Pastor Jim’s Blog | Trinity Lutheran Church

Providence

Sep 17, 2021 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…

“The grass withers, the flower fades, surely the people are grass.” Isaiah

She approached me after the worship service; the mask covered a face that had weathered seasons of great joy and unspeakable sorrow. There were things about God’s providence that she did not understand. She was troubled by God’s providence, or lack of providence.

Providence is not a word we use a lot, unless we are looking for a hospital. What is providence? According to the dictionary it is “the protective care of God.” Last Sunday as we gathered for worship, I entered the sanctuary with a heavy heart. We had received word from our Bishop that one of our colleagues, Pastor Jeremy Fuerst of Central Lutheran Church in Everett, had gone missing in Colorado. He was an avid hiker and rock climber; he had not been heard from since heading out on his own the previous Thursday. On Sunday afternoon, we were informed that he had fallen to his death at the age of 44. What happened to “the protective care of God?” Was God’s providence somehow out of reach on that mountain?

There were things about God’s providence that she did not understand. If she realized it or not, we were both in the same boat last Sunday morning. She said, “The older I get, the dumber I get. I just don’t understand how God is working.” I handed her a bucket and side by side we attempted to bail out the listing boat of faith that we were sharing. Risking a pandemic faux pas, I put my arm around her. “Your words are wisdom, not ignorance. Ignorance is thinking that we, mere creatures, could comprehend the mysteries of God. Most of the time, I don’t have a clue how God is working.”

The moment we come to understand God, in all God’s complexity, is the moment that our faith in God becomes too small. The moment we come to understand God, in all of God’s complexity, is the moment that we fashion ourselves to be God. At that moment our God ceases to be the master of the universe, and becomes an invention of our imagination. Ignorance is arrogance. Wisdom is coming to some peace with our assigned place in creation. Wisdom is living into the mystery, seeking truth that may never be revealed, asking questions that will likely remain unanswered. Wisdom is trusting in something greater than our intellect; something outside of ourselves, something so eternal that our quickly fading flesh cannot comprehend it.

There are things about God’s providence that bother me, and perhaps I am even more bothered by God’s silence. A young woman in Seattle grieves the death of her husband, a congregation in Everett will never see their pastor walk into the pulpit again, and all flesh is like grass. I would like to know why. I shake my fist to heaven seeking understanding, but it is insanely arrogant of me to imagine that I could grasp the truth that will forever be outside of my knowing.

“The older I get, the dumber I get.” That is not ignorance; it is the accumulated wisdom of a human journey. The moment that we understand God in all her complexity is the moment that we have created God in our image.

Shaking my fist toward heaven, I am one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

Love, Pastor Jim

I Am the Vine… You Are the Branches

Sep 16, 2021 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Laura Canby…

As I did morning slug patrol in the garden, vines of tender, unfolding grape leaves caught my eye. A long-ago memory came to mind – along with a hankering for dolmas.

I was a freshman in a Christian college in Northern California above the Napa Valley, way on the other side of the country from my home in upstate New York.

I can’t quite remember whether I was invited to one of the religion professors’ homes because I was in his Old Testament class or because my then-boyfriend was a theology major and was in several of his classes. But there we were, in his dining room with six other students enjoying a Sabbath lunch. After a year of cafeteria food, a home-cooked meal was a definite treat.

Professor Niels-Erik Andreasen was a popular professor, though a bit reserved and soft-spoken – traits which are emblematic, I’ve come to realize, of most deep-thinkers. Born in 1941 in Nazi-occupied Denmark, he went to college in England, then seminary in Berrien Springs, Maryland, at the same University that he would later lead for 22 years as president.

His wife, Demetra, was from Athens, Greece and a social worker by vocation. She was also soft-spoken but exuded a warmth and outgoing nature that was a good balance to her husband’s Nordic reserve.

Among the Greek dishes she served were stuffed grape leaves – dolmas she called them. They were delicious and so very different from anything I’d ever eaten before.

“How do you make them?” I asked as I helped her wash the dishes.

“Come over Thursday afternoon after your last class and I’ll show you,” she said.

We spent the late afternoon in her backyard where she showed me how to pick the most delicate grape leaves of just the right size and then blanched them. She proceeded to make a vegetarian filling of rice, finely chopped mint and parsley, raisins, cinnamon, olive oil, pine nuts, a squeeze of lemon and a little cumin.

Then she carefully scooped a tablespoon onto the grape leaf and tightly wrapped it into a little bundle, seam-side down. I spent an hour practicing the grape leaf roll-up technique while listening to stories about her childhood and how her mother had taught her to make dolmas in Greece. She also asked me about my background and how I liked college and what my goals were.

We lined a large pot with layers of the grape leaf bundles, put lemon slices on top and weighed them down with an overturned plate. After covering them with water, we let them come to a boil and then simmer for 40 minutes. Next, Demetra taught me how to make a Greek avgolemono (egg and lemon sauce) to dip them in.

Finished, we sampled a few dolmas to savor and critique our creation, while saving the bulk for her next student Sabbath luncheon.

As I was getting ready to return to the dorm, Demetra pulled a hand-embroidered linen table runner out of a drawer. Her mother had embroidered it with cross-stitches of green grape leaves, purple grapes, and a gold border. It was lovely.

“Here,” she said, placing it in my hand. “Something to remember our cooking lesson.”

Looking back, I cannot recall a single Old Testament lecture truth that stuck with me from Professor Andreasen’s class. When I see grapevines, however, I often think of an afternoon filled with dolmas and laughter.

For it was Demetra, the professor’s wife, who taught me that kindness, rather than facts, often provides a more enduring lesson.

Laura Canby

The Art of the Tune

Sep 15, 2021 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Karl Olsen…

“The art of sewing lyrics with the tune is very interesting….”
Ankit Tiwari, Indian playback singer and songwriter.

Last Sunday we played a song called The Invitation as part of the Prelude music for the church service. If you were paying attention, you might have thought you were hearing a familiar tune. The band has ribbed me for years about stealing Billy Joel’s tune and chords for Piano Man. Well, I don’t think I did, really (it only lasts for the first part of the refrain), but I must have had it in the back of my mind when I wrote the song, because now when I play it, it rings in my ears and I have to work to make sure it doesn’t sound like it! Thanks, Billy.

That’s kind of how tunes work. Some tunes register with you and come to rest in your ear and mind. Often called “earworms,” they are sometimes strong references to the lyrics that you identify with that tune. Hard to get out of your mind! That got me to thinking about other tunes we use in church. Your earworm for today is called KINGSFOLD. You probably recognize the tune, but not the name.

On the lower right, below every hymn in our ELW hymnal (that red book in the pews that we seldom open anymore!), is printed the hymn tune. Usually there’s a tune name, and sometimes some numbers or letters indicating meter. Way in the back of the hymnal, on page 1199, is the Metrical Index of Tunes, a veritable wealth of information! (Disclaimer—do not turn to this page during the Sermon or Special Music during the service. It’s bound to lead you to distraction!)

If you look up the name or meter of the tune in the index, you will find all the hymns listed in the hymnal that use that same tune (I’m not the only one!), but also that have the same meter but different tunes. Then you can mix and match the lyrics and the tunes, if that seems fun to you! Sometimes the lyrics match up well, and other times the poetic foot of the lyric doesn’t sync well, and it’s like dancing with one short leg… just a little off-balance the whole time.

Back to KINGSFOLD. Thought to date to the Middle Ages, KINGSFOLD is a folk tune in a minor key, usually listed as Irish. The tune was published in a songbook in 1893. After hearing the tune in Kingsfold, Sussex, England (thus its name), Ralph Vaughan Williams introduced it as a hymn tune in The English Hymnal in 1906 as a setting for the hymn I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say. He didn’t write the tune or the lyrics—just sewed them together.

Lyrics and hymn tunes are often swapped and used in other settings. KINGSFOLD was known for years and called “Lazarus” because it had been used with lyrics about the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. It was modified to become the tune STAR OF COUNTY DOWN, which we know as our hymn Canticle of the Turning (ELW 723). It was also used for the song Crooked Jack, and The Fighting 69th, and the song The Year Turns Round Again featured in the movie War Horse. See the links below!

If that’s not enough, KINGSFOLD has supported various hymn texts including the Quaker hymn When Jesus Walked Upon This Earth and, in 1980, the Mormon hymn If You Could Hie to Kolob, when its first tune was deemed too difficult for congregations to sing.

Now, here is one verse from each of the four texts in our hymnal set to this fine, sturdy, ear-worm of a tune, designed to speak to us reminding of God’s promise to be present with us through and beyond these days, this time and any dark days. Click HERE to listen.

If you want to dive further into hymns and lyrics—some do! —check out www.hymnary.org. A great resource!

Karl Olsen, Minister of Music

9/11

Sep 11, 2021 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Pastor Jim...
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8

Our nation changed twenty years ago today; our world was changed by terrorism. Our nation has been changed by Covid19; our world has been changed by this pandemic. As much as we might like to go back to simpler times and less cumbersome days, there will be no going back. Time, history, our journey only goes in one direction and that is forward. Forward in faith, together as God’s people, trying to figure out how to live, love, laugh, and cry together.

Our nation has been changed; the world has been changed. Just as we will never roll into the airport 15 minutes before our flight again, we will probably be wearing masks on airplanes and public transit for years to come. That’s okay with me. It is a small sacrifice for the common good of all. The journey of life and history only goes in one direction; the cat does not go back in the bag, the genie does not go back into the bottle, technology will not play a lesser role in our lives, and nuclear weapons will continue to threaten humanity.

Our nation was changed twenty years ago today. The images fresh in our minds: brave firefighters climbing a stairway to heaven, the twisted rubble of the twin towers, the flag draped caskets in slow funeral processions, and twenty years of war that followed. Our nation has been changed by this pandemic season. The Chinese word for “crisis” is made up of two characters. The Chinese word for “crisis” is a combination of “danger and opportunity.” The danger was real, so was the opportunity.

The Bible tells us that, “all things work together for good, for those who love God.” It is important to note that not all things are good. Many things in this fallen world are bad, evil, contrary to God’s will. Not all things are good, but if we trust God and work together, good can overcome evil. Good can be found even in the darkest seasons of our lives; darkness cannot overcome light.

We had the opportunity to come together, to fight a common Covid19 enemy, but instead we seem to have come apart. The common good was lost in the name of individual freedom. The conversation turned personal and political. Respectful discourse and love faded as rancor, superstition, and fear took center stage. If we are to find good, then we must return to God. Our only hope is love. God is love, and “all things work together for good, for those who love God.”

Our nation and our world have been changed by twenty years of turmoil, terror, war, and pandemic. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Jesus washed feet, Jesus touched the untouchable, Jesus fed the hungry, Jesus cured the sick, Jesus lavished grace upon all and warned the religious about judging others. Jesus died for every immigrant and refugee, Jesus died for every Muslim and Jew, Jesus died for every unwed mother and homeless man; Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. May we return to God; may we rediscover love as our spiritual center, may we work together to find good, even in the midst of evil.

I am hopeful and hope filled. Why? Because your love has inspired me to love.

Pastor Jim
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The Spirituality of Craft

Sep 10, 2021 | Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Pastor Tom…

It’s Labor Day. I am laboring on Labor Day. Looking out over Lake Chelan at the masses enjoying the fruits of our last summer holiday, I sit at the computer typing my little fingers off. I’m a laborer. On Labor Day. Now in the interest of full disclosure this is really not such a hard labor. You probably already had come to the same conclusion. And lest you think I am whining at the notion that this is just another onerous pastoral responsibility, please set aside such thoughts. The celebration of this day affords me the opportunity to write about one of my favorite topics, the spirituality of craft.

Most of us have at least some passing knowledge regarding our nation’s less than stellar history regarding the labor movement, the creation of child labor laws, and the establishment of laws protecting the right of laborers to organize. Labor Day became an official national holiday in 1894. Historians have chronicled well our national labor movement history.

My thoughts are elsewhere. Many years ago, a men’s group I was a part of read a book edited by D.M. Dooling, “A Way of Working: The Spiritual Dimension of Craft.” These were men who, for the most part, in the world of business would be counted among the very successful. These were guys who could read a P & L statement with full understanding of both historical accomplishments as well as future implications. They operated with comfort in a financial world to which I had absolutely no points of reference to even participate in a conversation.

Until the day I challenged them to consider their “work world” as spiritual craft.

“Whaaa…” was a pretty typical response. Many of these fine men made decisions that could affect the livelihood of hundreds of employees. In my estimation they did so with a meaningful sense of empathy and regard for the future of those who labored on their behalf. Yet, none of them had ever considered their own work in the context of spiritual craft.

A little context here might help.

If we travel back 1,000 years, almost all labor, other than agriculture, was done for the church. A laborer would typically be a member of a guild working with a specific medium: stone, wood, fabric, leather, paint, etc. Our altar guild is a beautiful example of a holdover from a day long gone by. In the ancient world communities of laborers would exist alongside cathedrals and basilicas during their construction for generations. Work was understood as holy because it was being done to the glory of God.

We have a contemporary example in Barcelona, Spain. In 1882 ground was broken for Sagrada Familia. In 2010 Pope Benedict consecrated the church as a minor basilica. Designed by the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi, construction on this cathedral has, other than for the 1936 Spanish civil war, been continuous for 139 years. Guild laborers have for generations labored to the glory of God. This church is at least ten years away from completion.

I can think of few examples of even the most faithful people who would hold to the notion of their labor as spiritual craft. Jobs are something that pays the bills, something to be endured until retirement, a means to a pension, etc. But what would it look like if we each viewed our labor as holy, something we did each day to the glory of God? What if “work,” in and of itself, was instinctively understood as holy? Maybe that’s just a silly thousand-year-old antiquated notion, yet as a pastor I have known far too many who put in the 40 years of labor so they could be “happy” in their retirement only to lose it to illness, death, divorce, whatever. I believe there is a blessing to be had along the way.

Okay, that’s my Labor Day muse on the spirituality of craft. If interested, pick up Dooling’s book. If this was a “chore” to get through, a lot of “work” for nothing, be at peace. That’s how the Kingdom comes, one day at a time. That’s regardless of whether all those water skiers and fancy boat drivers out there know it or not.

Do it to the glory of God.
Pastor Tom

*photo from https://sagradafamilia.org

A Little Faith

Sep 7, 2021 | Faith Matters, Pastor Jim's Blog

Today’s Word from Deacon Amy…

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my daughters and I took some time away recently. Leaving home, when you have a small farm, is a big undertaking. It can sometimes be a challenge to find someone reliable and competent to manage the farm while we’re away. This time we were thrilled to find a couple of fantastic friends to stay at our home. They were capable and loved animals, but didn’t have much hands-on experience with farm animals. We planned to leave detailed instructions along with phone numbers for farming friends and our veterinarian, and be on our way.

A few weeks before we left, though, we noticed that one of our older does, Autumn, was looking a little rounder than usual. We started watching her closely, and soon enough, it was evident that she was quite pregnant, and most likely ready to deliver soon. Keep in mind that Autumn is retired, and hasn’t had kids in a few years. She has earned her place as the queen of our herd, even though she’s one of our smallest goats, and lives a life of leisure. Apparently, Autumn was not yet ready to be retired and had planned one more breeding without our input.

Not knowing exactly when she was due, we hoped and prayed that her kids would arrive before we departed. Of course, things don’t always work out how we would prefer them to. Autumn was holding tight to those kids, and it was about time for us to leave town.

What were we to do? The thought of canceling our trip was disheartening. The prospect of leaving a very pregnant doe with inexperienced farm sitters was unrealistic. Thankfully, we have some fantastic farm friends who stepped in and volunteered to host Autumn (and her expected kids) while we were away. We delivered her to a well-appointed “maternity suite” in their barn the evening before we left. By the looks of Autumn, we expected to hear news of new kids very quickly.

With the farm in good hands, and Autumn well cared for, we headed out of town. Each morning we’d wake up and check my phone, hoping to see pictures of Autumn’s beautiful babies. Day after day, we waited, and didn’t hear anything. We continued to pray for a healthy delivery for mama and babies. As is her way, Autumn seemed to be working on her own schedule.

We returned from our trip and gratefully picked Autumn up just before dinnertime. As soon as we got home, it was pretty clear that these kids would be here soon. We had dinner, cleaned up, put some of our luggage away, and headed down to the barn around 10:00. We didn’t come inside until 4:00 a.m.

I mentioned earlier that Autumn has had kids before. Both times she’s had twins in fairly easy and straightforward deliveries. We assumed that, although she is a bit older, things would go pretty much the same this time. That was not to be the case. The first kid presented in a somewhat difficult position and was pretty large. Things got a little bit stressful, but we soon delivered a healthy baby boy. Lia named him Thumper, because we’d felt him thumping inside his mama’s tummy for the past several weeks.

We were fairly sure that there would be a second kid, so we settled in to wait, watching the clock. A little later than the textbooks say it should happen, but not long enough to cause too much alarm, a second kid started to present. Typically, the second kids come out pretty quickly and without much fanfare. Again, that was not the case this time. This kid presented completely backwards with only one read leg available – not at all an ideal position. As I worked to rearrange the kid, my prayers increased in intensity. This was not going well. We called the veterinarian at 2:30 in the morning and she walked me through the steps that I needed to take to bring this baby into the world. Praying for a clear head and skilled hands, I followed the vet’s directions and by 3:00, we had a beautiful, healthy, baby girl. Prayers of thanksgiving flowed from my heart.

As we watched this newest little one stumble to her feet and search for her first meal, I asked Lia if we could name her Faith. After all, it was faith that helped bring her safely to our little farm, and I firmly believe that we all need a little faith in our lives.

Keep the faith friends!
Deacon Amy

P.S. the picture is little Faith on the left and big brother Thumper on the right.