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Past
Pastor's Canvases
The Pastor’s Canvas—June / July 2004
A Cautionary Tale
We
have all been horrified at the pictures we have seen from the Iraq Prisoner
Abuse Scandal. As we allow the
machinery of our political system to work, hearing testimony, evaluating
responsibility, and meting out punishment, we can take some time to ask
ourselves how such things could happen.
Inhumane treatment of prisoners is not a new thing, nor,
unfortunately, even an uncommon thing.
It is perhaps more uncommon for prisoners to be treated well. The Geneva Conventions were formulated
because of the wide spread abuse of captured people. Organizations, such as Amnesty
International, of which I am a member, take it upon themselves to be
independent watchdogs, monitoring the conditions under which prisoners are
kept. As disciples of Jesus, we hear
of such abuse with both sorrow and warning. When this kind of humiliation and
degradation of any human being occurs, we are all diminished. The charge given to our first parents in
Eden was to take care of creation for God.
That creation includes not only the earth, air, water, plant life and
animal life, but also human life. All
of us are created in the image of God, and each human being bears the face of
Our Lord Jesus. Harm to any other
person is harm to Christ. It was God
who was stripped, God who was hooded, God who was tortured, God who was
abused. “As you did it unto the least
of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matt. 25:40) Further, this is what happens when we
see only the differences between others and ourselves. When we divide the world into “us” and “them,”
into people we like and those we don’t like, into “friends” and “enemies,” we
have dehumanized not only our victims, but ourselves as well. Once a teacher asked her students, “How
do we know when night is over and day has come?” There were many answers given, but finally the students asked
their teacher what she thought. “We
know that night is over, and day has come,” she said, “when we can look into
the face of another and see the face of Jesus. Until then, it is still night.” My friends, we are living in a time when it is still the depth
of night. The darkness is very dark
indeed. We are all guilty, and I am
afraid we will all pay a very high price for these atrocities. As disciples of Jesus, we are to be lights
to the world. In this very dark time,
our job is to shed the light of Jesus as wide and as far as ever we can. In John’s Gospel we read, “The light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1: 5) The light of Jesus was planted in us in our baptism. The Holy Spirit is aflame in us, showing
us the next step ahead. God is our
light and our salvation. Whom shall
we fear? Whatever happens, we hold
fast to the hand of Jesus, and we continue to search each and every face
around for the likeness of Christ.
When we fail to do so, we run the risk of getting caught in webs of
violence and torture, like the soldiers did in Iraq. “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Col. 3:17) Your Sister in Christ, Pastor Judy The Pastor’s Canvas—May 2004
Faith and Politics
Do faith and politics mix? It’s always a tricky business, mixing faith and politics; but I hope that all of us do it. For
ancient Israel they were always mixed.
The king was God’s anointed ruler – and for centuries the counties of
Europe operated under the doctrine of the “divine right of kings.” The Magna Carta and the American and
French Revolutions changed things so that now we have this political theory
that rulers and governments rule and govern with the consent, and for the
benefit of, those they rule and govern.
Back in the days of Henry VIII or Louis XIV, the point of ruling was
to gain power in the world. The point
was never to serve the good of the people governed, but to secure power for
the king. The U.S. Constitution lists
the following as the purpose of our constitutional government: o Form a more
perfect union o Provide for
the common defense o Promote the
general welfare, and o Secure the
blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity Though
simply stated, this is no small agenda, and we continue to struggle and argue
over the best ways to fulfill these purposes. The
agenda for the kings of Israel is spelled out in Psalm 72: May he
defend the cause of the poor of the people, give
deliverance to the needy, and crush the
oppressor. Again this was no small task for kings to accomplish,
though it is interesting that concern for the poor and needy gets such a high
priority for the kings of Israel.
When we hear this psalm today, it
applies in a different way. While the
kings of Israel were given special responsibility to care for the poor and
the needy; we are the ones today upon whom God places that agenda – for we,
the citizens, are the ones who elect our leaders and we are the ones who are
finally responsible for the government we live under.
So here is how politics and religion mix. God has an agenda for the those who govern – to care for the
needy, to pay attention to those who are oppressed, to defend the cause of
the poor. It seems that this agenda
that God has given us, would lead us to be in fairly strong opposition to
organizations like “Americans for Tax Reform” whose stated goal is to “shrink
government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.” The plan, according to its leaders, is to
cut taxes and run up budget deficits until the government is forced to roll
back the central elements of the New Deal and Great Society reforms that have
provided safety nets for the poor over the past 70 years. All that would essentially remain would be
a “watchtower” government with taxes paying only for military, police, fire,
and property rights protection. Education,
health care, social security, transportation, general welfare, etc. are not
considered a prime concern of government, by these folks.
Somehow I don’t think that fits
God’s agenda for the today’s government.
We are told in this election year to vote our pocketbook. Consider another option. Consider what God expects governments to
provide for the poor, the needy, and the oppressed; and then remember God’s
agenda when you do your part in selecting our next government.
Yours in Christ, Pastor Loren
The Pastor’s Canvas—April 2004
Tuning Off, Tuning In
I’ve got a challenge for you - turn off the TV during Holy Week, from
Sunday morning, April 4 to Sunday evening, April 11. I know, there are some good programs on, but
you can probably miss this year’s showing of “The Ten Commandments.” As we enter into the most awesome,
wondrous days of the whole year, try spending it without the TV. If you need to know the news, try the
radio or newspaper. Drape a table
cloth over the set for the week, and ignore it. Find other ways to spend that time. Read - Find a good book, like “What’s So Amazing About
Grace?” by Philip Yancey. Or read in
your Bible, the Gospel of Mark or Luke.
Or try a good mystery. I like
“The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,” by Alexander McCall Smith, or
“Blessings” by Anna Quindlen. Walk - Take time to get out and see the signs of spring in
the world. This is the best time of
year to watch the world waking up from its winter sleep. Listen to the birds, smell the wetness,
feel the wind, touch the earth. Visit - Spend time talking with a relative or
friend. Find out what life has been
like for them, what they’re thinking about.
Talk about politics, or religion, or whatever. Here’s a fun discussion starter - “If you
could have one superpower, either the ability to fly or to become invisible,
which would you chose? And, what
would you do with your power?” It
sounds dumb, but its actually a really fun question, and people have lots to
say about it, like we’ve been thinking about it forever. Pray - Waste time with God. Take the time to just rest with God, always bringing your
wandering mind back to God’s side.
Slowly go through all the people who need your prayers, your family
and friends, people in the congregation, your community, our state and its
leaders, our country and its leaders, our world and all its peoples, all the
natural world with its animals, plants, waters, air. Go back in time and remember your
ancestors in faith, those who dwell now as saints in God’s kingdom. Play a game - Grab a board game or a deck of
cards and teach someone to play a game.
Or have someone teach you a new game.
Someday, I’m going to learn bridge; until then, I like canasta a lot. Work with your hands - Knit or crochet or work with
wood. If you don’t know how, find
someone to teach you. Pastor Loren
does cross stitch, and I sew.
Gardening is still a month off, but that’s also a good “hands on”
project. I find hand work to be good
time for my mind to rest, and my heart to open. Listen to music - If you need to have “friendly
noise,” try putting on a tape or CD of music you like. Or get a new tape or CD of some music
you’ve always wanted to listen to. Watching TV is really a waste of
our time. Did you know that your mind
is more active when you are asleep than when you are watching TV? See how it goes to be “TV Free” for a
week. Maybe you’ll like it. Take the time to connect to yourself and
to God during these days of awe and wonder, during the days of Holy
Week. Turn off, and tune in. Yours
in Christ, Pastor Judy
The Pastor’s Canvas—March 2004
No Greater Love
The
season of Lent is a time to reflect on our faith and on the amazing grace and
love of God. Each spring we rehearse
the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection; and we ponder what it means for
us that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave. I
like to begin with the story – with the events that those who followed Jesus
experienced. Jesus and his followers come
to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.
There, Jesus is arrested, tried and executed under the authority of
Rome. He is then buried, and three
days later rises from his tomb. Then,
after a short time, he is gone. If
you are among his disciples you have to try to make some kind of sense of it
all. How is it possible that this
man, Jesus, died and came to life again?
What do his teachings, his death, and his resurrection say about
God? Reflection
on these questions is finally what all Christian writing seeks to do. The Gospels and letters of the New
Testament, the Creeds and confessions of the church, and 2000 years of
theological writing are all attempts to understand these basic facts of our
Christian faith. I think that it is
helpful in reflecting on the events that are the foundation of our faith,
that no one way of explaining these events is ever adequate. Consistency, while I usually think it is
important, in this case, I’m not concerned that everything fits
together. What is more helpful is to
view the cross and the empty tomb from a variety of perspectives, and let
each perspective become a meditation on the love and the grace of God. 1st perspective: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the
sin of the world.” (John 1:29)
“Surely he has borne our sins and carried our sorrows.” (Isaiah 53:4)
Jesus dies on the cross as a sacrifice for all the sins of the world. He is the perfect sacrifice, because he is
perfect; yet he willingly accepts the place of the Passover lamb, dying to
pay the penalty for the sins of others.
From this perspective, Jesus dies for our sins, and because he has
paid the penalty, there is no penalty left for us to suffer – Jesus has done
it all. 2nd perspective: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Cor. 15:53) “... that through death he might destroy
the one who has the power of death”
(Hebrews 2:14) Here the
focus on not so much on the death, as on the resurrection. In rising to life from the grave, Jesus
has defeated the power of sin and of Satan.
Death is no longer a thing for us to fear, because Jesus has gone
ahead of us and he has won the victory and set us fre from not only sin, but
from death itself. 3rd
Perspective: “love one another as I
have loved you.” (John 15:12) . “We
love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) In this perspective Jesus demonstrates God’s love through his
death and resurrection. God seeks to
win our love and to teach us to love one another with self-giving love. God cannot force us to love God in return
-- all God can finally do is love us, all the way to death. That is what God does through Jesus. When we finally get it, we are drawn to
not only return God’s love, but to love one another as Jesus commands. These
three ways of looking at the events are how we make sense of it all. We will never fully understand it, but as
we meditate on the cross and the empty tomb, God’s love is poured into our
hearts. Yours in Christ, Pastor Loren
The Pastor's Canvas- February 2004
The DaVinci Code
The book by Dan Brown called “The DaVinci Code” has been on the
bestseller’s list since it came out in April of 2003, and is still going
strong. Barnes and Noble has whole
displays with the book and other, related books. There have been TV specials and radio programs devoted to its
controversial subject. I finally got
around to reading it, and thought I’d give you some of my musings about it. First and foremost, it must be said that the book is a
work of fiction. It is a story made
up by the author. There are some bits
and pieces of fact woven into it, but it is primarily fiction. It is a murder mystery centering on the
death of the curator of the Louve in Paris.
He was a member of a secret society called the Priory of Sion, which
is an existing secret society, dating back to 1099 AD. The basis of the book is the claim that
the Priory of Sion exists to safeguard the secret that Jesus was married to
Mary Magdalene, and that they had a child, whose bloodline is still traceable
today. They base this claim on some
old documents that did not make it into our Bible, and the artwork of many
famous painters, one of which is DaVinci’s “Last Supper.” Its a fun story, with lots of suspense and
puzzles to figure out. I enjoyed the
book and recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of story.
But . . . .was Jesus really married?
The answer is - we don’t know.
None of the Gospels in our Bible even come close to mentioning such a
thing. However, Mary Magdalene does
have a very important role in Jesus’ life.
All the gospels agree that she is the first witness to the
resurrection, and that she and Jesus had a close relationship. Whether she is the same Mary whose sister
is Martha and brother is Lazarus, or another Mary, we don’t know. There are a lot of Marys in the New Testament. One of the arguments is that all Jewish
men were married by the time they were 30, and that Jesus was not likely to
be different. This is called “arguing
from silence,” which is always a weak argument. But, it could be true.
The theory claims that a pregnant Mary was forced to flee Israel after
the resurrection, because the Roman and Jewish authorities were seeking to
kill her and her child. Could be
true. It also claims that her
daughter is the ancestor to many of the royalty of Europe. Maybe.
Its all very interesting to speculate on. But I don’t think it finally has much to do with faith. As Christians, we all claim to be of Jesus
bloodline, because Jesus died for us.
Whether he was married or not, whether he had children or not, whether
those children’s children’s children still survive, is really not
important. The love Jesus showed, the
ministry he did, the death he died, the new life he was given are not
affected by his marital status. Nor
is Mary’s importance as the first preacher of the resurrection changed by her
marital status.
Read the book, by all means.
It stretches our thinking and gets us considering other ways of
looking at Jesus and his life. Let me
know what you think. And let me know
if you are interested in any of the other books that didn’t make it into our
Bible. I have copies of them. But remember that we are not saved by any
secret knowledge, but by Jesus’ death and resurrection. Yours in Christ,
Pastor Judy
The Pastor's
Canvas- January 2004
Religious Freedom
The latest
controversies over religious freedom have to do with displaying the Ten
Commandment in a county courthouse, and the use of the phrase “under God” in
the Pledge of Allegiance. There seems
to be the assumption that church leaders should support both of these
examples of religious expression.
When I find myself in a conversation where these issues come up, it
always seems I need to explain why I am not in favor of either of these forms
of religious expression by our government So let me explain. The first clause of
the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, “Congress shall make no
law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof.” The U.S. Supreme Court has,
over the past two and a quarter centuries, struggled to define what this
means. It divides the issue into two
parts. There is the “no
establishment” clause; and there is the “free exercise” clause. Both are critical. Religious freedom means that the government
will not impose any religion upon its citizens. This means that while citizens are free to practice their
faith, the government, as an institution, is not free to exercise any
particular religion. This applies to
government officials when they are acting in their capacity as officials of
the government (judges, elected officers, teachers, etc., etc.). They are not free to impose the faith they
freely exercise as private citizens on others when they act as officials of
the government. It is a complicated
issue. Its importance is perhaps most
clear for us when we consider how it might be if the tables were turned. People who want the 10 Commandments in
court houses believe that the government can reflect, in a general way, the
faith of the majority. But how would
it be, if it was the other way around?
How would we feel if a judge wanted a statue of Buddha erected in an
entrance of a county courthouse, along with the four noble truths or the
eightfold path of Buddhism? Or, how
might we feel about school prayer if a teacher were leading prayers to the
Hindu god Vishnu. What is important is
that judges, teachers, elected officials and all the rest of us in our nation
are free, in our private lives, to practice our faith, whatever that faith
might be. Religious tolerance
is a difficult thing to achieve. The
Roman Empire tolerated some diversity, but demanded allegiance to a Roman
civil religion. When Christian
refused to participate in this “civil religion,” persecution followed. Some emperors experimented with
toleration, until finally Constantine, in 312 AD, made toleration official
policy. However, it did not last
long. Controversies within
Christianity led to a new intolerance.
Heretics were condemned and their writings burned, and by the end of
the fourth century, Christianity was the only official religion of the empire
and it tolerated no others. Then, for
over a thousand years, the Roman Catholic Church was the only option for
faith for Western Europe. Heretics,
pagans, and unbelievers were burned
at the stake. The Protestant
Reformation, during the 1500s, led to wars across Europe. Finally, in 1648, a peace settlement
allowed different religions to be established in different nations. Each country established its own official
religion, and those who continued to practice any other religion endured
various forms of persecution. The American colonies attracted settlers who
sought freedom to practice their own faith without the interference of
government. It is this heritage that
led to the freedom of religion clause in the First Amendment of our
Constitution. It is a freedom that
must be guaranteed to all. Yours in Christ, Pastor Loren
The Pastor's
Canvas- December 2003
To Hear the Angels Sing
It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth, To touch their harps of gold. “Peace on the Earth, Goodwill to all, From Heaven’s All Gracious King.” The world in solemn stillness lay, To hear the angels sing. And you, beneath life’s crushing load, Whose forms are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way, With painful steps and slow. Look now, for glad and golden hours, Come swiftly on the wing. Oh rest beside the weary road, And hear the angels sing. (LBW # 54) Once in the year we strain our earth-bound ears to hear, Lord God, the song of your heavenly host. We yearn to listen with breathless rapture to the thundering voices singing “Peace on the Earth, Goodwill to all, From Heaven’s All Gracious King.” And we do not hear it.
Once in the year we try to make the Prince of Peace welcome in our
homes, to stop the arguments, to quiet the discord, to hush the
tensions. We long for a time when all
members of the family can be together, and can be happy together. And it does not happen.
Once in the year we want to give lavishly, to give gifts of beauty and
lasting grace. We dream of giving our
loved ones what their hearts desire most, whether we can afford it or
not. We want abundance to spill over
into our lives and the lives of those most dear to us. And it does not.
Once in the year we want heaven to come to earth, just one day of the
365. We want everything and everyone
to love and to be loved. Just
once. And it can not.
Christmas is the time we ache for God, for the wonder and the glory
and the love and the beauty that we know is out there, somewhere. More often than not, we are disappointed,
disillusioned, disgraced. Heaven does
not come to earth. The world is still
a place of scarcity, of hunger, of violence, of anger, of disease, of
death. We can not escape from it, not
even for a day.
The great promise of Christmas is that in the midst of the messiness
of our lives, Jesus is born. God did
not wait for the perfect place, or the perfect woman, or the perfect
time. God came to a world that looked
very much as it does now. Jesus was
born, not in wonder and glory and love and beauty, but in poverty and dirt
and hunger and uncertainty. God came
to be born in our world just as it is, not as it might be. The miracle of Christmas is that, in the
middle of life, God is born to us and within us. Not because it’s all prettied up, but precisely because it is
not.
We still ache for God, and we ache for the new heaven and the new
earth that is promised. For now, we
will settle for just a morsel, just a glimpse, just a note of the angel’s
song. Christmas
Blessings, Pastor Judy The Pastor's Canvas- November 2003
Where Does
Evil Come From?
The question always comes up in
confirmation class: “Where does evil come from?” We know there is evil in the world. What we don’t understand is
how it got here. If God looked at the
world after creation and said, “it is very good,” how did all this evil get
here? We usually look to Genesis 3 –
the temptation story. There is the
forbidden fruit, there is the snake, and there is human choice. When things fall apart in that story –
when Eve and Adam eat the forbidden fruit and God tells these two that their
future will now include pain, struggle, suffering, and death, we see the
beginning of evil. The
temptation is always to blame someone for the problem. Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the snake, and
they both hold God responsible for having put these agents of temptation in
their lives. And we may ask, why did
God set things up so that the temptation happened? Why did God put fruit in the garden that the people were not
suppose to eat? Why did God make the
snake who, according to Genesis, “was more crafty than any other wild animal
that the Lord God had made”? And why
did God give these humans a choice in this matter? I believe
the answer to these questions, and also the big question of why there is
evil, is quite simple. God loves us –
God loves the human race, and God loves each and every member of the human
race. God also loves all creation,
but in human beings God has created a creature who is capable of loving God
in return. Perhaps all creation can
do this, but humans seem to have something of a choice in this matter. The thing about love is that it has to be
given freely. You can’t force someone
to love you; and if you could (God, theoretically, could make us so that we
had no choice but to love God), it wouldn’t truly be love. In order for it to be love, it has to be
given freely. Thus the need for the
choice, thus the forbidden fruit, and thus the agent of temptation. So, does
this explain evil? Does it explain
Hitler and the holocaust? Does it explain 9/11? Does it explain world hunger?
Does it explain institutions like slavery? I believe
there are all sorts of spiritual powers at work in the world; some are good
and some are evil. By spiritual, I
mostly mean energy – a force that energizes people to take action. We know that School Spirit can deliver
energy to a team and help them win a game.
If a team doesn’t have support beyond itself, it’s really hard for
them to gather the energy they need to win.
That same kind of energy can work negatively to give people the
encouragement they need to put down others, hold grudges of one sort or
another, or develop prejudices against groups of people. As we participate, both individually and
collectively, with such energies, we give those energies, or spiritual
powers, more strength to draw more people into that circle of energy. I find it
much more helpful to think of spiritual evil in these terms, rather than to
regard it as some kind of supernatural being. Evil is real, and it expands whenever we choose to let evil
energy control our actions. But God
is always there, and the choice is always there for us to choose good rather
than go along with the evil energies that work against us. What’s really hard, however, is discerning
the spirits. The choices are not
always clear, and we can’t always see where the choices we make will
eventually lead. The good news in this
is that God never stops loving us. We
get trapped by evil energies, but Jesus, by loving us so much, has somehow
freed us, so that through him we can truly love God, as we were made to do. Yours in Christ, Pastor LorenThe Pastor's Canvas- October 2003
“President Bush asked for $87 billion more to pay for the
American occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. ($75 billion has already been
approved.) News reports already reveal the comparative costs and
"sacrifices" of this enormous expenditure: The entire proposed
fiscal-year budget for the Department of Health and Human Services is $66
billion; for the Department of Education, $53 billion. The total amount for
all 50 states to meet their projected budget shortfalls this year is $78
billion.” (Sojourners,
Sept. 11, 2003) ‘Among the
industrialized nations, the United States ranks: 1st in
military technology 1st in
military exports 1st in Gross
Domestic Product 1st in number
of millionaires and billionaires 1st in
health technology 1st in
defense spending 12th in
living standards among our poorest 1/5 of children 13th in the
gap between rich and poor citizens 14th in
efforts to lift children out of poverty 17th in
percentage of children in poverty 19th in
low-birth weight rates 23rd in
infant mortality last in
protecting children against gun violence” (Children’s
Defense Fund) “The health
of a society can be measured by the health of its children.” (Pastor
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Germany, 1939) “So, how are the children?” is one way
African people greet one another on the street. The idea is that if the children are well, then the family, the
village, the country, the world are also well. The figures on the left indicate that American children are not
well, and that our society is also not well.
The tax cuts which the White House
proposed and which Congress passed this spring are starving our
children, keeping them ignorant, and depriving them of health care. Of the billions of dollars the government won’t
be collecting, over 1/2 of it will benefit those making over $1,491,00. The cost of the tax cuts equals the money
spent on the war in Afghanistan, plus the war in Iraq, plus the creation of
the Department of Homeland Security, plus the rebuilding costs of the Sept.
11 attacks TIMES THREE.
It is very clear who is making the sacrifices for this war - American
children. “God has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8) On Sunday, Oct. 19 we will celebrate
“Children Sabbath,” a day to celebrate children and to raise up children’s
concerns in our congregations. The
Children’s Defense Fund has put together lots of materials, many which we
will be using, called “Providing what God Requires and Children Need: Justice, Kindness, and Faith.” Pay special attention to issues concerning
children - education, health care, housing, nutrition. Every child is OUR child, and the health
of children reflects the health of our society. Children aren’t just our future, they are our present. Not only faith but simple common sense
dictates that we put our best effort into seeing that every child has what
they need to grow up with a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe
start, and a moral start. We must be
sure we are leaving no child behind! Yours in Christ, Pastor Judy
The Pastor's Canvas- September 2003
Will the
ELCA be Divided in 2005?
The ELCA Churchwide assembly met in Milwaukee in August. It was a fairly quiet gathering, though it did endorse a social statement on healthcare, which may have some impact on the government policies for which our church advocates in the state and federal political area. But we did not deal with the kind of issues that captured the attention of the news media when the Episcopal Church met in their assembly in Minneapolis about the same time. The
Episcopal Church was tackling questions regarding Homosexuality. Their assembly confirmed the ordination of
an openly gay Bishop. They also made
provisions for their priests to conduct blessing ceremonies for Gay and
Lesbian couples, through they did not add such a Blessing Service to the
Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.
You may have heard news of some of this as it was happening, because
when churches deals with issues like this, it makes a lot more news than when
a church pledges a commitment to work to insure the availability of health
care to vulnerable people. In two
years, however, the ELCA will be the church that gets the big news coverage.
That’s because in 2005 the ELCA churchwide assembly will be dealing with
issues of homosexuality. Two items
were placed on the 2005 Assembly agenda from the ELCA Assembly back
2001. One is the question of whether
or not to ordain non-celibate Gay and Lesbian persons as pastors in the
ELCA. The other is whether ELCA
clergy can officiate at Blessing Ceremonies for Gay and Lesbian couples. These issues are with us today, and it seems that every mainline denomination is struggling with them. I know that people have strong feelings about these issues, but that people in our churches find themselves in very different places. I’ve had two opportunities to participate in small group conversations about these issues in our Synod. One was with members of our Synod Assembly in Brainerd in May of this year, the other, with pastors in our synod at a meeting in January 2002. In both of these small group conversations, I was struck by the diversity of feelings and opinions. There were those in both groups who did not think they could be a part of a church body that allowed for the ordination of homosexuals, and those who did not think they could be a part of a church that refused such ordinations. Most in both groups were somewhere in between, struggling with issues of law and gospel and trying to figure out where Jesus would lead us on this issue. When I have engaged in these conversations, I wonder if it is
at all possible for the ELCA remain mostly together after 2005. I fear that our church will split or
shatter, and I fear that congregations may also end up divided over this
issue. Some find the biblical
passages that condemn homosexuality a clear mandate for the church to set
policies that make it clear that homosexuality is unacceptable within the
church. Others, especially those with
friends or relations who have struggled hard to come to terms with their own
homosexuality, tend to believe that Jesus would have only arms of welcome for
such people. Though we would rather
not do so, we need to talk together about this issue before the decision of
the 2005 churchwide assembly takes us by surprise. What I fear most is
that this issue will keep us from being the church of Jesus Christ. That we will be so caught up in our
disagreements, that we will lose sight of our mission to reach out with the
gospel of God’s love, to work for justice and peace in God’s world, and to
serve the needs of those around us. Your Brother in Christ Pastor Loren |
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