Revgals Friday Five: Rejoice! From Mother Laura

Can you believe that in two days we'll be halfway through Advent? Gaudete Sunday: pink candle on the advent wreath, rose vestments for those who have them, concerts and pageants in many congregations. Time to rejoice!

Rejoice in the nearness of Christ's coming, yes, but also in the many gifts of the pregnant waiting time when the world (in the northern hemisphere, at least) spins ever deeper into sweet, fertile darkness.

What makes you rejoice about:

1. Waiting? It is always more fun to wait than it is really to get there I have found. Christmas in Church is always the greatest of the feasts for me. The anticipation and expectation that are part and parcel of Advent is especially significant. I liken it to the kind of anticipation that my cats have when the electric can opener runs. Not because of gifts, but because the Christmas Eve service speak so warmly of the meaning of the Incarnation. For me the Incarnation—that God became human for my sake is far more important to me than that he died on the cross for me. It says that God so loved humanity as to honor us with a spark of divinity. What a marvelous act!

2. Darkness? I am a SAD sufferer so the darkness means that I have to take better care of myself that I normally do. Advent and Christmas used to be very difficult to get through without going into depression. But since I started getting more sleep than I normally would, eating less sugar that I normally would and paying attention to my emotional needs ---which means I stay out of shopping malls as much as possible, I have more energy to meet the needs of work and community. Like M. Laura I like praying in the dark with just a candle as long as I am warm.

3. Winter? I basically like winter. It is why I live in Upstate NY. I do not ski or do winter sports but the beauty of snow, especially on those cold days after a snow when the sun comes out and it is clearer than the rest of the days of the year, are wonderful. But the snow has come quite early this year and I am afraid that winter is going to be long and tiresome. There is nothing worse than snow that gets black and grubby to dampen one’s spirits .

4. Advent? I love purple seasons, not because they are penitential but because the readings are so lush. Advent with all its hope resonates in my soul.

5. Jesus' coming? I am one of those who acknowledges that Christ has come. I also make the distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of eternity. So I am not so taken by the “Jesus is coming soon” mantra that seems to fill the more evangelical teaching. I believe that Christ comes to me at every moment and the important part of living the Christian life is to be awake at the moment God comes so I can be present. I do not believe in a cataclysmic event at which Judgment with a capital J is meted out. The God that I know is not that kind of judge. God is the kind of judge that poses a question that calls me to wrestle until I can make a decision for God. The God I know wants all to be saved, and I must choose that salvation. But I can only do that with God’s grace.

Be Prepared

I grew up with a father who was very big into Boy Scouting. Scouting was by far the religion practiced by my family when I was growing up. I knew the Scout promise before I knew the Ten Commandments. And “Be Prepared” was etched into my soul at such an age that I still don’t know the Ten Commandments in order—that’s in part that they are in different order in different parts of the Bible….but that is another sermon.

For those of you who did not live with “Be Prepared” sewn to your sleeve, we have John the Baptist. The character of John Baptist is an interesting one in the New Testament and in history. He was according to Luke, a cousin to Jesus. In Mark it seems as though Jesus and John have never met until Jesus is baptized by John at the river Jordan. We do know that John the Baptist was a holy man called a Nazir, or a nazirite. This does not mean that he was from Nazareth. It means that he was dedicated to God in a way that he did not eat or drink anything from the grape family, he did not cut his hair and did not touch the dead. It also seems that he wore camel skin and ate locusts and honey. Such practices were not uncommon for those who were dedicated as a Nazir. Such nazirs were to be respected by the faithful and they occasionally carried on the prophetic tradition that so characterized the Jewish faith. John saw himself as a herald. He was to remind the people of their faith, of their heritage and what had happened to Israel in times past when they had forgotten God.

John’s work was to wake up the people and prepare them for the Messiah. It was a difficult time in the history of the Middle East. It was easy to just ignore the law of God. It was easy to just go along with the injustices that the Roman Empire was perpetrating. It was safer to just ignore that King Herod Antipas was consorting with the enemy, ignoring the needs of the poor, rejecting the commandments of God and being a tyrant. But John Baptist was not the kind to keep quiet about those injustices. John said, “Be prepared.”

What was he preparing his listeners for? Just how can you be prepared for the Messiah? John is not too nice to the Pharisees or the Sadducees, the religious leaders of his time. Why? I believe it was because he thought that the religious leaders were leading the people astray—allowing them to ignore the requirements of faith—the care for the poor, the sustenance of widows and orphans, the injustice in business practice, the need for repentance at all levels of their lives. These are the same things that we, two thousand years later still need to heed. John Baptist’s call is still as fresh for us today. We too need to know what it means to be prepared to meet the Messiah, the Christ.

Being prepared for Christ is not just a matter of having our packages wrapped or knowing Jesus as our personal Savior. Being prepared for the Christ to come again is being about the work of being fair and honest. It is about being willing to forgive and be forgiven. It is about not attributing motives to people are wrong: such as blaming the poor for being lazy, or the sick for not taking care of themselves. We do it all the time. We don’t like having to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves, and yet that is exactly what Jesus tells us to do.

Another thing that John Baptist preached was that we cannot depend upon our status in life. There were those Jews who thought that just because they were ethnically Jewish, they were justified. John reminded him that such happenstance as our ethnic background had nothing to do with fidelity.

John baptized with the water of repentance. There are two words in Hebrew for repentance. One is the word for “to return” shuv. The other is nicham which means “to feel sorrow.” These words show that repentance was an activity--it was something that we are called to do. That’s what it took to “Be prepared.” It meant that there was a sense of humility that was required in being prepared for the Messiah. It recognizes that to be ready for God to be present, to be Emmanuel, the God-with-us means that we must be supple, we must not be so convinced of our own righteousness, that we cannot hear God calling us to new depths in our faith.

We often confuse this call from John Baptist as a call to those who have never heard of salvation. Salvation is just the beginning of our journey in the kingdom. Salvation has been worked for us by Christ two thousand years ago on a Friday afternoon. But the constant encounter, the continuing relationship is what it means to “Be Prepared”, to be ready to meet Christ at each moment of our day, at each turn in our journey, at every difficult task we have before us.

So often I see people who see hardships in their lives as punishment by God. They want to know what they have done “to deserve such a misadventure.” Faith in God does not mean that we won’t have trials or tough things happen in our lives. Coming to Christ merely gives us a way to be prepared for the tough things that come--to face the hardships. We have someone who will walk with us through the tough times. It means that we have the humility that allows us to know that we cannot and do not have to go through things alone. ‘Being prepared’ for a Christian means we can always call Christ into our lives to walk with us.

Jesus, the Messiah, the anointed one of God, the Christ, is the one who reminds us that ‘being prepared’ is a matter of constant vigilance. ‘Being prepared’ requires constant refresher courses. And those refresher courses are held while we are at prayer, studying Scripture, sharing faith, doing good works. Each time I am doing any of those things, God brings me another step closer. And the closer I get to God the more I am clear that I am not as prepared as I would like to be in the presence of the Lord of my life. That is why repentance is a constant part of my life. It isn’t because I am so sinful, although I am. But it is because I want to be prepared when my Savior is with me—I want my house straight, or my nails clean, or whatever it is that means ‘ready’ to you. This is the reason for the season of Advent. It is to remind us how much we anticipate this coming of Christ.

I have friends who make their own Christmas cards. Libby is an accomplished photographer and each year I look forward to their cards. But one year there was a picture of their two cats up on their hind feet with their whole attention looking out the window. My cat has the same attention whenever I run the electric can opener! It is that kind of anticipation that we need to look forward to the Second Coming of Christ.

I do not believe that the God that I know is going to come with war, pestilence or fire. I do not believe that the God I know is going to come and slay those that don’t follow some kind of rule that they do not understand. I do not believe that the God I have committed my whole life to is the kind who would leave any behind. The Second Coming is not a time to be fearful of. Death is not a time to fear either. The God that I know is one who welcomes those whom God made from the beginning of time. The God that I know that loves me and whom I love is one who is waiting for us to treat one another with the kind of respect that we desire to be treated with. The God that I know wants us to anticipate the full meeting of God and humanity with the kind of celebration of a new year, a new era, a new life in Christ.

In Jewish spirituality it is considered appropriate to repent before you celebrate. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement comes just 10 days before the New Year celebration. It is considered inappropriate to celebrate if you aren’t cleaned up both physically and spiritually. Advent is a time of repentance for the same reason. Before we celebrate the wonderful season of the Incarnation, of God with us, I invite you to clean up your spiritual house, to ‘be prepared’ for the coming of the Christ child. This does not mean that God is going to love us any more. It is just good manners! I don't know if your mother had the same mantra as mine had--"you don't decorate a mess!" and "Clean up your room before you invite your friends in."

If you need help cleaning up you spiritual space, feel free to call upon me. Pastors do that sort of thing. That is what the old idea of confession was all about. It was about inviting someone in on your spiritual journey and asking for help when you wanted to reach a new depth in your faith life--not stand between you and God. I know that “Lutherans don’t do confession.” But I do know that at times we all need someone to help us to discern what is next in our journey in faith. I am here to do just that.

So our ‘Be Prepared’ is not attached to our sleeve as Christians, but it is a part of what we as are called to do. I pray that this time of spiritual house cleaning is full of the joy of the season. AMEN

Christmas Preparations

Sally at Revgals has set this Friday Five:


“This has been a difficult week for me, the death of a little six year old has overshadowed our advent preparations, and made many of us here in Downham Market look differently at Christmas. With that in mind I ask whether you are the kind of person that likes everything prepared well in advance, are you a last minute crammer, or a bit of a mixture.....”

Here then is this weeks Friday 5:

1. You have a busy week, pushing out all time for preparing worship/ Sunday School lessons/ being ready for an important meeting ( or whatever equivalent your profession demands)- how do you cope?

Part of the way I cope when there is too much on my plate is by floating on all the prayers of others. I really do allow myself to trust that God will give me the words I need for sermons, or important meetings. We as clergy spend a great deal of our message on trying to get people to trust in God and yet as clergy we all too often fall into the secular realm of trying to do it all. We have to live with the reality that God will provide for our every need. If I am not prepared for a meeting, I have to have the temerity to say that “because of so and so’s funeral, or because I have had to be with a parishioner who is in crisis, I am not prepared” and leave it at that I am not doing what is necessary for my parish. If we are prepared most of the time, most congregations are willing to call forth from themselves the kind of forgiveness that they themselves want. (I have also been in parishes where that kind of dynamic was significantly absent, but I did not stay there long!).

By depending on God when things getting jammed up, I not only remind myself of the primary things of my ministry—being there for a family in crisis, but I also model for those in my parish that ministry is about caring, not a job. Sometimes they get it. Sometimes they don’t but at least I can present myself to God and my congregation with integrity.

2. You have unexpected visitors, and need to provide them with a meal- what do you do?

I don’t have a good place where I can wine and dine my friends even though I love to cook, so I take them out. Taking folks out for a meal is a way that I can value them and show them that I care. Sometimes it really takes a bite out of my billfold, but it all comes back in someway. My small town doesn’t have very many places, but there are a few restaurants that do the trick. If it is a parishioner, I will often use discretionary funds to do it. I have been known, on a nice day, to pick up sandwiches and go to a beautiful place and have a picnic.

Three discussion topics:

3. Thinking along the lines of this week’s advent theme; repentance is an important but often neglected aspect of advent preparations.....

It is interesting that in Jewish culture it was considered highly unseemly to celebrate before while one was “unclean” or not “at shalom” with another. It is the reason that Yom Kippur comes before the celebration of the New Year. It seems appropriate to clean the house before the Second Coming, so repentance seems to go with Advent. I presently am trying to clean off my desk at the office and clean the house at home. Both are disreputable. This time of clean up has always been a part of how I prepare for Christmas.

Decoration always has to begin with being cleaned up. I am not sure where that idea comes from, but I would imagine that my mother had something to do with it. It was unheard of to decorate a messy house. I guess I have applied that maxim to my spiritual life. But then again, I am not much for Christmas decorating.

4. Some of the best experiences in life occur when you simply go with the flow.....

As one who has spent her life swimming upstream, I find it rather difficult to go with the flow. But the older I get, the more that I am finding that I allow some things to slide. I don’t get as gnashed as I used to when things don’t go the way I had planned. I am also more able to deal with events that insert themselves into my best laid plans. I am more able to see that those incidents are as much gifts from God as they are problems for me to deal with. Also I think that I have had more practice at dealing with problems and I don’t have to think about how to deal with them as much. Experience is a wonderful gift! It is a shame that the present generation doesn't listen as much to the older one these days. They spend so much time doing things that we older ones have finally figured out how to do and we would be glad to share our experience.

5. Details are everything, attention to the small things enables a plan to roll forward smoothly...

I am not a detail person. (It has taken me a long time to admit that, because I like being in control.) I am lucky to have an over-all plan; I depend on others to deal with the details. And I have found that there are so many who really want to help me with the details. The important thing is for me to get out of the way of those for whom detail is their thing. I have to be willing to allow them to do their work. The parish I now serve has people in it who are absolutely wonderful with the details. I am bowled over at their ability to “sweat the small stuff” and what’s more, they don’t seem to mind that I come up with the big stuff. Thank you, God, for finding me the right spot.

Bonus if you dare- how well prepared are you for Christmas this year?
I just finished my sermon for Sunday on being prepared. And the older I get, the less I get up tight about being prepared. Part of it is because I know what I can do and can’t do. As I said, I don’t decorate. But I am preparing my sermons a bit more carefully not because I am not prepared, but because I want to be clear and clean and the message be clear. I guess there is less ego involved and it is more a matter of faith that is part of preparation.

The Christmas liturgy is ready to go to press. Advent III and IV are still on the drawing board but Christmas Eve is done. Tonight is the Christmas Play, which is a grown-up affair at St. Luke’s. I am anxious to see what this parish does to celebrate the Advent/Christmas season. It helps me get in the spirit.

But the Feast of the Incarnation figures in my faith life even more profoundly than does Easter. (Easter I am usually just too tired to appreciate.) I spend so little energy on Christmas Day and opening presents and so little time with family for this holiday, that Christmas at Church is the event that articulates my faith. I care more that Christ became human for my sake than he died and rose for my sake. That God became frail flesh, so entered into my life and the lives of my fellow human beings moves me beyond all other statements of salvation. God has so chosen to be part of me is a mystery that goes beyond my ability to calculate. And so I am always prepared for Christmas.

I am never prepared for secular christmas, that plastic holiday that is advertised in malls and such. I generally ignore that holiday.

Pre Advent Defrag

I stopped in at Revgalsblogpals today to find that the Friday Five was about the things that we disliked about Christmas. It had more respondents that I can remember a Friday Five getting. I don’t think I will play because I don’t want to “out” myself too soon. But it sounds that the Winter Blahs have settled upon my sisters of the cloth.

I know that blah all too well. Curiously I am not in a funk this year. I think having a job after too long unemployed helps. But I think that the later change in the change of the clocks has put off the usual blues that attacks sometime during November. I am fussy now when it is dark when I go to the office and dark when I get home. But the dread is not there.

All clergy know about the November-January depression that often hits a number of parishioners. And those of us clergy who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) try to hold it together through Christmas. We have to deal with more funerals, more marriage counseling, more despondent teens and usually problems in our own families than the rest of the year combined. And this year because Easter is so early, we feel that there is no rest for the weary.

With that said, Christmas is still my favorite of the major feasts. There is a hope in Christmas that is special. It is a celebration of the Incarnation, an embracing of the goodness of human existence that I love. I am sure that this puts me in opposition to Luther who believed in the inherent evil of humanity. But Christmas, I think, points to the Original Blessing of humanity rather than Original Sin. I do not ignore the tendency towards sinfulness of humanity. One needs but try to shop on Black Friday to experience that. I am not naïve in my understanding of our existence. But there is a quality of holiness that Christ brought to human nature in the Incarnation. And Christmas and the preparations for Christmas through Advent help me to see the goodness in others despite the Christmas rush.

I do enjoy the “blue” season or “purple” preparations for the Nativity. The crèche, the changes in the service, the music, the gathering of people who have finally found their way back to church after the summer, and the anticipation that all have. Granted, many of the expectations we hold for the season do not get fulfilled, but each year they are there nonetheless.

Perhaps that is as it should be. Our faith is built on hope—the hope for a better life, the hope for a better future, the hope that the fears that we also hold will not be realized.

My sister clergy at Revgals have “dumped” their grumpiness before the beginning of Advent. It is probably a good sign. We all need to ‘defrag’ ourselves before we head into the next 5 seasons without a breath. My prayer that we can find in all of it the sustenance of Christ’s love and joy in God’s Original Blessing.

Feast of Christ the King

This is the final Sunday of the Church year. Next week begins Advent. We call this the Feast of Christ the King. I have been celebrating this feast my entire life and I was surprised that the feast of Christ the King was only instituted in the mid 1920’s in the Roman Catholic Church as a way to fight the secularization of modern society and as a response to the loss of Papal lands in Europe. I expected that this feast originated in the medieval era with its emphasis on the Kingdom of
God, but this feast was the response to the failing of so many monarchies in the 19th and the early 20th centuries. Now, Episcopalians often love this feast because of their close ties with the English crown. But I find this feast difficult. But the readings help us ferret out what this feast is about. This feast is about Judgement--of Christ coming again.

The Jeremiah reading is a prophecy to remind the kings of Judah of what their responsibility was. The chosen people of God had been nomadic herders so the pattern for good leadership was that of a shepherd who cared for the people of their kingdoms like shepherds cared for their sheep. False shepherds were those kings who fleeced their flocks for their own benefit.

The Colossians reading reminds us that Christ is head of all. Paul does not call him King, but he reminds us “He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.”

But it is the Gospel that brings us up short. Rather than a reading about the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, or perhaps the Transfiguration, the Gospel reading is part of the passion of Jesus. It is the story of the two thieves who are crucified on either side of Jesus. This doesn’t really portray kingship at all in our minds. And it should remind us that the kingship of Christ is not the kind of kingship that we see on the pages of the tabloids these days in our history books.

The kind of kingship or dominion that Christ portrays is not the imperialistic model with which we are so familiar either through the royalty of our present generation, or the history of kingship through the medieval era. The kind of kingship that Christ portrays for us is one that turns dominion and domination principles on its ear for one important reason: The Cross.

Friday night I listened to the Rev. Dr. James Cone being interviewed by Bill Moyers on PBS. I have always like Moyers' reporting. We grew up not far from one another in TX. James Cone, the leading African-American theologian who teaches at Union Seminary in NYC, also grew up in Arkansas not far from where Bill and I grew up. But James’ African-American experience of faith was quite different from Moyers or mine.

Cone described the Lynching Tree in African-American culture as having the same kind of transformational qualities as the image of the Cross did in the first century. Now that is not an image that any white person in America wants to think upon. But as I listened to Cone I began to not only understand what he was talking about, but a deeper understanding of the Cross than I have ever had. Like many Christians and I would suggest Anglicans in particular, I have a difficult time with the Cross as the symbol of my faith. I believe Lutherans have less difficulty with the theology of the Cross because of Luther’s clear understanding the transcendent nature of the Cross because much of Luther's theology centered in the Cross. But most Christians don’t have that central understanding of the Cross to know that. In many Protestant churches the cross is the sign of the resurrection, not the suffering.

Lynching, says Cone, did not come about until after the Civil War because slaves were too valuable to be killed indiscriminately. It was after the Civil War when intimidation became the name of the game that lynching became such an act of terror. If we look back to the First century, we can find that same issue giving rise to crucifixion as a way to terrorize the people in occupied lands like Judah. For many of us, the Cross has become such a symbol of love, that we have emptied the Cross of much of its meaning. It was an instrument of terror. It was a statement of failure which today has transcended its original meaning. Because of what Jesus did on that Cross makes the symbol something that transcends its original intent. No longer do we shake in our boots at the sight of the Cross as did the first century Christians. It has become for us a sign of hope, a sign of stalwart faithfulness, a sign of love—the kind of love that calls from us our best, our all. I wonder if the pipe bomb or some other terrorist device will become for future generations the symbol of God’s love for us.

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” can also be translated, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your POWER.” This is NOT about dying and going to heaven. The good thief understood that the crucifixion of Jesus had to do not with him being called the “King of the Jews”, it had to do with Jesus’ POWER transcended that of Herod or Caesar. Jesus’ POWER went beyond the domination elements of the Roman Empire or all the empires since. Jesus’ power turns all systems of domination upside down---or as my friend, Pastor Carol Krause says” turns things “right-side up.”

The Cross, the Lynching Tree, even perhaps the pipe bomb remind us that Domination Systems are forces that terrorize can kill the body but not the soul. They can do damage, but they cannot separate us from the love of God.

The Feast of Christ the King reminds us that Kingship—monarchy is not about who is on top. The Feast of Christ the King tells us that our king is not the kind who lords it over us. The Feast of Christ the King reminds us that the real relationship with God is not about the kind of “power over” or systems of living together that dominate some to the advantage of others. It reminds us that Christians cannot be supportive of a nation that lords it over others. The Feast of Christ the King means that our faith calls from us a kind of image of life here on earth that says humans do not have to tyrannize others in order to be safe. So in fact, the Feast of Christ the King comes out being just the opposite that Pope Pius the Eleventh had in mind.

Pius the Eleventh, the pope that started the Christ the King feast, was a fairly reactionary pope. In the early 20th century he saw most things that were modern in his days as threats to his papacy, his control. It is ironic that this Feast of Christ the King which he instituted has become a feast in which we recognizes that Christ’s power turns all other power “right-side up.” It challenges humankind to live in harmony without the age-old system that requires class, privilege, or license. Christ’s kingdom calls for the last to be first, the smallest to grow to the greatest, the poorest to receive the kingdom and the lost to be found. Christ the King is the exaltation of one who was one of the least. The Feast of Christ the King says to us here in Sidney, today that we are chosen but not above others. We are loved but not holier than others. We are saved but not at the exclusion of others. We are blessed but cannot expect to be more blessed than others. And we have a God who calls us to live sharing what we have so that others may live as we live—free. AMEN.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is not a feast day of the Church. It is a feast that was founded as a harvest festival by presidential fiat during the Washington administration in 1789. It was a time national thanksgiving to God. I doubt if we could get such a day passed in today’s anti-religious climate. It would be declared as a violation of Church and State or some such complaint. For all the religious rhetoric of the present administration, it is interesting that there is more virulent opposition to religion now that I can remember.

Thanksgiving today is more like Church-Lite. It has all the warm-fuzzies of a Christian holiday without having to go to Church, without having to be reminded of our sinfulness, without denominationalism or church-fights. What a luxury!

The original liturgies of Christianity were ones that were celebrated around the family dinner table. The Seder meal from which we derive much of the Eucharistic celebration comes from a thanksgiving meal. It was a meal that celebrated one’s gratitude to God for all one had, all one had received from God’s bounty and especially for the freedom to worship the God of their ancestors.

So the real question is which came first—the thanksgiving or the freedom to worship? And what kind of thanksgiving do we give in such secular times in which our family meal, the gathering of family and friends speak loudly of our gratitude toward a God who provides us with myriads of blessings and yet have a society in which the majority finds no reason to return thanks? We gather as families have done for millennia to stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and hope for a future that is rooted in our past. We will offer gratitude even when we don’t always know whom we are thanking. We find ourselves stuffed even when we know there are so many are starving. And hopefully we will have a twinge of conscience.

It is natural to give thanks. It is part of mature human nature to recognize that we all that we have does not come from our own personal talent. At some level we know that most of what we possess is from something or someone beyond us.

Perhaps what we celebrate this Thanksgiving Day is a recognition that we are not here simply because we have evolved into a turkey and pumpkin pie drugged existence. We have evolved into those who can give thanks to the one who began this whole existence. May it be so.

Family and Church

I am presently visiting my family in Texas. It is always fun to be with them. We are not a family that I would call “tight.” But we enjoy those times when we are together. Members of the family don’t interfere in each other’s lives, and we have very different interests. But when we are together, the stories begin to flow.

Today is my mother’s 95th birthday. She is not able to serve as the matriarch any longer because dementia has set in and her ability to speak is impaired. But we will all gather to celebrate her life, have a meal, give gifts and catch up with each other.

I used to think of our family as small. But over the years we have become a blended family with second marriages, adoptions and additions that make family meals buffets rather than sit-down affairs. Mom will be able to hold her great-great-grandson this evening even though her blood will not flow through his veins, there is no less a sense of family.

My family is not especially religious. Some attend, but not regularly. They have always been respectful of my faith but our vocabularies differ. My interests don’t include sailing, horses, oil wells, children or golf. And their vocabularies don’t include words like “justification,” “salvation” or “dish-to-pass.” One faith we do have in common is Cowboy football and there is agreement all around… WE BEAT THE GIANTS!

Small parishes are like families. We gather together for important dates. Some of us are regular in our attendance others come intermittently, but we enjoy each other’s company. We come to hear the stories of our community, the stories about our faith and we share meals with each other whether it be a symbolic Eucharistic meal or pork and sauerkraut. Some of us are born and bred Lutherans, some of us come from all kinds of Christian traditions but we all know that we belong. It is the place we find a spiritual home.

We have matriarchs and patriarchs in the parish, those to whom we look or have looked for leadership. We have those who are welcoming and see to our adoption into the St. Luke’s family. We have those who are keepers of the history and those who see to it that the proper rituals are observed. We have those who are there when things go wrong and those who are ready to rejoice with us when things go right. There are those who nurture our Lutheran heritage and those who are on the edge clamoring for the new theologies that allow us to grow and stay vital.

Like families we sometimes fuss, but the important thing is that the love that has drawn us together is nurtured so that when the fussing is over, we have a community of faith to which we can return. The small parish is the community par excellence in which we can practice our Christianity—living out as best we can the teachings of Jesus. Larger parishes provide an anonymity in which one often does not have to take responsibility for one’s actions. Small congregations like St. Luke’s provide no such buffer. Like the family, there are always some personalities that clash. But this is where we learn the hard part of Christian living—how to live with those who are difficult for us and still maintain our faith. And it is also where we can learn to accept the forgiveness that is so difficult to learn.

Small congregations are more about relationships than creeds and doctrine. And while What we believe is important, it is not any More important than How we live our what we believe. If Christianity is to survive this present millennium, it is not going to survive because of What we believe. It will survive as it has for the past 2 millennia, by how we live out our relationship with God and Christ.