Dining at Canlis

Dining at Canlis

Apr 28, 2023 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…

Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” Mark 10:43-44

One-time, one-time several years ago, Felicia and I had a special memory. We ate dinner at Canlis restaurant in Seattle. One-time only and it was amazing. To be honest, I don’t remember what I had for dinner, what appetizers or entrees I enjoyed. I only remember the company and the hospitality. We enjoyed dinner with friends and we were treated to extravagant hospitality.

From the moment we arrived in the parking lot we were engaged, welcomed, and cared for at every turn. Our car doors were opened; we walked in, as our car disappeared. The maitre d’ greeted us, took Felicia’s coat, and walked with us to our table, thanking us for coming and asking if we were celebrating a special occasion. Felicia’s chair was pulled back slightly, allowing her to gracefully take her spot at a perfectly prepared table.

The dinner lasted for hours, the conversation was lively, and the servers seemed to anticipate our every need. I ordered a glass of wine after seeking the advice of the sommelier. Later I asked him the name of wine that I was drinking, and when it was time to leave, he brought me a little Canlis bag that contained the wine label. We pushed back from the table and headed for the door. There was the maitre d’ holding Felicia’s coat in front of the fireplace, warming the inside for her comfort. Outside our car was idling.

A meal at Canlis is expensive, but for a special occasion it is worth every penny. The food was outstanding I am sure, but it was the hospitality that left a lasting impression.

Every Sunday morning people come to TLC. It takes a lot of nerve to come to a church for the first time. Visitors are a little nervous, apprehensive, unsure what their experience will be, wondering if worship will be user-friendly, hoping that they will be welcomed.

Every Sunday morning they come, most times they are new to Whidbey Island, but others come as a result of some unspeakable loss, or devastating diagnosis.

On Sunday morning we work at Canlis. We are the servants of Jesus, called by Jesus. We work here, we set the table, we make the cookies, we welcome the guests that Jesus invited. We have no say in the guest list. The greeters are the first line of welcome, offering a smile and a handshake. The ushers are the maitre d’s. They too welcome the guests, offer them the morning menu and a smile as they guide them to a comfortable seat.

Hospitality is our central calling. It is opening the door for the Gospel to be heard. If our visitors don’t see Jesus in us, then their hearts may be hardened, and they may not see Jesus in Karl’s songs or in the sermon.

I read an article by a pastor who took his family to Disneyland. On Sunday morning before going to the Magic Kingdom their family found a local Lutheran Church. He later compared the hospitality that they experienced at the church and at Disneyland. It was a reminder that hospitality lays the groundwork for the hearing of the Gospel.

Every Sunday morning, they come, the guests of Jesus. Every Sunday morning, we all work at Canlis. Your assignment that morning does not come from Lana or Robin, it comes from Jesus.

See you at Canlis/TLC.
Pastor Jim

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Do You Believe?

Do You Believe?

Apr 21, 2023 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…

Do you believe in God? Do you believe in gravity?

The oldest confession of faith is this; “In the beginning God created.” This a confession, nothing more. The story goes on to describe creation, but the details of this creation were not scientific in nature. The story was a faith story; it was never meant to be a part of a science textbook. It simply tells us, “who” created. It does not answer the question of “how.” If we use the book of Genesis as a literal description of creation, then we are being unfaithful to its original intent.

I was talking with a man last week; he said that his son was a scientist. His son believed in science, observation, theories that could be tested and ultimately proven. He did not believe in God. My response was quite simple saying, “It does not matter what he believes.” We do not have the power to change the truth, reality is not dependent upon our belief or denial. It is what it is.

Do you believe in God? Do you believe that this marvelous creation is nothing more than a cosmic accident, a billion years of synchronized, coincidental actions, the self-arrangement of elements from the periodic table? Can you look at a flower, a tree, the diverse birds of the air, or the inner workings of the human eye, and imagine that it all came about by chance? A Boeing engineer once said to me, “Believing that creation is just the coincidental coming together of material would be like throwing all the parts of a 737 in a field, and over a billion years it assembled itself into a plane that could take flight.”

In my view, it takes a lot more blind faith to believe that there is no higher intelligence than to believe that there is, in fact, a God. “In the beginning God created.” It is the oldest and most profound of human confessions.

I stand by that confession, and I am a firm believer in science. There is no need for religion and science to be in a contentious relationship. Anywhere we find truth, we have in fact found God. There is only one source of truth. The truth is not a threat to science or religion, rather it is a light that should inform the human journey.

Christianity is a mixture of truths, falsehoods, traditions, human constructs, and sometimes informed interpretations of scripture. We certainly do not have a corner on the market of truth. Time has proven both science and Christianity to be misguided and misinformed.

“My son is a scientist; he does not believe in God.” I suggested that the father would tell his son that he does not believe in gravity. Tell him that you refuse to believe in gravity and that you are going to jump out the window of the 10th floor of a building. It does not matter if we believe in gravity or God, the truth is not ours to change by our belief or denial.

God is a mystery. We see in a mirror dimly. God is beyond the grasp and comprehension of mere creatures, and that is what I am, a creature. I believe that God created; I believe that for three years humanity got a glimpse of God’s nature and intention. In Jesus, we have an infinitesimally small revelation of the Master of a universe that is so expansive that even science cannot imagine it.

A simple confession is all I need; “In the beginning God, in the end God, God described as love. Loved, forgiven and never alone.” That is enough, I can live and die with that.

One day closer,
Pastor Jim

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Sitting With Grief

Sitting With Grief

Apr 14, 2023 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…

“But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.” – John 20:11

I saw you there; sitting with a Kleenex in your hand, wiping the tears from your eyes. I saw you there, as a beautiful garden adorned the chancel, and the choir sang like angels, and fidgety children readied themselves for an Easter egg hunt. I saw you there; the sanctuary was filled, you were surrounded by people, and yet somehow alone.

The Christian world celebrated resurrection, but Easter seemed nebulous at best to you: sitting with grief, memories of bygone days failed to fill the void in your heart, salty tears moistened your cheeks.

I saw you there and I wanted to walk out, to walk out of the pulpit and sit with you: to pause the service, to stop speaking, to quiet the joyful noise, to grasp your shaking hand, to share the journey of grief with you. I see you. I see you each week, you attend every service; you are young or old, the one who walked with you is no more, your dreams lay wasted, your spirit is lonely, it was not supposed to be this way.

I see you each week. The faces rotate; the grief is not contagious, but it is unrelenting, it is an inescapable part of our humanity. Money offers us no protection; our faithfulness cannot overcome this fragile reality. Jesus wept, Mary wept, Judas wept with noose in hand. Peter was broken by his own betrayal. If we love, if we are loved, we weep.

I saw you there, sitting in grief. Sitting in grief as worshipers pass by, hiding their brokenness behind a saccharine smile which temporarily masks their insecurities. It is Easter; trembling humans celebrate a mystery beyond their comprehension. I saw you there, sitting in grief. I have been in that chair, I have cried those tears; I have no illusion of safety, I know that I will return to that place. Seasons of grief change us; seasons of grief give us pause and offer us perspective. We are never promised a life without tears; we are simply encouraged to hold on, to cling to hope, believing that someday seasons of grief will step aside and joy, though altered or muted, will visit us again.

I saw you there, I wanted to stop the parade, but I couldn’t. May God give you peace, and may our community sit with you in your grief.

I am one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

Love,
Pastor Jim

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Dark & Quiet

Dark & Quiet

Apr 7, 2023 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…

Spring is in the air. The magnolias are blooming at Augusta National; the Mariners are playing baseball, recreational boaters are getting ready to raise the sails, and the days are getting longer and warmer.

Tomorrow we will wake to Easter, to egg hunts, breakfast, choir anthems, and the celebration that sets Christianity apart from all other religions. Spring is in the air.

This day, this Saturday, is a dark and quiet day. The Biblical story goes dark and silent. The violent horror of Good Friday has passed, the threat of this revolutionary country rabbi seems to have been extinguished. His body was hastily prepared for burial and encased inside the rock foundations of the earth.

This day is dark and quiet. There were only a few followers of Jesus left, eleven terrified disciples and a cohort of grief-stricken women. The followers of Jesus are in hiding. Fear ruled their lives, their hopes and dreams were buried with their master; there may very well have been crosses waiting for them.

This day, this Saturday, is a dark and quiet day.

Sometimes our lives become very dark and quiet. Uncertainty plagues us, fear stalks us, shame mocks us, and we find ourselves hiding. Dark and quiet.

The darkness threatens to suffocate us; the quiet is deafening.

This day, this Saturday, plays out for all of us; no one escapes this Saturday. The message of this Saturday is clear — hold on.

Hold on in the darkness; wait for the morning light. Hold on in the silence. The anthems of good news will greet us again if we can only hold on.

Twelve disciples wept. Twelve disciples were grief-stricken and crestfallen by their betrayal. All of life had turned in a moment, a lonesome rooster crowed, “it echoed through the canyons like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.”

Twelve disciples wept from the darkness of a common human experience. Eleven would hold on through the night and experience the joy of Easter. One could not find enough hope to see that the darkness always gives way to light.

This day, this Saturday, is a dark and quiet day. Hold on and I will see you at sunrise. Easter will soon break into a fallen world and we will rejoice again.

Pastor Jim

It is with a heavy heart that we grieve the deaths this week of three of our beloved Trinity members…
Tom Nack, Lisa Bjork & Mollie Lile. Hold on; death will not have the last word.

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Quiet & Dark

Today’s Word from Pastor Jim

Spring is in the air. The magnolias are blooming at Augusta National; the Mariners are playing baseball, recreational boaters are getting ready to raise the sails, and the days are getting longer and warmer.

Tomorrow we will wake to Easter, to egg hunts, breakfast, choir anthems, and the celebration that sets Christianity apart from all other religions. Spring is in the air.

This day, this Saturday, is a dark and quiet day. The Biblical story goes dark and silent. The violent horror of Good Friday has passed, the threat of this revolutionary country rabbi seems to have been extinguished. His body was hastily prepared for burial and encased inside the rock foundations of the earth.

This day is dark and quiet. There were only a few followers of Jesus left, eleven terrified disciples and a cohort of grief-stricken women. The followers of Jesus are in hiding. Fear ruled their lives, their hopes and dreams were buried with their master; there may very well have been crosses waiting for them.

This day, this Saturday, is a dark and quiet day.

Sometimes our lives become very dark and quiet. Uncertainty plagues us, fear stalks us, shame mocks us, and we find ourselves hiding. Dark and quiet.

The darkness threatens to suffocate us; the quiet is deafening.

This day, this Saturday, plays out for all of us; no one escapes this Saturday. The message of this Saturday is clear — hold on.

Hold on in the darkness; wait for the morning light. Hold on in the silence. The anthems of good news will greet us again if we can only hold on.

Twelve disciples wept. Twelve disciples were grief-stricken and crestfallen by their betrayal. All of life had turned in a moment, a lonesome rooster crowed, “it echoed through the canyons like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.”

Twelve disciples wept from the darkness of a common human experience. Eleven would hold on through the night and experience the joy of Easter. One could not find enough hope to see that the darkness always gives way to light.

This day, this Saturday, is a dark and quiet day. Hold on and I will see you at sunrise. Easter will soon break into a fallen world and we will rejoice again.

Pastor Jim

It is with a heavy heart that we grieve the deaths this week of three of our beloved Trinity members…
Tom Nack, Lisa Bjork & Mollie Lile. Hold on; death will not have the last word.

[email protected]
The Movement of God

The Movement of God

Mar 31, 2023 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…

Tomorrow we descend the Mount of Olives in a parade of palms, as Jesus enters the Holy City of Jerusalem for the last time.

There were thousands along the pilgrim path that day, peasants from small villages, and religious zealots with an appetite for revolution. They had traveled days or weeks to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. Most had heard of, but never seen, the Rabbi and miracle worker from the Galilee named Jesus.

The clip-clop of the donkey’s hooves was drowned out by the shouts of the hopeful parade goers. “Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna to the Son of David.” As they raised their palms in anticipation, there were many who would have risked a Roman sword if Jesus had given the word.

The actual followers of Jesus were small in number; the disciples, women from the Galilee, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Three years after the movement began there were perhaps twenty people who accompanied Jesus on the Palm Sunday parade 2,000 years ago. Five days later Jesus would be on a cross, executed as a criminal. One disciple would be dead, the rest were hiding out and afraid of their shadows believing, for good reason, that a cross might be waiting for them.

On Good Friday, the Jesus movement was without movement. It was dark, hopeless, everything worth living for was dying on that cross. It seemed that violence, greed, betrayal, and now death, would have the last word in the human story. The adoring crowds were gone. The only one of the twelve to stay around until the end was the Beloved Disciple, John. “Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” The criminal Jesus had been executed, four women and one man remained by his side. There was no movement, there was no leader, no money, no educated clergy, no churches or Sunday Schools, no real reason for hope.

Is there any plausible explanation for the years that followed? How is it that the entire world was changed by Jesus? How is it that this hopeless, illegal, persecuted movement would touch every corner of the Roman Empire, and ultimately every corner of the world? On Good Friday there were four heartbroken women and one man following Jesus. 120 years later there would be 40,000 Christians… by the year AD 200 there were 250,000 Christians… by the year AD 250 there were over a million followers of Jesus.

In the year AD 313 the Edict of Milan, also known as the Edict of Toleration, declared for the first time that Christianity would be tolerated along with other religious movements. After nearly 300 years of persecution, three hundred years after Jesus had been crucified, Christianity was no longer illegal. Eight short years later, in 321, by order of the Emperor Constantine, the Empire that had executed Jesus would embrace his teachings, and Christianity would become the official religion of Rome.

From a Palm Sunday parade to the despair of Good Friday, to a small church in Freeland 2,000 years later, it is impossible to explain it absent the movement of God.

God is mysterious, mostly unknown to us, hidden in the pages of history, and in the story of our lives. God is bigger than any religion, denomination, or movement, but God is working, God is present, God is loving and faithful.

May our lives be lived joyfully and generously as a response to God’s abundant grace.

One day closer,
Pastor Jim

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Donkeys, Palms, Love, Passion…

Donkeys, Palms, Love, Passion…

Mar 29, 2023 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Karl Olsen…

They didn’t know what was next. But the excitement was palpable. It was in the air—everyone felt it, even those who knew this could be trouble for them. Excitement, but they just didn’t know…

Mary rode into town on a donkey, swollen with an unborn child, nervous Joseph at her side. Emmanuel, God with us. What did that mean, exactly? The Son of David made some genealogical sense, but how was this going to work, really?

Hosanna! was the cry. Hosanna to the Son of David! A king, a ruler! Excitement and love, a donkey and uncertainty.

Hear a bit of this story here in a song by Jay Beech. Hosanna, Blessed One

Through all the years of Jesus’ ministry years there were many miracles (likely more than are written about in the gospel accounts), and many ordinary days in the carpenter’s shop or down by the sea. He gathered his share of powerful people who didn’t much like what he stood for—uplifting the poor and needy, empowering and forgiving all sorts of folks who they thought didn’t deserve grace. And these powerful folks were people who could cause trouble…

And the story continues:
They didn’t know what was next. But the excitement was palpable. It was in the air—everyone felt it, even those who knew this could be trouble for them. Excitement, but they just didn’t know…

Jesus rode into town on a borrowed donkey. Emmanuel, God with us. What did that mean, exactly? The Son of David, the promised King. But a man of peace? Humble, riding on a donkey? How was this going to work, really?

Hear the same song, from a different perspective, here. Hosanna, Blessed One. Palm/passion.

This Sunday, Palm/Passion Sunday in the church, we’ll shout “Glory and Honor” to the King as he returns to Jerusalem. Then, as part of both services, the church choir will present a cantata, an extended musical work called Song of the Shadows. We’ll be accompanied by an instrumental ensemble as we journey with Christ from his betrayal to the crucifixion.

The composer says this about the cantata:
“The earthly life of Christ began in shadows, by the flickering of a candle flame in a rugged stable. In the shadows of ancient temples, we see him preaching “let there be light,” and hope began to live where once light and despair had ruled. In the shadows of an upper room, we see betrayal, but also forgiveness and servanthood.

We see Jesus walk through the valley of the shadow of death as he embraces the cross. In that sacred shadow, we discover our faith, trusting God to be our guide. As we confront the “dark night of the soul,” we can always find comfort in this: That wherever there are shadows, there is also light.”

Come join us on this journey on Palm/Passion Sunday. The music will be powerful, the story, once again, will pull us into the story of Holy Week, on our journey to a joyful Easter morning. Hope to see you there!

Karl