Invited: The Heart of Your Presence

Come....See....Listen

Some time ago, I came across author Taylor Caldwell’s book, ‘The Listener.’  Her writing tells the story of 15 souls, from various walks of life, who enter a sanctuary-like building designated for people to find respite amid the presence of a ‘Listener’.  In the beginning, each person projects their own sense of who this hidden, unseen listener might be. Over time as their mirrored perceptions fade, each person opens his/her heart and soul to this undisclosed presence.  In the end, as their burdens of life are spoken and lifted, the mystery and reverence of ‘the Listener’ is revealed. 

The pages clearly portray the immeasurable value and holiness of ‘being present’ to and with another. The one whose heart and soul is heard knows s/he matters. I believe there are times when every one of us needs to be truly heard, just as there are times each of us needs to fully listen. Being present to another offers the other a safe place to sort through and/or treasure one’s own thoughts. 

How often in prayer do we come to God looking for the same?  We come with our petitions, our sorrows, our joys, and our questions…each prayer colored by any assortment of emotions; or perhaps just a blank page seeking refuge. We look to God to Listen, Respond, be our Change-maker, our Decision-maker, Comforter, Peacemaker, and our Strength. Through all our prayers and conversations, we hold on to the hope and/or belief that God will passionately listen to us. Did I miss anything?  Ah yes, we come asking for Forgiveness through God’s Grace and Mercy.  I believe this covers everything.

Basically, you and I want to know we matter to God!  We do. And our prayers and conversations help us stay in relationship with God, the One we come to. Still, this is only part of the story.

Let’s return for a moment to Taylor Caldwell’s story.  What if the roles were reversed?  What if you or I were ‘The Listener’?  What if God entered that building to pour out His/Her Spirit to us?  What might we hear?   Well, here’s my instinctive guess……..

“Hello, my name is Yahweh. You know I have so many children.  I could tell you all their names, but that would take forever.  Anyway, each week they gather together in groups to Worship and talk to me. And while I so love to hear their voices, sometimes I sense their minds or hearts are elsewhere. They’re thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, or something else. And the music... how I love music!  I'm always hopeful my children hear the words they sing. Their voices sound like angels to my ears.  And those beautiful prayers…so much to reflect on!  I hope they do.  
I hope they don't mind when a song or message takes a little longer. Their worship time together ends soon enough.  After all they can come to me any time of the day or night.  You know what I really like?  I like when I can feel my children’s passion. And I love when they come to commune with me. They remember :)   It’s always good to know I truly matter to them.  It brings me joy when they commit to loving me in the midst of community. They need to know my Gift of Grace is free and meant to be shared with others too..

What I want above all is what I’ve always wanted…a two way passionate relationship with all my children. Someday I’ll tell you all their names. For now, thank you. I’m so glad we listened to each other.”    

Shalom,

Susan

How’s empathy going for you?

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away, see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.” 2 Corinthians 5:17-20

I am taking empathy training as part of my professional development. We read the book Crucial Conversations (http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-Stakes/dp/0071401946). The argument of this book is that examining and acknowledging our own perceptions and actions and those of others can resolve many communication conflicts. Reading the book was helpful and enlightening, but also somewhat intimidating as I wondered how I could put this into practice—and truthfully, would it be worth the time, effort, and personal cost that it would take to modify my own actions.

We then did an activity that helped make the importance more real. In small groups, we wrote down responses to the question “What would people know about me if they really knew me?” We were instructed to dig deep and be honest, knowing that our statements would be anonymous. The facilitators collected our cards, re-distributed them, and asked us to each read the statement on the card. Themes of rape, physical and emotional abuse, prejudice, and insecurity came up again and again, even among a small group of colleagues within La Crosse. We were then told to imagine that people had not one card, but several attached to them at any one moment. In other words, we all carry burdens; rarely do others know what those are. We owe them empathy, grace, and space to make mistakes or do things that don’t make sense to us.

For Christians, this is even more crucial. Pastor Melinda recently explained the passage from 2 Corinthians (written above) to a group of adult leaders and youth who are preparing to go to the National Youth Gathering this summer. From these words, we can take away several key messages:

1. Through the ministry of reconciliation, we are made perfect in God’s eyes. This also means that those around us have also been reconciled and are perfect in His eyes. We need to strive to see others as God does—to love our neighbor as ourselves, as it’s worded in other ways in our Holy texts.
   
2. We are ambassadors for Christ, or in other words, called to represent Him by our words and deeds.  When we claim the role of Christian, we commit to renouncing forces of evil, and to living the Gospel with the help of God.

I invite you to examine your own practices for empathy, praying that you may seek and discover ways to treat others with the kindness and love that we have been shown—and trusting that our God reconciles, forgives, and truly makes all things new.


Rachel

Simple Reminders

Pastor Mark asked me to be a middle school confirmation guide my very first Sunday here nearly three years ago when I moved to La Crosse. It seemed only right that I joined the new member class a week later. This was certainly God at work: I'm not certain that that particular volunteering invitation would have sold everyone on ELC, and I'm not sure I would have so eagerly accepted if I wasn't aching for a church home and seeing this request as a clear answer to my prayer for a church where I could be involved. To make a long story short, I couldn't be more blessed by the children and youth in this congregation and all the parents and ELC members/attendees who support both them and me through this ministry. It is an absolute joy to be part of the faith lives of children and youth, and I have seen God in so many ways through these young people.

On that note, I'd like to share a very small selection of what I've learned from them. My prayer is that these words, spoken by the next generation of our church with boldness and sincerity, will bless you too.

• "This is the blood of Christ. Good for you!" A youth was nervous and stumbling over the blessing when serving communion for the first time, but this is a key point of our faith too. Christ has died; this IS good for us!

• "Jesus has your back! No matter what!" We have many Scriptural promises that our Triune God will bless and never abandon us, but there is a certain clarity and conciseness of this statement that rings true.

• "GUESS WHAT? Jesus LOVES YOU!" One of the preschoolers in VBS last summer greeted me with a big hug and these words every day. I know I tend to forget these words and need to hear them often. I wrote them on a post-it and put it above my desk as a constant reminder, and think of the youthful boldness and innocence  in which they were said.

As you go forth the serve the poor and preach the Gospel, I pray that you will remember these tenets of our faith and have the boldness to proclaim them with the boldness that the youngest among us do.

Rachel

Vocation: Not exactly a vacation.

Pastor Mark's sermon on vocation really spoke to me, so I offer this posting as a response and/or addendum to what he taught us on Sunday. From What Color is your Parachute? to What Should I Do with my Life? society tries to guide us toward answers to these eternally persistent questions. As a Christian, I tend to go to the church and to God when I have questions that simply will not go away or that befuddle my brain. The church, and God too, sometimes provide more confusion than clarity or simply don't offer me an answer that satisfies my insistent desire for a clear, straight-forward, reasonable response-- NOW.  

Vocation seems to be one of those questions. For all the language geeks, I offer that this word comes from the Latin for "vocare," meaning "to call." As Christians, we believe that vocation and what we do with our lives is more than simply "what do I want to do," but the answer from God toward a form of service and the response to our yearning to serve in a way that uses our gifts in service to our world and our Lord. To quote Frederick Buechner, "vocation is the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep needs." One of my confirmation pastors described it as "work that makes your soul dance more often than not." Rev. Kelli Skram, one of the pastors that guided me in graduate school, defined discernment as "the sometimes lengthy and often Holy Spirit roller coaster journey" that helps us find God and the calling for our lives. Spend any time with pastors or seminary students or wannabe pastors, and you'll here the word "call" fairly frequently as a way of describing what led them to the journey and decision of self-sacrifice and spiritual leadership that allows them to be servants for God and for our world. 

For better or worse, vocation and call aren't limited to pastors, but to all who seek God and to obey His commandments.We have various guiding points for our lives from our Holy Scriptures, ranging from the Ten Commandments to our reading from this Sunday. In this text, Jesus tells us we are his "friends," rather than servants. He tells us we are "chosen" and appointed by God to serve in His name. Consequently, we are to abide in His love, and "bear fruit." Similar messages are repeated again in 1 Peter 4:10, "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms," and Collosians 3:23: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."

The Methodist hymn "I sing a Song of the Saints of God" lists doctor, queen, shepherdess on the green, soldier, priest, and "one slain by a fierce wild beast" as those who serve God. These too, along with thousands of other actions, can be calls from God. Call may change throughout our lives and may be downright confusing or frustrating at times. But above all, we know that we serve a loving God who asks us to abide in an unfailing, incomprehensibly deep love. We know we "can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13), and that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).

As the David Haas' hymn says, "we are called to serve one another, to love tenderly, to walk humbly with God." My prayer is that you may sense God's call for you in this moment, knowing God will use your efforts to His glory. May you have the courage to trust, obey, and follow whatever that call may be. Amen.

Rachel

God's Plan? - God's Call.

GOD'S PLAN?

Something to ponder.  We might ask the question, "Was it just coincidental or was it a part of God's plan for us as a congregation?"

1. Beginning some time ago now, Sunday services at English Lutheran have focused on the "PROPHETS OF OLD" from the Old Testament, based on the "Book of Faith Series."  These prophets, both major and minor, were called directly by God for a purpose.  There was Amos, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah as well as others. . . . and then there was "THE DISPLAY"
2. An educational, colorfully visual display prepared and viewed several weeks in the narthex with the title, "A Quest for Peace in the Holy Land." . . . which was followed by another "LEARNING OPPORTUNITY"
3. The offering of a four-week informational DVD and discussion series on the Israeli/Palestinian issue entitled "Steadfast Hope -  A Quest for Peace in the Holy Land" in which over 50 persons attended.

The timing of these three was not preplanned - it simply evolved - but perhaps it was part of a Greater plan??

GOD'S CALL

Regarding phase one above, we might ask the question, "Does God call men/women as Prophets for a purpose in today's 21st century world?"  Many believe God does.  I would like to suggest a few Amoses, Micahs and Jeremiahs of today.

The first is a Jewish man by the name of Dr. Mark Braverman, a noted clinical psychologist, now working full time for peace with justice in the Israeli/Palestinian struggle.  He has written Fatal Embrace  and Neil Elliot has these powerful words to say about Braverman's views and book:

"Fatal Embrace sounds the ancient themes of justice, first voiced by Israel's prophets, at a moment when our need to hear them has rarely been more urgent.  The terrible paradox of our age is that those religious communities who ordinarily lay compelling claim to the prophetic tradition, progressive Jews and Christians, fall strangely silent in the face of a moral  catastrophe - the increasingly brutal occupation of Palestine - against which Isaiah or Jeremiah would have railed in unrelenting protest.  No one has drawn up a more damning indictment of that silence than Mark Braverman; few have cried out with as much clarity or passison for Israel's future.  Unless we all hear such prophetic voices and respond, now, with real political resolve, it may be too late for Palestinians and Israelis alike."

The second of today's voices are taken from the "KAIROS Palestine Document - A prayerful call of Palestinian Christians to End the Occupation," prepared by sixteen Palestinian Christian clergy including our Lutheran Bishop, Munib Younan, Jerusalem, Lutheran Pastor, Mitri Raheb, Bethlehem, and Anglican Priest, Naim Ateek, Founder of "Sabeel," Jerusalem - all incredible leaders in this struggle.  From their  twelve-page "KAIROS Palestine Document," dated December, 2009 (copies available upon request), I quote:

"In order to understand our reality, we say to the Churches:  Come and see.  We will fulfill our role to make known to you the truth of our reality, receiving you as pilgrims coming to us to pray, carrying a message of peace, love and reconciliation.  You will know the facts and the people of this land, Palestinians and Israelis alike.  We condemn all forms of racism, whether religious or ethnic, including anit-semitism and Islamaphobia, and we call on you to condemn it and oppose it in all its manifestations.  At the same time we call on you to say a word of truth and to take a position of truth with regard to Israel's occupation of Palestinian land.  Our numbers are few but our message is great and important.  Our land is in urgent need of love.  Our love is a message to the Christian, to the Jew, and to the Muslim, as well as to the World."

These are but a few of Today's Prophets whom God has sent to our 21st century world.  May we heed their call, God's call!

Ruth M.

"Behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity."  Psalm 133:1

Affirm, Reflect, Go

This Sunday, we will celebrate the affirmation of baptism for ten ninth-grade students. For these students, this Sunday culminates three years of weekly classes, retreats,and projects. They have written a faith statement, designed a stole, interviewed their parents and a congregational mentor about faith lives and practices, taken a spiritual gifts inventory, and talked with the pastors. Beyond being a rite of passage into the Christian church, this day represents an affirmation of their baptism.

Baptismal promises are one of the most crucial and hopeful aspects of our faith. These promises affirm that we are granted new life in Christ, given the gift of the Holy Spirit, and reminded that the light of Christ dwells in us. Many of these youth were baptized as infants, through the gift of their parents. Now, they are affirming this faith for themselves, claiming it as their own, and accepting the roles and responsibilities of Christian adults.

But the responsibility doesn't end with them. As a congregation, we promise to support and help these youth in their walk of faith, relying on the help of God to do so. We make these promises to all who are baptized in our midst, and again to all who affirm that baptism, whether as youth or adults.

In your prayer/devotional/quiet/down time this week, I invite you to reflect on your own experience of baptismal affirmation, if you have done this. Were you a youth? An adult? Did you have a Bible verse or passage that was meaningful to you at the time? Did you write a statement of faith? What would such a statement look like now? Or what passage would you choose as an adult to represent that which is most dear to you out of our scriptures? Or is this something you would consider doing?

I leave you with a challenge. How is God calling you to support the newly baptized, those who affirm their baptism, and all those gathered in our midst? This is our responsibility, and a sacred promise we make to God and each other.

Wishing you blessings on your week. May you sense that you are loved, and remember that God gives us new life through water and the Spirit. May the light of Christ shine in you today and always. Amen.