Festival of Tables

I was graciously invited to attend the First Lutheran Church Women's Festival of Tables this afternoon. There were two seatings for coffee and dessert, with a presentation between by Pastor Julie Rogness of Christ Lutheran Church in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, and Mama Tesha, head of St. Margaret's School in Tanzania. Mama Tesha works with Friends of Africa Education.








I attended the second seating, so after the presentation I headed downstairs with the other ladies to admire the beautifully set tables and enjoy some delicious goodies. It was a great time...here are a few of the fun and lovely tables.


Twins table (This is where I was seated.)




Table of dishes commemorating various church milestones




Fiesta table

Weekly beauty: John August Swanson

I really like John August Swanson's artwork. There are several pieces on campus at Luther Seminary, and WorkingPreacher.org uses it in their backgrounds. The sort-of rolling shapes remind me of Grant Wood's trees, and the bright colors add a lot of vitality to the story each piece tells.

Here's a selection of biblically-themed pieces (we will conveniently ignore the circus-themed ones because circuses creep me out a little--sorry).


"Psalm 85" (artist's notes)




"Story of the Prodigal Son" (artist's notes)




"Take Away the Stone" based on the raising of Lazarus (artist's notes)




"Washing of the Feet" (artist's notes)




A note of coincidence...I wrote and saved this post yesterday, and today I saw the following announcement on the Luther Seminary intranet. So if you're in the area and want to see more of John August Swanson's work, here's your chance.

A reception honoring John August Swanson will be held in the Westminster Gallery, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, on Friday, Oct. 8 from 5 pm to 8 pm, with an artist's talk from 6 pm to 7 pm. The exhibition features early and current work, and significantly, works-in-progress that demonstrate technique.

The exhibition opened Sunday, September 12 and runs through Sunday, November 21, 2010. Westminster member and Luther Seminary archivist, Paul Daniels, and his archival assistant, Kari Bostrom are co-curators with Westminster on this joint venture. Luther Seminary holds the archive of John's work and papers and is sharing these holdings with the Westminster Gallery.

Lands Lutheran Church

Not to worry, I did not have a ninth church added to my already-full roster!

Lands Lutheran Church just outside Zumbrota is where I go for text study each Tuesday. More than 15 different pastors attend regularly, though rarely all at the same time. They're a lively group, and they offer a hearty dose of social and collegial support along with insightful theological reflection on the week's lectionary texts. I look forward to it every week, even as a newbie.

And since you didn't get pictures of Gol and Hegre this week, here are some of Lands to make up for it. It's a little hard to tell here, but it's set up in a semi-circle, which gives the sizable space a cozier feel. Yet another beautiful building!

Voyage up north

Last weekend I make a trek "up north" to visit my friends Phil and Rachel in Underwood, Minnesota, in lake country. Check out my GPS screen as I entered their area...seems like more lakes than land! Otter Tail County contains over 1,000 of Minnesota's famous "10,000 lakes."





Rachel met me in the nearby town of Battle Lake. Each town in the area has a statue to commemorate its history or character. This one is in honor of a man who led the successful effort to hold off an attacking tribe while his own tribe fled to safety.





On the way back to their house, we met Phil at Zion Lutheran Church of Amor, where he's doing his internship. I got to meet his supervising pastor and check out the lovely, updated building. (And they're putting together another building project!)





Friday night we just grilled some brats for supper and relaxed while we waited for our friends, Ben and Stephanie, to arrive from St. Paul. (Incidentally, the tomato-basil brats were amazing. They were from Amor Pork. We stopped there the next day and had a great conversation with Bob.)

It's not hard to relax when this is your back yard view. Or when you have a host like Rachel, who bought the wine and chips I like because she knows me so well and she's thoughtful like that!





The next morning we went out for breakfast at Betty's Pantry in Ottertail, where they were aggressively celebrating autumn. Here's a tiny corner of the bathroom. The entire restaurant looked like this. It was glorious. Fantastic food, too.





On our way back, we had to stop at the Ottertail statue. I told you all the towns around had their own statues.





Finally, we went for a walk in the neighbors' woods before I had to head back to prep for my busy Sunday. As Rachel wrote, we really enjoyed the crisp air and sound of leaves crunching under our feet. She took this picture, because she is the master of makeshift tripod photography!





All in all, a wonderful weekend with wonderful friends! It was great to seize the opportunity while the weather was still so beautiful, but hopefully the snow (and busy schedules) won't keep us apart all winter!

The ridiculous and the adorable

Ridiculous (and disturbing): Halloween/Christmas fusion on October 4.




Adorable: Southern sun + radiant in-floor heat = happy kitty.

Sunday at Gol and Hegre

Well, I survived my first Sunday worship at two different churches that use two different services from two different hymnals. Their two pastors were both on vacation, so I was on my own. The folks at both Gol Lutheran Church and Hegre Lutheran Church are welcoming and easygoing, so not only did I survive, everything went really well and I had a great time.

The timeframe is quite tight (9:00 at Gol, 10:30 at Hegre, about a 10-minute drive in between). I finished shaking hands at Gol at 9:15, dashed off to Hegre, drove a few minutes, and realized my sermon was sitting in the pulpit at Gol! So I turned around to get it. Had I been much further, I would have done without and tried to wing it, but I really don't think that would have been pretty. I still got to Hegre at maybe 10:33, so worship probably started about 10:40. Fortunately they're old pros at this and they're patient.

At Hegre (prounounced Hay-gree) a fabulous 11-year-old assisting minister did a couple parts of the service, and I told her she's welcome to do more whenever she'd like. I was thrilled at her participation, and I think she enjoyed it too.

Unfortunately, with the crazy schedule, I only got a couple pictures of Gol and none of Hegre, so I guess you'll have to wait until next time around for those. I have some other pictures coming up this week, though, of course!

October 3 sermon

Text: Luke 16:19-31
Preached October 3 at Gol and Hegre Lutheran Churches in rural Kenyon, MN


Grace and peace to you from God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Why do bad things happen to good people?”
“Why am I in so much pain?”
“Where is God? I feel like he’s left me.”

Have you ever found yourself asking questions like this? I know I have. And these are not new questions.

“Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?”
Twenty-six hundred years ago, the prophet Habakkuk wrote these words from our first reading. This prophet knew suffering and wasn’t afraid to say so.

Habakkuk’s writing centers on how to make sense of suffering. It asks how God relates to us and our suffering. Habakkuk helps us see God’s promise that suffering and sorrow do not have the final word. This prophet has a lot to say about living by faith in a world that includes far too much evil and violence.

This is the only time Habakkuk pops up in our three-year lectionary cycle, so we can’t pass up this chance to take a look at this prophet’s message. We don’t know a lot about the prophet Habakkuk. He probably wrote this book around 600 BC.

At that time, the Israelites were divided into two kingdoms. The northern kingdom of Israel had already been conquered. The southern kingdom of Judah, which is where Habakkuk was writing, was about to be conquered as well. It wasn’t a good time for God’s people.

Habakkuk’s writing is divided into just three chapters, and I want to take a quick look at one important section from each chapter to see what it might tell us about faith and suffering.

We just heard the lament that opens the writing: “Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me….justice never prevails.”

This is powerful lament. The prophet condemns God’s people for abandoning God’s ways. He names the brokenness of the world—life includes destruction, violence, and injustice. The righteous suffer. It’s not easy to accept, but it’s reality. And the prophet puts words to the shared experience of feeling abandoned by God.

Perhaps you’ve experienced times in your life when you felt like God was absent, or at least like he wasn’t paying attention. Many of us have been through individual or family situations like the death of a loved one, chronic pain, infertility or miscarriage, addiction, divorce, unemployment, abuse, mental illness.

We are all affected, either directly or indirectly, by community or global suffering as well. We deal with natural disasters like flooding and tornadoes. We deal with violence and injustice like bullying, poverty, and war.

When you face difficult situations like these, when you feel like God has abandoned you, what do you do? Do you feel comfortable confronting God as boldly as the prophet does? Some of us may have been discouraged from speaking to or about God in ways that might be considered negative, so we might be hesitant to complain so directly to God.

But Habakkuk’s cry to God here tells us that it’s okay to challenge God. It’s okay to ask hard questions, to lament, even to get angry. Habakkuk asks God, basically, “Why aren’t you showing up to fix this mess?!” God wants to hear from us, even when what we have to say isn’t pretty. Even when we are so angry or sad or scared that we can’t even find words to say what we’re feeling.

Even if all we can do is cry or scream, God wants us to turn to him with that pain. The apostle Paul tells us that this is when the Holy Spirit “helps us in our weakness” and prays on our behalf.

God wants to be in relationship with us. Relationships involve sharing of ourselves, and sometimes relationships involve conflict. Even when we have difficult things to say, God can handle it.

In fact, the first thing we should notice about God’s response to Habakkuk is the very fact that God does respond. God does not scold or punish Habakkuk for complaining. God does not ignore his children’s cries.

And how exactly does God respond to this prophet? We look at chapter 2: “Then the Lord answered me and said….There is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come…. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right within them, but the righteous live by their faith.”

“There is a vision.” God does have something to say to us. But, “if it seems to tarry, wait for it.” So God’s response may seem slow in coming. It may not conform to our preferred timeline. But, sooner or later, God will respond.

“The righteous live by their faith.” Does this response to Habakkuk sound like an easy answer to you? Does it neatly explain or resolve the suffering of the prophet and his community? I don’t think so. It seems God’s response won’t necessarily be the clear explanation we might want.

During times when you were suffering, have people tried to give you easy answers or neat explanations? “Everything happens for a reason.” Or, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” We have probably all heard such things, and we have probably all said such things. Sometimes they’re helpful and comforting.

But, many times, these answers just don’t satisfy us. They don’t recognize the intensity and contradiction of our emotions. They don’t leave room for our anger and questions. In times of intense sorrow and pain, there often are no easy answers. God’s response to Habakkuk is no exception.

But what does God’s response say about where God is in our suffering? God is right there with us, continuing in relationship with us. God is present to hear our cries and respond to our anger, confusion, and pain.

This verse speaks of salvation: “The righteous live by their faith.” Paul picks up on this verse in Romans 1 and Galatians 3 when he explains that it is Jesus Christ who makes us righteous. We are reconciled to God by our faith in Christ, not by our own work. So we become the righteous, and we live eternally by our faith.

This verse also speaks of a way of living: “The righteous live by their faith.” We live by faith when we trust that God is present, that God will respond to our cries, and that God’s response will be true. Faith is trusting that God is faithful to his people and his promises. And we see again that faith is about relationship, because trust can only occur within a relationship. So the righteous live each day by their faith.

Habakkuk’s message concludes with a summary of the situation the community is facing. This passage was not in our reading today. It’s at the end of chapter 3: “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.”

As the prophet describes this situation, how good are things looking? “The fig tree does not blossom…no fruit is on the vines…the fields yield no food…there is no herd in the stalls.” So there are no crops and no livestock. No food. This is a description of despair. There is nothing left to hope for and things are bleak. What now?

How does the prophet respond? “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength.”

“Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.” That “yet” is a tiny but important word. Habakkuk doesn’t say “in the future I will rejoice,” or “when things get better I will rejoice.” Habakkuk rejoices in the Lord even now, in the midst of this dire situation.

What does this tell us about faith? Once again, faith is trust in God—trust that God will keep his promises and provide for his people’s needs. This trust can give us hope, and that hope can sustain us in the midst of despair.

Habakkuk shows us what it means that the righteous live by their faith. Rolf Jacobson writes that “the righteous have hearts that love God, rather than merely the blessings God gives.” This doesn’t mean the righteous never have doubts. Habakkuk showed us that by with his very direct questions for God.

But faith keeps trusting in spite of those doubts. Faith brings those doubts to God and waits for God’s response, as Habakkuk did. Faith enables us to live with these difficult questions, even when God’s response doesn’t really answer them. Faith enables us to endure suffering we don’t understand, and even to rejoice in the midst of it.

Now, we need to be clear that there is a difference between happiness and joy. We certainly cannot expect to be happy in the midst of suffering, but we can still have the deep sense of joy and peace that comes from faith.

Yes, faith enables us to lament and rejoice at the same time. Faith tells us that God is still with us even as we suffer, and God’s presence is our strength. Faith lets us trust in God’s promise that despair will not have the final word, and in that promise we find life and hope in the midst of hopelessness.

Let us pray.

God of hope, we are all too aware that life includes much suffering, and we give thanks for your constant presence in both joy and sorrow. Empower us to follow the prophets’ example by bringing our pain and our questions to you. When clear answers are not forthcoming, help us cling to your promise that suffering and death will not have the final word. All this we pray in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who makes us righteous and who is our strength. Amen.

Weekly beauty: Taizé music

Since I've already been thinking about music this week, I'm sticking with the theme for your weekly glimpse of beauty. The Taizé Community of France is an ecumenical, international monastic community that has become well-known for its music. Here's part of their own description of their songs:

Using just a few words they express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole being. Meditative singing thus becomes a way of listening to God.

I love the meditative nature of Taizé music. I have this album, plus a few other individual songs, and I turn to them often in my personal devotions. Here are YouTube clips of a couple of my favorites.


"Magnificat" canon

The Latin words, "Magnificat anima mea Dominum," are the first line of Mary's song (Luke 1), "My soul magnifies the Lord."




"Wait for the Lord" is from Psalm 27:14.

More occasional randomness

Here's what's up:

I'm editing the post to add this fascinating tidbit: my mileage total for September was 1,508. Of that, 827 miles were for internship-related travel, the other 681 was personal (mostly those four trips to St. Paul and back). Thankfully, the driving wasn't nearly as unpleasant as I had feared, though that will surely change come January.

It feels like spring and the bugs seem to agree. The box elder bugs are out of control, though they stay mostly outside. The ladybugs (or Asian beetles or whatever they are) have moved in. I am walking the line between constant and merciless crushing or just cohabiting. If they choose their location within the apartment wisely, they escape my wrath. The creepy wormy things do not. There is no escape for them.

I have a cold and I'm not happy about it. It's been about a week and a half now and it's gradually improving but it won't just go away. That's what I get for my ongoing struggles with self-care.

Last night at confirmation, my eighth-graders actually remembered a lot of what we had talked about last week! I was shocked and ecstatic. It's gratifying to know that some kernels of knowledge are sinking in even though they never stop talking and rarely appear to be paying much attention. They are a great group, though, with really good questions. Last night they came up with arguments for and against flags in the sanctuary (all on their own, prompted only by the presence of the flags). And they twisted their brains into knots trying to figure out the Trinity, also all on their own.

My friend Jennifer is beginning her journey to Liberia even as I write this. I will really miss having her around for daily check-in calls, but of course I'm delighted that she will finally get to spend time in person with the man she would have married in August had his visa been approved.

Now I have to get back to sermonizing because tomorrow I head to Underwood, Minnesota, to visit my friends Phil and Rachel. And, of course, Klaus! Our other friends, Ben and Stephanie, are planning to come too, so it's sure to be a good time!

On singing in worship

Earlier this week, I read a post on Stuff Christians Like that I've been pondering ever since. It was titled, "Getting abandoned by the worship leader."

Stuff Christians Like is written from a distinctly evangelical perspective, so the phenomena the author describes are often only tangentially related to my own experiences. I like reading it because it's usually quite funny, and because it proclaims God's love for us (like today's post). It's also interesting to hear about a concept and experience of church that is different from my own in many ways, but very widespread.

Somehow, with this post, the gap between our perspectives seemed wider than usual. The post was about the awkwardness of the worship leader stepping back from the microphone during a song, so that his or her voice is no longer leading the assembly's singing.

A couple things struck me about this:

• The post was written with the assumption of a praise band and worship leader. This seems to be the standard form of worship for the author of Stuff Christians Like, as well as for the readers (based on the comments I read).
• The very reason the writer (and commenters) find it awkward for the worship leader to stop leading is this: "suddenly I can hear myself and my horrible, horrible voice. And so can everyone else, and we stop singing. We get all quiet and awkward until the leader returns from his or her mic vacation and saves us."

When I read that sentence, I realized that it summed up one of the primary reasons I don't usually like worship that involves praise bands with electric instruments and amplification and so on: because I can't hear myself or my neighbors sing.

My experiences with this type of worship is that it makes no difference at all whether or not I add my voice to the song. It makes no difference whether or not anyone in the congregation adds their voice to the song, because the only voices any of us will ever hear are those of the mic-wielding leaders.

I get so many negative messages from that experience. It tells me only "good" singers are worthy of being heard. It walks a fine line between worship and performance. It reduces the assembly of worshipers to passive and irrelevant spectators.

Music is a tool of proclamation. Congregational singing is one of the tools that allows the entire assembly to proclaim God's word together, rather than putting that word in the mouths of only a few (the pastor, designated readers, choir, or band, for example).

Quite regularly at my teaching congregation (and occasionally in chapel at Luther Seminary) the organist or pianist would stop playing so that the assembly could sing one or more verses of a hymn acapella. It never failed to thrill me!

Hearing real, unamplified, unobscured, imperfect-but-beautiful human voices (including my own) joined together in harmony to praise God and proclaim God's promises is a powerful experience of the body of Christ. For me, it's one of the greatest delights of worship.

I understand that not all congregations are musically talented enough to sing in acapella harmony and sound good. The proclamation can be just as effective with accompaniment and in unison. Either way, each person's participation matters, and each person's voice is pleasing to God.

I'm not one to push any particular style of worship as required or superior. I enjoy a wide variety of music, and I'm glad different styles exist to help different people better hear the gospel. Besides, any style of worship has the potential to send negative messages (traditional church choirs can be just as performance-like as praise bands, for example).

It's just fascinating to me that the same experience (the assembly's voices being heard in worship) can be an essential part of worship for me, yet scary and undesirable to many others. And I think we all have to consider carefully the various layers of meaning conveyed by our worship and music choices.