e-vo for Pentecost

Dearest e-votees,

Today is the day of Pentecost (the 50th day after Easter).  It is the day of the church year that we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the early church. 

The word for "spirit" in Hebrew (the language of the Old Testament) is ruach (roo-ach with a Germanic sounding ch). That word is also the word for wind or breath.  It was ruach that God breathed into the dust in the garden of Eden in the 2nd chapter of Genesis.  It was ruach that was prophesied into the newly enfleshed bones in the vision of Ezekiel in the 37th chapter.

The word for "spirit" in Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament) is pneuma (noo-mah).  Like the Hebrew the word can also mean wind or breath.  It is connected to our English words pneumatic and pneumonia.  It is the pneuma of God that Jesus breathed into the disciples who were cowering behind locked doors in the 20th chapter of John.  It is the pneuma of God that came to the early church in the 2nd chapter of Acts.

Blessings on your observance of Pentecost this year.

Peace,

Karl

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Worship planning and execution has shifted quite a bit during these times of COVID-19.  In the way we are doing things now worship has to be prepared in advance and recorded in its entirety.  This means that sometimes things change between when worship is completed and when it premieres on our Facebook page.  Generally this doesn't cause too much of a problem.  

The other challenge is that there are challenges and hiccups that occur because we are doing things in ways we haven't before.  I am on a steep technological learning curve and find all sorts of ways to louse things up--I'm nothing if not creative in that regard.  Fortunately the good saints of Messiah Lutheran are very gracious and forgiving.  Generally this also doesn't cause too much of a problem.  

This week both challenges conspired against me.  I was generating the worship service and was having problems with the musical prayer response (Dakota Road Music's "The Spirit Intercedes for Us").  I was trying to trigger that response after each prayer petition on our streamed worship.  Unforeseen complications ran interference which helped dislodge my focus on the prayers.  Not so helpful.

Secondly, the country has gone up in flames (literally and metaphorically) in response to the senseless killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the knees of the police.  It is fitting and good to be mindful of current events when bringing forth God's word (Karl Barth's idea of preaching with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other) and the prayers of God's people.  

We have resources that are prepared long in advance.  They are vulnerable to changing times and circumstances as well.  One of the prayer petitions prepared in advance was:  

We call on your spirit of life, present in air, wind, humidity, storms and oxygen in our atmosphere, breathing energy into all things.  Heal with your breath the whole creation, especially those who struggle to breathe due to air pollution.  Lord, in your mercy... Hear our prayer. 

after some time to reflect and without the pressure of a looming deadline and annoyance of technical glitches here is how I should have revised that petition for this day:  

We call on you spirit (ruach, pneuma) of life, present in air, wind, humidity, storms and oxygen in our atmosphere, breathing energy into all things and all peoples.  Heal with your breath (ruach, pneuma) the whole creation, especially those who struggle to breathe due to:

• air pollution and other environmental degradations
• 
  
• COVID-19 and other respiratory afflictions
• 
  
• knees of abusive authority figures crushing their windpipes

 Come Holy Spirit (ruach, pneuma)...
The spirit intercedes for us with sighs to deep for words to express.  Oh, oh, oh.

May your observances of Pentecost be blessed and life-giving.  May the spirit (ruach, pneuma) blow through you and your day with her life-giving whimsy.

Holy Spirit (ruach, wind) come.  Call, gather, enlighten and sanctify us to live and serve in ways that are pleasing to you and life-giving to us and to all.

e-vo for May 28

Dearest e-votees,

One of the texts that is assigned for this Sunday (Pentecost Sunday) is John 20:19-23.  The disciples are hunkered down behind a locked door barricading themselves against a fear-inducing world.  They are unsettled and anxious and Jesus comes in to strike up a conversation.  

Peace,

Karl

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The disciples are hiding.  They are afraid of what might happen in the aftermath of Easter.  They have locked themselves inside trying to put distance between themselves and the world.  They are anxious and ill at ease.

Jesus comes through the locked door.  (so much for Jesus merely standing at the door knocking waiting for someone to open the door to him--see Revelation 3:20).

Jesus comes in and offers them a word of peace.  He shows them his wounds as proof that it is really him and that he has truly risen from the dead.

He offers them another word of peace and says that as he has been sent from the Father so he is sending the disciples as well.  He is sending them out into the world that they had been cowering from.

Jesus not only offers peace but breathes into them the Holy Spirit.  With that equipping he says that they have the power to forgive and retain sins.  The implication, as I read it, is that they are going out into the hostile world and are to bear forgiveness.  They are to follow Jesus' example from the cross of praying for and offering forgiveness to those who have sought to harm them.

We are living in a world that can seem very threatening (not just COVID-19 but that too).  It is reasonable to have concern and maybe even fear going outside the safety of our homes and churches.  We might well want to lock ourselves in and stay as safe as possible.  Jesus knows us and understands our hesitations and our concerns.  He cares for us and loves us to the core.

Jesus says to us this day "Peace".  Jesus will help us come to faith in his resurrection and to receive the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Those words are for us to be sure.  But they are not for us alone.  We are called to bear that peace and the work of the Holy Spirit out into the world.

The gift of the Holy Spirit is alive and at well in us.  It brings us to faith.  It reminds us of all that Jesus has taught and stirs us to give compelling testimony.  It blows life into our fears, our shame and our existence.  We are made new and sent just as Jesus sent the disciples.

.

God, blow your Holy Spirit into us and through us.  Ground us in your peace and bless all the ways we can offer and share your peace and the work of the Holy Spirit in all our dealings with the world.  Calm our fears and be glorified in our lives.  Amen.

e-vo for May 22

Dearest e-votees,

May 21 (Thursday of this week) is Ascension Day.  It is forty days after Easter (counting the day of Easter just as Friday to Sunday is "on the third day" in how that part of the world counts).

The assigned texts for this day include Acts 1:1-11 where Jesus shows convincing proofs of his resurrection for 40 days and then ascends into heaven promising that they will be receive power when the Holy Spirit comes (unbeknownst to the apostles very quickly, in 10 days on Pentecost).

Peace,

Karl

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The Bible has a rather scant accounting of what took place during the 40 days between Easter and Ascension.  I would love to know what sorts of proofs Jesus shared.  I would love to be a fly on the wall and listen to the conversations and the teachings.  It would be good to watch the apostles come to a stronger faith, conviction and resolve during this time.  All of us could use some bolstering of our faith, our convictions and our resolve, right?  It seems that the writer to Theophilus (author of Luke and Acts) could have done a little more documentation here.  That would be my feedback were I give the first draft of Acts.

What we are given, however, is that the followers of Jesus while having faith and deep connections with Jesus were in need of an ongoing presence in their lives of the Holy Spirit.  That there was important work to be done.  That work could only best be done with the equipping of the Holy Spirit.  Luther talks about the work of the Holy Spirit this way in the explanation of the 3rd article of the Apostles Creed: "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith."

The Holy Spirit is a gift for the apostles, to be sure, but for all of us believers as well.  We are called, gathered, enlightened and sanctified.  May we rest and work, speak and listen and tend to our vocations and avocations in the sure and certain presence of the Holy Spirit.

God, help us find peace with the parts of the story that we don't have or can't understand.  Stir us with your Holy Spirit to a fuller more robust faith.  Stoke our faith, our convictions and our resolve--all to Your glory.  Amen.

e-vo for May 15

Dearest e-votees,

As a former science teacher, as a parent of 3 (including a currently 5 year old) and as a theologian I have found myself much more engaged by the questions rather than the answers.

Good teaching is more about asking than answering.  So is good parenting.  So is good preaching.

Peace,

Karl

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I have always been fond of Paul's message in Acts 17 to the Athenians at the Areopagus.  Paul is looking to find a way to preach Christ.  He looks around the city and finds an altar to an "UNKNOWN GOD" and begins to preach from there.

Essentially Paul finds a commemoration to the question "Have we missed any gods?" or "What other gods might there be?"  There are a lot of religions and religious expressions in this world.  Some folks take what they like from this place and from that place--kind of a spiritual buffet.  And some are at the buffet with their plate saying "I have a little more room on my plate I wonder if I missed anything."  Paul would say "Yes, you have got to try the Christianity.  It's to die for."  (okay, Paul probably wouldn't phrase it that way but would certainly share the sentiment)

The world and we are seeking.  What we have found on our own may not be sufficient.  But none of us (particularly our old Adams and old Eves) like hearing "You got it wrong--I'll tell you what you missed."  Even if the one sharing their wisdom is spot-on we resist the correction and despise the presumption.  What can be engaging is one who enters into the question with us.  That is what good teachers and parents and preachers do.

Some people see questions in themselves or others and see it as weakness or lack of faith or doubt.  This helps drive self-righteous, judgmental and hypocritical religious sorts.  This is what allows people to disparagingly tag Thomas as "Doubting Thomas".  But questions evidence engagement.  Questions evidence one being on the journey.  Questions evidence life.

Paul did well to suss out the questioning posture of the altar and to speak to it.  I wish Paul had lingered more in the question rather than jumped right to the answers in the back of the textbook but perhaps that is just a homiletical difference between Paul and me.

What questions are keeping your grey matter whirring?  What questions drive you to prayer?  What questions keep you engaged in your community of faith?  What questions keep you at an arm's length from some aspects of faith?

I would invite you to let Jesus engage you in those questions.  Jesus loves you.  Jesus loves you so much he might say "You see that one over there, made in God's image?  (S)he's to die for."  That is the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  And we are invited to follow after that Jesus.  Jesus says come and follow me, take up your cross.  In other words, this work that I am about needs you.  It is important work.  It's to die for.  Won't you come?

Dear God of questions and doubt and faith, engage us and help us to engage you.  Reveal yourself to us.  Stir us to put aside all other gods that we may know that we might be captivated by you--our UNKOWN GOD (or at least not fully known yet).  Amen.

e-vo for May 12

Dearest e-votees,

This Sunday one of our appointed lessons is 1 Peter 3:13-22.  It speaks of suffering.  It speaks of those who survived the flood in Genesis 6-9.  It makes a connection between the truths conveyed in the story of Noah and the flood and the truths and promises conveyed in baptism.  What might it say to us?

Peace,

Karl

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Many baptismal fonts are octagonal (8-sided). There are several explanations of this shape and its connection to baptism.  I will sketch out the first two briefly and look at the third in a little more depth:

Explanation 1:  
In the prologue of Genesis God creates the world in six days and then takes a day of rest--the Sabbath.  These seven days brought shape to the 7-day week and marked time from then on.  When Jesus came into the world he came to his death in one last Holy Week.  On Easter morning he came back to life in a way and a day unlike any that had preceded.  It was like an 8th day of the week (cue up the Beatles).  The 8-sided font represents our resurrection hope as an Easter people.

Explanation 2:  
In the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) Jesus sends the disciples into all the nations baptizing and teaching them.  Some see in this a compass rose.  The 8 points of the compass (N, E, S, W, NE, SE, SW, NW) represent going out into all the world with good news of the gospel.  The is part of the work into which we are baptized.  The 8-sided font represents the good news that is for all and we are charged to convey.

Explanation 3: 
In the flood account in Genesis (and referenced in 1 Peter) there are 8 who survived the flood.  The 8 were Noah (and his wife), Ham (and his wife), Shem (and his wife) and Japheth (and his wife).  The flood came as a result of widespread sin in the world.  The waters of the flood came as a judgment and a means of deliverance from the sin and its grip on the world.  1 Peter connects these 8 people who were saved in the flood with baptism.

In baptism there is a reckoning with our sinful nature.  We are all at our core sinful beings.  We don't always do what is right.  Even when we do what is right we don't always do it with the right motivations.  We push away from God's best intentions for us and for all of creation.  We grieve God and we grieve ourselves and we grieve others by what we do and what we left undone.  God has determined that there needs to be a reckoning with our old (unredeemed) Adam and our old (unredeemed) Eve.  There is a death and a drowning that needs to occur.  Baptism is a ritual drowning.

But God doesn't abandon us.  God does not leave the dead in the grave (that is our Easter hope).  God raises up our new (redeeemed, reborn, restored) Eve and our new (redeemed, reborn, restored) Adam.  There is new life and new hope and resurrection at work.  There is a saving work in the waters of baptism.

The 8-sided font represents the drowning and raising of our selves in the water of baptism.  We are a resurrection people.  We are alive and have begun eternal life.  Even though our bodies will die there is the sure and certain promise that God will not abandon us to the depths of drowning nor the painful and stifling isolation of our sin nor the darkness of the grave.  

Christ's work on the cross was done once and for all on the cross.  As 1 Peter 3:18 says:  "For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.  He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,"  Rest is the good news and saving work accomplished in the cross and applied to you in your baptism.

Dear Jesus, bring your 8-sided promises conveyed in baptism to bear on us this day and forever.  Amen.