3rd Sunday after Pentecost: June 17, 2012

3^rd Sunday after Pentecost: June 17, 2012

Mark 4:26-34

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

On this Father’s Day, it seems appropriate to tell a story that at least begins with my father. Therefore I’ll tell you how, in the summers after my freshman and sophomore years in college, my dear Dad kindly arranged a summer job for me, so I wouldn’t be bored sitting around the house. Wasn’t that nice of him? Happy Father’s Day, Dad! I had taught a few piano lessons and had held a job as  Sunday morning pianist at the Freewill Baptist Church in town, but this was my first non-music job—and it was a job working for one of my dad’s friends. No pressure!

But before you feel too sorry for me (I did plenty of that for myself), you should know this summer job was far from the burger-slinging or toddler-chasing I could have been doing. I had no reason to whine, in fact, because what my dad had arranged was a job working in the university botany lab.

Thanks to my dad, I had the privilege of working for eight hours a day in an air-conditioned, sterile, nearly soundless room, carefully placing Arabidopsis thaliana into Petri dishes. In plain language, my job was planting mustard seeds.

If I had known I would one day be a pastor, I might have appreciated the irony of spending the summer planting mustard seeds. As it was, I did appreciate the air-conditioning. But I was a music major, and I therefore understood exactly nothing of what I was going on in that lab.

Pick up seed with tweezers, wash seed in Clorox, set timer for 90 seconds, wait, rinse seed in water, plant seed in Petri dish. Repeat. Seed, after seed, after seed. Mark 4 verse 31 says the mustard seed is “the smallest seed on earth.” I’m sure this isn’t technically true, but let’s just say that mustard seeds are small. Very, very small.

And it was all very strange to me. What was the point? I’m sure I did ask that question, but even the answer was incomprehensible. And so I continued on: picking up seeds, washing them, and planting them. I simply had to trust that somehow, something was happening with those seeds.

On weekends, I was sometimes on watering duty, and it was then I could see the results of my endless hours of tweezing and bleaching and planting. Unlike my sterile planting chamber, this room was packed with mustard plants, and they were growing—like weeds!

Here were the results the professors and students were hoping for. Here were hundreds of flowering plants, growing to maturity from those microscopic seeds. Here was the harvest, mysteriously growing even though I had no idea what I was doing.  Later, I would learn that Arabadopsis thaliana became the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced. 

Jesus says the kingdom is like that: “The kingdom of God 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.” 

We plant seed, after seed, after seed. We teach Sunday school. We’re kind to our neighbors and are active in the community. We smile at the check-out girl and invite her to church. We give our offering checks. We pray: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done”. And some days we wonder if it’s making any difference at all!

It’s especially hard to see the kingdom coming when giving is down, when it’s summer and the pews aren’t filled, and when our young people don’t come to church. It’s hard to see the kingdom at hand when our neighbors are losing their homes, when the cost of insurance means our loved ones can’t see the doctor, or when children are dying of malaria. And yet we trust. We keep planting, and praying, and trusting that the kingdom will indeed come, on earth as it is in heaven. 

And—thanks be to God—it does! While we sleep and rise, the seed sprouts and grows, though we do not know how. The kingdom “is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

This weekend I had the privilege of attending the Northern Illinois Synod Assembly with your fellow church members Joel Thoreson, Ron and Pat Henning, Shirley Anderson, Karla Malpica, Bethany Gola, Michael Fortin, and Mel Meier. We heard reports from committees, passed the budget, honored retirees and clergy anniversaries, watched promotional videos and celebrated the 25^th year of the ELCA and the Northern Illinois Synod. (we also ate dessert at every meal!)

As fascinating as parliamentary procedures can be, the best moment of the weekend was yesterday when we welcomed Lord of Love Lutheran Church in Galena as a congregation of the ELCA and the Northern Illinois Synod. 

Bishop Wollersheim invited members of the congregation on the stage, and suddenly from behind us we heard the sound of a trumpet, a tambourine, and singing: “Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen!” And here they came: black and white and brown, young and old, singing down the aisle and onto the stage. Lord of Love’s pastor, Dennis Hill, had been ordained the night before, and they were clearly still glowing from that joyous event. 

That sight alone might have been enough to lift our spirits after a lengthy session of historical speeches and Robert’s Rules of Order! And then we heard the story of Lord of Love.

Lord of Love began as an informal group of just thirteen people. Some of had been members of congregations that left the ELCA. Some had been without a church home for years before, or had never felt welcome in one. But in 2009, those 13 believers came to the Synod office and asked if they could become an ELCA congregation. They had a vision of becoming a church for all believers in Christ, where all are welcome regardless of age, disability, gender, nationality, race, religious background, sexual identity or socioeconomic status. In their own words: “At Lord of Love, when we say “All Are Welcome,” we mean it.”

There were some problems to overcome: for one thing, their pastor wasn’t Lutheran, but Baptist! They had no idea what they were doing. As their congregational president said, starting a new church isn’t on anyone’s bucket list! And on that first day, when they opened their doors, they weren’t sure anyone would come to the kind of church they had envisioned and described. For the first few minutes, it was just the thirteen of them, alone. 

But then they started to arrive. Cars drove into the parking lot. Families walked in. Community members they had never seen darken the doors of their old churches were coming to this one.

That was in 2009. This year, at their official organizational meeting, there were more than 125 signers! Lord of Love, which at one time looked like nothing more than a handful of tiny stray seeds, has now grown and put forth large branches, so that the birds of the air—all the birds of the air—can make nests in its shade. 

The thing is, we often expect the kingdom to look like one thing, and it ends up being completely different. We too easily dismiss tiny seeds. We assume nothing is growing if we can’t see it happening.

And yet Jesus tells us to trust. Trust that in spite of our worries or statistics that seemed stacked against us, the kingdom is coming. Trust that in spite of dire predictions that the mainline churches are dying, Christianity has become irrelevant, or the world is going to hell in a handbasket, we have reason to hope. 

Our hope is in the One who said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” and “the kingdom of God has come near”. Our hope is in the One who sees in a handful of discarded church members and lonely souls the seeds of a new church. Our hope is in the One who heals girls everyone else thought was dead and who gives blind men sight. Our hope is in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, friend of the friendless, voice of the voiceless, our master gardener, the water of life, our rock and our redeemer. Amen!

2nd Sunday after Pentecost: June 10, 2012

2^nd Sunday after Pentecost: June 10, 2012

Mark 3:20-35

Preacher: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

*Many thanks to Anna Carter Florence and her book "Preaching as Testimony" (Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) for introducing me to the story of Jarena Lee. Thanks also to Dr. Craig Satterlee for his Logjam Appointment which provided the inspiration for this sermon.*

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jarena Lee was born in Cape May, New Jersey, on February 11, 1783. She was most likely born to free parents, but at the age of seven her family’s poverty meant she was hired out as a servant and would not see her family again for fourteen years. This was effectively a legal form of slavery, and an all-too common African-American story of the time.

As a result of these difficult beginnings, Jarena struggled with depression and feelings of abandonment her whole life, but in 1804, at the age of twenty-one, she moved to Philadelphia to gain a fresh start. Her first order of business was to find a place to worship, and that she did, at the African Methodist Episcopal Church headed by Pastor Richard Allen. Upon finding her church family, she wrote, “This is the people to whom my heart unites.” 

But just three weeks into her time at the A.M.E. church, Jarena experienced a strange thing. Just as the preacher was beginning his Sunday sermon, Jarena writes:

“That moment, though hundreds were present, I did leap to my feet and declare that God, for Christ’s sake, had pardoned the sins of my soul…For a few moments I had the power to exhort sinners, and to tell of the wonders and of the goodness of Him who had clothed me with His salvation. During this time the minister was silent, until my soul felt its duty had been performed, when he declared another witness of the power of Christ to forgive sins on earth, was manifest in my conversion.” 

Now a parishioner leaping to her feet in the middle of a sermon would certainly get our attention today here at Bethany, but in 1804 there were some very good reasons why this would be more than odd—most notably, the fact that Jarena Lee was a woman.

If a man had leaped to his feet in such a manner, one might have expected him to be called in to the pastor’s office, perhaps taken under his wing and nurtured into an assistant preacher. But women were not only forbidden from being preachers in the year 1804—they weren’t even allowed to speak in church. This event, therefore, was for Jarena and her church community nothing more than an exciting anomaly in an otherwise normal Sunday worship service. No one called Jarena into the pastor’s office. No one recommended seminary or suggested she call the candidacy committee. No one took her seriously, because Jarena was a woman, and of course, God doesn’t work that way.

A few years later, however, in 1811, it happened again. Jarena writes:

“On a certain time, an impressive silence fell upon me, and I stood as if some one was about to speak to me, yet I had no such thought in my heart.—But to my utter surprise there seemed to sound a voice which I thought I distinctly heard, and most certainly understand, which said to me, “Go preach the Gospel”! I immediately replied aloud, “No one will believe me.” Again I listened, and again the same voice seemed to say—“Preach the Gospel; I will put words in your mouth, and will turn your enemies to become your friends.”

This time, Jarena began to seriously doubt her sanity. Maybe this was Satan speaking, and not God! After all, there were exactly zero “lady pastors” in her life to act as role models or mentors. Women preachers were as unbelievable as unicorns or the Cubs winning a World Series. How could she be certain this was God calling her? Just to be sure, Jarena went in to visit her pastor, Richard Allen.

Pastor Allen listened carefully as Jarena explained that God had called her to preach. And then he coolly commented that “the Discipline knew nothing at all about it—that it did not call for women preachers.” Call it tradition, call it church authority, call it “good order”, but for Jarena Lee, the answer was, “God doesn’t work that way.” 

So Jarena went home and did what many a frustrated woman preacher has done: she married one instead. Sadly, just six years later her husband, the Reverend Joseph Lee, died, leaving her with two small children. And Jarena couldn’t ignore the call any longer.

So she went back to visit Pastor Allen, and this time he granted her permission to hold “prayer meetings” and to “exhort” but of course never to preach. Why? Because, of course, God doesn’t work that way.

But one Sunday in worship, the preacher stood up and read the text from Jonah and then—in Jarena’s words—he seemed to “lose the Spirit.” So Jarena leaped to her feet and interrupted the preacher. 

“I told them I was like Jonah; for it had been then nearly eight years since the Lord had called me to preach his gospel to the fallen sons and daughters of Adam’s race, but that I had lingered like him, and delayed to go at the bidding of the Lord…During the exhortation, God made manifest his power in a manner sufficient to show the world that I was called to labor according to my ability, and the grace given unto me.”

When she sat down, Jarena braced herself to be thrown out of the church or at least publicly reprimanded. Instead, Pastor Allen stood up and told the congregation that God had changed his mind. He now believed that Jarena was indeed called preach! And really, what choice did he have? There she was: a unicorn; a preaching woman right there in their midst. 

After that day, Jarena went on to become the first woman licensed to preach in the A.M.E. church (a full 150 years before the ELCA, by the way) and to have a thirty year preaching career. She was also only the second African-American woman to have a book published—a book in which she chronicles how she "travelled two thousand three hundred and twenty-five miles, and preached one hundred and seventy-eight sermons.” God does work that way, it turns out.

Jarena Lee’s story highlights the way we so often get caught up in our judgments about how God can and does work in the world. It wasn’t too long ago that our denomination said: “Women can’t preachers! God doesn’t work that way!” And yet here I stand—along with Angela and Mary Carol and a host of other female Lutheran preachers who came before us. 

Women’s ordination is generally a non-issue for us today, but there are certainly others we get hung up on. 

Gay people can’t get married! God doesn’t work that way.

You can’t just welcome everybody to communion! God doesn’t work that way.

You can’t just feed people, because they’ll keep coming back! God doesn’t work that way. 

You can’t heal people on the Sabbath, Jesus! God doesn’t work that way.

You can’t send fishermen to cast out demons, Jesus! God doesn’t work that way. 

You can’t forgive everyone, all their sins, Jesus, and in such a dramatic and public way! God doesn’t work that way.

Most often, of course, when we say “God doesn’t work that way” what we really mean is “the church doesn’t work that way” or “our culture doesn’t work that way” or “our government doesn’t work that way”…or, if we’re honest: “I don’t feel comfortable when God works that way.”

This is what is happening in the scene from Mark chapter 3 which we heard this morning. Jesus was surrounded by the crowds, who were so eager to see him he couldn’t even find time to eat. He was healing people right and left, even on the Sabbath, and even when they were unclean. He was eating with tax collectors and sinners. He was silencing demons and teaching with authority. But others were uncomfortable with Jesus working like this. In fact, his family heard the rumors that he was out of his mind, and they showed up to haul him home. 

And the scribes—well, the scribes were like the pastor and other church authorities who told Jarena Lee “our discipline doesn’t call for woman preachers”. The scribes took one look at what Jesus was doing and said “God doesn’t work that way. This must be Beelzebul. He’s obviously possessed by a demon!” In other words: “You’re making us uncomfortable, Jesus.”

And Jesus’ response is one that should make us sit up and take notice.

There are many sins which we humans might consider to be unforgivable. And yet Jesus has said that the one thing God cannot forgive is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit—which, contrary to what I thought when growing up, has nothing to do with spouting four-letter words. Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, as seen in this Gospel passage, is denying the work of God. Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is what happens when we take a look at who Jesus is healing, who God is forgiving, who God is calling to preach the Gospel, or how the Spirit is moving in a place and among a people and say: “Nope. God doesn’t work that way. That must be Satan.”

Jesus directed these strong words to a people who thought they knew everything.  This was very bad news for the scribes and authority figures who thought they had the power to decide how God works and when. For there he was, standing before them: Jesus, son of a carpenter and Son of God; Jesus, healer of our souls; Jesus, friend of the friendless; Jesus, our brother; Jesus Christ, our Savior, come to set the captives free. 

And this Jesus, crucified and risen, reveals to us the Good News that God does indeed work this way:

God forgives beyond our deepest hopes.

God heals against anyone’s rules. 

God creates family where we least expect it. 

God saves us from our own judgments.

God seeks out the lost.

God makes a way out of no way.

God is still speaking—and still shattering our expectations.

Wherever we see healing, wholeness, forgiveness and reconciliation rising out of judgment, fear, and brokenness, we see Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit, and we can say without a doubt, “Yes, indeed God does work that way!”

HOLY TRINITY/BAPTISM SUNDAY

HOLY TRINITY/BAPTISM SUNDAY: June 3, 2012

John 3:1-16

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

  This morning we began worship with some sprinkling and the invitation to “Come to the water and remember your baptism.” For those of you who were baptized as infants—which is the norm among Lutherans—this may seem a strange invitation. How can I remember my baptism, when I was only six weeks old at the time? For that matter, how can I remember my baptism, when most days I can’t remember what I had for breakfast?

Gene Bengston does remember his baptism. He was about 12 years old, and he was baptized at Zion Lutheran in Kewanee, Illinois along with his older brother. These were the years of the Great Depression, and in the view of Gene’s father, if you didn’t have money to put in the offering plate, you didn’t go to church. There was no money, so no church for a long while for Gene and his 13 siblings.

But then it came time for one of the older brothers to get confirmed, and when the pastor learned he wasn’t yet baptized, arrangements were made.  It was done in private—just Gene and his parents and brother, and definitely not on a Sunday morning. Some of you (especially Mr. Bengston’s former 8th grade Confirmation students) may enjoy knowing that his primary concern—in fact, his main thought after this blessed event—was, “Hey…maybe I won’t have to go to Confirmation!” After all, at twelve he must already be old enough to fulfill his baptismal promises on his own. Feel free, confirmands, to ask Mr. Bengston how that conversation went with his pastor.

Mary Ellen Thoreson does not remember her baptism, but she knows the story well. She’s been told many times how she was baptized on Palm Sunday—the only day of the year her family’s Methodist church celebrated baptisms—and there were eleven other babies being dunked that day. Twelve babies sort of makes our “Baptismapalooza” look like small potatoes!

Now I have experienced Mary Ellen to be a thoughtful, kind, and somewhat quiet woman. But on that day, 3 month old Mary Ellen was screaming at the top of her lungs. In fact, she screamed so loud and so long that the pastor had to shout to be heard over her! And then, without warning, Mary Ellen was suddenly quiet—and this left the poor pastor screaming at his parishioners: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!”

We can all remember the baptismal birthday of Marianne and Dick Anderson’s daughter Suzanne, because she was baptized on July 20, 1969, which also happens to be the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I couldn’t help but wonder if the pastor mentioned the upcoming moonwalk in his sermon that day, but Marianne says no. What a missed opportunity! I realize the moonwalk didn’t happen until later that day, and those famous words had not yet been spoken, but oh, how I would have loved the chance to mention that baptism is “One small splash for humans, but one giant bath of grace for humankind.” Amen?

Here at Bethany we are preparing to meet next week the young man who is our candidate to be Associate Pastor for Youth and Family Ministries. His name is Paul, and as we began the interviewing process I spoke with him on the phone. I had read in his paperwork that Paul was raised in Utah, so one of the first things I asked was, “Do you know anything about Crystal Lake and the Chicagoland area?” I certainly never expected the answer he gave. “Actually, Pastor Carrie…I think I might have been baptized at Bethany!”

And this is most certainly true: Paul Cannon (and his identical twin brother, Neal, as well as two sisters) were all baptized here in this font, in the midst of this community, a few decades ago. Nothing in his profile would have indicated this to the bishop or his staff, and until he asked his parents for sure, even Paul wasn’t certain of it, for he moved away when he was quite young.

And yet, here we are, preparing to meet a young man for whom this community made promises so many years ago. On the day when Paul and his twin brother were brought to the water, this community promised to support Paul and pray for him in his new life in Christ. As a community, you promised to be there for him—praying, providing a Christian education, supporting his family, forgiving, loving, and most of all, showing him how to be the body of Christ in the world. And now it seems he may have the opportunity to fulfill those baptismal promises himself: praying for us, forgiving us, loving us, and helping to provide a quality Christian education for the next generation in this community.

Community is the most common thread in nearly all the baptism stories I heard this week.  Above all else, we most often remember (or have been told) who was there with us on that important day: pastors, parents, godparents, siblings, friends, a church community. And that’s why, sisters and brothers, it is so very appropriate for us to celebrate baptisms on Holy Trinity Sunday. The Holy Trinity, in all its mystery, is perhaps best understood as God in community.

Camillus Lyimo, in the book “African Christian Spirituality”, writes:

“Though for us knowledge of the life of the Trinity is indeed little, yet we can say that the most perfect community or ujamaa is the Trinity. The Trinity establishes God as community. Jesus Christ revealed the Trinity to us. God wished to share with humanity and with the entire creation his own community life in the person of Jesus Christ…Our life is a shared life in the Trinity.”
In our individualistic culture, baptism is often treated as a personal, individual, “Get out of sin free” card. But on Holy Trinity Sunday, we are reminded that the God who is present with us in the water and the Word is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one in three and three in one, a community in God’s self—making baptism anything but an individual experience. Through baptism, we are united with all the baptized in the one body of Christ, anointed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and joined in God's mission for the life of the world.

Lutherans baptize infants chiefly because we trust in God’s free gift of grace, seen in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and poured out on all the baptized. But because we baptize infants, we also we put our trust in community. We know that Johnathan, Ivana, Reese, Prestyn, Grant, Jackson and Liam do not come to the water of their own accord or with faith in God today. We trust in community—this community—to fulfill the promises of baptism.

In the years to come we will love them, pray for them, place in their hands the Holy Scriptures, and tell them about Abraham and Sarah, David and Goliath, Jonah and Noah, and Mary and Joseph. We will forgive them as Christ forgave us; we will gather with them at the table to share the bread and the wine; and we will watch eagerly to see how God uses them in God’s mission to the world.
And we will help them remember their baptisms.

When bullies try to tell our children who they are, we help them remember they belong to Christ, in whom they were baptized.

When cancer or addiction or depression try to claim our sons and daughters, we help them remember they have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and claimed as sons and daughters of God.

When society labels children as learning disabled, troublemakers, underachievers, or simply “different”, we help them remember they have been marked with the cross of Christ forever.

When any child of God doubts her worth or becomes weighed down by sin and judgment, we help her remember she has been washed clean, once and for all, through water and the Word.

And when, like Nicodemus, our children ask us, “How can these things be?” we will speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen: God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

And all God’s people said: Amen.

DAY OF PENTECOST: May 27, 2012

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie Smith

Acts 2:1-21; Romans 8:22-27; John 15:26-27, 4b-15

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sisters and brothers, let me be clear: This may be Memorial Day weekend, but Pentecost is not a memorial day for the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, of course, it can be hard to tell the difference.

After all, for Memorial Day we wear special colors: red, white and blue in memory of Americans who fought and died for freedom. And on Pentecost we wear special colors, too: red, or perhaps yellow and orange, in memory of that day when the Spirit rained down like tongues of fire and made the disciples free—free to share the Good News with neighbors and friends and to the ends of the earth.

On Memorial Day, the marching band plays and the drums roll in honor of our soldiers. And on Pentecost, we pull out the drums, too, and invite dancers to church, in honor of the fact that Christians can clap and dance to worship God anytime we want to! (…but we just don’t feel like it most of the time.)

On Memorial Day, every politician is a patriot, and heart-warming words are guaranteed to be spoken from every podium. And on Pentecost, we break out the Spanish and German and Swedish, speaking tongues in the pulpit and from the pews—and for at least one Sunday you would think we truly are the multi-lingual, cross-cultural, racially diverse congregation that was gathered on that first Pentecost morning (…but just don’t ask us to sing that setting of the liturgy that’s in Spanish, Pastor.)

But in spite of our red paraments, our global music and our prayers in foreign tongues, Pentecost can nevertheless seem like a memorial service for the Holy Spirit. Because we pull out all the stops just this once a year, it feels like more of a commemoration than a celebration.

Do you remember when we had the Spirit?

Remember that Global Mission Event where everyone was clapping and singing in Swahili? The Spirit was there for sure.

Remember when we went to camp, and we danced in worship? That was definitely the Spirit.

Remember when we tore down the old sanctuary and built a whole new one? Remember when we started the PADS ministry and opened the preschool? Wow, the Spirit was really moving back then.

Remember when we were young, when we were bold, and when the Holy Spirit seemed so near to us?

Do you remember?

Sisters and brothers, let me say it again: Pentecost is not a memorial day for the Spirit.

Pentecost is a celebration of the living God. It’s a festival day, set aside to honor the Spirit who is still here. God’s Holy Spirit is among us even now: poured out upon you in your baptism, interceding every day with sighs too deep for words, and guiding us into all truth—whether we notice her or not.
This is not a memorial service for the Holy Spirit! But…the colors, the music, and the languages of this day do invoke a dangerous memory: they awaken in us of the truth of God’s presence in and among us. And for this reason, our Pentecost worship traditions do have a purpose. The sights and sounds of this day serve to prime the pump, to open our eyes, to awaken our senses, and to fan the flame of the Spirit so we once again surrender to her fiery presence among us. 

And then, we can sing together in all truth: Come thou fount of every blessing! Tune my heart to sing thy grace!

A few months ago a miracle happened: it was a Saturday night, the sermon was already written, and both of our sons were occupied with sleepovers.  My spouse and I jumped at the chance to go into Chicago for dinner and a show. Because it was a last minute date, we chose to eat at the restaurant just next door to the theater. It happened to be a Middle Eastern restaurant run by Palestinians. Robert, of course, couldn’t wait to compare the food with his favorites from his many travels to the Holy Land, so he asked the waitress if we could speak with the chef.

Now this is usually the moment when I cringe with embarrassment. Robert is always doing things like this: chatting with the taxi driver about that time when he visited his home village in Palestine, or asking the pharmacist about her accent and correctly guessing she was from Senegal, or somehow knowing the exact spot in Cairo from which Christiane Amanpour is reporting on CNN. This was no exception.

But when the chef came out he knelt by the table to chat, and we learned he was from Jerusalem. He was a Muslim but had attended St. George’s, an Episcopal school in Jerusalem. He had many good things to say about Christians in general and Lutherans in particular. And then he said, “My brother is still in Jerusalem. He has a shop there across from the Sbitany Center.”

I sat with my mouth hanging open as Robert said, “Oh, yes—on Salahadin street, on the corner between two flower shops.” The chef was flabbergasted—shocked enough, in fact, to later send out free desserts for the two of us.

Just last month when Robert returned to Jerusalem, he stopped in to that very shop. He wasn’t quite sure what to say, so he simply opened with: “Hi. I was in a restaurant in Chicago and met the chef, who says his brother owns a shop here.”

To which the shop owner replied: “This is MY brother! You have come to the right shop!” He was so amazed that an American Christian would take the time to pass along a message from one Muslim brother to another, across continents, cultures, and creeds, the shopkeeper said: “You must come home with me. You must talk with my mother.”

Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. (Acts 2:3-4)

Come thou fount of every blessing: Tune my heart to sing thy grace.

When we lived in Waco, Texas, Robert and I were grateful to qualify for the public school’s free preschool program. I eagerly took 4 year old Caleb with me to Doris Miller Elementary to register on that first day—and right away I noted that we looked quite different from the rest of the student body. In fact, Caleb was not only the sole white child in the class, but in the entire school. We were encountering the reality of a divided city—whites on one side of town, blacks on the other; money on one side of town and none on the other—and we, it seemed, were living on the “wrong side of town.”

We decided not address this with 4 year old Caleb, because, after all, being the “token” is a reality for children of color nearly every day—but we wondered when (or if) the color divide would become an issue for him at school.

And then, one day, about four months into school, it happened.

Caleb came in from school and excitedly said “MOM! Guess what! I just noticed something about my friends today.” “What’s that?” I asked a little nervously.

“Mom, we were counting things today and you know what? I’m the only kid with blue eyes in our whole class!”

‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. (Acts 2:17)

Come thou fount of every blessing: Tune my heart to sing thy grace.

In 2003, my father-in-law died at the age of 52. He had been chronically ill for a long time, but his death was rather sudden. Robert and I were living in Minnesota, finishing up graduate school, and cash was more than tight.

But as soon as we got the call, we rushed to Oklahoma on gas cards and coupons and with the kind help of a state trooper who rescued us when a tire blew on the turnpike somewhere near Wichita. In times like these, you do what needs to be done, and that’s what we did.

It was a trying, emotional week, but the drive home was filled with just as much anxiety. We had emptied our bank account, and Robert, who was paid hourly, had missed an entire week of work, which meant another lean week to come. I wondered how we would even buy groceries when we got home. But I didn’t say much about it. After saying good-bye to Ed at such a young age, my stress about groceries and the budget seemed, well—inconsequential. I didn’t mention it to Robert. I probably didn’t even pray. I was determined to work it out on my own.

But when we arrived home and I was standing in the kitchen of our student apartment, reading through the stack of mail from the week before, I came across a letter from a good friend from high school. I realized I hadn’t called her to tell her about Robert’s dad, and made a mental note to call the next day.

But as I opened the envelope, something green fell out. $50, to be exact. It wasn’t the Mega-Millions jackpot, but it was enough to purchase food for the week. A windfall in our budget.
My friend had written this:

“I was about to go shopping today, but God told me you needed this money more than I did. I have no idea why I’m sending this to you, but I figured you would know. Love, Karla.”

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:26)

Come thou fount of every blessing: Tune my heart to sing thy grace.

Sisters and brothers, I stand here as a witness, testifying to the presence of God’s Holy Spirit among us today. God is still speaking. The grace of our Lord Jesus is with us. And the Holy Spirit—our Comforter, Advocate, Sustainer, and Intercessor—will guide us into all truth. And all God’s people said: Amen!