May 2011 Newsletter Article

Jesus the vine, we are the branches;

life in the Spirit the fruit of the tree;

heaven to earth, Christ to the people,

gift of the future now flowing to me.

Jesus is risen and we shall arise.

Give God the glory! Alleluia!

- Herbert F. Brokering, “Alleluia! Jesus is risen!” ELW 377

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The sun is out as I write this newsletter article, and it really feels like spring. Spring is the season when the earth itself demonstrates God’s preference for new life sprung from the grasp of death. Though the winter has felt long and dark, brighter days are ahead. The green of not only grass but budding bushes and trees has begun, and the first flowers in their yellows and purples have graced us with their presence surrounding the sign in front of our church building.

Indeed, such signs of new life are present in more than just flowers at Lutheran Church of the Savior. The past two Sundays were Palm Sunday / Sunday of the Passion and of course the great festival of Easter, but even so the number of people filling our pews and enlivening our worship was more than heartening. One hundred people exactly the first week were followed by 145 worshipers on Easter Sunday, the highest number we’ve gathered there in a full three years, since Easter 2008. Now, the work of the church is far more than numbers in pews, but surely the excitement of seeing visitors, returning longtime members and regular attendees all in the same room together inspires in us a hope that God’s work will continue to thrive in this community.

We come together to worship God and to care for one another, to hear God’s word and taste God’s presence and allow the Holy Spirit to send us out into the world for love and service of all in need. Elsewhere in this newsletter you can read about the surprising amount of money we’re blessed to be giving to Loaves and Fishes and Ministry with Community through our Lenten offerings, combined with a Thrivent grant and other partners. Five of us gathered on the morning of Good Friday to experience a walking worship service in downtown Kalamazoo in support of our homeless sisters and brothers here. Through financial support and physical presence we can make a statement about our values and a difference in the lives of our neighbors.

In what other ways will we of Lutheran Church of the Savior live out the new life we have in the resurrection of Christ?

I thought about concluding this article with that question, but the thing is, it’s not just rhetorical. I really want to know what you think: How will we take all the energy and excitement of our Holy Week and Easter celebrations and transform it into love and service to God and our neighbor?

The assumption underlying this question is of course that it is you, the church, who are best equipped to hear the cries of those in need and bring words and deeds of God’s healing and love. I am your pastor, and proudly so, but the inspiration and energy and work of loving and serving comes from you, God’s people. Our decisions as to how we allot our resources in love and service are not my decisions, but come from our committees, our council, and each of you who has known God’s love and can share that love with others. The tagline of our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, stated on our logo and on the beautiful banner some of you created recently, says, “God’s Work. Our Hands.” Help me to identify that work in our own congregation and community.

Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Pastor Andrew

On the Death of Christ on the Cross

This deep, beautiful reflection on the death of Christ by my friend and colleague Chris is a must-read for the Three Days leading up to Easter. An excerpt:

It seems to me that Christ without a cross dies twice, as I said above: his actual death, and the death of his relevance to us as Christians and to our or any culture, time or place. Our culture is not exclusively Christian, but it is one to which we might share a word from this perspective of death and resurrection, and at that a word of hope. Jesus without death is Jesus without resurrection is Jesus without hope.

There is an odd sense in which his writing gives thoughts and words to the spiritual and emotional reality I tried to evoke last night in our Good Friday service. It was as solemn and unidirectionally pointed toward the cross as any worship I had been a part of, and I hope the assembly was able to enter into this place of loss and emptiness and yearning as I was.

Lent 19: It Gets Better V - A Sermon for Passion Week

Read this sermon for Passion Week by a student at my alma mater. It's long, but worth every word and then some.

Lent 18: Death, Green Burials, and Our Life Together

Last month at Lutheran Church of the Savior the Faith-Based Wellness Partners and I were very excited to lead a two-week Sunday Adult Forum series on end-of-life concerns. In our FBWP presentation, hospice professionals focused on medical decisions as one nears the end of life, and provided Designation of Patient Advocate Forms as well as instructions on how to complete them.

The following week, I talked about preparation for a funeral or memorial service, and participants received funeral planning documents and resource lists (coming soon to the LCS website) so that we could each express our wishes for the event of our own passing or that of a loved one. One surprising result of our discussion that day was an interest in green burial,

Lent 17: My New Favorite Lutheran Blogger

Thanks to a Seeds of the Parish article cut out and left on my desk, as well as LivingLutheran.com, I have a new favorite Lutheran blogger. Pastor Keith Anderson writes on his church life, spirituality, and on the uses of social media in the context of faith communities. His most recent article on Holy Week for his interfaith family was brilliant (and again reposted at LivingLutheran, as are many of his posts), and relevant to members of my own faith community. I have big plans for some of his suggestions about social media, but they (like sleep and other blessed dreams of comfort) will have to wait until next week.

Lent 16: April Newsletter Article

Reposted from April Newsletter

This is the night

in which, in ancient times,

you delivered our forebears, the children of Israel,

and led them, dry-shod, through the sea.

This is the night

in which the darkness of sin has been purged away by the rising brightness.

This is the night

in which all who believe in Christ are rescued from evil and the gloom of sin,

are renewed in grace, and are restored to holiness.

- from the Easter Proclamation at the Vigil of Easter

Easter is coming, and I don’t know about you, but I am in need of some resurrection.

We’ve had a very active month of ministry at Lutheran Church of the Savior, with our Sunday adult gatherings around end-of-life issues led by our Faith-Based Wellness Partners, Holy Communion class for kids (including First Communion for three young people), Lent Wednesday gatherings that have grown to over 30 participants, and a monthly supper with so many guests we ran out of tickets and almost out of food.

I have also been busy, between speaking to a group of candidates for rostered leadership from across Michigan, preaching at the ordination of Jason Lukis in Minnesota, blogging a ton (though not as much as  I might like), visits, meetings, planning for Holy Week and deciding to get married.

But even in the midst of all this excitement, it’s time for some resurrection, for new life. A central feature of the Vigil and Easter Morning is our celebration and affirmation of our baptisms, in which we remember that we are constantly called to new life in Christ. Each night we are invited to die to our selfish, sinful lives so that we can rise every morning to a fresh start, another chance to be our best selves, to be the people God wants us to be.

At the Vigil we hear the stories of God’s saving work through all the history of the world, God always desiring the best for us, the flourishing and thriving of all of creation. We celebrate Christ’s resurrection knowing that it is our past, our future, and our present. The life we have on this earth is not the sum of our story, death is not the end of our story, resurrection beyond this world is our inheritance in the grace of God. And still in our lives following Jesus here and now we are called to live into resurrection, to constantly seek and find the new life God has for us even now. Easter is coming, the trees will begin to green and blossom, and life, in the risen Christ, will be our story.

Lent 15: It Gets Better IV

In response to my previous posts on this topic, sure enough one day a copy of It Gets Better appeared outside my office door. Lutheran Church of the Savior's copy of the book bears this lovely inscription:

In support of my son & everyone else who has experienced bullying for whatever reason. God loves you just the way you are.

Find this book on display at LCS in the narthex reading nook under the skylight.