A few weeks ago we were singing a hymn in the middle of worship at Zion Lutheran Church. We were just finishing the second verse when all of sudden the organ went silent. The organist was pushing down on the keys, but there was no sound coming from the speakers. Our organist looked to me with a bewildered look that said, “What do I do now?” I gave him a look of shock that said, “What happened?”
Once we had shaken off the shock and surprise we simple moved to the next part of the service and later we continued our singing with the piano.
A few days later a technician arrived to repair the organ. He opened the organ’s innards and began to pull out circuit boards, and amplifiers. There were many parts that needed to be replaced including: amplifiers, fuses and even some chips on the circuit boards. He simple heated up his soldering iron and replaced the chips and amplifiers that had been fried. It was amazing to see the skill of the technician, seeking out the broken chips and replacing them. Once the circuit boards were re-installed with the new chips, the organ’s sound was once again restored.
I was thinking today about the organ and how it went silent. Sometimes I feel like that organ. The organ was made to make loud and amazing music, and yet, there it was silent, not fulfilling its purpose at all. There were some vital circuits that had been fried.
Sometimes I feel that my keys are being played, but there is no sound coming from my life. I wonder if my circuits have been fried by all the demands of life. Normal weeks are filled with stress and the demands of family, but these past few weeks have been even more burdensome. The stresses of the economy, the worrying about job security, the demands of preparing for Christmas, are simple overwhelming. Do you ever what to just say no to everyone and everything that needs your attention? Do you ever feel that you’re not fulfilling your purpose, like a organ that’s silent because its circuit boards have been fried?
Author Patsy Clairmont writes that one year, she decided to write "Noel," the French word for Christmas, in bright lights on the roof of her house. Unfortunately, she ran out of lights halfway through the project, so she ended up with just the word "NO" in flashing, multicolored lights on her roof. Some of us want to say "NO" to the Christmas season too. We are too rushed to enjoy it. We are too detached to experience it. We are too cynical to believe in it. We are too fried to live it.
Sometimes when our lives become so hectic, frenzied, difficult and messy we feel God has abandoned us to the forces of fate, evil or despair. It is during these messy times that God’s presence hovers near to
us. For Christians, “stable” moments aren’t those few days when calm briefly descends upon our
world. Our true “stable times” are when we look around and see that however unpredictable, unmanageable and unimaginable our mess, the message is there even more. At Christmas, the mess
is the message.
Jesus was born in a stable -- a small, cramped, congested, messy place. A new born baby was out -of-place, out-of-sync, amid the dusty animals, the mucky straw, and the spilled grain. But the mess is the message of Christmas. There is no stable, no place in our world or in our lives that is too poor, too remote, too outcast, too “other,” too messy, that God cannot be found and formed in us.
As Christmas approaches, we will all find ourselves at wit’s end, running out of time, out of patience, out of money, out of ideas. Don’t be fooled into thinking that God cannot draw close to your life, to your heart, just because your schedule seems “too busy” for Christmas. If your life is hovering near overload, you could be on the very cusp of experiencing genuine “stable time” in your life. Open up to it, exalt in it, and be willing to let God love and care for you. I pray you may experience a very Blessed Christmas.

Loving or Winning?

"Because a loveless world," said Jesus, "is a sightless world." John 14:23 (MsgB)

“Storyteller Bill Harley tells a simple story about a children's T-ball game he witnessed a few years ago. On one of the T-ball teams was a young girl named Tracy. Tracy ran with a limp. She couldn't hit the ball to save her life. But everyone cheered for her anyway. Finally, in her team's last game, Tracy did the unthinkable. She hit the ball. Tracy's coach began hollering for her to run the bases. She landed on first base, only to be told to keep on running. She rounded second base, and the fans stood to their feet and cheered. With one voice, they were all urging Tracy to head home. But as she neared third base, Tracy noticed an old dog that had loped onto the field. It was sitting near the baseline between third plate and home. Moments away from her first home run, Tracy made a momentous decision. She knelt in the dirt and hugged the dog. Tracy never made it to home plate. But the fans cheered for her anyway. Tracy had made her priorities clear. Love was more important than winning.” Billy D. Strayhorn, Luxuriate In God's Grace

I read this story and it kind of stuck in my mind over the last week or so. The story made me ask a question of myself, do I value love more than winning? It’s a good question. We say we love all kinds of things. We proclaim our love in all sorts of ways. Love is a good thing. It’s something we want to receive and to give to others. But we also value winning. We are competitive people. Sometimes we act as though the end justifies the means to the end. This means, it doesn’t matter how we win, but that we win. Where is the love in that kind of winning? I don’t know if I would have even seen the dog, if I was rounding the bases. My vision would have been reduced to home plate and getting there no matter what the cost.

We are busy people. September has brought not only a crispness to the air, but calendars over flowing with commitments. Sometimes as we move from one practice to the next, from one game to the next, we lose our prospective and our goal becomes to just get it done, to just cross home plate. What if we were to expand our vision and include love in our daily routine? What kind of dogs would we see along our base lines? Who or what are we missing in our rush to run the bases of our daily schedule? If you would see love sitting there, would you stop and give it a hug? Is love more important than winning in your life? We may all say yes, but what do your actions say?

To say we would choose love over winning is easy, but to stop as were running towards home plate, and not win because we chose love. Well, that is something else. It’s not something we see very often. And yet, as Christians, we gather each week on Sunday, the day of resurrection, to worship Jesus who chose to love this world rather than win it with power and strength. We are invited to slow down and open our eyes and see with new vision, a world, a community, a person who needs our love.

The amazing truth is that when we choose love, we win. Maybe not the way we thought we would win, but we win, because love changes us as winning never can. Love opens our hearts, our compassion, and our very lives as nothing else. Will you open your field of vision to see with eyes of love? Will you stop against all odds and share an act of love with someone, as you run through your daily schedule? If you do, you will find yourself following in the footsteps of Jesus who has gone before you, who walks with you now and promises to walk with you forever. This kind of love changes not just our priorities, it changes us.

September begins Zion's fall programing

Martin Luther said, "At home in my own house there is no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church, when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through."

Many have taken time this summer to relax and refresh their lives and families. The long days and warmth allowed for more time to accomplish our check lists. Now that September has arrived the days are shorter and there is a chill in the air at night that means fall is coming. It also means that we are beginning the fall programing here at Zion. Sunday School, Bible Study, First Communion, Confirmation, three worship services/week are all signs that it's time to gather once again as the multitude-the church. Were looking forward to seeing everyone again and hearing about your summer adventure. We have been busy planning for the fall and are excited about the events that will be happening over the next few months.

Apple Harvest is arriving soon. You can sign-up for dry mixing, dicing, booth schedule on Zion's web site. We need you to accomplish this task each year. It's not about a few but the multitude. It's when we become the church-God's people working together that we accomplish the amazing things that are miracles in the eyes of the world.

Come Grow With Us in faith, in love, in hope. See you in worship!

Pr. Jim

Who Do We Blame?

This devotion is just as good as yesterdays.

Good morning. Welcome to Tuesday, June 17th.

“At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” Luke 13:1-5

It is so very human of us, when something horrible happens, to assess blame. Maybe that is the reason why the first question we always ask is “why?” We want to know who to blame.

Once we pick out someone or something to blame, then we can start pointing our finger. We love to do that! (Usually forgetting Stuart Smalley’s wisdom that when we point one finger at someone, four are pointing back to us.)

The natural disasters that have been happening in the world this spring make it very difficult for us to play the blame game. We can get angry because a despotic government confiscates aid supplies but we can’t blame them for a cyclone. We can react with confusion because of the densely crowded urbans areas of China but those conditions don’t cause earthquakes or floods. And we can argue all day about the balance between corn for fuel and corn for food but none of that creates tornadoes or floods.

Which leaves us no one to blame but God.

When we ultimately arrive there I always remember that incredible scene from Elie Wiesel’s book, “Night”, where the rabbis in the concentration camp put God on trial. After it becomes clear that the verdict will be “guilty”, the rabbis can do nothing but turn and walk away from one another toward their barracks. Pronouncing God “guilty” only makes the pain and the isolation worse. It doesn’t help.

If anything, these disasters teach us about our common humanity. A life in Iowa is worth as much as a life in China or the Sudan. A home in West Des Moines is worth as much as an apartment in Sansui – not because of the cost of the building materials but because of the value provided to the family that lives there. The natural world draws no human distinctions or boundaries or borders. We are ALL in this together.

So what do we do? What do those of us sitting on the sidelines do?

We help as we are able. Maybe we write a check to Lutheran World Relief (www.lwr.org) or the Red Cross (www.redcross.org) because we want to help. Maybe we add those affected and those trying to help to our daily prayers. Maybe we remain informed, as hard as it is to hear and read, because we understand that we are ALL in this together.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, we pray for those who are hurting today, those terrified children and grief-stricken adults, those international leaders struggling toward the best response to the tragedies which have struck across the world. Bless those seeking to make a positive impact and strengthen those working hard now to bring relief. In Jesus’ name. Amen.


________________
Pastor Kerry Nelson

Flood Waters & Earth Quakes

This devotional came to my in box today and it spoke to me. I share it with that Spirit.

Good morning. Welcome to Monday, June 16th.

“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, &; and the flame shall not consume you.”
Isaiah 43:1-2

For the past several months the earth has been slipping out from under the lives of millions of people. A tremendous cyclone tears through Myanmar taking the lives of tens of thousands. Then an earthquake hits in China and tens of thousands again perish. Then the floods and tornadoes come to the Midwestern United States and still another flood in China forces a million people to flee.

To go where?

Where can we go to be absolutely safe? Such a place doesn’t exist.

I have never been through any natural disaster that comes anywhere close to what these people have experienced. Hurricane Katrina was devastating but Houston came away from the experience untouched. I was just north of Mount St. Helens when it erupted, the sound of the eruption woke us all up, but we didn’t even get any ash until two weeks later when it had circled the earth. I’ve never even been touched by a flood. So I hesitate to even know what to say other thank thinking out loud from my point of view.

Such disasters certainly put our lives into perspective. They tear down the illusory wall of control behind which we live our lives. They teach us about the utter fragility of life. They destroy any sense that we are in charge of much of anything.

Homes and businesses and schools and buildings topple like sandcastles at the close of the day. Flood waters scour the signs of civilization and replace it with the scars of nature gone wild.

And we are reminded of what really matters to us. Life matters to us! Things go away and it hurts for a moment. People go away and life is diminished forever.

The people of ancient Israel experienced such devastation. Sometimes at the hands of invading armies seeking profit and exploitation. Sometimes at the shocking eruption of volcanoes and the raging waters of flooding rivers. They had no tools to measure these events, no real signs that they were coming. They only had one answer – God must be punishing us.

So it is a remarkable sign of faith that the prophets turn the tables from destruction to encouragement with the reminder that God can’t be blown away by a crumbling mountain or swept away by the waters of a flood. Rather, God can be and is with them through it all.

Not an impersonal timepiece maker God but a personal God, one who has created us, who knows us, who has called us by name. To know such God is with us means the world when the world disappears under our feet.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, we watch with horror and wonder as the reports come to us about the untold suffering that millions have been experiencing. You have heard the prayers, we pray that you come now out of hiding to bring comfort to those who are hurting, who are grieving, who are forced now to rebuild lives out of what now remains. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
______________
Pastor Kerry Nelson

Stewardship of the Earth

Bishop Margaret Payne sent out her latest thoughts and I post them here for all to see. She is thinking about stewardship.

Practice Usufruct

By Bishop Margaret G. Payne, New England Synod, ELCA

Reprinted from the May 2007 issue of “The Lutheran Link,” the quarterly magazine of the New England Synod.

The next time you are tempted to grumble that the word “stewardship” is awkward to use in casual conversation, just be glad that I am not exhorting you to a more usufructary way of life. Author Wendell Berry likes to use the word “usufruct” which means: the right of enjoying the use and advantage of another’s property, short of the destruction or waste of its substance.

We enjoy the benefits of life on earth, God’s “property” and gift to us. In Genesis, we are reminded that God gave the dominion of earth and its creatures to man and woman. But the greedy edge of our relationship to the earth has caused us to fail in the caring stewardship that God intended. Now the earth is in danger of destruction.

At the other end of the bible, a careful reading of the book of Revelation gives a different slant than the “Left Behind” distortion of the day of judgment: “The nations raged, but your wrath has come, and the time for judging the dead, for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints and all who fear your name, both great and small, and for destroying those who destroy the earth.” (Revelation 11:18) We are not “saved” when we leave the earth behind. Instead, we find the wholeness that God intends in the midst of our life on earth, which includes the care of people, civil order and the environment.

Have you been actively involved in caring for the earth rather than destroying it? Fifteen years ago, the ELCA passed a social statement: “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice.” In that statement, as well as in the resolution passed last year by our synod assembly, each congregation is urged to be a center for study and caring for creation. Is there a Care for Creation Committee in your church? Have you done an energy audit for the building? Have you written a covenant to reduce energy consumption and engage in advocacy for the sake of the stewardship of the earth?

Here’s a deal: you don’t have to remember the word “usufruct” but you do need to get a copy of the ELCA’s social statement and form a group in your congregation to study it and act on it. It is prophetic and totally relevant to the present situation. It includes these prayers:

We pray, therefore, for the humility and wisdom to stand with and for creation, and the fortitude to support advocates whose efforts are made at personal risk.

We pray, therefore, for the strength to change our personal and public lives, to the end that there may be enough.

We pray, therefore, for the creativity and dedication to live more gently with the earth.

(Note: The ELCA’s social statement, “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice,” is available at http://www.elca.org/socialstatements/environment/ .)

The Lord is My Shepherd

I BELIEVE I NEED A SHEPHERD

I believe I need a shepherd.
Because I am sometimes timid and other times overconfident,
because I often don’t know the best path yet pretend I do,
because I rush into dead ends or lead others into hazardous places,
because my brightest ideas are seamed with darkness,
because the things I crave may not be what is good for me,
I need a shepherd.

I believe in Jesus, the best possible shepherd;
his wisdom leads me to the optimum opportunities,
his word comforts me when I’m anxious or afraid,
his arm steadies me when I feel weary and heavy-laden,
his wounded body displays the cost of my rescue,
I believe in Jesus, the best possible shepherd.

I believe that I do not find him but he finds me,
that I under his care by virtue of sheer grace,
the love he gives me is to be shared with others,
that he treasures my name and prepares a place for me,
that his fold transfixes earth and heaven.
I trust Jesus, the good shepherd.

3rd WEEK IN EASTER

JESUS IS COMING BACK!


A member of my parish sent me this article and I share it with you.


Why did Jesus fold the linen burial cloth after His resurrection?
The Gospel of John (20: 7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes. The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded, and was placed at the head of that stony coffin.

Is that important? You'd better believe it!
Is that significant? Absolutely!
Is it really significant? Yes!

In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day. The folded napkin had to do with the Master and the Servant, and every Jewish boy knew this tradition.

When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it. The table was furnished perfectly, then the servant would wait, just out of sight, until the master had finished eating. The servant would not dare touch the table, until the master was finished.

When the Master had finished eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, clean his beard, and would wad up that napkin and toss it onto the table. The servant would then know to clear the table.

For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, "I'm done". But if the master got up from the table, and folded his napkin, and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table, because the servant knew that the folded napkin meant, "I'm not finished yet."

The folded napkin meant, "I'm coming back!"

He is Coming Back!!!!!!!!

ARTICLE FROM HOPE LUTHERAN CHURCH APRIL 2008

THE SEASON OF EASTER

CHRIST HAS RISEN!

HE HAS RISEN INDEED!

In the season of Easter we are invited to live out our resurrected lives.

Eugene Peterson writing in "Living the Resurrection" says,
"We Christians are statione, along with the children, to affirm the primacy of life over death, to give witness to the connectedness and presiousness of all life, to engage in the practice of resurrection.
We do this by gathering in congregations and regular worship before our life-giving God and our death-defeating Crhist and our life-abounding Holy Spirit. We do it by reading, pondering, teaching, and preaching the Word of Life as it is revealed in our Scriptures. We do it by baptizing men, women, and children in teh name of the Trinity, nurturing them into a resurrection life. We do it by eating the life of Jesus in the bread and wine of Eucharist. We do it by visiting prisoners, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, healing the sick, working for justice, loving our enemies, raising our children, doing our everyday work to the glory of God.
---it's all pretty ordinary. It doesn't take a great deal of training or talent to do any of it."

It's true! Living the resurrection is simply living out our daily lives under the promise of resurrection. It changes everything. It takes our ordinary lives and makes them extraordinary, life-giving. May The Risen Christ befound in your everyday life.