Reflections on the Passing of the Peace

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” –1 Corinthians 1:3

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” –Philippians 4:7

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” –John 14:27

Peace is talked about many times in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.  Practically every writer of Scripture has something to say on the subject.  Every Sunday we wish peace for one another in worship.  What is it about peace that makes it such an integral part of our worship, our faith, and our lives?

Peace is a way of seeing the world, a way in which our faith in God helps us stay calm in a turbulent world. When God is present with us and in us, when we put our trust in God, we know that we are in God’s hands and don’t need to spend our time worrying about what to do or what will happen.  We know that we belong to God, and he will take care of us.  This inner peace is ours no matter what happens in the world around us; it is a gift from God, and beyond our understanding or ability to explain.  It is something we deny ourselves too often, when we shove our faith into a box marked “only for Sundays” and try to seek fulfillment in endless busyness instead of in God.  It is something we ignore when we focus on our fears and anxieties instead of on God’s promise of love and forgiveness.

Peace is also a way of relating to others, a way of treating others with love and justice.  It happens when we act with Christ-centered hospitality and respect, when we air disagreements honestly and openly with charity and compassion instead of storing up grudges and disagreements and bitterness.  It can take hard work to practice peace in the midst of conflict, but it can also bring great rewards of growth and harmony.

When we wish each other the peace of the Lord each Sunday, as Christ wished it to us and as Paul wished it to his congregations in every letter, we’re not just mouthing pious good wishes.  We are affirming that God is truly present in us and in the congregation, that his presence brings that peace that surpasses all human understanding.  We are reminding one another that God’s peace isn’t just some abstract pie-in-the-sky proposition, but a present reality with us here, now, in this place.  And we are promising that we will reflect that peace in our lives together in Christ.

God’s work, our hands

Today I had the privilege of listening to John Nunes, head of Lutheran World Relief, speak and preach in church.  One of the things he said was that historically, Lutheran World Relief and other Lutheran charities have not had to advertise themselves–Lutherans gave regularly, as congregations and as individuals, and so money that other organizations had to spend on marketing and fundraising, LWR could commit directly to projects.  That’s changing, and so Lutheran World Relief has just had to hire their first director of marketing.  And it seems to me that part of the problem is that we as Lutherans haven’t been good at spreading the word about all the good things we do.  As children of God, we are called not only to spread the Good News, but to be what Luther called “little Christs” to our neighbor, spreading the love of God through tangible means of food, shelter, healing, companionship.  We give and we work, not to earn God’s grace, but to share the love God has given us.  Here are some of the ways we as Lutherans do this:

Lutheran World Relief works in 35 countries throughout the world.  They seek lasting solutions to poverty and injustice in some of the poorest places in the world.  While they do disaster relief, their focus is on building communities and helping people raise themselves out of poverty so that when disasters strike, be they natural or manmade, the people can take care of themselves and are less dependent on the charity of others.  They work with and through local people and organizations, creating sustainable growth and working towards peace and justice.  And they do all that while staying financially stable in today’s economy, and while spending less than ten cents of every dollar on administration (which is an incredible ratio–a lot of charities are good if they get less then twenty cents per dollar for administration).  LWR’s projects include collecting and distributing quilts, health kits, clothing, etc, made by American Lutheran congregations, Fair Trade coffee, chocolate, and gifts (perfect for this holiday season!), disaster relief, and working with people in poor,  rural communities to figure out what they need and find a sustainable way to get it.

Lutheran Services in America is the largest social service organization in America.  It’s larger than Catholic charities, larger than the Red Cross, larger than the Salvation Army.  It’s an alliance of over 300 Lutheran health and human service organizations. Working neighbor to neighbor through services in health care, aging and disability supports, community development, housing, and child and family strengthening, these organizations together touch the lives of one in 50 Americans each year and have aggregated annual incomes over $16.6 billion.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.  For over 70 years, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has led a ministry of welcome to some of America’s most vulnerable newcomers.  They help people seeking safety from persecution in their home countries and reunite families torn apart by conflict. They resettle refugees. They protect vulnerable children who arrive alone in the United States. They advocate for compassion and justice for all migrants.

Lutheran Disaster Response works with local people and volunteers to rebuild lives and communities, both in the initial aftermath of a disaster and in the years of rebuilding that long-term recovery requires.

Through these and other organizations, Lutherans do great work in the world.  I encourage you to give as you are able, of your money, time, and talents.  And spread the news about what we do!

The Light of Christ

Hello all!  It’s been a while since I posted, for which I apologize; personal struggles have gotten between me and my blog.

Last Saturday night, I participated in an Easter Vigil service at my home congregation.  For those of you who don’t know, the Easter Vigil is a worship service that takes place the night before Easter, celebrating all of God’s creative and redeeming activity from the creation of the world through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Since it takes place after dark, by the Jewish calendar which Christ and the early disciples used it’s already Easter.  Although it will not be announced to the world until morning, Jesus Christ is risen and the tomb is  empty.

Easter Vigil starts off with a fire, outside.  The Paschal/Christ Candle for the coming year is lit from the flame and the pastor holds it up, chanting “The Light of Christ!”  The congregation responds “The Light of Christ!”  Each holds a candle.  The Christ Candle lights a few, and those light the flames of others in turn.  As the flame is passed from person to person, the one giving the flame says “The light of Christ!” and the one receiving the flame says “Thanks be to God!”

The congregation then processes to the church and inside.  Now, this year there was a bit of a wind that night, and so peoples’ candles kept blowing out.  But every time a candle blew out, the person next to them gave them a new flame.  “The Light of Christ!”  “Thanks be to God!”

It struck me that this is a metaphor for the Christian life.  We don’t create our own fire, our own light, our own faith.  It is given as a gift from God, often through the care and attention of those around us–parents, friends, mentors.  Christian means “little Christ.”  As part of our Christian lives we are called to be “little Christs” to our neighbors.  As we have been given light, so we are to share that light with all around us.  So far, everything seems great, right?  But as wonderful as it is to have the light of Christ in us, to be light for the world, we can’t sustain that light on our own.  The trials of life sometimes blow it out.  But through God’s grace, those around us can share their light with us, and help rekindle the flame of faith within us.  As we are called to be “little Christs” to them, so they are called to be “little Christs” to us.  This is most certainly true within the community of faith, but also outside of it.  Many times, it is the ones outside our communities of faith that are most in need of Christ’s light.  And many times, the light of Christ comes to us from people and places that we least expect.

Now, I realize that the world is a broken, sinful place, and because of that sin Christ’s light doesn’t always seem to work like that.  Sometimes, there isn’t anyone around when we need help the most.  (Sometimes, the ones around us who should be the ones to help kindle that flame are the very ones causing the winds that blow it out.)  But for the most part, it works pretty well.  It’s one of the reasons that we have congregations and other communities of faith, why participating in the faith life of a group of fellow believers is so important.  So that when you feel the light of Christ in you and around you is dimming or has gone out, you already know who you can go to for spiritual renewal and support.  We form communities so that you can be renewed by Christ working through those around us, and when others need help we can be a “little Christ” to our neighbors in turn.

Being the Body of Christ

I’ve talked before about the importance of sacraments and why we come together to experience and celebrate them, and also about why we take the time to worship God.  I think today is a good time to talk about another reason why coming together as a community of believers is important.  We are all members of the body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:14-31.  Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰As it is, there are many members, yet one body. ²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ ²²On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; ²⁴whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, ²⁵that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.

27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. ²⁸And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. ²⁹Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

We in the modern world tend to put all the emphasis on the importance of the individual, rather than the group.  As a result, much of our spirituality is aimed at the individual.  Yet when our spiritual experiences are individually-focused, we miss something.  Each of us has been given talents and gifts by God.  No one person has it all; therefore we must work together for the fullness of God’s gifts to be known.  Paul uses the metaphor of the body of Christ to express this: just as a body needs hands, ears, eyes, and many other organs and parts to work together, so we need other people with other gifts to work together.

Humans were created to be social creatures, working together in mutual love and support, from the very beginning.  Adam and Eve were created as partners; Adam by himself would have been lonely and incomplete, and I believe that Eve by herself would have been as well.  I do not mean to say that humans must be married to be fulfilled, but that we were created to need relationships.  Whether those are the relationships of spouses, friends, family, colleagues, we need others both for companionship and encouragement and help in times of trouble.  And as we are supported in our time of need, so we support others in their crises.  But such connections don’t happen by accident.  They must be carefully nurtured and sought out.

Church is not the only place such relationships can be found.  But it is the best place to find a Christian community.  Now, I’m not being unrealistic here.  I know there are many churches who fall far short of this ideal, where the body of Christ is torn by disagreements, faction, and cliques.  Christians, like all other people, are flawed and sinful.  But we are still called to community, to trust in God’s grace, to forgive others as we hope to be forgiven, to share our gifts for the enrichment of all, and to support one another in times of need.  It is not always easy, and it is not always fun.  In fact, it’s frequently hard work.  But it can bring joy and comfort, and a renewed sense of faith as we learn to truly be the body of Christ in reality as well as in theory.

Mary and Martha: what really matters

Luke 10:38 – 11:1 ³⁸ Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ³⁹ She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” ⁴¹ But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; ⁴² there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

I’m sure you’re all familiar with this Bible story. Jesus comes to teach, and one sister stays to listen while the other sister takes care of the hospitality. The sister who works is jealous of the sister who doesn’t, and tries to get Jesus to come in on her side and make her sister help. This passage has been used many times over the centuries to argue that study and contemplation are holier and more worthy than working; more troublingly, this passage has been used to dismiss the contributions women make to the church and to society at large. After all, the argument goes, the traditional main role of women is to support and care for people—just as Martha says—and Jesus says that the role of religious study and contemplation is more worthy.

But let’s take a closer look at this passage. Jesus does not condemn Martha’s actions, but the way in which she carries them out. Martha is worried and distracted by many things. Martha is more worried about the work to be done than she is in why it needs to be done.

Let’s be realistic. There’s a lot of support work out there that needs to be done, whether it falls under the realm of “women’s work” or not. No church, family, or community can long survive without it. But all too often, when we do the support work that everything else depends on, we get so caught up in the details that we forget why we’re doing it. We can’t see the forest for the trees. We get worried and distracted by many things, just like Martha.  Here in the church office, it’s easy to get so caught up in finding a new coordinator for the food pantry, dealing with building renovations, scheduling visits with shut-ins, and such, that we forget why we as Christians need food pantries, buildings and people who can’t come to church.

We need to remember that the details that distract us are not the big picture. No matter how important they may be to daily life, they are not the ultimate goal of life. As Christians, our focus is in the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are freed from sin and death to become children of God, and are called to spread the Good News of God’s redeeming love to all the world. When life’s distractions get overwhelming and we find ourselves worried by many things and many responsibilities, we need to take a page out of Mary’s book and take the time to remember what our true center and focus is.  We run food pantries because of God’s saving call for justice and healing for all including (especially!) the poor.  We need buildings to provide a base for our worship of God and our spread of the Gospel.  We need to care for shut-ins because they are still our brothers and sisters in Christ, members of the body of Christ.  What distractions do you have in your life?  How do they keep you from remembering the “big picture”?

If you have any questions about God, Christianity, or the Christian faith, please comment and I will address them next week.

Justice and love, not -isms: how Christians should think about money

Once a week, I go to a pastor’s Bible study where we look at the texts assigned in the lectionary for the coming Sunday. (A lectionary is a yearly cycle of readings used in worship, designed to ensure that a wide variety of texts are heard each week; Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, many Methodists and Presbyterians, and others around the world use the three-year Revised Common Lectionary.)

This Sunday’s gospel text is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, in which the kingdom of heaven is compared to a vineyard where all the laborers are paid the same amount, whether they worked all day or came late, and the laborers who worked the longest complain about the unfairness of the wage scale. Because by human logic, it is unfair—and we like unfairness when it’s in our favor, but complain and get jealous when it’s in someone else’s favor. God’s grace is incredibly unfair—no one can earn salvation, no one is good enough to be saved on their own merit. We benefit from God’s grace, and then complain when the same benefits go to those less worthy than ourselves, as if we earned them and they didn’t.

This group of pastors discussed God’s grace for a few minutes, and then started dealing with the economic implications of the parable. How does God want us to organize our money? How does capitalism compare with this parable? How does socialism compare with this parable? How would market forces be affected if we were to live according to this parable?

As I listened to them talk, I realized the questions were good questions, but shared the same underlying flaw: they assumed that God’s “economy,” God’s views of money, fit within our own systems of how we understand and deal with money. Everyone likes to assume that God agrees with them; it’s comforting, and means you don’t have to rethink your opinions. (Oh, we say we agree with God, but often what we really mean is that God agrees with us, particularly if we haven’t approached our faith and our Bible studies with an open mind and heart.) But God is greater and deeper than we can understand, and can never fit neatly within our prejudices. God is neither a capitalist, nor a socialist, nor any other –ist.

So what’s this got to do with the economy, you ask? During the history of Christianity, various groups have tried for a time to live lives perfectly fitting God’s will; the Biblical example is in Acts, where the first believers held all things in common and shared with all as each needed. But humans being sinful creatures, no such attempt has lasted long before greed, jealousy, and laziness have interfered. That’s why we have human-designed economic systems such as capitalism and socialism and others today.

The thing is, God’s primary concern isn’t money, except how justice and love are affected by it. When you think about money, ask yourself these questions: am I using my money justly? Am I using it to support systems that are just or unjust? Am I using all the resources God has given me (money included) for just causes and out of love for my fellow human beings, or am I using it selfishly, for myself alone? What can I do with what I have to further spread love and justice in the world?

Treasure in clay jars: Baptism and Communion

I talked last week about the fellowship of believers and the body of Christ. Important as it is, however, this fellowship is not the only reason for attending worship services.

God is present in many things every day, great and small. Some we may find easy to attribute to God—the beauty of forest, the grandeur of a mountain, the love of those around us. Some escape our notice—the little grace notes that lighten our day. A stranger’s smile, a break in the clouds, a chance remark that sparks an idea. All are examples of God present in our lives, in both good times and bad. It’s important to notice these things, but so often we get caught up in our busy lives and forget to pay attention, or credit them instead to our own skill and luck. God’s presence can be so intangible, so easily ignored, that we need something concrete and physical to demonstrate it, something we can see, hear, touch, smell, taste, and know God is present in it.

In the Lutheran understanding, a “sacrament” is the combination of the Word of God with a visible sign (something we can see and touch), as ordered by Christ. We recognize two sacraments, Baptism and Communion. Jesus commanded us to do both of the sacraments as signs of his presence with us. God takes every-day, ordinary things (water, oil, wine, bread) and makes them into extraordinary signs of God’s love and grace.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20.)

In our baptisms we are initiated into the Christian life as disciples and members of the fellowship of believers. We are “sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” This is not fire insurance for Christians; it is not a “get out of Hell free card.” Baptism is God reaching out to us and promising us that God will always be there for us, claiming and reclaiming God’s identity as Emmanuel. There’s a reason baptism is traditionally done during the worship service, and there’s a reason that the congregation makes promises of support and solidarity with the person being baptized. God’s presence sometimes manifests itself through the companionship of our fellow members of the body of Christ, so it’s important that our fellow members are there when God promises to be with us. But beyond that, the baptism of each new member, child or adult, is a reminder that God has claimed us as God’s own through our own baptisms. It’s a reminder that baptism is not a once-in-a-lifetime event, but the beginning of an ongoing life of dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ Jesus our Lord. It’s also a reminder that Christ is present with us, not in theory but in fact. God’s presence is as real and tangible as the water and the oil.

“While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:26-28).

There’s been a lot of debate over these words over the centuries. Some say they’re meant to be symbolic, some have argued for arcane philosophical justifications for the turning of bread into flesh and wine into blood, some have other ideas. But the important thing is that Christ is promising to be truly present in the bread and the wine. Whatever you think it is, Christ is present in it. In this bread and wine, God’s covenant—God’s promised relationship with us—is made into a form we can feel and taste. God’s promise to forgive our sins, renew us, and make us whole is real even when we’re so overwhelmed with life that we can’t see it any other way.

This is why going to church is important. God is present in many ways every day, whether we go to church or not. But it’s only in worship with our fellow believers that we receive these two sacraments, these two physical assurances of God’s grace.

If you have any questions about this or any questions you would like interested in next week’s entry, please comment.

I don’t believe in “the church”: Faith and Fellowship

There are a lot of people today who consider themselves Christian, but never go to church. Ask them why, and you’re likely to get some variation on “I believe in God, but I don’t believe in the church.” My response is, it’s good that you don’t “believe in” the church. As Christians, we believe in the one God; “believing in” anything else in the same way would be idolatry. However, when you say “I don’t need the church,” I get concerned. The church was given by God to us as a help us in good times and bad.

While it is possible to worship God alone, God prefers us to worship together as a community. In Matthew 18:23, Jesus says specifically “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Jesus did not travel alone; he gathered people together throughout his ministry in mutual love and support. While he occasionally prayed alone, he never went to the Temple or otherwise worshiped God by himself.

Paul, likewise, was very concerned with the church, the “ekklesia,” the gathering of the community for worship and fellowship. For Paul, one of the most important features of Christian life was that it was communal—the fellowship/partnership/full participation of all was extremely important to him. Paul called the gathering of the faithful the body of Christ, saying that no part of the body was complete without all the other parts, and that no part of the body was more important than any of the other parts. (Romans 12:4-5, 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, etc.)

For both Jesus and Paul, the important part about the church was not the formal institutional structure. The important part was the community, the people gathered together in common cause, with mutual love and support. The community was to build each other up in love and faithfulness, to offer support and consolation in times of trouble. Anything that threatened that communion was to be dealt with, in love and forgiveness.

The church is not an institution or a building. The church is fundamentally a fellowship of people. That fellowship can nurture you spiritually when you are feeling spiritually “dry.” That fellowship can challenge you and open you up to new ways of thinking about and experiencing God in your life that you would not have found on your own, and it can comfort you with old truths of faith in a world where everything seems to be changing. That fellowship can comfort and console you in times of trouble, and it can help you learn to care for others in their own times of need. It is not a thing to be “believed in,” but it is a gift to be used and a help in our journeys as Christians.

It’s true that the church is made up of fallible, sinful human beings, and often falls short of the community to which God calls us, sometimes with tragic results. But that community of faith, imperfect as it is, is still important. You may decide you best fit in a different congregation, a different community of faith, than the one you grew up in. You may decide the worship styles of the church you grew up in don’t feed you, spiritually, as much as that of another congregation; that’s okay, too, because not everyone responds to the same way to the same worship styles. Which congregation you choose, which denomination, is ultimately not all that important; the important thing is participation in the body of Christ. The same Lord is Lord of all.

Next week I’ll talk about the importance of the sacraments in the community of faith.