the threat! Preserve life as you know it. Stay in control, keeping your eye on the outcome you desire and not letting anything get in your way. Is this not the very definition of strength?
The historical event is disturbing enough. The sad lesson here, though, is that the gospel reveals far more than just history. It shows us something about us, about our relationship with God and the world, that isn't pretty.
As we've mentioned several times before, most of us draw the circles of our lives very small. Especially in this day and age when technology has given us power and choice over nearly everything, we only associate with the people and things we select. Once upon a time we had to listen to 82 songs on the radio before the one we were waiting for came on. Now it's 99 cents at a downloading service and the exact song is on our .mp3 player, repeated to our heart's content. We never have to hear anything else. Once upon a time we had to socialize in groups, often of semi-random makeup. Our familiar friends would bring their annoying spouses and distant cousins to dinner parties. Now we have Facebook friends, private messaging, and the rest of the world on "ignore". What purpose do the walls of our houses have, let alone the slats of our fences, except to define who is in our inner circle and who is out, what is ours and what is beyond our concern?
We allow people and things into our lives based on three criteria:
1. That which we can control.
2. That which we love and/or are interested in enough that it appeals to us despite our lack of control over it.
3. Things we've gotten used to over time so that we don't feel the need to control them, as they don't threaten our basic way of life.
Consider your spouse or anyone you've had a long-term relationship with. Serious reflection will probably tell you that at different times they've fit into all three of these categories. When you first met them you had to decide if you were compatible, which is another way of asking if the edges of their life fit with the edges of yours well enough that getting together wouldn't disturb you in a way beyond your control or desire. After a while you progressed to Category 2, wherein you discovered that you loved the person enough to find their differences and faults appealing in an odd way. After 10 years of marriage that changed and you once again found those faults annoying, but by this time you've become so used to them that they don't threaten to spin you out of control anymore. When you pick up dirty socks off the floor for the 632nd time you just sigh, you don't run in fear. You'll never change this, but it's not going to change you either. Had those dirty socks been a prominent feature of Stage 1 of your relationship, however, you probably never would have gotten married!
Most everybody and everything in our lives goes through this process. If at any point something doesn't fit--if the changes are too great or the differences too dramatic--we simply leave and find something else more acceptable. We shop at a different store. We attend a different church. We get some new Facebook friends. Welcome to modern life.
Here's the problem: God doesn't fit any of these stages. God can't be controlled. God doesn't always do things in ways that we expect or that appeal to us, ways that leave our lives untouched and bother-free. And God won't settle for us getting used to him, packing him away in our little, closed lives. Instead his whole purpose is to open up our lives, to transform them, to transform us. God's grace doesn't await our convenience. God's grace shakes the world in a most inconvenient way, revealing how little of it we've seen and understood so far.
Knowing God is like having the most amazing, annoying friend ever...the kind that shows up on your doorstep without warning and says, "We're going to that new Guatemalan restaurant that just opened!"
"But I had spaghetti warming on the stove."
"Well turn it off! My car's running!"
"Wow," you say. But also, "WOW!!!" You know? That's God.
The question is, how will we react when God sends us a message unexpectedly? How do you respond when your child says, "I'm not going to Law School, I want to be an artist"? How about when your spouse says, "We've been married 20 years and I've always had this dream. I know it's going to change our lives, but I want to pursue it"? Sometimes best friends say, "I feel very differently about this issue than you." Other times you read a passage in scripture that you have a hard time agreeing with, or meet somebody in church you just don't get along with.
We know how Herod and the people of Jerusalem would react. "No, son, you're going to Law School. Too bad, honey, we can't disrupt the family. Goodbye, best friend, I'm going to find someone who agrees with my point of view. I don't care if the Bible says this, I make up my own mind. And by the way, I'm finding a different church because I can't stand that person." They would view these things only through the lens of their own comfort, prerogatives, privilege, plans, and will. Too often that's what we do too.
You know what we're supposed to see instead? The Epiphany Star, taking us on an wholly unexpected journey. It's hard to see such inconvenient things as a message from God, let alone a guiding light from him. It would be much nicer if he only spoke to us in ways we could easily accept. But then we'd never move.
Our reaction to the unexpected, inconvenient, and even (from our view) occasionally wrong-headed is not supposed to be, "No! Stop! Get this out of my sight!" Rather it's, "Grab the frankincense and camels, honey. We're going on another journey." (Memorize that phrase now, those of you who have teenagers.) As annoying and sometimes traumatic as these journeys can be, they're the only way our lives grow beyond our own stunted vision and self-will. They're also the only way we ever get to see and understand the Messiah who, in the end, is too large and glorious to be contained in the static understanding of any individual.
God is sending your Epiphany star in many ways every day. Do you see and do you follow or are you in the business of shutting out, shutting down, and killing off anything that's going to change the life to which you have grown accustomed?
Our life's journey ultimately leads to the Messiah. The only question is whether we'll walk it with eyes open, enjoying and marveling at the strange and lovely trip, or whether we'll shut our eyes tight and deny we're taking it at all. Which world will you walk in, the safe and confining one you create for yourself or the glorious, infinite, and somewhat scary one into which God is calling you?
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
What You Won't Find Here
There are many things a blog can do well. Talking like this and running through all matters theological not only keeps us interested in each other and in church, it creates a kind of closeness with a completeness and complexity that you can't quite duplicate other places. I'm not suggesting that this medium is better or worse than any other, nor that it can replace face-to-face contact. Rather I'm suggesting that standing still and listening to the intricate theological work we're doing here would probably drive you crazy. Being able to digest at your own pace, reading and re-reading as necessary, is easier than bending your ear my way for the half hour or more it would take to talk about many of these things in person. As such this is a great supplement to our daily and weekly faith routine.
This is also a fantastic place to find announcements, the calendar, and to check up on things you might have missed. Church information is available 24/7 at your fingertips at this site, plus the means to ask for clarification if you need more. We can even have discussions in the comment section, expanding on things these posts bring up even if we never have time to meet "live" during a day! That's a powerful tool for people with busy schedules but active minds.
For all its great properties, one thing I don't feel comfortable doing here is sharing bad news about people in our congregation. Since this site is open to anyone on the internet who can type "Genesee" into a search engine there's no guarantee of privacy here. As a pastor I have a responsibility to not break the seal of confidentiality even when I'm fairly sure both the people suffering and the congregation could benefit from the situation being known in a wider sense. That's not my call to make. It is, and will always remain, the judgment of the people involved who they'd like to tell, when, and how. I suppose if someone asked me specifically to ask folks for prayer through the blog I'd do it, but I don't feel comfortable asking about that if they don't offer first.
That means the responsibility for communicating prayer needs and difficult circumstances runs through you and it runs the old-fashioned way, person to person. I can't let you know here if someone is sick or undergoing some difficulty. You'll have to depend on them or perhaps the friends and neighbors they've asked to spread the news.
While we're on that note...we all need to work on being good custodians of this kind of news and of prayer requests in general. In small towns news spreads quickly. Sadly it's often spread inaccurately as well. Many times it's not just a matter of a missed detail, but outright embellishment. Sometimes it becomes a game of "telephone" where the message starts out simply but ends up wildly afield after a few transfers.
Not being responsible with someone's personal information can be painful to the parties in need of honest prayer and help. It's like they don't matter as much as the story, which is now being spread almost as a form of entertainment. ("Did you hear about _______?!?!") Our society encourages us to view other people's misfortunes as tidbits to be consumed for our pleasure. Any glimpse at reality TV or daytime "helping" talk shows will show you that. We need to stand against this temptation, offering help when we can and not puffing ourselves up with gossip otherwise. Deriving pleasure or fame under the guise of being informative breaks God's commandment against false witness. This is not our calling.
This is especially important since, as we just said, you are the only conduit through which this information can flow. It's not like I can open my mouth and set the record straight when the story starts getting out of control. Several times I've been put in impossible quandaries over issues like this. What do I do when I've talked to the people involved and gotten the actual story and then I hear the sixth "telephone game" transfer in which the facts have been distorted? If I step in to correct people I've violated confidentiality. If I let the wild story go on I'm a party to continued harm and falsehood. If I call the people involved to ask if I can tell the true story I've potentially added to their burden, worry, and stress in a time when we all should be helping to ease them, taking the focus off of important matters to deal with spiraling chatter.
Clearly there's no way out of this except to not get into the gossip situation in the first place. That requires care on the part of everyone sharing news in this community. To that end I'm writing out some simple suggestions I follow in my daily life to ensure I'm doing the best I can in handling this kind of information. Click through to see them.
This is also a fantastic place to find announcements, the calendar, and to check up on things you might have missed. Church information is available 24/7 at your fingertips at this site, plus the means to ask for clarification if you need more. We can even have discussions in the comment section, expanding on things these posts bring up even if we never have time to meet "live" during a day! That's a powerful tool for people with busy schedules but active minds.
For all its great properties, one thing I don't feel comfortable doing here is sharing bad news about people in our congregation. Since this site is open to anyone on the internet who can type "Genesee" into a search engine there's no guarantee of privacy here. As a pastor I have a responsibility to not break the seal of confidentiality even when I'm fairly sure both the people suffering and the congregation could benefit from the situation being known in a wider sense. That's not my call to make. It is, and will always remain, the judgment of the people involved who they'd like to tell, when, and how. I suppose if someone asked me specifically to ask folks for prayer through the blog I'd do it, but I don't feel comfortable asking about that if they don't offer first.
That means the responsibility for communicating prayer needs and difficult circumstances runs through you and it runs the old-fashioned way, person to person. I can't let you know here if someone is sick or undergoing some difficulty. You'll have to depend on them or perhaps the friends and neighbors they've asked to spread the news.
While we're on that note...we all need to work on being good custodians of this kind of news and of prayer requests in general. In small towns news spreads quickly. Sadly it's often spread inaccurately as well. Many times it's not just a matter of a missed detail, but outright embellishment. Sometimes it becomes a game of "telephone" where the message starts out simply but ends up wildly afield after a few transfers.
Not being responsible with someone's personal information can be painful to the parties in need of honest prayer and help. It's like they don't matter as much as the story, which is now being spread almost as a form of entertainment. ("Did you hear about _______?!?!") Our society encourages us to view other people's misfortunes as tidbits to be consumed for our pleasure. Any glimpse at reality TV or daytime "helping" talk shows will show you that. We need to stand against this temptation, offering help when we can and not puffing ourselves up with gossip otherwise. Deriving pleasure or fame under the guise of being informative breaks God's commandment against false witness. This is not our calling.
This is especially important since, as we just said, you are the only conduit through which this information can flow. It's not like I can open my mouth and set the record straight when the story starts getting out of control. Several times I've been put in impossible quandaries over issues like this. What do I do when I've talked to the people involved and gotten the actual story and then I hear the sixth "telephone game" transfer in which the facts have been distorted? If I step in to correct people I've violated confidentiality. If I let the wild story go on I'm a party to continued harm and falsehood. If I call the people involved to ask if I can tell the true story I've potentially added to their burden, worry, and stress in a time when we all should be helping to ease them, taking the focus off of important matters to deal with spiraling chatter.
Clearly there's no way out of this except to not get into the gossip situation in the first place. That requires care on the part of everyone sharing news in this community. To that end I'm writing out some simple suggestions I follow in my daily life to ensure I'm doing the best I can in handling this kind of information. Click through to see them.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
People in the Parish
Gayle's blog is a fascinating glimpse into her life as an Idaho farm wife. She tells the story of an American farm family with video and pages about her home on the farm and recipes, including desserts, the cake of the month, and a variety of good eats.Gayle illustrates that "farming isn't just a job, it's a way of life."
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