In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,

the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,

while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.”

– Genesis 1:1-3

John came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

– John 1:7-9

New Year’s Greetings!

The calendar turns and once more we’re at a place of new beginning. It’s true, the challenges, concerns, and crises we faced in 2017 within our families, communities, and world are not magically wiped away as the New Year begins. Yet HOPE is dawning for the Word-Become-Flesh has pitched his tent among us.  The “true light,” has come into the world, and promises to companion us come hell or high water (or “bomb cyclone” for that matter!), of this we can be confident.

Our first worship service in this New Year marks the Baptism of our Lord by John in the Jordan, and this year, we’ll welcome a new brother—Mark Gilbert—into the Body of Christ during worship. Water—the most essential and lifegiving element on this planet home—serves as a reminder of the ever-present blessing of the one whose Wind/Spirit/Breathe brooded over the face of primordial waters, calling light and life into being.  In baptism God’s promise moves IN, WITH, and UNDER the water—infusing it with grace and spirit, calling us to a new life oriented around our Lord and his way of being in the world.  As we begin the year recalling Christ’s baptism and remembering our own, we ground ourselves in our identity and purpose as sisters and brothers in Christ.  Let’s make this baptismal identity the lens through which we look at our families, communities and world.

And speaking of our baptismal vocation, on page two below you’ll read about a proposal for Peace to become an Advocating Congregation affiliated with Faith Action Network (FAN).  Plenty of energy and conversation has gone into the process that gave birth to this proposal.  Please read the proposal carefully and feel free to approach council members with any questions you may have.  The proposal will be on the agenda for our January 28 annual meeting.

January always begins with a flurry as annual reports are assembled and preparations are made for the unfolding year.  The NOMINATING COMMITTEE is hard at work looking for people among us who are willing to serve as Council leaders. A shortage of candidates last year compounds the need for even more council members to be elected this year.  For congregations to remain strong and healthy, good leaders are required.  If approached, I hope you’ll consider donning the mantle. If you want a preview of the council’s proposal for FUNDING OUR MISSION in 2018, plan to attend the budget forum on January 14th, and to participate in the Annual Meeting on January 28th.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

“Comfort Ye! Comfort ye my people! Says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her

that her warfare is ended, and her iniquity is pardoned.”

– Isaiah 40:1-2

Beloved of God,

Daylight is precious these days, and growing more so. By 4:20pm on December 1st the sun has gone over the horizon, and each morning on its low arc through the sky it rises later as it moves relentlessly toward the winter solstice—the northern hemisphere’s shortest day and longest night.

As a kid, I loved venturing out this season of the year in the wildest blizzards Mother Nature could conjure.  Bundled against the elements with nothing but a slit for my eyes, I would trek through the neighborhood, tromping through swirling snow drifts, awed and exhilarated as the storm propelled me into the experience its dark fury.  After such a foray into wild darkness, returning to the light and warmth of home and hearth was a revelation:  Ah! What grace!  What wonder!  What gratitude!

We mark this holiday time with displays of glitz and glitter and erect strings of lights on our homes and businesses that will shine through these December nights.  But behind these displays is, I think, a primitive urge to do what we can, in whatever way we can, to fight against the encroaching dark.  And that darkness comes in many forms: headlines that scream crisis after relentless crisis; project deadlines at school or work that sap declining energy; struggles in family life and health issues that keep us awake at night; anniversaries of loss.  These somber realities leave their mark even more deeply during this season of sun-challenged days.

The ancient Greeks didn’t know about light displays in December, but they knew the nightmare scenarios that populate the human story. It began with their old myth about Pandora, who opened a beautiful box only to discover it was packed with all the ills and evils the gods had trapped inside.  Amid the ensuing racket of pain, anger, and quarreling, Pandora heard another small voice inside the container. When she lifted the lid again, HOPE came forth and began to soothe humankind’s new wounds and heartaches.[1]

The Bible’s oldest word for hope, Fred Niedner points out, is “tikvah,” which also means cord or thread.  It was once standard practice for Midwest farmers to fix a line between farmhouse and barn during the winter months.  When properly secured, the fixed rope could be a lifesaver, providing guidance and a safe traveling route through the most debilitating blizzards.  The meaning of the Biblical cord, like that fixed line, is obvious. “In the darkness, beset by fears, threats and enemies known and unknown, we sometimes find ourselves clinging to a single thread [or rope] that keeps us going from one moment to the next. Without hope, some solitary cord from which to suspend our lives, the darkness would have us.”[2]

The words from Isaiah 40 served as that cord, that TIKVAH, for a whole community of people who had come to know the darkness of exile. This exiled community, notes Walter Brueggemann “came within a whisker of being able to imagine its future only in the terms permitted and sanctioned by Babylon, a sure program for despair and diminishment.”[3]

But then, onto this scene bursts a new voice: “Comfort Ye! Comfort ye my people! Says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem…” God’s exiled people couldn’t imagine this language, much less invent it.  It had to come from OUTSIDE them, and it did.  And what was so radical about it and radically new, is that it pointed them toward a future that the prophet said God was creating for them!  For some folks, this word of hope must have sounded like so much commercial hype about how life will improve if only you purchase this item or invest in this product, and they wanted nothing of it.  In fact, Brueggemann points out, most exiles stayed with the empire, which seemed to have all the goodies.  But some few took a chance on the poetry.

How are we to imagine our futures?  Where is God beckoning us to go?  Where does the TIKVAH lead?  These are Advent questions, and crucial ones for this time in which we live.  When we light the candles of the Advent wreaths at home, we repeat one simple phrase that grounds us in this season of dark nights: “Jesus Christ, you are the light of the world, the light no darkness can overcome.” The cord to which we fasten our grip must be anchored in something beyond ourselves—and it is. The line leads us to Jesus.  It is, in the end, the one line which will endure even when we do not.

Ever with Hope,

Pastor Erik

[1] The image comes from Fred Niedner’s article in the Indiana Post Tribune: http://posttrib.suntimes.com/news/niedner/9156003-452/fred-niedner-amidst-the-dark-and-fear-hope-still-appears.html

[2] Ibid.

[3] Brueggemann, Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000). Pages 65, 66.

“Lord, thou hast been a refuge, from one generation to another.

Before the mountains were brought forth or ever the earth and the world were made,

 Thou art God from everlasting and world without end.”

 ~ Psalm 90:1 KJV

Beloved of God,

The moving choral setting of Psalm 90 by Ralph Vaughn Williams echoes through my mind as I write to you.  It’s a piece I learned while singing in the Choir of the West at Pacific Lutheran University (with Jon Lackey!); a song that, after countless rehearsals and numerous performances, has etched itself in my soul.  Vaughn Williams wrote it as a double choir piece, which means that half of the choir sings one part while the other half sings a different but complimentary line.  Choir One sings of humanity: “In the morning it is green and groweth up, but in the evening it is cut down, dries up and withers.” While Choir Two sings the familiar chorale: “O God our help in ages past.” (Isaac Watts, based on Ps 90).  The effect is stunning: one choir gives voice to the human cry for meaning in the face of the brevity of life and in recognition of the God who is beyond all knowing; the other choir gives voice to the human plea for God’s accompaniment as a “shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home.” The music and texts combine to create a powerful portrait in song of the human condition and our longing for redemption.

November is a season of remembering and yearning; of endings and beginnings. As we mark All Saints Sunday this year I’ve been acutely aware of endings, having attended the dying processes of members of our community, including four in the last two months.  Death is never generic; it’s particular.  Each person’s final days have their own character.  Through the years it’s been my experience that when a person approaching death is able to talk with loved ones about this “final journey,” they significantly impact the experience and memory of those they leave behind.

On November 5th we will intentionally mark endings as we lift up All the Saints, especially those who we have known and loved. But we will also mark new beginnings, for All Saints Sunday is also a Baptism Sunday this year, and we’ll be welcoming three boys into the body of Christ—Milo (age 9), Lawrence and Harmon (twins age 3 ½ months).  There’s something powerfully resonant about having both death and new life lifted up in one worship service.  Of course we do this every week when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper—recalling the night Jesus was handed over to death, and remembering how his willing death and surprising resurrection brought (and brings!) new life to all who lean on the hope of his promises.  While memorial services are scheduled for each of the first three weeks of November, we’ll also be welcoming 16 new people into our fellowship through the Rite of Welcome on the last Sunday of the month.  And so the cycle of death and new life continues.

How will we hold these days? Are we living fully into the image which God has formed in us?  Are our lives dominated by fears and anxiety about what the future holds?  Do bleak weather forecasts and the growing darkness undercut our ability to hope?  In her book My Grandfather’s Blessings, Rachel Naomi Remen writes:

“Sometimes we live in ways that are too small, and in places that focus and develop only a part of who we are. When we do, the life in us may become squeezed into a shape that is not our own.  We may not even realize that this is so.  Despite this, something deep in us that holds our integrity inviolate will find ways to remind us of the breadth and depth of the life in us and assert its wholeness.” [p. 53]

Remen’s words invite me to take stock. Am I living too small?  Stuck in a squeeze play?  Am I brave enough to sit with the questions and wait for the answers?  The “something deep in us that holds our integrity inviolate” has a name in our tradition:  Holy Spirit.  There is a difference between being carried along in the current by to-do lists and family and work obligations, and being carried and accompanied by the Spirit.  In the calling and claiming and naming of baptism, that Spirit, which “reminds us of the breadth and depth of the life” in ourselves, was planted firmly within us.   As life surprises, challenges, thrills, and at times alarms us, we cry, Lord—you have been our refuge—don’t stop now! And when we take time to listen deeply, another Voice responds, I was there to hear your borning cry, I’ll be there when you are old, I rejoiced the day you were baptized to see your life unfold.  What a privilege it is to sing and to live that promise together!

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

Broken lines, broken strings, Broken threads, broken springs,

Broken idols, broken heads, People sleeping in broken beds

Ain’t no use jiving, Ain’t no use joking, Everything is broken

– Bob Dylan, Everything Is Broken[1]

Dearly Beloved,

The lyrics of Bob Dylan’s song, Everything is Broken, describe the human condition about as concisely as anyone has.  Things don’t work out like they’re supposed to; everything is broken.  Islands in the Caribbean and states along the Gulf— along with countries half a world away—have experienced this reality viscerally the past month in the wake of devastating hurricanes and floods.  As recovery efforts continue, questions about the storms’ relationships to our changing climate are close behind.  Climatologists began making links to this possibility decades ago, but instead of following the science, many of our nation’s elected leaders and the constituencies they serve still have their heads stuck in the sand. Their intransigence on this issue is one more sign of our collective brokenness. As the gut-check we call Corporate Confession puts it: “We are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.”

Over the eons, Earth has developed finely tuned feedback systems.  For decades now those systems have been relaying messages to us loud and clear, but for a variety of reasons we have failed to heed them.  In their book “Big World/Small Planet,” Johan Rockström and Mattias Klum describe how the Holocene Epoch—a period of tremendous stability and natural harmony for Earth that began roughly 11,700 years ago—is ending, and how we’re entering the Anthropocene Epoch—an era of massive human impacts on Earth.   This shift, which began with the mid-18^th century industrial revolution, accelerated in the mid-20th century.  “Our way of life,” they write, “is threatening to trigger catastrophic tipping points that could knock the planet out of its stable state…The world as we know it has become an increasingly complex, turbulent, and globalized place, not only socially and economically but also ecologically.”

Seem like every time you stop and turn around Something else just hit the ground

Broken cutters, broken saws, Broken buckles, broken laws,

Broken bodies, broken bones, Broken voices on broken phones

Take a deep breath, feel like you’re chokin’, Everything is broken

Michael Truog and Deb Hagen-Lukens of our congregation recently attended a climate training event led by Al Gore and his Climate Reality organization.  They will be sharing what they learned on two different occasions this month—the first, during Adult Sunday class on October 1st and the second on Wednesday, October 18th at 7pm.  I hope you’ll take advantage of one of these opportunities to hear more on this issue.

The themes we’re exploring this month as we commemorate the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation movement are: Liberated by God’s Grace (10/8); Humans are Not for Sale (10/15); Creation is Not For Sale (10/22); Salvation is Not for Sale (10/29).  At first glance these themes may not seem related to the discussion above, but they are.  The liberation God offers us in Christ includes liberation from fantasies about our right to exploit this good Earth without regard to limits and without respect to the natural systems which make this planet hospitable to life. Hope for the future God is working to bring to fruition can only spring from truth telling; never fantasies or falsehoods.

If mending this broken world is what God is up to in Jesus—and I believe it is—then our part begins with a fearless inventory of all things broken—personal, social, ecological. Metanoia is the New Testament word for this process by which we, through the gift of grace and the power of the Spirit, turn away from the path which would have us place ourselves at the center of the universe, and turn toward the path that leads toward love of God, love of neighbor, and love of Earth.  As we make this “about face” we find ourselves restored to the vocation God gave us in the very beginning—that of Earthkeeper.

In the midst of all the  challenges we face, we stake our hope in the Word who became flesh, whose love is “deeper than all that is wrong”; who uses us, fragile clay jars that we are, to bear good news in this broken world. – Pastor Erik

[1] © BOB DYLAN MUSIC OBO SPECIAL RIDER MUSIC “Everything is Broken” was released on his 1989 album, Oh Mercy.