Family Place meal servers
Saturday afternoon, a bunch of us turned out at The Family Place, a day shelter for homeless families. We brought food and prepared dinner. Marsha Foss, in the red shirt to the left, volunteers regularly at the shelter. Volunteer Bob Fallat (not pictured) gave us a tour of the shelter, located behind First Baptist Church of St. Paul. On average, the families helped by the shelter are homeless for no more than six months.
Pilgrim Lutheran Church Summer schedule began last week, May 24.
All Sunday morning services are now at 9:30 AM.
Sunday May 31: The Festival of Pentecost, Holy Communion, Pastor Wayne Weissenbuehler preaching
I always sit on the right side of the sanctuary for the service; it’s just my habit. Sunday, I needed to talk to Kent about teaching at the Fine Arts week at Camp Vermillion this summer. I found him and his wife, Penny, and seven month-old son, Theo, on the left side, so I sat next to Kent before church started and chatted with him. When church began, I stayed. Pastor Wayne announced that one of our church members, Jim Holisky had died on March 17 and our first hymn would be sung to honor his passing. Into Paradise May the Angels Lead You is a beautiful and comforting hymn:
At your coming may the martyrs receive you and lead you into the holy city, Jerusalem, Jerusalem.
May a choir of angels welcome you, and where Lazarus is poor no more,
may you have everlasting rest, may you have everlasting rest, may you have everlasting rest.
There was no rest in the pews on the left side of the sanctuary. Theo had started to fuss, so mom was jig-jiggling him to quiet him. Meanwhile behind us, a mother was trying to quiet six-year-old Henry who was jig-jiggling a crayon box into a cha-cha-cha. As the hymn went on, another parent moved out of the pew and down the outside aisle in quiet pursuit of his toddler.
My mother died recently, and I wanted to sing about everlasting peace, but this was impossible with all the life going on about me – all these young parents, trying their best to keep the chaos under control.
The kids were beautiful, these little cherubs, full of life’s new energy, needing to be taught how to manage their curiosity, how to live with others, how to be safe in a world full of risks. There we were together, having to tolerate each other while we enjoyed and were annoyed by each other. That’s how community works.
Yes, that’s how community works: For Jim and my mom, for the parents who showed up and still missed most of the service, for the youngsters whose innocence will be quickly outgrown, the people on the right side of the church sang:
Into paradise may the angels lead you,
at your coming may the martyrs receive you and lead you into the holy city, Jerusalem, Jerusalem.
Reva Rasmussen, Deacon
Sunday, January 25, our sermon was given by David R. Weiss. David is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist and a member of St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church in St. Paul. He is committed to doing “public theology” around issues of sexuality, justice, diversity, and peace.
He delivered a terrific sermon, “Jesus is here to recruit you to follow,” in which he reminded us that God is inclusive, even though God’s children – us - tend to think God is exclusively on our side.
As David says, “When Jesus begins his ministry . . . this is the God whose kingdom he announces, whose swirling activity of welcoming presence he declares is at hand. This is the God about whom he poses parables that challenge the world. This is the God for whom he sets a table at which – scandalously – everyone is welcome. This is the God on whose behalf he touches lepers, talks with women, blesses children, speaks to Samaritans, and fellowships with outcasts. In Jesus – and among the community of his followers – the Welcoming God portrayed in the story of Jonah comes fully to life. And as this holy and hopeful Presence moves in Jesus’ life, time and again those around him are surprised by the reach of God into lives [in which] they thought God could never go.”
David’s ministry has been captured in part by his book, To the Tune of a Welcoming God, a collection of poems, essays and hymns he has written. You can learn more at his website http://www.davidrweiss.com/index.php
Reva Rasmussen, Deacon
Enter this door as if the floor within were gold,
And every wall of jewels, all of wealth untold,
As if a choir, in robes of fire were singing here;
Nor shout, nor rush, but hush,
For God is here.
–found in an old church in Ireland by Al and Phyllis Zumach last fall.
December 13, Jonathan Rundman gave a concert at our church. He’s a local guy who sings and writes a bluesy, folky, Christian pop-rock music. There, did I get it right? Do you have the idea that this gentle, friendly showman who performs nationally covers a few genres of music? Do you get the idea that he makes spirituality an everyday experience? That the Christian mystery is always present in his music? He’s terrific. Go to his website to learn more www.jonathanrundman.com or youtube. Here, he leads a Texas Kyrie and this youtube has my favorite song, If you have a question (He says it’s a favorite of four-year-olds, too.)
Reva Rasmussen
During Advent, members of Pilgrim will tell brief stories of how God has manifested in their lives. Johanna, a young Biblical scholar, told her story Dec. 21. The following are her words:
In Luke chapter one, the angel Gabriel appears to the young Mary to announce her coming pregnancy. Gabriel enthusiastically commands her to “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” (v. 28). In spite of the angel’s words, Mary reacts less than joyfully: “When she saw (him), she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was” (v. 29). It is clear from Gabriel’s response (“Do not be afraid…” v. 30) that Mary was not joyful at being counted among God’s favorites, but rather, afraid.
It seems illogical to fear God’s blessing, but Mary’s reaction shows that she knows the biblical traditions well. While researching a paper for school, I came across Jon Levenson’s work on a “beloved son” motif found throughout Genesis. Everywhere a son is considered beloved, often in spite of inferior birth order, his belovedness proves to be not only a blessing but a danger to his life. Abel was murdered because Cain was jealous of his favored status. Isaac was favored over his older brother and was almost sacrificed, on God’s command. God allowed Jacob to usurp Esau’s blessing but it led to exile and the threat of death. Joseph and Benjamin, both favored by their father, faced near death because of their status.
God’s blessing therefore has a darker side; it threatens life, well-being, and family. This theme is reflected not only in the stories Levenson discusses, but throughout the Bible, in all its diverse sources and traditions. Abraham was chosen by God to leave his family, land, and possessions behind. It wasn’t until he had lost all hope of offspring that God gave him Isaac, and then God asked for Isaac back. Later, prophets like Jonah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, suffered a similar “blessing”: persecution, imprisonment, and death. God even asked Ezekiel to eat human feces, although when Ezekiel protested, God agreed to cow dung instead.
Mary knew these stories, and they must have come immediately to mind when she heard Gabriel pronounce, “Blessed are you among women!” She was right to be afraid. Becoming pregnant before her marriage to Joseph was a threat to her life, reputation, and well-being. God asks the most from his most favored, and that is what stuck in my mind when I read this story with the Pilgrim Way group in October.
Although I don’t consider myself specially favored by God, I have often accused God of asking too much of me. I have felt anxiety eat me up as Mary must have, waiting to find out what would happen when her pregnancy was discovered. Awhile ago, I got very sick with anorexia. As I waited to get into treatment, my condition worsened. The anxiety that caused me to starve myself in the first place was exacerbated by prolonged starvation. The same anxiety was further multiplied when childhood trauma that lay at the root of my eating disorder began to surface. The memory came back in a rather violent physical form; I constantly felt as though I was choking. I needed inpatient treatment, but the only inpatient facility in Minnesota available to me at the time was Methodist EDI, which admits people based on their physical status—for the most part, only those who are in danger of imminent death. My labs were safe, and my weight was still relatively normal due to a lot of muscle mass, although my body fat was very low. I knew this could be an obstacle before doing the intake, but I also knew I couldn’t survive much longer in the outside world with the sheer terror caused by post-traumatic stress. So I waited anxiously.
That was when I had a dream, my own divine messenger. In it, I heard someone come into my room at night. I was terrified but paralyzed. The next morning (still in the dream), I found that my bookshelf had fallen over and made a huge mess. My sister was there in the dream and she began cleaning up the mess for me. I went to the bathroom, and on the way there I met a dietician who showed me the amount of food I should eat to be healthy. In the bathroom, I saw that my sister had thrown out a bunch of lettuce and tomatoes (diet food) that had been on the shelf before it fell. I went back to my room to eat what the dietician suggested, and I saw that my sister had transformed my vertical bookshelf into a horizontal one that ran along the floor. I realized that no one had come into my room the night before; the bookshelf was unstable and fell on its own. I had always had a tendency to arrange things precariously in my room, something my sister has commented on in real life, joking that the reason I kept my room so messy when I lived at home was so that no one else could come in. Looking back, I can see how true her statement might be; my messiness and precarious organization may have served a subconscious need to protect myself against nightly intruders. But the bookshelf my sister gave me in the dream was stable, balanced, and grounded, its contents ordered instead of chaotic. She had saved me from the mess and instability of my life.
I knew this dream was a sign to call my sister, who lived in another state. She mentioned a friend that worked at a treatment center in Florida called Renfrew, a residential facility that bases the length of stay on physical and mental status (as one might expect from mental health treatment). I stayed there for three months, the beginning of a long journey toward recovery.
It was hard to go to Methodist and hear that I wasn’t thin enough for them, that I was too crazy to be admitted to their floor–the doctor told me it was not locked, unlike every other eating disorder facility I have heard of. (I found out later from some of its patients that it actually is locked, meaning sharps and alcohol are restricted.) I felt very ashamed, like Mary must have when she became pregnant with Jesus. But when I learned more about Methodist, I saw that the treatment offered there would not have helped me the way Renfrew did. God’s way, with all of its agonizing uncertainty, was right in the end. Like Mary, I had only to wait—as hard as that is—for God’s plans to be born in my life.
Our hymn of the month for December is Each Winter as the Year Grows Older ( ELW 252). It was written and composed by William and Annabeth McClelland Gay who, since their marriage in 1949, have created a new hymn text and tune each year as part of their Christmas greetings to friends and family. The text of this hymn was for their Christmas letter in 1969, at the height of the war in Vietnam when many people were seriously proclaiming the “death” of God.
In a letter to Marilyn Kay Stulken, William wrote, “. . . the ’sirens’ in stanza 2 speak of both seductive national voices calling for more troops, and of the actual sirens heard in bombed cities.” The message of this hauntingly beautiful hymn continues to reverberate today, reminding us that as we once again begin our cold Advent journey, the flame of hope will keep burning until we arrive back in the warmth and light of Christ resurrected, the one who turns our grief to joy and our death to life.
