The 2008 Presidential Election

This excerpt was included in our November 9, 2008 Sunday morning worship bulletin.  It is from a statement by the Reverend Mark S. Hanson, ELCA Presiding Bishop.   

We look to the future as a nation troubled by economic crisis and continuing wars.  Such complex realities call for both humility and ingenuity.  In the midst of these challenges, we as Lutherans also look to the future as a community of faith and a people of hope.  We bring to the public square a longstanding and effective commitment to serve our neighbors and a conviction that government is instrumental in God’s purpose for humanity when public officials work for justice, peace, order and the common good.  Scripture is clear about what should matter to us as Christians in public life:  hospitality to strangers, concern for people in poverty, peace-making and care for creation. 

The complete statement can be found at www.elca.org 

Ella cries but finds peace anyway

We’re a growing congregation and baptisms are frequent.  Last Sunday, we celebrated the baptism of Ella.  She hasn’t been in this world very long but already she knows it’s not always comfortable.  She fussed mildly off and on during the service, was quiet momentarily when her family brought her to the baptism font, and then she began to cry again.  She cried throughout the baptism with water, and she cried while Pastor Carol anointed her with oil.  When Pastor Carol touched little Ella’s frowning mouth, Pastor paused before she said, “May you continue to sing the praises of God.”

Then Carol took Ella into her arms and walked the little wailing girl down the aisle, presenting Ella to her greater family.  Carol addressed Ella with the words she uses to address each person who is baptized, words she has adapted from a poem by Pablo Casals, words we all love to hear because they are a beautiful truth:

Ella, Do you know what you are?
You are a marvel. You are unique.
In all of the world there is no other child exactly like you.
In the millions of years that have passed, there has never been a child like you . . .

Pastor Carol held the new sister out to us.  We moved in the pews to look at this child, and we marveled at her beauty, secure in our knowledge that though she cried, it would not be for long.  We know this because we are older: we have experience in seeking succor.

When Pastor Carol and Ella turned back and approached the front of the sanctuary, Ella suddenly stopped crying.  Carol gave the peaceful baby to her parents, then turned back to face us.  It was one holy moment of many, as Pastor Carol observed that during baptism, every crying baby she holds finds peace when the baby is received by the congregation.  ”When taken into the body of Christ, peace always comes,” she explained to us, we who are the body of Christ.

What an amazing sacrament baptism is.

Things to remember next time you feel like God can’t use you

I wasn’t sure what I had to offer Pilgim when I joined.  I knew what I wanted to receive: a community in which to live and expand my spiritual life.  But if I had anything to offer what was it and how could I make time for it?  Pilgrim quickly enfolded me in its arms by asking me to join the evangelism committee.  I hesitated.  I am shy and I don’t know anything about outreach or marketing.  Regardless, I jumped (or was lifted?) on board and the following year I became the deacon of evangelism.  The pastors had dragged a talent out of me that I didn’t know I had.  Well, I think there’s a talent there.  God help me, I hope so. 

Pilgrim’s Stewardship Committee recently wrote the following in a letter to the congregation: 

Things to remember next time you feel like God can’t use you:  Abraham was too old, Noah drank too much, Jeremiah and Timothy were too young, Elijah was suicidal, Jonah ran from God, Job went bankrupt, Peter denied Christ, Martha worried about everything, Paul was too religious, and Lazarus was dead!  No more excuses now.  God can use you to your full potential!

Al Zumach asks, Where was God before the Bible?

 

 Before Bible times, what kind of relationship did God have with people?

 

Christianity preaches about a loving God who wants to have a personal relationship with everyone. Did God have that kind of relationship with our early human ancestors?

 

This doesn’t seem likely. Looking at early human history it seems like God left people to fend for themselves.

 

I pondered this question last century. A trip to Ireland this century, September 2008, revived my question.

 

Ireland’s long history has left many religious monuments – some thousands of years old – scattered across the country. Some early Christian beliefs and practices were naïve and crude. Earlier stone age beliefs and practices were even more naïve and crude. Where was God during all this time? Was he personal?

 

The first books of the Bible were written 2,500 years ago. Abraham lived 4,000 years ago. Human beings (people like you and me) evolved 200,000 years ago. Where was God during the 196,000 years from our human origins up to the time of Abraham?

 

Where was God before the Bible?

 

You and I could have lived during those 196,000 years. Our lives – our reasoning, emotional and spiritual lives - would have been difficult, “animal-like,” and short. What did humans do during these years to create a broken relationship with God? Would we have even known God? While trying to comprehend fire and storms, sun and seasons, birth and death, and every day satisfying our hunger and avoiding hungry animals, would we have any way of knowing this personal God who wants to have a relationship with us?

 

Where was God before the Bible?