“Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

– Matthew 11:28-30

Beloved of God,

October brings us into the fullness of the autumn season. But while the Earth (in the northern hemisphere at least!) is going about the business of yielding up leaves and harvests in preparation for the fallow season to come, we in the church are gearing up for meaningful ministry. Our Journey of Faith process begins this month and Confirmation classes resume.  Special Sundays are part of this month’s offerings: St. Francis/CROP Walk on Oct 7; a special meeting on Initiative 1631 on Oct 14; Offering of Letters and Quilt Sundays combine on the 21st; and Reformation Sunday comes on 28th.  Adding to this full menu are the series of annual banquets or auctions hosted by local ministries and non-profits. (You can read about all of these in the pages that follow.)  When it comes to family schedules, after school activities are ramping up, fall sports are in full swing, and schools are hosting curriculum nights and PTSA meetings—and did I mention autumn traditions like a trip to a pumpkin farm, and the hoopla (and sugar-high) that accompanies Halloween? Whew!

At times, gathering ourselves to enter this fuller than full rhythm can feel like sliding onto the saddle of a bucking bronco—grab on tight, for you’re in for quite a ride! Given these realities, we do well to remember to breathe…to make choices that support sanity…to pace ourselves.  So as you read about the myriad opportunities embedded within this October edition of Peace Notes, I invite you to enter the stream at a pace that will be energizing rather than depleting.

Toward that end, it seems fitting that The Feast of St. Francis on October 7 serves as a doorway to all that follows.  The Francis we’ve come to know did not begin life that way.  Like many of the young men he ran with during his youth, he was more interested in partying than attending to his father’s business.  Ask Francis what he wanted to be when he grew up, his answer would have been “a knight.”  In the age of the Crusades boys were captivated by the weapons, the armor, and the lure of winning a glorious name on the battlefield, and Francis was right there among them.  But his first real taste of war put a chink in his armor, and left him wondering if he had made the right choice.  After his release he had a dream in which Christ seemed to be calling him back to the battlefield as a soldier in the pope’s army, so he procured a horse and new armor and set off for Rome.  But while he was still on his way a second dream clarified the first.  Christ was calling him back home, to a future that was yet to be revealed.  The next morning, he mounted his horse and turned it toward home.

Outside the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi a large sculpture captures that moment of turning.  There sits Francis, the would-be knight, still arrayed in his battle armor, slumped down in his saddle, his head and that of his horse, too, drooping, their spirits dejected and downcast.  His dream of glory has died, and he is headed back to an uncertain future.  The introspection that followed changed the trajectory of his life.  He renounced his wealth and became “wedded to Lady Poverty.”  Francis has become known around the world for his humility in relying on the power of God, and for his spirit of gladness and gratitude for all of God’s creation, and for his compassion for the poor and outcast of the world.

In the aftermath of the most divisive Supreme Court battle in a generation, I could use a good dose of St. Francis. I need to hear his voice calling me back to center; pointing me to the Christ who promises rest for all this struggling, burdened world. The issues and challenges facing our families, nation and world won’t go away on October 7—but the spirit and the groundedness with which I engage them might change.  At least, that’s my hope.  And I want to meet you there, in that place.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.”  – Genesis 1:11-13

Beloved of God,

Paleo-botanists tell us that the first seeded plants started appearing on Earth during the late Devonian Period, about 385 million years ago.  Today, seed plants are some of the most important organisms on Earth and life on land as we know it is largely shaped by the activities of seed plants. From the coniferous forests of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains, to the orchards of central Washington, to the grain fields of Eastern Washington—even our backyard gardens—it’s impossible to imagine life as we know it without these life-sustaining harvests.

According to Genesis, the abundance of Earth’s seed and fruit bearing plants and trees paved the way for more complex creatures to emerge. God’s pronouncement on all of this? TOV!  The NRSV translates this “GOOD,” but I prefer the translation proffered by a former professor of mine: WOW!

Jesus used seeds as a lively image for the reign of God: It is “as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” (Mk 4:26) And remember the mustard seed?  There is great mystery and extraordinary potential wrapped up in these tiny packages.

The seeds for what would become Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church were sown by Pastor and Mrs. Otto Karlstrom and volunteers from Gethsemane Lutheran Church, who organized Sunday School classes in the Gatewood Hill area in the early 1920’s. They tilled the soil for what later would become the seedbed into which PLC was planted twenty years later. Forming faith continues to be a central priority for our congregation.  The seeds we sow now in the lives of our children will produce a harvest that will keep Jesus’ message of abundant life visible, alive and relevant both in our time and in succeeding generations. This is why we’re kicking off the yearlong commemoration of our congregation’s 75th Anniversary under the theme SOWN SEEDS on Rally Sunday, September 16th. On five occasions over the next 15 months we’ll be lifting up aspects of our congregation’s mission and ministry under the overarching theme: OUT OF MANY – ONE, leading to culminating events on the final weekend of November 2019.  Our theme reflects both the history of Peace, which has received significant groups of folks from other area congregations (1st Lutheran, St. James, Calvary), as well as many recent individuals, couples, and families who have moved to West Seattle from other parts of the city and nation, and have come to call Peace home. It also reminds us of what God is about in baptism—taking diverse and varied individuals and knitting us together into the one body of Christ.  How does your experience at Peace connect to this theme?  It will be fun to explore our answers to this question during the coming months.

September is a great time to renew our relationships with each other and to reconnect with our Lord.  I’m looking forward to seeing you as September unfolds, and to discovering with you how the Spirit will engage and equip us for our continuing work of planting seeds!

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

Have you not known? Have you not heard? 

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth; who does not faint or grow weary;

whose understanding is unsearchable. God gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;

but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

– Isaiah 40:28-31

Beloved of God,

Our approach to Rachel Lake, in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, was four miles long.  The first three followed Box Canyon Creek up valley, gradually gaining elevation from 2,800 feet at the trailhead to 3,400 at mile three—an average gain of only 200 feet per mile.  But the final mile—up the steep wall that gave Box Creek its name—had acquired a nickname of its own: the Cruel Mile.  As Kai and I began the upward slog, using our poles and any available tree, rock, or root we could grab, we became newly aware of the weight of our packs, and the reality of the 1,300 ft elevation gain ahead of us impressed itself viscerally on our minds and bodies.  This was Kai’s first backpack trip, and I’d put a good deal of effort into finding a destination that would allow him to experience the gifts the wilderness provides without exacting too steep of a price.  As my legs grew tired, I found myself inspired by Kai’s desire to keep going without complaint. “How much do you think we have left, Dad?” became Kai’s refrain every few minutes. “Oh,” I would reply, remembering our sabbatical experience, “about 200 meters.”[1] By the time we arrived at Rachel Lake we were eager to shed our gear and make camp.  By the time the sun set that evening, we were more than ready to crawl into our bags and give our bodies a rest.

When morning came, the weariness of the day before had dissipated, and after a breakfast of freeze dried eggs and sausage, our thoughts turned to the day ahead.  Another mile, and 400 feet above us, lay the Rampart Lakes, a series of smaller alpine lakes heartily endorsed by the guide book, and we set our sights there.  And Rampart Lakes did not disappoint!  But it was still early afternoon and there was plenty of day left.  What if we were to climb to the top of that saddle over there, at the south end of the basin?  And so we went.  The final 40 feet required some scrambling, but in the end we were rewarded with vistas of mountains all around, and a view all the way down to our Rachel Lake campsite far below.  Unforgettable.

Meaningful experiences, shared vistas, shape us.  They become reference points in our life together.  Sometimes, the experiences we worked hardest to obtain become the most precious to us. Not all shared experiences, of course, are worthy of being remembered.  Each of us could point to decisions, conversations, encounters, mistakes that we would gladly do over or take back if we could.  Regret, whatever its specific content, can ride roughshod over us if we let it, even to the point of overwhelming the rich and joyful moments we’ve known.  Thank goodness we have as companion on the way a God who knows how to strengthen us when we’re weak and to lift us when we’re weary—whether that weariness comes from physical exertion or from the weight of past sins!

As summer turns to fall and rhythms shift and change, we can take a cue from the autumn leaves, which teach us the art of letting go.  We have much to engage in together this month in our shared ministry at Peace; so many meaningful activities and opportunities for learning and serving and growing.  At times the calendar can become so cluttered that it feels less like a gift and more like an uphill slog!   But our Lord’s gracious accompaniment makes the journey all worthwhile.  With a spirit of joy and comradery—let the fall begin!

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

[1] Wherever we went on foot in Italy during our sabbatical, whether in the cities or on rural roads or trails, when we stopped to ask a local person how far we had to go to reach a particular destination, the answer was, inevitably, “About 200 meters.” This was true whether the actual distance was half that amount or several times that amount.  It became an inside family joke.

Beloved of God

Trees.  They surround us in the Pacific Northwest and help define the character of this bioregion.  Great forests unbroken for hundreds of miles once blanketed this land on which our westside cities now stand.  The size and density of these stands once led us to believe that they were inexhaustible and would be with us forever.  Still today we seek out old growth groves untouched by human habitation, hoping to encounter a great cedar or Douglas Fir whose girth and height will leave us dumbfounded.

For millennia before we modern immigrants arrived here, Tribal peoples have looked to the trees of these great forests for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, utensils and utility—but also spiritual insight and insignias of spiritual identity and power; living emblems connecting the spirit world with the earth (think totem pole). 

My first Call in pastoral ministry brought my family to the Redwood Coast of Northwestern California.  I remember the excitement of exploring those ancient forests that first summer nearly three decades ago.  Driving south on Highway 101 along the Eel River we entered Humboldt Redwoods State Park, one of the last remaining refuges for the trees, and took the exit for FOUNDER’S GROVE.  Stepping out of the car in that majestic grove was like stepping into a cathedral.[1]  The sheer scale of the trees left us slack jawed and tongue-tied.  Within a ten mile radius of where we stood were some of the largest and most accessible Redwood giants on the planet—trees that towered over 350 feet, with trunks measuring 15 feet or more in diameter, some of which had begun as seedlings when Jesus was a toddler.

Ancient ancestors of this species—Sequoia sempervirens—had been reaching for the sky along the coast of the western Pacific for scores of millions of years.  Redwoods had been turning soil, air, and water into leaf, branch and trunk eons before human beings appeared on planet Earth.  So ancient is their lineage that the footfalls of dinosaurs once echoed between their trunks.[2]  Now we were standing in their shadows, craning our necks in awe, hushed and humbled by these greatest of living beings.

The greatest of the world’s remaining Redwoods have names given to them.  And a champion among champions was a tree in Founder’s Grove called The Dyerville Giant.  As tall as a 30-story building at 370 ft, with a diameter of 17 ft., a circumference of 52, and weighing perhaps a million pounds, the Dyerville Giant was one amazing plant.  As we stood there touching its trunk in 1986 it was easy to imagine it would be standing for many generations yet to come.  But after a series of heavy winter storms swept through the region in the winter of 1991, saturating soils and weakening shallow root systems, The Dyerville Giant was clipped by a younger neighbor and came crashing to the ground the night of March 24.

Word of the tree’s fall spread swiftly, and foresters and scientists moved in quickly to study the tree and to take sprigs from its crown for grafting onto healthy seedlings, thus preserving the genes of the fallen giant.  From the point of the graft onward it would be the Giant’s “super genes” at work.

Ezekiel’s message from the passage above paints a picture of a whole ecological subculture existing and even thriving under this great CEDAR transplanted by God.  It provided God’s exiled people then, and it provides us now, with an image of the expansiveness of God’s vision for the earth’s future and a new image of the Tree of Life, in whose branches all peoples and all nations shall find their true home.

As we move this month from the Season of Light to the Season of Lent, the mid-week Lenten services we share with sisters and brothers from Calvary Lutheran will invite us to contemplate images of TREES that form a “scaffolding” of sorts within the Scriptures.   Our 40 day sojourn, beginning with Ash Wednesday, February 18, is a period of spiritual renewal.  I, for one, look forward to having that renewal include walks among the trees.

Together in Christ,

Pastor Erik   

– The Avowal, Denise Levertov

Beloved of God,

It’s a joy to be back at Peace after a sabbatical chalk-full of rich and diverse experiences and encounters of every kind.  Our August 24th Sabbatical Celebration at Camp Long was a blast, and I’m grateful for the extra effort put in to make the event and the location work.  If you’ve been in worship at Peace the last month you’ve already heard a story or two from our travels.  Expect more. J  New places, people, and experiences have a way of opening our eyes and mind in new ways.

AND NOW… it’s time to TURN THE PAGE.  September, with its inevitable shifts and transitions, is upon us, and there are some significant opportunities for HANDS ON MINISTRY, beginning with Earth/Service Sunday on September 7th.   Special guests, music, and liturgy will mark our worship time, followed by a GOD’S WORK-OUR HANDS project.  It’s the kind of morning that promises to be both inspiring and fun, and we hope you’ll make a point of joining us—and while you’re at it, bring a friend, too!  (You can read more about the event under OUR WORSHIP LIFE below.)  September also marks the return of Sunday morning Christian Education classes @ 9:15am.  Rally Day is set for September 14th.  Food will be served, and all generations are invited.

ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton has invited the congregations of our church into conversation around the question: Who is welcome and invited to receive Holy Communion in ELCA congregations?  Congregations across the church have answered this question differently—as have ecumenical partners—resulting in a variety of practices. Intentional conversation on this important question, as well as others connected to it, is timely.  On September 21, the Sunday Adult class will begin four weeks of study and conversation on this issue using resources made available for that purpose.  I hope that many of you will join us at 9:15am each week as we kick off the Adult Education year.

As I write, it’s the first day of school.  It comes none too late, for kids are usually eager for the routine at this point (not to mention parents) and yet, its arrival always somehow seems to catch us by surprise.  When summer becomes fall, schedules have a way of ramping up and calendars and commitments filling up.  Sports practices are in full swing with homework and other extracurricular activities soon to follow.  Sometimes it feels like all families can do is take a collective deep breath and dive in, hoping that we’ll have the stamina to keep our heads above water as the months unfold.  In the midst of this transition, comes a GIFT and reminder from one of my favorite poets, Denise Levertov (above).  Her poem reminds me that underneath everything, indeed, surrounding everything is a grace which buoys us up.  There is something of Sabbath in her poem.  As if to say, “Set those unwieldy schedules and commitments aside long enough to remember who waits for you beneath it all; to remember that GRACE, all-surrounding, is the wind beneath your wings.” 

One of the foci for our congregation during 2014 has been Sabbath, an intentional time set aside for resting in God and allowing ourselves to breathe.  As our life together becomes richer this month let’s remain tethered to this sacred pattern of stepping away and the invitation to “float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace.” 

With you on the Way, 

Pastor Erik

Joyful Servants!

Over 27 years of ministry I’ve found precious few of the synod assemblies I’ve attended to be memorable.  Several have been contentious; others routine.  A number have seen the same old resolutions cycled through over and again.  Only a few have retained, for me, the sense of spiritual power and uplift that has endured beyond the weekend.  Our assembly in May falls in that rare category.

Kathleen and Bob, in the article below, have done a great job capturing some of specifics which contributed to making this assembly memorable.  The presence of our Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson was certainly part of that—what a gifted leader!  I wish you all could have been present to hear Mark, and more importantly, to sense how clearly he has his finger on the pulse of the context, the challenges, and the opportunities before us as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as we seek to make Christ known.  Bishop Mark brought his wit—and a sprinkle of vinegar—to the assembly, supporting and challenging us and calling us to deeper reflection of how we can be the church for and with those outside our doors.   He also brought his trust and confidence in the Spirit’s presence as he led us through the stages of electing a new synodical Bishop.

Our synod’s purposeful process, unique among the 65 synods of the ELCA, was handled superbly, and infused with prayer at every turn.  The fifteen gifted, articulate, and courageous pastors who had been nominated for the office all acquitted themselves admirably and gracefully.  As the field of candidates narrowed, and each candidate spoke about her/his core sense of where the church should go and how we might get there, I came away with a profound sense of hope for the future of the church.  I can say without hesitation, in the words of the author of Acts, “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” that Pastor Kirby Unti was called to the role of Bishop.  I hope you will join me in prayer in support of Kirby and his wife Kim as he makes the transition to this new office.

Delores Dufner’s hymn quoted above captures the sense of vigor to which the Spirit is calling us as God’s people in West Seattle.  I especially like the line, “to scatter joy like seed.” There’s much to be joyful about as we mark this month together:  we’ll celebrate with graduates preparing to take the next big step; we’ll witness our young people taking on leadership roles and our little ones lifting their voices to declare “Jesus loves me, this I know,” we’ll welcome new members into the fellowship of our congregation, making room for their voices, their gifts, their partnership.

Let’s not forget that the joy we experience and share between each other and within these walls is meant to be scattered—not kept! One question Bishop Hanson posed to us was this:  Would there be any noticeable impact to the neighborhood in which your congregation resides if the church were to close?  If so, what would the impact be? I’m curious how you would answer the question.  The follow up question approaches the same topic from a different angle: How is our congregation writing the next chapter in the book of Acts? Indeed, this is the core mission we must always keep before us.  And the beauty is, God has supplied us with ample talent, vision, and vigor to do just that!

Your partner in joy, Pastor Erik

Beloved in the Lord,

Something strange caught my eye as I approached the water’s edge at Lincoln Park last month.  One hundred yards down the shore I saw what looked like a man walking parallel to the beach in chest deep water.  Was he in distress? Was he coming to the aid of someone or something else—man or beast—that I couldn’t see?  Was he some latter day Moses seeking a way to cross the sound?  Did he require rescue?  My mind raced through a dozen scenarios that might explain why someone would be wading in Puget Sound on a sub-40 degree January day. The polar bear plungers had done their thing on New Year’s Day—most of them dashing into the water and then out again in a matter of seconds.  But this guy (yes, I could see now he was a guy) seemed in no hurry whatsoever as he walked steadily further away from me in no apparent distress. Convinced that no action on my part was required (thank goodness!), my caution turned to curiosity and I simply watched him.

A few minutes later he turned and headed for shore, and then, when he hit land, began jogging on the path in my direction wearing only a t-shirt, shorts and running shoes—and, oh yes, he wore a smile on his face, too.  As he headed for the men’s bathroom, I turned to follow him—I had to find out what made this guy tick!

YOU DO THAT OFTEN? I asked him, trying to sound nonchalant as we stood in the restroom taking care of business. ABOUT ONCE A MONTH, he said; and before I could get out another question, he was out of the restroom and gone.

Since that encounter 10 days ago, I’ve been wondering what could explain how wading in water in the middle of winter brought this man such deep satisfaction.

As we begin the season of Lent this month, we hear God’s summons to Wade in the Water of baptism.  Each year, with ashes on our forehead, we respond to God’s call to return again to the basics of our spiritual lives:  to the covenant God made with us in baptism; to an acknowledgment of our earthbound existence; to the practices of prayer and fasting and acts of love and generosity which lead us back to the core of who we are and why we’re here.  The loss of four Peace elders in the first month of this year drives the truth home: dust you are, and to dust you shall return.  How, then, shall we live?  I didn’t talk long enough with the man who waded in the water of Puget Sound to find out if he was a Christian or not, but the scene of him wading there has become a new and powerful image of the baptized life—complete with smile.

Preaching to new converts preparing for baptism, 4th century Bishop Maximus tells them:

“In the baptism of the Savior the blessing which flowed down like a spiritual stream touched the outpouring of every flood and the course of every stream.  We must be baptized by the same stream as the Savior was. But in order to be dipped in the same water, we do not require the regions of the East nor the river in Jewish lands, for now Christ is everywhere and the Jordan is everywhere. The same consecration that blessed the rivers of the East sanctifies the waters of the West. Thus even if perchance a river should have some other name in this world, there is in it nonetheless the mystery of the Jordan.”

Waters threaten death and bring life. They protect us in our mothers’ wombs and then bear us out into the world. They are full of danger and full of promise.

We in the Northwest are fortunate to have plentiful water resources. When I look west on clear days and see the snow pack on the Olympics I breathe a sigh of relief.  The Earth Summit event I attended recently affirmed again that in years to come, as water resources become more and more precious, the bountiful waters of this region will draw people here as never before.  But the quantity of water isn’t the only issue. The quality of these waters, and how they support life that’s also at stake.  What St. Maximus knew in the 4th century we are coming to see now in a new way, that the waters of the Jordan—full of danger, full of promise—make all waters holy, all streams sacred, and protecting the water that fills our font and the fonts of every Christian community around the world is the vocation of every Christian congregation and community wherever they may be.

Like the man I saw in the waters of the Sound, we too are drawn, by the Spirit’s call, to wade in the waters and find our lives reinvigorated and renewed.  Our baptism isn’t something that just happened to happen to us at one time in our lives; it’s the core of who we are and whose we are now.  When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit affirmed his identity as a beloved son of God and then sent him on his mission to the world.  That mission took him first through the wilderness, a 40 days sojourn that shaped his public ministry in profound ways.  Now, once again, it’s our turn. 

The water that touched us—and touches us still—is that same water, and every day, every moment it blesses our lives by calling us back to remind us who we are. Once we pass through these waters, our lives cannot remain the same, for to wade in baptismal water is to answer God’s invitation to go deep with Jesus Christ.  And when we wade in those baptismal waters, we never wade alone. Christ wades in the water with us, and gives us a name and a destiny and a community to surround us and to buoy us up when we get in above our heads.  Trusting this promise, we journey together once more.

Pastor Erik

Beloved of God,

Fall is a favorite season of mine. I love the colors, the crispness in the air, the golden light of late afternoon, the harvest moon.  And I am awed by the transformation that occurs as leaves let go of their homes in the sky and begin their new project of nourishing the soil.  In autumn the earth teaches us what it means to let go, to relinquish, to shed, to become empty and ready to be filled, a lesson we practice year after year, time and again.  As I watch the leaves turn and fall I’m reminded of a poem by Macrina Wiederkehr entitled, The Sacrament of Letting Go.[1]  Here are the opening lines:

Slowly she celebrated the sacrament of letting go.
First she surrendered her green,
then the orange, yellow, and red
finally she let go of her brown.
Shedding her last leaf…she began her vigil of trust.

We celebrate two sacraments in the Lutheran Christian tradition:  the sacraments of font and of table—Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.  But if we ever added a third, I would cast my vote for the Sacrament of Letting Go.  The earthly sign for this sacrament would be a red or golden leaf plucked up from the ground where it fell.  And the texts? There are many. We’ll be hearing two of them later this month, from Isaiah 53 and Mark 10. Isaiah 53 includes the fourth and final Servant Song from Isaiah’s corpus.  You’ll recognize the verses as coming from the section of Isaiah we hear particularly in Holy Week as we contemplate the passion of Jesus:

This Suffering Servant of whom Isaiah speaks knew the Sacrament of Letting Go.  The first Christians came to recognize in these verses the one they had come to call the Christ; the one of whom St. Paul spoke when he wrote: “Though he was in the form of God he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…and being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death.” (Phil. 2) 

In the 10^th chapter of Mark, after all the time they’ve spent with Jesus, all the teaching they’ve taken in, after all the miracles they’ve witnessed and experienced, we find James and John asking Jesus for special favors.  “Teacher,” they say as they sidle up to him, “we have something we want you to do for us. We’d like the places of highest honor beside you in glory—to sit on your right and on your left.”  While the gospels don’t contain stage directions, I readily imagine Jesus, after hearing their request, bowing his head, shaking it slowing, and sighing.  After all this time, they still didn’t get it!  So he tells all of them once more: 

Jesus asks them (us!) to learn the sacrament of letting go.  “You know how the world operates,” he tells them.  “But that’s not how we’re going to operate.”  Jesus takes the power-grabbing, top-down approach to authority and turns it on its head.  After 2000 years, the church still struggles mightily to embody the way of being that Jesus made so clear.

The hymn of Richard Gillard quoted above celebrates this call to servanthood which belongs to each one of us by virtue of our baptism.  The God who emptied himself to become one with us invites us to loosen our grip on our own agendas and yearning for power and to embrace the yoke of service each and every day of our lives. Like baptism, this letting go is a life-long sacrament.  We’re never done with it.  We are called to practice this sacrament as we send our children off into the world.  We are called to practice this sacrament as we begin a new job, or as we retire, or as we leave a home we’ve known for years and move to some place new.  We are called to practice this sacrament when, in various circumstances, for differing reasons, significant relationships in our lives can no longer be sustained.  We are called to practice this sacrament when death approaches, separating us from those we love.  No, we are never done with it, never done with letting go.  But neither are we alone.  For every step along the way, with every leaf that falls, every trembling fear, every ounce of pain and suffering, every gesture of relinquishment, we are companioned by the One who claims us in baptism, and whose promises are so secure death itself cannot put them asunder.

This month, as servants of the Servant, we’ll hit the pavement on the annual CROP Walk and write letters to congress advocating a Circle of Protection around the vulnerable poor.  We’ll hear from our youth how trips to the Yakima Reservation and other places have transformed their understanding of what it means to be a servant.  We’ll hear also how a congregation at the end of its life cycle dared to dream that by dying well it could become the seedbed for a transformed model of ministry—Luther’s Table.  (NOTE: Pastor/Developer Gretchen Mertes will be guest preacher here Oct. 21)

In autumn the trees teach us what it means to let go and become empty so we are ready to be filled.  And in doing so, perhaps they also teach us how we might embody servanthood in such a way that Jesus will smile instead of sigh.

With you on the way,

Pastor Erik

 [1] Macrina Wiederkehr, Seasons of Your Heart.  (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).

Beloved of God,

Music shapes us, and shapes us profoundly.  It’s the universal language that captures and conveys so many of our experiences and emotions, our desires and aspirations as human beings.  Who among us could not cite a telling moment from our personal history which is inseparably linked with a particular song?  On our trek to school each day, Kai and I have a variety of recordings from which we choose.  One of these, a compilation CD, has a smattering 70’s music—including Earth, Wind, and Fire’s Sing a Song (!)—that never fail to get me moving.  A couple beats in and it’s the fall of 1975 and I’m back at Hong Hall on the PLU campus for the first college dorm dance.  On the other hand, the slightest hint of a Ralph Vaughn Williams’ choral work transports me to churches and concert halls around the country where I lived and breathed music while on tour with PLU’s Choir of the West.

Whether you’re a person who falls captive first to the melody of a song or first to its lyric, the marriage of the two has the power to transform.  Brother Martin (Luther, that is) knew this well when he wrote:

“I wish to see all arts, principally music, in the service of Him who gave and created them. Music is a fair and glorious gift of God. I would not for the world forego my humble share of music. Singers are never sorrowful, but are merry, and smile through their troubles in song. Music makes people kinder, gentler, more staid and reasonable. I am strongly persuaded that after theology there is no art than can be placed on a level with music; for besides theology, music is the only art capable of affording peace and joy of the heart…the devil flees before the sound of music almost as much as before the Word of God.”  

When the emotional depth which music expression provides is combined with the keenest verbal expressions of our Christian faith, the combination carries us to places we just couldn’t arrive at by any other path.

For the past nearly 30 and 20 years, respectively, Sandy King and Jim Miersma have served faithfully and tirelessly as music ministers at Peace, sharing their musical gifts within our worship life and profoundly shaping the life we share as a community of faith.  They’ve weathered pastoral changes, choir director changes, hymnal changes, and myriad other changes that come with the territory of being a church musician, and they’ve done it with sincerity, collegiality, style and aplomb.   We owe them a great debt of gratitude!  When you have two organists who get along with each other so well and so long, and who are so easy to work with, you can get spoiled!   It’s truly been a joy to work with you both.  We can only hope that the person who succeeds you will be primed to carry on in the same vein as you a legacy musicianship, teamwork, and dedicated service to Christ’s church.

Thanks Jim and Sandy!  And Godspeed.  

Soli Deo Gloria

Pastor Erik

NOTE: A celebration of Music Ministry at Peace take place at Peace on Sunday, June 3rd beginning at 10:30 am worship.  Worship will be followed by a luncheon marking Sandy and Jim’s combined 50 years of music ministry at Peace.  All are welcome.