The Feast Day of Saint Andrew

Today is the feast day of Saint Andrew, remembered as the first disciple. He's the brother of Simon Peter, and Andrew is the one who told Peter about Jesus. Andrew followed John the Baptist, and John the Baptist introduced Jesus as the true Messiah. Andrew believed, and Andrew brought his brother to see what he had seen.

Tradition has it that the brothers didn’t give up their family fishing business at first, but eventually, Christ requested full commitment. I’ve always wondered about the family relationships that simmer in the background of the Gospels.

I remember one Gospel reading that mentioned Jesus healing the mother-in-law of Simon Peter. I thought, mother-in-law? That means there must have been a wife. What did the mothers and wives and mother-in-laws think of the men abandoning their fishing business to follow Jesus?

I also think about the sibling relationships here. What does Andrew think about Simon Peter, who quickly moves into the spotlight? Is Andrew content to stay in the background?

We know from the passage in Matthew that begins with Matthew 20:20, that there is competition to be Christ’s favorite. We see the mother of James and John who argues for her sons’ importance. We see the other disciples who become angry at the actions of this mother. I extrapolate to imagine that there’s much jockeying for position amongst the disciples.

Christ never loses an opportunity to remind us that he’s come to give us a different model of success. Again and again, he dismisses the importance that the world attaches to riches, to status, to a good reputation. Again and again, Jesus instructs us that the last will be first. Jesus tells us that the way to gain prestige with God is to serve.

We see stories that show that Andrew is the kind of disciple who is working for the glory of Christ, not for other reasons. In John’s Gospel, Andrew is the one who tells Jesus about the boy with five barley loaves and two fish, and thus helps make possible the miraculous feeding.

Andrew was the kind of disciple we could use more of in this world. Andrew so believes in the Good News that he brings his family members to Christ, and he continued in this path, bringing the Gospel to people far and wide. We see him beginning this mission in John’s Gospel, where he tells Christ of the Greeks that want to see him.

Andrew gets credit for bringing Christianity into parts of eastern Europe and western Asia: Kiev, Ukraine, Romania, Russia. He’s the first bishop of the Church of Byzantium and patron saint of all sorts of places, from Scotland to Cyprus to Russia.

On this day when we celebrate the life of the first disciple, let us consider our own discipleship. Are we focused on the right tasks or are we hoping that our Christian faith brings us non-Christian glory? How can we help usher in the miracles that come with the presence of Christ? Who needs to hear the Good News as only we can tell it?

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, December 3, 2023:

First Reading: Isaiah 64:1-9

Psalm: Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18 (Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 NRSV)

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Gospel: Mark 13:24-37

You may read the Gospel for Sunday and wonder if I've pasted the right lessons into the space above. You may have been prepared for angels appearing to Elizabeth, Mary, and Joseph. You might have already decorated your tree and started listening to Christmas music; you may be hoping for a glimpse of Christmas in Advent.

Instead, again, you get this apocalyptic text from Mark, about tribulation, and a darkened sun and moon and stars falling from the sky. Yikes. Isaiah's not much better; we're not to the comforting texts yet.

But the end of this chunk of Mark is important. It implores us several times to watch. We're not very good at watching. We're not very good at waiting. These statements are true throughout the year, but they're especially true during the liturgical season of Advent. The pace of our socializing goes into full-throttle frenzy, and we give ourselves over to trying to create a perfect holiday. Then we spend the month of January nursing a cold (or succumbing to more serious illness) and the rest of the year paying our credit card bills.

Seen in this light, the Gospel chunk of Mark makes sense. The way we celebrate Advent is indicative of the way we spend the rest of the year, and in this way, the apocalyptic tone makes sense. So many of us are making a ruin of our lives. What can we do so that our lives do not end up in ashes?

The Gospel tells us to keep watch, and we might return to some ancient spiritual disciplines to help us with that. We think of Lent as the time of year for spiritual discipline, but Advent might be an even more important time, since our culture gives us more pressure in the season of Advent than Lent.

Return to the old practices. Light an Advent wreath each evening. Or buy yourself an Advent calendar. Those of us without children often let these traditions slide. Maybe we could take them up again.

We could return to some even more ancient practices.

Add some devotional time to your day. There are many books set up specifically for Advent or you could resolve to read more of the Bible.  Add some prayer time.

You might keep a journal to record your thoughts as you move towards Christmas. If you don't have time to write much, write a haiku or a sentence to capture your thought for the day. Or take a picture. This practice can help you stay alert.

Instead of adding something to your life, you could subtract.  Consider a fast of some sort.  Give up sugar for Advent instead of Lent.  Set your devices aside and give up time on the internet.  Have a meatless day of the week to encourage you to remember that you have other ways to nourish your body and your soul.

You might decide to give some of your time and/or money to charity. Or you might resolve to help those charities in January, when the fervor of charitable activities at year's end dies down, and those organizations really need you.

Whatever you do, choose a discipline that will help you keep watch. When we train ourselves to be alert, we'll be amazed at how much evidence of Divine Love surrounds us every day.

Children's Sermon for a Baptism Sunday

I am a Synod Appointed Minister at Faith Lutheran, a small country church near Bristol, Tennessee.  When I look at the population who comes to church each Sunday, I don't anticipate many baptisms or weddings; it's an older population for the most part.  But there are 5-9 children every Sunday, mostly grandchildren of members.  

We did have a baptism on Sunday--we baptized the grandchild/great grandchild of family members who attend.  The parents live in Nashville and were in town for the week-end.  Back in early autumn (late September?  early October?) the church members asked if I could do a baptism, and I treasured the look of joy on their faces when I said yes.  We began to plan for a baptism on the Sunday of Thanksgiving week-end.

I offer a children's sermon every week, so I didn't want to let this opportunity pass.  I knew that this baptism might be the only one the children see.  My sermon talked a bit about sacraments, in a less mystical way than I might have presented the ideas to adults; as I reflect on it now, I realize that children might be able to grasp the mystical ways in a more capable way than most adults.

I wanted to talk about the other aspect of baptism in the Lutheran (ELCA) church--that we're making promises that later the child will decide to continue with or not.  I also talked about the fact that we as a congregation are making promises too--we will promise to support the child and pray for our new sibling in Christ.

I had a family tree chart that my mom made for our September family reunion.  I saved it and brought it to our smaller family reunion at Thanksgiving.  I showed them the chart and added my name to it and Stephen's name to it--he and I are people they know, and we are part of this family tree as the generation goes on.  I added our names on sticky notes.

Then I talked about the Christian family--imagine a family tree that contained the name of every baptized Christian.  Imagine how we are all connected.  We are individuals in different times, and yet our baptism connects us.

I could have done more, of course.  There's the interconnectedness of literal trees through root systems and the fungi that support them.  There are ways that older trees protect younger trees (for more on this fascinating research, read this article from Smithsonian Magazine).  There's always more I could have done and so much church history that I always decide not to include.

I think it worked well, but I often think that.  It's a sobering fact of both teaching and being a minister that I will rarely know whether or not I've been successful in what I hope I am passing on to others.  But I'm also aware that this preaching and teaching feeds my soul too; I'm lucky to be able to do it.

First Baptism

Yesterday was my first baptism as a minister.  I've assisted with baptisms before, but I've never been the one who put water on the baby's head.  I felt a bit nervous, but I reminded myself that it wasn't a funeral or a wedding, both of which come with many more hopes and expectations.  In short, it seemed there wasn't much that could go wrong.

In retrospect, I was lucky.  I baptized one of the happier babies I've ever met.  When water went down his head onto his face, he smiled.  When water dripped off my hand onto the baptismal font as I moved my hand to his head, he reached for the water drops on the font.

I had planned to meet with the parents before the service to strategize about how to hold the baby, but they weren't there when the service started.  I did have them move the baby closer to the font, but the father held the baby upright, which is why the water dribbled down his face.  I tried to catch some of it with a baptismal cloth, but it wasn't very absorbent.  Happily, the baby didn't mind.

If there's another baptism, I'll do more to practice with the baptismal font and the water.  Or maybe it's always going to be messy, and I should embrace the idea of water going everywhere.

The baby being baptized never cried, but his older brother did.  I didn't realize that the wailing child in the narthex was part of the baptismal family; if I had, I'd have had the child join us earlier.  As it was, the relative who had been trying to console the wailing child brought the child forward to the mom.  Something to remember to ask for next time.

The baby was the grandchild and great grandchild of members of the little country church where I am a Synod Appointed Minister.  The family lives in Nashville.  I had a phone conversation in advance, but in retrospect, I should have covered more; I shouldn't have assumed we would have time before the service.

The baby smiled throughout the rest of the baptism ceremony, and I suggested that the family walk with the baby so that we could all greet our new sibling in Christ.  That baby has a future in politics or movies or some other arena that needs friendly charisma.

Afterwards, we went downstairs to the fellowship hall, where the family had invited us all to stay for a barbecue lunch, another treat especially in a week where we're all getting tired of Thanksgiving leftovers.

I'm calling my first baptism a success, while at the same time thinking about ways I could be better, if there's a next time.  I found myself wishing we could do a baptism once a week, the way we do the eucharist once a week.  But then it wouldn't feel as special and holy--and yes, I do realize that's an argument for having once a month eucharist than once a week.

Here's the Facebook post I made:

"The baptism went well--the baby was the happiest baby I've ever met, and baptismal water got all over the place (the baby, me, the font), and the baby put his little hands on the water drops and made happy noises, and everyone was smiling and laughing. I halfway expected a dove to descend and a voice telling us how beloved we all are (there was that voice, but it was my voice, never losing an opportunity to tell us all how much God loves us)."

Earlier, I made a pre-baptism post that said I was both nervous and joyous.  One of my pastor friends gave me this encouragement, which is worth preserving:  "Know this…you are a child of God, dripping wet in the same promise as the one who will be baptized today. We celebrate the promise that holds us all!"

Low Tech Thanksgiving

I have just spent much of a week in a house with no internet access--no, not mine, but the ramshackle house that my family rents each year.  In the past, we've been given a hotspot from the camp that rents the house, but last year, we discovered that they no longer provide that service.  We used our smart phones as hotspots, and I had the highest mobile phone bill I've ever had, since I don't have unlimited data.  

Last year I learned how much data gets used when the phone is a hotspot, so this year I was more careful and intentional.  No more mindless scrolling of sites in the morning before everyone else work up--I read a book! No more checking various sites in the afternoon because I was bored--I went for a walk or started up a conversation.

I used my phone as a hotspot in the morning to do the morning devotion time that I started doing during the pandemic and have kept doing it.  It's a 12-15 minute time of me doing the reading from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours, a time for contemplation and/or creativity, and a time for prayer and reflection/benediction at the end.  I lead it by way of my Florida church's Facebook page.

I also checked in on e-mails at one other point in the day, but happily, nothing was there that required my attention.

On Tuesday, knowing that I would have limited internet access, I made a push to get all of my grading done--hurrah!  I did go down the mountain to Spartanburg just in case my students needed face to face attention.  I saw very few of them, and even the ones who had scheduled conferences decided not to come.  That was fine with me; I wanted to be available, in part so that if anyone later says that I wasn't, I can say, "I came in on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and you weren't here."

They likely won't say that.  In all my years of teaching, that's not a common complaint, of me or any other college teacher I've known.  It's far more common that they just disappear with nary a peep.

Tomorrow I will write more of a Thanksgiving wrap up/retrospective, but today I need to get ready for church.  I am still the Synod Appointed Minister at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee, and today I am doing a baptism.  I am both nervous and feeling good about it.  I have assisted at many a baptism, so it's not an unfamiliar rite to me.  The church congregation is kind and supportive, so I don't feel like it's a day fraught with peril if anything goes wrong.  And there's not much to go wrong--it's not like a funeral.

Let me go get organized.  Let me be peaceful and filled with joy.

Thanksgiving 2023

Here we are, very early on Thanksgiving morning; I'm writing at the kitchen table while my uncle fries bacon.  Soon the younger parts of the extended family will get up to do the Turkey Trot down in Hendersonville.  Later, we'll eat a feast.  This afternoon, we'll try to replicate my grandmother's yeast rolls.

We can do that because my mother thought to preserve the recipe.  My cousin's wife asked if I had it, and I did not, so I asked my mom and sister.  My mom brought all the recipes she had, including the one for yeast rolls.

Yesterday afternoon, my cousin's daughter copied the recipes, and I made this Facebook post:  "My heart is so happy - - the next generation copying the recipes from my grandmother, which my mom preserved."

It may be one of my most-liked post in recent years.  For me, it captures so much about this holiday and why I love it:  family recipes, family time, family feasts, family traditions.  I realize these aspects are also the elements that can make this holiday, and life in general, painful.

I have had to use my cell phone's hotspot capacity to access the internet, which feels miraculous, but also makes me aware of being online.  I don't have unlimited data, and this hotspot consumes data as if it's a Thanksgiving feast.

That, too, is a blessing--it makes me move offline and enjoy being together in person.  It's an interesting insight.

One last thing I want to record:  last night, over dinner, we were talking about books that have been helpful.  My cousin said that the most important and profound book he'd ever read was Man's Search for Meaning.  I said, "You mean the one from the middle of the 20th century?  By Viktor Frankl?"  Yes, that very one.  I was surprised I could pull Frankl's name from my memory, and surprised my cousin had read it.  

Have I read it?  Surely I've read at least part of it.  Still, based on my cousin's recommendation, I'm planning to reread it again.  I am grateful for these connections.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel: Christ the King Sunday

The readings for Sunday, Nov. 26, 2023:

First Reading: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Psalm: Psalm 95:1-7a

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 100

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:15-23

Gospel: Matthew 25:31-46

This week, the liturgical year comes to a close with Christ the King Sunday. In some churches, this will be a high festival day that celebrates the power of Christ. But the Gospel reading makes it clear that Kingdom power is not the same as worldly power.

We might expect a Gospel reading that reminds us that Jesus transcended death. We might get a Gospel reading that tries to scare us with a vision of Christ at the next Coming, descending in glory to judge us. Well, in a way, we do.

But the vision we get is not the one that we might expect. We might expect to be judged and found wanting because of what we've been told are sins: our drinking, our gambling, our bad sexual choices. We might expect to be judged for all the Sundays we decided we'd prefer sleep to church. We might expect to be judged because we've been lazy, and we didn't go for that promotion at work.

This Gospel reminds us of how God will judge us. Did we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the imprisoned? If so, then we have been attending to our royal tasks.

And why do we do this? The Bible is full of stories of the Divine showing up in circumstances where we wouldn't expect to find God. The Bible tells us that God prefers to hang out with the poor and the marginalized. If we want to find God, we need to go there. We have a history of thousands of years of Christians whose lives support what the Bible tells us--we will find God in the meekest of places.


Next week, we begin the season of Advent, where we remember one of our central Christian stories: God comes to be with us two thousand years ago, but not in the power center of Rome. No, God comes to us in one of the outposts of Roman civilizations, and God lives with one of the groups of people that the worldly, dominant power structure of the time despised.

This Gospel also reminds us that we are to see God in everyone. It's easy for me to see God in the eyes of my husband as he looks at me lovingly. It's harder for me to see my difficult coworker as Jesus incarnate. In any given day, we are besieged by people who aggravate us, from our family members to our colleagues to strangers who drive the road with us or shop in the same stores or send their children to the same schools. By forcing myself to treat everyone as Jesus-in-Disguise, I will transform myself into the Christian that I want to be.

Jesus was the model, after all. Jesus had dinner with the outcast. Jesus treated everyone with love and respect, even people who were out to sabotage him. I could let myself off the hook by saying, "Well, yeah, he was God incarnate. I could do that too, if I was God incarnate."

No, you can do it, because Jesus did it. Jesus came to show us the full potential of a human life. Jesus came to dwell among us and to show us a better way to live. It's not the way the world tells us to live. The world would scoff at a king who sought out the poor and dispossessed, who sold his possessions so that he would have more money for the poor.

But Christians know that our power lies in our compassion. We don't achieve compassion by sitting in our homes, working on being more compassionate. We become more compassionate in the same way that God did, by getting involved in the world.

And we're not doing this for some after-death reward, although many preachers will use this Gospel to lecture on that. We do this because God has invited us to be part of the redemption of creation--not in some far away time, but in our very own. We don't have to wait for Jesus to come again. When we model Jesus in our everyday behavior, Christ re-enters the world.

We're not here to make money, to have a good retirement, to accumulate stuff. God has a greater purpose for us, one that will leave us infinitely more satisfied.

Marshmallows and the Parable of the Talents

Yesterday's Gospel was the Parable of the Talents in Matthew (Matthew 25: 14-30).  It's not the best parable for a children's sermon.  I've had more luck with parables about seeds or yeast.  My spouse came up with a good approach for yesterday's sermon.

It started with inspiration from a fellow seminarian who mentioned the experiment with marshmallows and children, which you may remember from Psychology or Early Childhood Ed classes.  Give a child a marshmallow, tell them that they will get another marshmallow if they don't eat it until a deadline in the future, and see who has impulse control.

We had a bag of marshmallows left over from last Sunday's Harvest Festival at the neighborhood lake, so we divided them into bags that held 1 marshmallow, 5 marshmallows, and 10 marshmallows.  I gave each child a bag with one marshmallow.  I told them that they could keep the one marshmallow--but what if they had a chance to win 5 additional marshmallows if they called a coin toss correctly?  If they knew they would chance losing the marshmallow, would they place the bet?  Would the chance to win 10 marshmallows make a difference?

I decided not to actually do the coin toss--gambling and church groups don't always go together.  I talked about the God of abundance who doesn't require us to give up our marshmallows but does encourage sharing.  And even though we might question the wisdom of sharing, because then we'd have even fewer marshmallows, God will multiply abundance in ways we can't even imagine.

It doesn't exactly fit the message of the parable--and I did try to make some connections to the parable--but I think it worked well as a children's sermon.

The Feast Day of Hilda of Whitby

Today is the feast day of Saint Hilda of Whitby (614-680). We know of her primarily through the writings of the Venerable Bede, who said, "her wisdom was so great that even kings and princes sought her counsel," and "all who knew her called her Mother, because of her distinctive piety and grace."

Whitby is on the east coast of England in North Yorkshire. Whitby is famous for many things, but in church history, perhaps most famous for the Synod of Whitby in 664, which ironed out some differences between Celtic and Roman practices in Christianity, including how to figure out the date for Easter. Hilda was a Celtic Christian, and yet, when ordered to do so, she began to adopt Roman ways. She is remembered as a reconciler of the two traditions.

She founded several monasteries and was trained five men who later went on to become bishops. The monasteries that she founded were centers of education and the arts, and through the work done there, the monasteries also preserved knowledge.

For those of us who are English majors, we might be most grateful to Saint Hilda for her encouragement of Caedmon, one of the earliest English poets who makes it into anthologies; some call him the first British poet. Many give her credit for encouraging the stories from the Bible put into song and spoken stories in ordinary language of the people who would hear it.

Hilda is one of the patron saints of learning and culture, including poetry. We remember her as being of key importance in the shift from paganism to Christianity in England.

As with many of these ancient Christians, I am in awe of what they both created and preserved in times that must have been more difficult than ours, in harsh landscapes. With Saint Hilda, there's the added aspect of her gender--she accomplished so much in a time when women weren't given much in the way of opportunity.

And these days, when the U.S. seems so bitterly divided, I find my brain returning to her ability to reconcile and also lead. Modern people might not realize the depth of these church divisions, like the one between Roman Christians and Celtic Christians; indeed, one group left the Synod of Whitby and went to Iona and later Ireland, which at the time would have been even more savage landscapes.

These days, I think about Saint Hilda and remember that it is possible to reconcile huge differences. I remember Saint Hilda and hope that more of us can channel her.

For a more developed essay that has wonderful photos, I recommend this blog post.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, November 19, 2023:

First Reading: Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Judges 4:1-7

Psalm: Psalm 90:1-8 [9-11] 12

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Psalm 123

Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Gospel: Matthew 25:14-30

This week's Gospel gives us the parable of the talents. One servant turns his 5 talents into 10, one turns his 2 talents into 4, and the servant who buries his one talent in the yard doesn't create any new capital. It's easy when reading this Gospel to focus on the word "talent." It's natural to think of our own talents, to wonder how we're investing them, and how we're wasting them by burying them in the yard.

The parable makes it clear what will happen to people who bury their talents. Now, I know that many of us are blessed with a multitude of talents. We do have to make judicious choices about which talents are worth cultivating. I hope that we won't be the servant cast into worthless darkness because we pay attention to one set of skills over another.

But let's look at that parable again. Let's look at that word, "talent," again--in the time of Jesus, it was an economic term, not a personal development term. Read the parable substituting the word gold blocks for talent.

It's worth noting that a quantity of 5 talents, according to my Bible footnote (and my Bible is published by Oxford University Press, so I trust the footnote), is worth 15 years of wages of this laborer. In an article from The Christian Century, James Howell, a Methodist minister, points out that the servant who got just one talent would be receiving more money than most of us get in a lifetime of work: "This amount would stagger any recipient and send him into utterly uncharted territory. A Mediterranean laborer wouldn't have any more of a clue about how to invest five talent than the guy who bags my groceries would about $74 million (even if I and all my friends tried to advise him)."

As I read this week's Gospel again, I forced myself to think about the fact that this parable really is about money. It's not instructing me to return to the piano keyboard at the expense of the computer keyboard. And it's an unusually Capitalist message from Christ. I'm used to the Jesus who tells us to give our money away. I'm not used to the savior who encourages us to make wise investments of our money.

I'm not used to thinking of money management as a talent. But this parable makes clear that it is. Jesus makes clear that money is one of the gifts we're given, and the verses that follow (31-46, ones that aren't part of this week's Gospel) show that Christ is not straying from his essential message. The verses that follow talk about treating the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner as if those people are Christ incarnate. God has a vision for how we'll use that gift of money.

The servant who was cast into out darkness was cast out because the talent went to waste buried in the ground. How would he have been treated if he had given the money away to the poor, the sick, the stranger? I suspect he would NOT have been cast into outer darkness.

Our collapsing Capitalist paradigm often doesn't take community into account. Not making enough money in America, where workers have unreasonable demands like a living wage and safe working conditions? Just move your industry to a country that has less oversight. Sure, you rip apart the social fabric, but at least you're making money.

God calls us to a different vision. Our God is always obsessed with the poor and dispossessed. And we're called to be part of that obsession.

The ways to help heal the world are endless, and God invites us to join in this creation project. We can donate money, time, skills, prayers, optimism, hope. Doing so is one of our most basic Christian tasks.

Foolish and Wise Virgins, Apples and Guests of Honor

Yesterday's lectionary gave us Matthew 25:  1-13, the parable of the foolish virgins and the wise virgins, the lamp oil and the late bridegroom (late as in not on time, not late as in dead).  I was not preaching the adult sermon yesterday--we had a pastor staff member visiting from the Southeastern Synod, and he took the adult sermon.

I wasn't sure how to approach the parable--I didn't want to discuss marriage customs in times of antiquity in a children's sermon.  I decided to talk about the strangeness of the parable, but to do it from a bit of an angle.  I gave each child an apple, a real apple, with the instructions not to eat it.

I said that we would each need to have an apple for a party that we were going to have, that the guest of honor wasn't here yet, and that the guest of honor would want us each to have an apple.  Now what happens if this half of the group eats their apples?  What should the people with apples do?

We talked about the possibilities, and we started with the most obvious:  the people with apples should share their apples.  Isn't that what Jesus has been telling us to do, week after week?  But that's not what this parable says.  

What are our other options?  The ones who ate their apples could go buy more apples.  And that's what the parable tells us happens.  And what's the risk?  That the guest of honor comes while they're gone--yup, that's what happens.  The door is locked, the party goes on inside, and the ones who ate their apples are out of luck.

It's a strange parable.  It seems so different from what Jesus preaches in other times, that there's enough, that God will give us what we need, that it's safe to share.  Jesus is telling us a different message, that we need to stay awake and alert, because we don't know what will be required.  We've got our apples, which can represent our spiritual strengths, and we should conserve them.

It's not a perfect approach to the parable, but I'm pleased with how it went.

A Quick Post as Quilt Camp Ends

At some point, I hope to create a longer post about Quilt Camp, but it won't be today.  I need to get ready for church, and then open up the Faith Center for Quilt Camp.  I won't be there long; I still need to go across the mountains to preach, and we leave at 7:15 this morning.

Let me post a few reflections about Quilt Camp before I shift gears to get ready for the day:

--It's my first time quilting since I broke my wrist.  I've been sewing since my broken wrist, but not quilting, which is different.  My wrist didn't hurt as much as I expected it to, but my hand hurt differently than in the pre-break days, like a tendon gets sore more quickly.  Do hands have tendons?  Hmm.  

--There were times when I wished I did more measured quilting, creating new patterns out of geometric shapes.  Then I tried it and remembered why I don't do that.

--I pulled out my basket of unfinished log cabin patchwork.  What a delight to get back to that!

--I felt a bit of sadness, thinking about the last time I was sewing in a white, hot heat.  I understand why I shifted away from that--I needed to get my seminary coursework done for spring term, and then I came back to our construction zone of a house.  And perhaps sewing and quilting has always been more of a winter activity for me; I'm not sure.

--I've gotten so many ideas and so much inspiration from this time at Quilt Camp--what a gift! 

Armistice Day at Quilt Camp

Today is Armistice Day, which is also Veterans Day, which is also Remembrance Day.  I've spent this day with monks, once, long ago, before I was blogging.  Today I will spend this day with women quilters at Quilt Camp at Lutheridge.

Like my November 11 with the monks, spending this day with women quilters seems both strange and appropriate.  This day originally celebrated the day that the Armistice was signed that brought World War I, one of the bloodiest wars in human history, to a close. In so many ways, this event was the one that catapulted us all into the twentieth century. We got to see first-hand the ways that technology could be used for evil, as well as for good. We got to see damaged war veterans return, and we got reports that made many people question the idea that war builds character. And in a more positive spin, as so many men went off to war (and so many didn't come back), it opened up interesting doors for women into the world of work.

The entrance of women into the world of work would have far reaching ramifications far into the 20th century and our own time. The most obvious, of course, is that many women could earn their own money. Some you might see as more minor: for example, many women began wearing pants. You may not see that development as a big deal, but I could argue that it was. Wearing pants gave women freedom in a way that few other clothing developments have.

During World War I, many women began driving for the first time, because so many men were gone.  Here is one of my favorite pictures of one of those earliest women drivers (from Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's No Man's Land: Volume 2: Sex Changes, p. 297) :

Would this development, and many others, have happened without World War I? Probably. But World War I accelerated the emancipation of women.

I don't want to underestimate the terrible price, especially for Europeans. I've been to the World War I cemeteries in France, and it's sobering, those fields of white crosses and the knowledge that it's a small percentage of the dead.

The women with whom I will spend time today are at mid-life and older.  We have veterans in our lives, older relatives and people our age and some of us know veterans from the generations that have come after us.  Some of us have made quilts for veterans groups.  Even though we are at a Lutheran church camp, we come from a variety of faith traditions--happily, no one will object to prayers for peace, healing, restoration, the kinds of prayers that might cause offense at more secular spots.

 

Strategies for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

For my internship with the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA, I get to do a variety of activities, many of which I've written about as they have occurred.  Some of these activities have had me doing something new, like leading middle school confirmands through bread baking.  This past week's internship activity was a writing task, not anything out of the ordinary for me.  But it was satisfying nonetheless.

Way back in the summer, my internship supervisor and I had brainstormed ways that I could be useful, and writing for the e-newsletter was one of them.  We looked ahead at upcoming events, and one of them was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, on Nov. 25.  Back in the summer, that day seemed so far away.

I wrote to one of the Synod staffers who has been hired to coordinate women in ministry to see if she had anything planned.  I didn't want to duplicate efforts or step on her toes.  I had been thinking about an article that talked about the day and offered ways for ordinary people to do something.  There are lots of days that have us discussing various issues.  It's easy to feel overwhelmed, and I thought a list of possible activities would be a good counterpoint to despair, cynicism, and hopelessness.  My supervisor, when hearing of my proposed article, said, "Go for it."

I made the list, and I put it in a bulleted form so that my supervisor could edit it if need be.  Much to my delight, he didn't.  I turned it in Tuesday morning, and by Tuesday afternoon, it was online.  Go here to read it; I like that it's a mix of educational, spiritual, and advocacy type activities.  There's a bit of politics, but it's the non-partisan type.

Back when I was planning my week, I thought I would have the whole week to work on it, but I'm happy to have had the due date of Tuesday.  Quilt Camp started yesterday, and I am happy to have almost everything else cleared off of my schedule.  I am ready to lose myself in fabric in the best possible ways.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, November 12 , 2023:

First reading and Psalm
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78:1-7

Alternate First reading and Psalm
Wisdom of Solomon 6:12-16 or Amos 5:18-24
Wisdom of Solomon 6:17-20 or Psalm 70

Second reading
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Gospel
Matthew 25:1-13

How mystifying, this parable of the wise bridesmaids with more than enough oil and the foolish, unprepared bridesmaids! I would have expected Jesus to make a different point, one about those with abundant resources sharing with those who have a lack.

But once again, Jesus is full of surprises. It's not a parable about sharing. And if you reread it again, you may realize, as I did this morning, that it's not a parable about staying awake either--all of the bridesmaids get drowsy and sleep.

Through his parables and more importantly, through his life, Jesus shows us that we're allowed to have down time. We're allowed to sleep. Jesus retreated periodically to recharge, and we should do.

But those foolish maidens aren't going on a women's retreat at a nearby church camp. No, they have come to their task unprepared. It's not like the task was unknown. I assume that one of the basic job requirements of being a bridesmaid is to have oil for the lamps.

Or maybe it's not one of the basic tasks. Note that the bridegroom is delayed. Maybe the foolish bridesmaids assumed the wedding party would come by the time it was dark. Maybe their fault lies in not anticipating the unforeseen.

So, what does this parable tell us for modern life? For those of us who are waiting and watching, what does it mean?

Too many people will read this text and see the wedding party as a metaphor for Heaven. Perhaps it is, although I imagine Jesus would have had a very different idea of Heaven than that of 21st century folks. Too many people will focus on the possibility of a second coming in our lifetime, and that's why they keep the lamps ready.

But God did not create this planet just to wreck it out of displeasure. Absolutely not. The Good News that Jesus gives us again and again is that the redemption of creation breaks through into our daily lives.

If we wait for a distant Heaven, we've missed the point. The Good News is that we don't have to wait. It's happening right now, in all sorts of ways.

But many of us will miss it, because we're not looking or we're not used to seeing God in our daily lives. Perhaps instead of keeping a gratitude journal or instead of asking how our days have been, perhaps a better question would be, "Where have you seen God today?"

In this way we'll keep our oil replenished and our lamps ready. We will know the bridegroom, because we will have gotten in the habit of seeing him.

Best Communion Bread Recipe So Far

I have been taking yeast bread for Communion.  I haven't been very scientific about it; I just bring whatever bread I was making, which means that it was different each week.  It was also very crumbly.  

On Saturday, I set out to make a better bread, one that held together better.  Two things I think helped with the success of Saturday's loaf:  I added extra butter, and I didn't try to incorporate all the scraps into the dough as I kneaded it.

I thought about following a recipe, but I'd already gotten started.  Still, Saturday's loaf was based on this recipe for Vermont Whole Wheat Oatmeal Honey Bread that I found on the King Arthur Baking Company website.  But since I made key changes, I want to record them here.

In a big bowl, I put 4 tsps. of yeast in about a cup of warm water, with 2 teaspoons of white sugar.  In a pan, I put 2 C. of water, 1 C. of rolled oats (but quick would work too), 1 stick of butter (8 T., which is a half cup), 1/2 C. of brown sugar, 4 Tablespoons of honey, 2 T. of salt (to be honest, a few grinds of the salt grinder, which I'm estimating to be 2 T.).  I let that cool, while to the bowl of yeast, I added 2 whole eggs, plus most of a third egg (I set a bit of the beaten egg aside for an egg wash).  I whisked them all together.  When the oatmeal mixture cooled, I added it to the big bowl.

I added 1/2 C. of whole wheat flour, and then I added about 5-6 C. of white flour.  This part is very inexact, but I know how the dough should feel.  I let the bread rise once and shaped it into loaves.  I let it rise again, and then I baked the loaves for 40 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

The bread was delicious warm and delicious yesterday morning during communion.  I stashed three loaves in the freezer, and if it defrosts and is not crumbly, this is my recipe ongoing.

My Sermon for All Saints Sunday

I feel like my All Saints Sunday sermon was a good one, so I'm going to post it here.  This line came to me late, as I was about to print the sermon.  It's my favorite part:   "We live in a culture that tells us it’s better to be a Kardashian than a Christian, better to be a celebrity than a saint. And so many of us make the same mistake of seeing ourselves with the eyes of our culture rather than the way that God sees us."

Here's the whole sermon:

The Sermon for Sunday, November 5, 2023

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

 

 

Matthew 5:1-12

 

 

I know that for many of us, All Saints Sunday isn’t our favorite church day; it can be painful, whether we’ve lost a loved one in the last year or long ago.  I’ve talked to more than one person who avoided this service the first year after a loved one died, and one member of my quilt group says she avoids this service every year because the loss of her mother still hurts, 19 years later.

 

And it’s been a tough year in terms of other losses.  For those of us who thought that human history was on a trajectory away from prejudice, hatred and war, this year has been a challenge.  It can be hard to believe the words of the Gospel that those who mourn will be comforted.

 

Or maybe we want to know when—when will we be comforted?  Maybe instead of a worship service of remembrance, we’d prefer a time of lament.  Maybe lament scares us, because some part of us believes that a vengeful God or a version of fate will take away the good parts of our lives that are left.  But dip in and out of the Psalms, and you’ll see that lament has always been part of the spiritual journey—for a more bracing experience, read the book of Lamentations.

 

We may also dislike this festival day because we focus too much on the saints who have gone before us, saints who were less than saintly, many of them, it not most of them.

 

We tend to forget that all the saints that came before us were flesh and blood humans (including Jesus). We think of people like Martin Luther as perfect people who had no faults who launched a revolution. In fact, you could make the argument that many revolutions are launched precisely because of people's faults: they're bullheaded, so they're not likely to make nice and be quiet and ignore injustice. They're hopelessly naive and idealistic, so they stick to their views of how people of faith should live--and they expect the rest of us to conform to their visions. They refuse to bow to authority because they answer to a higher power--and so, they translate the Bible into native languages, fund colleges, rescue people in danger, insist on soup kitchens, write poems, and build affordable housing.

The world changes (for the better and the worse) because of the visions of perfectly ordinary people--and because their faith moves them into actions that support that vision. If we're lucky, those people are working towards the same vision of the inclusive Kingdom that Jesus came to show us.

 

I realize that for some of us, this day that celebrates saints both ancient and modern can make us feel inadequate.  We might think about our relatives of just a few generations ago who built things that are still here—I’m thinking of literal buildings, like the ones built at the church camp, Lutheridge.  The original buildings need much less maintenance than the newer buildings, that’s the kind of strong foundation that past generations left behind.

 

But sometimes, it’s not always clear what we’re creating at the time or what we’re building, what will be left behind when we’re gone.

 

We might think of a man like Fred Rogers, known to generations of children as Mr. Rogers.  He was ordained a Presbyterian minister.  But instead of going the route of traditional ministry, which might have won him more respect at the time, he wanted to see if he could harness the power of this new medium, television, to teach children.  After many decades of success, it might be hard to remember how much of a risk Fred Rogers took with this path.  Indeed, he had to periodically go back to his church elders to justify and maintain his ordination.

 

This All Saints Day, I’m also thinking of my brother in law, Carl’s younger brother, who had a massive heart attack and died in June.  He didn’t see himself as anything special.  I remember a conversation I had with him in January of 2022.  I asked him when he was scheduled to graduate.  He said, “Next May.  Unless I flunk out.”

 

He was likely far from flunking out, but that’s not how he saw himself.  I wish he could have heard the tributes in the days after his death, how his daily life was such a blessing to so many, in his work with the seminary, his work with neighborhood churches, his work with underserved children.

 

He would not have seen himself as a saint, in part because we live in a larger culture that tells us that working with just 10 children is not nearly as impressive as being Mr. Rogers.  We live in a culture that tells us it’s better to be a Kardashian than a Christian, better to be a celebrity than a saint.  And so many of us make the same mistake of seeing ourselves with the eyes of our culture rather than the way that God sees us.

 

We don’t always know the full extent of the good that we are manifesting in the world.  We don’t have to nail our 95 theses on the Wittenberg door to bring good into the world.  We can put our loose change into cans for noisy offering, and a month later, we’ve been part of raising hundreds of dollars for a pet shelter.

 

Dream a little on this All Saints Sunday. If you could create a new life out of the threads that you have, what would you weave? Or would you start again, with different yarns and textures? What is your dream of a renewed life, a resurrected life?

Jesus invites us to be part of a Resurrection Culture. We may not always understand how that will work. Some years the taste of ash and salt water seem so pervasive that we may despair of ever tending fruitful gardens of our lives again. But Jesus promises that death will not have the final word.  Today, as we remember the saints that have gone before us, let us give thanks for their witness, and a prayer that our own witness will similarly nourish generations to come.

Seminary Students and the Current Israel-Gaza Conflict

It's an interesting time to be a seminary student in a time of intensifying conflict between Israel and Gaza.  I am a bit removed, since I live in North Carolina and take classes from a distance.  My seminary campus in Washington, D.C. is beside the American University campus which has seen graffiti of both the antisemitic and anti-Palestinian types.  Our dean sent out an e-mail letter earlier this week which referenced those events and the larger world.

Her letter ended this way:  "Friends, your calling matters. Working toward shalom is working toward a world where everyone enjoys the blessings of abundant life that God intended for all God’s creation, a place where everyone thrives. There are many ways to support peace efforts, to love our neighbors, to lament, to care for the vulnerable, and to pray unceasingly. If you are at a loss for words, pray anyway. Remember that the Spirit intercedes for us when we do not know what to pray (see Romans 8:26-27). Our chapel remains open for prayer. To echo Martin Luther King, Jr., there are many ways to let the light of God’s love shine into the darkness. Let's stand together for shalom."

I am so grateful to have an academic dean who sends a letter of deep pastoral care.  I have wondered if I should be offering the same level of care to my students, but my face to face students seem even further removed from the Israel-Gaza conflict, both literally and emotionally, than I am.  We had a brief conversation when I brought in some poems, but it was more about who is making money from weapons sales and less about geopolitical issues.

On Monday, in my seminary Ethics class, we had a visitor, the religion writer for The Washington Post.  She wanted to see how future spiritual leaders are discussing the conflict.  At first we were somewhat guarded, or at least, I was.  The conversation revolved around the work we'd read for the class, but at the end, the reporter asked if she could ask us questions.  We had good ground rules--she won't quote us without our permission, and we didn't have to say a word if we didn't want to.

I was surprised at how open my fellow students were, and it was quickly clear we come from a variety of positions.  I was happy to see that we could present our positions and not attack each other.  It's what I expect from seminary classes, but these are fraught times.

My only contribution;  I mentioned that I was concerned with the war becoming wider, and that I tend to look back at history to try to understand where we are now.  But is it 1939 or 1973 or something else altogether?  Heads nodded--and of course, we don't have any answers.  We won't know for years and probably not even in our lifetime.

Days of Remembrance

Today is the Feast of All Souls. You might be confused--didn't we just celebrate this holiday yesterday?
No, that was All Saints. All Saints was originally designed to honor the saints, those who had been beatified. Official saints, canonized by the Pope.

All Souls Day, celebrated the day after All Saints, was designed to honor everyone else who had died.

In some traditions, All Saints Day honors all the Christian dead, and All Souls Day honors those who have died in the past year. Those of you with excellent memories of your English major days may remember that Sir Gawain left for his adventure with the Green Knight on All Souls Day. Medieval audiences would have read a lot into that date of departure. As Sir Gawain leaves, his castle-mates would have been expecting to celebrate his life the following year.

All Souls' would develop into the kind of day that drove Martin Luther crazy. On All Souls' Day, people would be encouraged to spend money so that their loved ones would get out of purgatory sooner. According to medieval theology, a soul wasn't ready to go to Heaven right away, so everyone would have loved ones in purgatory.

In most Protestant churches, All Saints' and All Souls' have merged into one, and that makes sense to me. Still, my inner English major will always have a sense of these alternative liturgical calendars. I like having more to celebrate, more ways to remind myself that there's more to life than what occupies most of my time (work--both on the job and at my house). I like having holidays that remind me that we're only here for too brief a time. It helps me to treasure the fleeting moments that I have.

This week, I came across this blog post which posits that although these holidays of All Saints and All Souls were almost pushed to extinction post-Reformation, today they are back in much fuller force, a full fortnight of remembering our dead that culminates in various remembrance days around November 11 (Armistice Day, Veterans Day, Remembrance Day):  "In many churches All Saints/All Souls and Remembrance Day are kept on two subsequent weekends, more because of practicalities of when services can be held than because anyone has intended to create a fortnight-long season of remembrance - but the effect is that we think more about death at this time of year, and for longer, than our medieval forebears did." 

Meditation on This Sunday's All Saints Gospel

 The All Saints Sunday readings for Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023:

First Reading: Revelation 7:9-17

Psalm: Psalm 34:1-10, 22

Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-3

Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12

This Sunday we celebrate All Saints Day. Most churches focus on loved ones of the congregation who have died; some churches give special emphasis to members who have died since the last All Saints Day. Some churches will be thinking about the larger collection of saints.

The Gospel reading for today at first seems jarringly out of place. Why are we back to the Sermon on the Mount? But after reading it, we see the connections. These are the behaviors of those whom we traditionally consider saints, people like Mother Theresa. They should be the behaviors of those of us still on earth who consider ourselves to be part of that saintly pantheon.

When we read Gospels like these, many of us might think that we do these things as our admission ticket for Heaven. But some of the more interesting books of theology that I've read lately remind us that Christ didn't come to take us to Heaven. In fact, the concept of Heaven with all our loved ones waiting for us there is relatively new to Christian thought. Christ came to announce that God's plan for redeeming the world had begun. That plan involves our pre-death world, which is not just a place where we wait around until it's our turn to go to Heaven. No, this world is the one that God wants to redeem. Christ comes to invite us to be part of the redemptive plan.

Jesus comes to give us instructions for how we can join together in the redemption of the world. Think of the Sermon on the Mount as a behavior manual. As you move through your days, view your actions and your thoughts through the lens of the Sermon on the Mount. Do your thoughts and actions support this vision of peace, justice, mercy, and comfort? If not, how can you change to be more in alignment with God's vision of redemption?

We could use this All Saints Day as a reminder that we need to jump start our efforts to act as saints in this world. If that behavior means that we also get to be saints in the next world, swell.

But the good news of Jesus is that we don't have to wait until we die to experience redemption. We're already saints. We just need to remember to be about the business of sainthood, and to avoid the behaviors that distract us from our mission.