“Soon afterwards Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say to you, rise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country”.
(Luke 7: 11-17
This is the Gospel for June 6th. We’ll be having our celebration of seniors who graduate from high school, and they will offer the majority of reflections that morning, so I thought I’d offer a short one now.
Some of the strangest things happen at funerals. continue reading » »
On the liturgical calendar, this coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday. On the secular calendar, we will celebrate Memorial Day. Here is a prayer for Trinity:
Holy Trinity
you are neither monarch nor monologue
but an eternal harmony
of gift and response;
through the Uncreated Word
and the Spirit of Truth
include us and all creation
in your extravagant love;
through the Wisdom of God,
who raises her voice
to call us to live. Amen
From: Prayers for an Inclusive Church
by Steven Shakespeare
I encourage you, sometime over the weekend, to read Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31, which is the first lesson that will be heard on Sunday. It is a wonderful call to life from Lady Wisdom. In any case, wherever you find yourself, or plan to be, over the weekend, I pray that you have an ongoing, clear, honest connection with God. May you remain in the heart of God by noticing God in your prayer and noticing God in the everyday activities of life.
This is a short Grains of Sand to just tag a few items. A more complete version will come out in a week or so. Blessings on your Way, Cindy
PARKING
Neighbors have asked that we be attentive to parking 5 to 7 feet away from driveway entrances. I know that this cuts down on very valuable parking space, but I hope we can be responsive to their concerns.
BRAT SALE/RUMMAGE SALE
This is a clarification of “who is in charge of what.” If you have questions about the Rummage Sale, ask Kathy Jacobs. If you have questions about the Brat Sale, ask Brian Lundberg. Brian does not have answers about the Rummage Sale. Kathy does not have answers about the Brat Sale. Thank you!
BRAT SALE DONATIONS
In order to maximize profits (oops! I almost wrote ‘prophets’), Brian is asking us to consider donating items we’ll need for the Brat Sale - and we need lots of items (Brats, Buns, Pop, Chips, Corn on the Cob, Butter, Aluminum Foil, Charcoal, etc., etc.) There are sign up sheets in the Mission Hall. The best way is to offer a money donation if you can — and a team will go out and do the shopping. Last year we had almost everything donated and made a $2000 profit - our most ever. The proceeds of both the Brat Sale and Rummage Sale go towards the Pilgrimage. Thank you so much.
FRAGRANCES in CHURCH
A number of people in our congregation have allergies and are sensitive to perfumes and other strong fragrances. To offer a kindness and mercy to our brothers and sisters who suffer from allergies, we are asking people to refrain from wearing perfumes and strong lotions on Sunday morning. Thank you for your consideration.
UPCOMING EVENTS
June 6 - Celebration for Senior High Grads
June 6 - Green Team Meeting (after worship)
June 11 & 12 - Brat Sale and Rummage Sale
June 26-27 - Park Point Art Fair (Teen Fund-raising)
June 30 - Pilgrimage Meeting (Teens, Chaperone’s and Parents)
While I was away for several weeks in April, a visioning meeting happened with Bishop Prior and regional Episcopal Churches. I was disappointed to miss this particular meeting – but not disappointed enough to cancel my trip. So instead, I read the book our Bishop recommended: The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church by Reggie McNeal. First, it is an outstanding book. Secondly, I recommend it to your reading if you care about what the Church will be like in the remainder of our lifetimes, and in the future for your children and grandchildren. It won’t be the same. Here is the opening paragraph of the book:
“The current church culture in North America is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous world order. The plug will be pulled either when the money runs out (80 percent of money given to congregations comes from people aged fifty-five and older) or when the remaining three-fourths of a generation who are institutional loyalists die off or both. Please don’t hear what I am not saying. The death of the church culture as we know it will not be the death of the church.”
The author goes on to suggest that we (as the church) have been asking the wrong questions. For example, the first contrast question he offers is: continue reading » »
Ask people around the world what they think is the biggest day of the year for Christians. Most will say “Christmas”. That’s what our society has achieved: a romantic mid-winter festival (though we don’t actually know what time of the year Jesus was born) from which most of the things that really matter (the danger, the politics) are carefully excluded. The true answer is Easter. This is the moment of new creation. If it hadn’t been for Easter, nobody would ever have dreamed of celebrating Christmas. This is the first day of God’s new week. The darkness has gone, and the sun is shining. Easter is so important that’s it’s not just a day (and neither is Christmas) - but it’s a whole season, eight weeks long!
We know the story of Jesus - about his life, death and resurrection. Just the same, each year it’s important to participate in Lent and Holy Week so we can prepare ourselves to truly celebrate the resurrection of Christ - in our lives and in the world. Life is not a matter of moving from triumph to triumph. Rather - the Cross always stands between us and Resurrection. You can’t get to Easter without going through the continue reading » »
Here is a question to ponder: Am I in relationship with my leper and wolf? In his book, Radical Grace, Franciscan monk Richard Rohr, writes about how deep within each of us live both a leper and a wolf. There is a story of St. Francis how he embraced the leper on the road – and this was his conversion experience. Then years later, he tamed a wolf. The stories apparently happened historically, but first of all they operated in his soul.
It is on the inside that lepers and wolves first must be found. If we haven’t been able to kiss many lepers, if we haven’t been able to tame many wolves, it’s probably because we haven’t first of all made friends with our own leprosy and the ferocious wolf within ourselves. Name and forgive your inner leper today. Nurse and tend her wounds. Name your inner wolf. Tame him by gentle patience and forgiveness.
St. Paul says that God both initiates and cooperates in all human growth: God cooperates with those who love by turning everything to their own good. (Romans 8:28)
What we can offer is the good will of love. God ‘works together with’ us, which means both our workings are crucial. We are real partners. Every moment. God is trying to expand our freedom to love. Can you imagine continue reading » »
February 17th is Ash Wednesday. There will be a Holy Eucharist and Imposition of Ashes - 7 pm at the church. The Gospel for this day (Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18) warns us not to practice our ‘piety’ before others, so as to be rewarded for what we do. Instead, we are to give, pray and fast in secret – God will know – and that is enough.
How is it, then, that a text that suggests we do acts of righteousness in private be read on the same day one receives the imposition of ashes – a very visible and public act of piety. More than a few have struggled with this paradox.
The emphasis on private piety can be overstated. Perhaps its more honest to focus on the more implicit, underlying theme present in the calls to give, pray and fast – namely – authenticity.
Authenticity blurs the rigid lines of public and private. Private acts are not authentic, and public ones inauthentic. Rather, the authenticity of an act of faith (or an act of piety) is determined by the desire and motivation of the one engaged in the act. Those desires and motivations cannot be judged externally.
Let me share a story of an act that is authentic, in large part because the act is done secretly. It comes from a continue reading » »
For those of you receiving this newsletter online, today (February 2nd) is The Feast of the
Presentation. The day commemorates the purification of Mary and the presentation of Jesus in the temple, which took place 40 days after his birth – as Jewish law required. The story can be found in Luke 2:22-40, but essentially, Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Jerusalem because every firstborn child was to be dedicated to God. The also went to sacrifice a pair of doves or two young pigeons – showing that Mary and Joseph were poor (as compared to sacrificing a larger animal, and thus more costly). Once in the temple, Jesus is purified by the prayer of Simeon, which we know as the Nunc Dimittis (found in Evening Prayer and Compline):
Lord, you now have set your servant free
to go in peace as you have promise;
For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior,
whom you have prepared for all the world to see;
A Light to enlighten the nations,
and the glory of your people Israel. (Luke 2: 29-32)
But the person who catches my attention is Anna, the prophetess. She appears in only three verses of Scripture, yet the glimpse we get into her life reveals a woman dedicated to living the ‘with-God’ life. She spent all her time in God’s earthly dwelling place – which was at that time – the Temple in Jerusalem. In other words, she herself had become a dwelling place of God, and late in her life she helped welcome Jesus, Immanuel – the child who embodied the promise of ‘God with us’.
We may not identify with Anna’s call to prophecy or her living situation – especially if we continue reading » »
Last Sunday we invited those at church to make an offering to help the Haitian people through Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD). ERD is just one of the many reputable outreach groups who have been in Haiti for many years, trying to help the Haitian people develop their country through education, health care and other kinds of development. In addition to the $1200 we sent to ERD from our Millennium Development Goals (MDG) fund, we raised another $1640 from your generous contributions. We will continue to invite contributions in Sundays to come - at various times — because this will be a very long term recovery for the Haitian people. It will be important to continually remind ourselves of their needs — especially after the media leaves the scene.
If you would like to help the Haitian people through ERD, make your check out to St. Andrew’s by the Lake and put on the memo line: ERD. We will collect checks and write one check from St. Andrew’s each month. If you find other agencies that you know are doing good work continue reading » »
Just like when the Tsunami hit in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina created such devastation in our own country, millions of people are now reeling from the effects of the earthquake in Haiti. Haiti is the most impoverished country in the western hemisphere. As one headline said, ‘there is an atmosphere of overwhelming despair’. Haiti may seem far away — and yet the effects of this hurricane even touches our city of Duluth. Many of us are buffered from the grinding poverty and despair, but locally, two Lutheran pastors lost a son. Ben Larson, a fourth year student at Wartburg Seminary, was killed when he was trapped in an orphanage building. He and several other students had gone to Haiti to help with a new Haiti Lutheran Church.
The images on TV are overwhelming. What can we do? We are immediately sending our MDG funds ($1200) to Episcopal Relief and Development. ERD has had a long presence in Haiti - and has many connections and are in the forefront of relief - as you receive this. As you recall, the Millennium Development Goals were developed to help eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. What better ways to use our funds. These are our 2009 funds, which had not yet been designated. Each year we give 1% of our operating budget to MDG goals.
Our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefforts Schori has asked Episcopalians in the U.S. to offer immediate and concrete prayers in the form of contributions to Episcopal Relief and Development. This Sunday you will be invited to participate in a special collection during the offertory. If you would like to give, please bring your check made out to St. Andrew’s by the Lake - with ERD on the memo line.There will be other ways to give listed in the bulletin. There are many other worthy organizations out there that can make good use of whatever we offer as well - one that comes to mind is Doctors without Borders.
Please keep the people of Haiti in your prayers — but most of all — put flesh to your prayers by offering resources out of your own abundance. Epiphany is the season of the Light of Christ. This is one way to bring some light to people who are living in the darkness of despair right now.
Peace to you, Cindy
THANK YOU to Mike and Sharon Oliver and Bob Anderson for organizing the ’sack lunch’ for CHUM outreach last Sunday. People gathered in the kitchen and before you knew it - 80 bag lunches had been made and delivered to the drop in center. We will do this once a month. You may contribute in several ways:
Donate money to buy food (bread, bologna and cheese, mayonaise, fruit).
Donate the lunch bags and sandwich wrappings for a month - or several months.
Offer your time to help assemble the lunches - right after worship, during coffee hour.
Speak to Mike, Sharon or Bob if you have resources to offer.
This is part two of the Grains of Sand - a reflection on the Feast Day of Epiphany and a few more bits of information.
VICAR’S MESSAGE
If one were to read the gospel story for Epiphany, it would be Matthew 2: 1-12. It’s the story of the Maji who come from the East, following the star over Bethlehem. They cross paths with Herod — and wisely, do not return his way. Upon entering the house where Mary and Joseph are, along with their baby, Jesus, they present gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then, they leave and go home by way of another road.
For many of us by now, the camels have crossed the living room and made it to the manger. Last Sunday in church, they arrived at the creche. They are three outsiders who have made a dangerous journey, and their foreignness serves a point: all are welcome in Bethlehem (the place of bread).
A great deal in our culture can make us feel like outsiders, like we don’t amount to much, can’t contribute much. It can make us feel too old, too young, not respected, not useful. The first message of Epiphay celebrates Jesus welcoming us at the manger — all we bring and all we are. Nobody can take that away.
Epiphany’s second message and meaning is about journey. To lay our eyes on Christ means to set out on a journey. No matter who we are, to let God into our lives means that our lives are never the same again. We grow and change as we listen for the voice of the Spirit.
Journeys can have their good and bad points. I love the idea of being on the road, discovering the new. That’s exciting, but it’s also tiring. The sense of adventure also has a flip side of rootlessness — of disorientation. It is possible to believe in Christ, but hold back from letting God into much of our everyday lives.
No matter what we may think about the value of the ‘institutional church”, community in Christ is important on the journey. The journey can be hard. The faith community is like an oasis – the gathering of God’s people together, in a specific place. A real oasis is more than a pit stop. The oasis, in Jesus time, was a place of safety, of refreshment, of sharing stories with other travelers, of continue reading » »
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GRAINS OF SAND
