ELCA as Sanctuary Church Body

Dear Members and Friends of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod,

As you know, the triennial Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America met in Milwaukee, Wisconsin August 5-10, 2019. On Wednesday August 7, the Assembly adopted a resolution that, among other things, declared the ELCA to be “a sanctuary church body.” This declaration has triggered a great deal of interest, debate, and criticism in social and news media, as well as among the members and friends of the ELCA across the country and this synod. Some of this has risen to a confused frenzy of questions and accusations, many of which arise from misunderstanding and, in some cases, misrepresentation of what the resolution actually says and means. With this letter, I invite you to take a deep breath with me and take some time to explore this resolution under the classic Lutheran catechetical question, “What does this mean?”

Given the sorts of misrepresentation and misinformation that have been floating around, before engaging in any discussion of this decision – or posting on social media about it – it is crucial that we all become familiar with the “original sources.” Here are some links that will assist you and your congregation to access these sources:

·      The text of the resolution itself as reported in the Assembly’s Legislative Update: https://bit.ly/33wqVcz

·      Videos of the discussion on the floor of the Assembly. You will need to use the slide bar on the bottom of the video to get to the time mark indicated (hour.minute).

o   Wed. morning – Discussion begins at 1.09: https://youtu.be/EbOyMdeAqV0

o   Wed. afternoon – Discussion starts at 1.21: https://youtu.be/a0-QMl5szYU

·      The ELCA’s Social Teaching Statement on Immigration will also be helpful in providing some of the context and history that informed this decision. Through this page you will also find links to a couple of other documents about immigration that have been adopted since this one in 1998: https://www.elca.org/en/Faith/Faith-and-Society/Social-Messages/Immigration

In this resolution, the ELCA in Assembly reaffirmed “the long-term and growing commitment of this church to migrants and refugees and to the policy questions involved.” In other words, declaring the ELCA to be a sanctuary church body is a public declaration that we will continue and deepen what we have been doing as a church for some time in support of refugees and immigrants. Partnering with agencies like Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS), we will continue to assist refuges and other immigrants to find homes and communities to welcome them and assist them in establishing a flourishing life in this country. The ELCA will also continue to accompany and advocate for immigrants who are seeking asylum and do what we can to see that undocumented immigrants are aware of, understand, and live into their rights under US law. This sort of ministry is expressed most clearly through AMMPARO, Accompanying Migrant Minors with Protection, Advocacy, Representation and Opportunities.

This resolution also “recognizes that the ELCA in congregations, synods and the churchwide organization are already taking the actions recommended by this memorial” and requests “that appropriate staff” from various agencies and ministries “review the existing strategies and practices by the five current sanctuary synods and develop a plan for additional tools that provide for education and discernment around sanctuary.” Note the verbs used here: recognize, request, review, provide. Note well: There is no requirement that any particular synod, congregation, or person provide sanctuary or engage in advocacy or other ministry with or on behalf of refugees or other immigrants. In other words, the Churchwide Assembly’s declaration that the ELCA is a sanctuary denomination binds only the ELCA Churchwide Organization; it does not bind congregations, synods, or other organizations.

The ELCA and its leadership, including yours truly, support the work that some among us engage with and on behalf of refugees and other immigrants. We are committed to providing resources in support of that ministry. At the same time we do not require that others among our number to engage such ministry, advocacy, and action. We are also committed to “love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor” in the name of Jesus across our differences in perspective and action in this and other concerns [Romans 12:10].

Please note: The Churchwide Assembly did not call for any illegal actions, all actions mentioned by the Churchwide Assembly are legal. Whether any person or organization chooses to engage in civil disobedience (and therefore accept the consequences) is up to them. Nevertheless, one panelist in one of the news reports that I saw misguidedly proclaimed that the ELCA is violating both federal law and the Word of God in declaring itself a sanctuary church body. To make his point he quoted Romans 13:1ff: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.” Of course, the Word of God also says, in many places, that we are called to welcome, accompany, advocate for, and protect those who come from other places to live among us:

 “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” [Exodus 23:9]

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” [Matthew 25:35]

“The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” [Leviticus 19:34]

“Do no wrong to the resident alien.” [Jeremiah 22:3]

Ministries of welcome, advocacy, accompaniment, and protection for refugees and other immigrants are rooted in God’s Word and enlivened by the Spirit of Jesus. Freed in Christ crucified and risen, we are sent to love our neighbors as Jesus has loved us. We disagree with one another about how that love is expressed in the context of a dysfunctional immigration system and in light of the vulnerability of many refugees and immigrants among us. We also disagree with one another about whether, how, and when to resolve the tension between the call to “be subject to governing authorities” and the call to invite the stranger in and to “do no wrong to the resident alien.”

Nevertheless, the call to love the neighbor is so central to our faith that each of us in our local contexts are called to figure out how God is calling us to embody this love as individuals and as communities of faith and witness. We engage this discernment in deep and honest discussion, debate, prayer, study, and discernment with our siblings across the community, the synod, and the church. We do so centered in Jesus Christ crucified and risen for the life of the world. In the end, as one bishop has put it, “For us, welcoming people is first and foremost a matter of faith which impacts how we live out all our vocations in God's world, including our political life.”

Dear people of God, I invite you to take a moment to breathe deeply of the presence of God in this and so many other significant and challenging situations. Then, gather with others in whatever ways are most appropriate in your context to study and discuss these resources, dwell in scripture together, pray with and for one another with openness to the movement of the Spirit in your life together, and to seek wisdom about how you as individuals and as a community might grow, deepen, and expand your love of your neighbors, whoever they are. And, along the way, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” [1 John 4:7]

Peace be with you,

Rev. Dr. William O. Gafkjen, Bishop

Standing with Those Who Stand for Racial Justice

In recent months the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, has become a rallying point for groups on the farthest right reaches of American religion and politics (Newsweek article). Neo Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, and alt-Right groups are protesting the decision by the Charlottesville City Council to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee. This weekend a rally is scheduled in which these racist groups will converge. Religious leaders from various traditions, both local and national, are also gathering in Charlottesville this weekend to stand with those who are the intended victims of such bigotry and hatred and to provide a counter-witness in the name of the God of justice, mercy, and equality that we have come to know in Jesus. A number of ELCA bishops, pastors, deacons, and members of congregations will be a part of this counter-witness. In support of them, this morning I wrote the following prayer. Please join me, and invite others to join us, in prayer for them and solidarity with them and with all intended victims of bigotry, hatred, and intolerance.

Just and merciful God, we give you thanks for our sisters and brothers – bishops, pastors, deacons, people of God – who this Saturday walk the way of the cross in Charlottesville, Virginia. On this day and in that place, they join other courageous and faithful people across time and space to stand against bigotry, hatred, and violence; to stand with those who are intended victims; and to stand for justice and mercy, peace and equality for all people.

We stand with them in prayer, asking you to empower them, protect them, and use their witness as hopeful sign of your resurrection reign afoot in your beloved and troubled world. By your might, break the bondage that bigotry, hatred, and violence impose on their victims and their perpetrators. May your kingdom come on earth as in heaven. 

And, we pray, empower us in our own communities to follow their lead as fellow servants to your dream of a community in which all people and their gifts are welcomed and honored, cherished and celebrated as beloved children of a just, merciful, and loving God; through Jesus Christ crucified and risen for the life of the world. Amen

This prayer can also be found via the web page of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Called to Serve as Jesus Serves

This morning, Friday, August 12, 2016, the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America approved overwhelmingly (more than 90% of votes cast) to move three current rosters of public ministers into one: Ministers of Word and Service, known as deacons. This is historic in many ways and, in my own estimation, is another indication of the ways the wind of the Spirit is blowing through the church to energize and equip us to be church together for the sake of the world and in the name and way of Jesus.

I was honored to be the person, on behalf of the ELCA Church Council and the scores of people who have worked on this for many years, to present this recommendation to the assembly the first night we were together. Some folks have asked for a copy of the text of that presentation, so I have posted it here. The presentation and most of the churchwide assembly may be viewed here: http://livestream.com/accounts/4664934/events/5829763/videos/132309114. ELCA Presiding Bishop begins to introduce the presentation at 1:37:10. Here is the text, with links to referenced resources:

We give thanks to God for the ministries of Associates in Ministry, Deaconesses, and Diaconal Ministers. In fact, if you are a member of one of these rosters, or in candidacy for one of them, please stand. People of God, please thank these servants of Christ for their ministry among us.

We are church for the sake of the world.

The spirit of this common commitment of ours undergirds the recommendation from our Church Council that we combine three current lay rosters of Associates in Ministry, Deaconesses, and Diaconal Ministers into one, new roster of ministers of Word and Service, to be called deacons. Note well the words “one” and “new.” This is a unification of three existing lay rosters into one.  This is also the establishment of a new roster intended to continue to assist the body of Christ to faithfully and effectively serve and steward the good news of Jesus in our particular time and context, now and into the future.

What is a roster anyway?

In the context of this recommendation “roster” refers to a list of public ministers who have been approved through shared churchwide (or national) candidacy processes, have been called by and to particular ministries, and who serve under churchwide support and accountability through the Office of the Secretary of the ELCA.

Of course, synods and local communities may also have their own rosters, or lists, of leaders and ministers of various sorts. The folks on such synod rosters are prepared locally, affirmed locally, and their service in their particular role is limited to the location that has prepared and affirmed them.

The recommendation that we are talking about here refers only to those who have been approved and called according to churchwide candidacy processes and who are accountable and available to serve in their particular roles across the whole church.

We currently have four such churchwide rosters: Associates in Ministry, Deaconesses, Diaconal Ministers, and Pastors. This recommendation is to combine the first three into one, new roster of Word and Service. Should we adopt the recommendations the roster of Ministers of Word and Sacrament, known as pastors, will essentially remain as it is and we will then have two churchwide rosters where once there were four, Ministers of Word and Sacrament and Ministers of Word and Service.

Because a roster is, at its most basic meaning, a list, it may be tempting to see this movement from four rosters of public ministers to two as what some folks might call a “technical” change. It could be viewed as little more than a sort of tweaking that fixes a problem or tidies up something, but doesn’t really affect the rest of the system of which it is a part. It is true that moving to one roster of Word and Service to be known as deacons will be cleaner and simpler than three rosters known as Associates in Ministry, Deaconesses, and Diaconal Ministers. Databases for the rosters will be simpler and easier to manage should we adopt this recommendation. And surely eventually there may even be a clearer sense of unity in mission and ministry that emerges for those who are on this roster.

But, as good and important as these things are, this is not just a technical “fix.” This is an “adaptive” change. It’s rooted in what we believe and think about who we are and how we live and work together for the sake of God’s mission in the world. It’s about how we are equipped and called to live and serve together as God’s cross-marked Spirit-sealed believers, bearers and “embodiers” of good news, the best news, in a torn, tumultuous, and terrified world. This is about Jesus Christ crucified and risen for the life of the world.

Consequently, this change, should we adopt it, will touch and transform how we understand and live into the vocation of every baptized person to follow Jesus in the way of the cross to care for and serve the neighbor, every neighbor. It also reaches deep into:

• how we understand public ministries of the Word,
• how those who serve in these public ministries work and live together,
• and how public, rostered ministers work and relate and lead and live with and within the whole people of God, who are each and all gathered and sent to be the broken-bodied, poured-out love of Jesus in the world.

Near the center of these concerns is a reclamation of the Greek word diakonia. It is an ancient word, much older than the New Testament. At its most basic meaning it simply means service. It’s Greek sibling, diakonos gives us the English word deacon, which simply means one who serves.  Ancient Greeks used diakonia to refer to waiting on tables and other menial tasks and roles that were below the dignity of important people of influence. In Jewish usage, echoes of such menial work remained, but with the Spirit-inspired twist that diakonia, service, is not below the people of God, it’s what the people of God are put in the world for. Once people who followed Jesus got hold of it, diakonia became something like self-sacrificial love in action, to serve as Jesus serves.

We are, all of us and each of us, called and sent to serve the neighbor, every neighbor, in the name of Jesus, in the way of the cross, trusting the power of resurrection life for us and for those we serve, in the inspiration of the Spirit. We do this, of course, not in hope of garnering God’s grace or to justify ourselves before God or anyone else, including ourselves. Diakonia is a gift to others arising from our trust that we – and they – are taken care of by God’s grace in Christ.

Of course, all too often we forget that we are saved by grace through faith and sent to serve the neighbor. We turn in on ourselves and serve only ourselves or look only our own interests or those of the church of which we are a part.

So, our confessions remind us that we need public ministers, raised up from among us. On our behalf and in the name of Christ these ministers stand before us and walk alongside us to proclaim the good news, to offer the gifts of grace, to equip and encourage us to follow where this good news leads, and to be examples of the call to walk in forgiveness and grace and to follow Jesus into the world in diaconal love.

The gospel and our Lutheran confessions also give us the freedom and responsibility to find the most faithful and effective ways to shape these public ministries in each time and place. The central concern always is that the gospel will take root among us, transform our lives through its offer of forgiveness and grace, and for the Spirit to use us as participants in and means for God’s mission of hope, healing, and reconciliation in God’s beloved world.

And so, we have these recommendations for this time and place. Should we adopt them we will have before and among us two churchwide rosters of public ministers: Ministers of Word and Sacrament and Ministers of Word and Service, pastors and deacons. Each with their own particular gifts and call, working side by side with each other and with and among the rest of the people of God. Together proclaiming, offering, and embodying the good news of forgiveness and life in Christ. Together leading God’s people to offer that same forgiveness and new, abundant, and lasting life as “church for the sake of the world.”

Of course, we have come to this place through a long journey of discernment and decision-making about the ordering of public ministries of the Word.

ELCA Deaconesses and pastors were inherited and incorporated into the rosters of the ELCA at its beginning. The roster of Associates in Ministry was very soon formed to incorporate a wide variety of public ministers and church professionals from predecessor church bodies into another roster of leaders to continue to serve the church in a wide variety of ways, each according to her or his gifts, mostly within the structures and life of the church.

Beginning in 1988, the church embarked on a study of ministry, the results of which were presented to the 1993 Churchwide Assembly. That assembly made two very important decisions in response to that study.

We adopted the document Together for Ministry. This fine document describes with clarity the missional movement of the church as church for the sake of the world. It lifts up the call of all the baptized to ministries of service in the world. And it provides key theological and other foundations for a churchwide roster of public ministers of Word and Service.

That assembly also established the roster of Diaconal Ministers. Many of our Diaconal Ministers are sent by the church to serve beyond the boundaries of the church’s gathered assemblies, in the world and as bridges between church and world.

We did all this before we had a single ecumenical full-communion agreement.

We did it before any of our synods had deep and mutually beneficial companion relationships with global Lutheran churches through the Lutheran World Federation.

And we made these decisions on the front edge of the unimaginable acceleration of the changes, cultural and otherwise, that have placed parts of the body of Christ like the ELCA in unfamiliar, even precarious, positions, wondering how God is calling us to be church in new and shifting landscapes.

And, while Together for Ministry said it clearly and prophetically, in the last twenty years it has become clearer to us that we are part of a global Lutheran and ecumenical movement of the Spirit that is opening the ears of the church to the desperate cries of the world and pushing us beyond our often cloistered Sunday morning gatherings back out into the world in cross-shaped diakonia.

In fact, in the mid to late 2000s the Lutheran World Federation, of which we are a part, issued a series of statements highlighting this movement of the Spirit calling the church to diakonia:

In 2009: "Diakonia is…an intrinsic element of being Church and cannot be reduced to an activity by certain committed persons...Diakonia is deeply related to what the Church celebrates in its liturgy and announces in its preaching."

In 2003: "Leadership at all levels is essential, leaders who equip all Christians to take up their call to serve…Churches should initiate and strengthen education for diakonia. As a ministry, it should be fully integrated into the church’s ordained, consecrated, and commissioned ministries, as a reflection of the fundamental significance of diakonia for the being of the church."

At the same time, beginning in 2007, members of what we have called the three existing lay rosters of Associates in Ministry, Deaconesses, and Diaconal Ministers gathered for structured conversations about how it was going for them and what we had learned since 1993. Among many other helpful and important insights, these multi-year conversations surfaced a concern, a request, really, to unite these three rosters into one and to do so in a way that reclaims diakonia as the foundation.

In 2010, the ELCA Church Council established a task group to explore how to do this faithfully and well. These recommendations are found in Sections V and VI of the pre-assembly report. The recommendation to establish a roster of Ministers of Word and Service that is both one and new is a result of years of broad and deep listening to one another, listening to our traditions and confessions, listening to our global and ecumenical siblings, listening to the Spirit of the servant Christ, and listening to the contexts in which we now live and move and have our being.

The wide and beautiful variety of gifts and ministries of those who are on the current rosters will be welcomed and incorporated into this one new roster of Ministers of Word and Service. The spectrum of ministries they offer will continue to be broad, diverse, and deep. And new heretofore-unimagined ministries will surely emerge. Some are and will be called primarily to administrative or music or educational or youth ministry within the arenas and structures of church life together. Others are and will be called primarily to ministries deeply embedded in the non-church arenas and structures of the world

Every one of them will be called and committed to empower, equip, and encourage the people of God for their diaconal, servant, ministries in daily life. Each one will also be a deacon, a server, who serves according to their gifts and the needs of the church for the sake of God’s mission in the world.

And what about that word, “deacon”?

There has been great discussion about this word or other possible words. This word, this role, this title, has been used in a wide variety of ways, not just among us, but across the church and around the world. See, for example, the paper included with the Report and Recommendations of the Word and Service Task Force in the pre-assembly background material in Section VI, “Here a Deacon, There a Deacon; Everywhere a Deacon, Deacon” [beginning on page 10].

All who carry a role of deacon serve the church well and in essential ways, each in their particular arena of service, as members of the ELCA, and according to the needs of the church. We are confident that we can navigate together potential confusion about synodical deacons and congregational deacons, for example, and all the manifestations of deacon in use among our global and ecumenical siblings.

Other titles may also be used in particular settings by those who are on the churchwide roster of Ministers of Word and Service. For example, a deacon who serves as director of worship and music for a congregation may also be called “cantor.” And members of the deaconess community may also be known as “sister” or "deaconess."

But as an overarching title for all who serve as Ministers of Word and Service, no other term has risen with the power, the history, ecumenical and global recognition, and clarity about the role as the ancient and new term, “deacon.”

As I suggested earlier, those on the churchwide roster of Ministers of Word and Service, known as deacons, will stand with and work alongside other deacons as those who have been prepared and approved through churchwide candidacy processes, are available to serve in their role across the whole church, and who are supported by and accountable to churchwide standards and commitments as well as the synodical and local accountabilities and support of the ministries they serve.

And what about consecration as the recommended rite and what is an entrance rite anyway?

An entrance rite, in this context, is the way in which the church ritually and publicly acknowledges, enacts, and establishes individuals as public, rostered ministers. Such a rite usually includes the laying on of hands, invocation of the Holy Spirit, charges and commitment to mutual support and accountability, and prayer.

Should we adopt the recommendations of the Church Council, the entrance rite for Ministers of Word and Service will be consecration until a recommendation regarding this rite is brought to the 2019 Churchwide Assembly.

As we have considered the adaptive change of establishing this one roster of Word and Service, it has become clear that we still have much to talk about and live into together. This includes, but is not limited to, what entrance rites are, the differences and similarities between them, and what they mean in the life of this church.

This, too, taps into deep currents, cultural norms, theological perspectives, confessional commitments, and contextual realities. Some of them rise up from differences we have brought with us from the three streams of denominational identity into our common life as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Some of these differences are still unresolved and even un-discussed nearly three decades later. Consequently, even as the world around us and within us has changed with breathless intensity, we have not really lived into or grown beyond “Together for Ministry” and the other commitments we made to one another more than 20 years ago.

Making this change now can help us to do exactly that. As the “Consultation Paper on Future Directions of the ELCA” puts it:

Having a church leadership that is fit for the future is foundational to…emerging priorities [like] being a church that engages and serves people who are suffering in the US and around the world.

But we also need to continue to talk through these things faithfully and well with one another. We need to learn about the variety of tradition-streams in which we swim and how they connect with our current context for mission and the common stream of life we now share. We also need time to live into this new roster and its partnership with ministers of Word and Sacrament and with the whole people of God that will emerge in the coming months and years to see what we learn and where the Spirit will continue to lead.

Appointed by the ELCA Church Council, the Entrance Rite Discernment Group continues its work of communal learning and discernment around these questions. They are poised to assist the rest of us to engage in this communal learning and discernment together across the church over the next couple of years. Arising from these conversations the Entrance Rite Group plans to bring a recommendation regarding the entrance rite as well as related concerns, like symbols of this office to the 2019 Churchwide Assembly.

At the same time, other ELCA leaders will continue to establish academic requirements and other candidacy processes and concerns in order to steward this transition, and the people involved in it, well.

In other words, to adopt the recommendations of the Church Council regarding the roster of Ministers of Word and Service is to establish a particular way to move forward together. It is also to commit to walking together and by faith into God’s unfolding future. This decision won’t finally and fully answer every question or settle every concern around it. It cannot and should not. We are people on the Way, after all. There is still more to discuss, more to learn, more clarity to gain, more changes to be made. God’s Spirit has more transformation to work in and among us for the sake of God’s mission of hope, healing, and reconciliation in the world. We are, after all, always being made new.

Nevertheless, this is one more important and bold next step forward as we seek, together and in the power of the Holy Spirit, to be church for the sake of the world.

May the Spirit of grace guide and keep us along the way.

Spirit Filled. Spirit Sent.

Among other things, the month of May is graduation season. Our little family experienced its power and joy when our son, Nathan, graduated from Valparaiso University on Pentecost Sunday. Spending the day with him and watching him walk across that stage to receive his diploma folder and shake hands with VU’s president, Mark Heckler, was emotional, heart-swelling, and joyous. We are so grateful for and proud of Nathan. And grateful for the ways in which the Valpo community embraced him, equipped him, and formed him and, in that moment, sent him out for the next stage of his baptismal journey.

A few days after graduation day, I saw a fairly close-up photo of Nathan’s handshake with President Heckler, snapped by a friend of Nathan’s. I could see the joyful gleam in President Heckler’s eyes and the happy determination in Nathan’s. Powerful emotions rose again for me as I gazed at the look between the two.

Photo courtesy Ian Olive

And then, later, my brain made a weird connection, perhaps because Nathan’s commencement occurred on the day of Pentecost. Apart from the fact that both Nathan and President Heckler were wearing robes, that photo triggered memories of all those times that, bedecked in my own liturgical robes, I have stood at the door at the end of worship to shake the hands of every worshipper as they head out the door.

I am sure you know or have experienced this time-honored tradition. Often this moment in the doorway or narthex includes some version of “Good sermon” or “How are you doing?” It might also include a prayer request or an update on someone’s situation or the introduction of a visitor.

This is all good, of course. Yet, I wonder, how might that moment at the door be different if it were a little more like the moment between Nathan and his university president on the commencement stage? What if that liturgical handshake were actually understood to be part of the sending rite?

After all, in worship God’s Spirit embraces, equips, forms, and sends us for the next steps in our baptismal journey with Jesus. We carry our diplomas in the mark of the cross on our brow and we don’t just leave worship, we are sent. That moment is its own form of commencement, another beginning in living the new life of Jesus in the world.

Looking carefully, as I shake the hands of worshippers across this territory I can see in their – in your – eyes both a sense of readiness and confidence that you have received what you need and a little nervousness at the challenge of the task ahead. But, thanks be to God, you are energized and ready to go. So stride across the stage and go! Use the gifts you’ve been given through water and Word, bread and wine, and the fellowship of the body of Christ to share the new, abundant, and lasting life of Jesus with the world that is desperately looking for what you have been given.

Go in peace! Serve the Lord!

Prayers for Israel and Palestine

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, of which I am a part, has a longstanding relationship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL). Shortly after Israel's recent military ground movement in Gaza, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton spoke by phone with ELCJHL Presiding Bishop Munib Younan. Bishop Younan said that of the 13 wars he has witnessed in his part of the world, this is the one that concerns him most and asked that the people of the ELCA pray for the people of the ELCJHL and all people and leaders who live in this part of the world.

In response, Bishop Eaton wrote a letter to Bishop Younan. You may find a PDF copy of the letter here: Bishop Eaton Letter to Bishop Younan. An ELCA news release about this situation can also be read at: http://www.elca.org/News-and-Events/7681.

Bishop Eaton has asked that this letter be distributed among the leaders and congregations of the ELCA. She also asks that letter be read in congregations this coming Sunday and that a time of silence be observed this Sunday as we pray for our brothers and sisters of the ELCJHL and that peace will come to Palestine and Israel.

Please join us in praying for peace in Palestine and Israel and in so many other troubled places in the world and in our own neighborhoods.

Checking Our Sight Lines

sight line - noun

1. 
a hypothetical line from someone's eye to what is seen

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Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. [Hebrews 12:1]

Lent is often a time for individuals to focus on their spiritual life by (re)establishing spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, corporate worship, or generous giving for the poor. Congregational ministries during Lent often support these disciplines through additional worship opportunities, Bible classes, prayer groups, World Hunger coin boxes, and the like. In some ways, such disciplines provide opportunities to check our “sight lines” by asking questions like these:

•  To what have I been giving most of, or the best of, my attention?
• Are the people, things, and situations that I have been looking to helpful or hurtful?
• Does what I look at empower or equip me for serving others or is it just self-serving? Does it move me to give my life away or cause me to hoard it?
• In other words, do my sight lines point me toward Jesus crucified and risen and beckon me further down the way of the cross? Or do they point me away from Jesus toward someone or something else that distracts or harms, disempowers or disappoints myself or others?

Of course, I am referring here to literal sight lines. It is important that we be discerning about what we look at with our physical eyes. What we look at changes us in powerful ways and influences how we interact with the world.

For the moment, however, I am primarily thinking about our spiritual sight lines. These sight lines also form us and influence how we interact with the world.
      What are we looking to in hope that it will provide meaning or excitement or peace or power or whatever else our heart seeks? As it turns out, many of the things we look to cannot deliver on the promises they make. So many of them, even the best looking ones, lure us down endless, dark, distracting rabbit holes of self-absorption and self-justification.

The scripture and liturgies of Lent call us to reassess our spiritual sight lines. They call us to repent, to allow God’s Spirit to turn our sight lines back toward Jesus, the one who actually delivers on God’s promises and who enlists and empowers us to be means by which those promises cross into the sight lines of others.

But this is not just true for individuals; it’s true for the church as a body as well. I wonder what Lent – and the consequent celebration of Easter – would be like if each congregation and its leaders also spent forty days in a sort of communal recalibration of the congregation’s sight lines. Truth be told, nearly every aspect of congregational life – congregational meetings, committee planning, council agendas, youth events, choir rehearsals, staff meetings, fellowship gatherings – can suffer from sight line drift. We start looking primarily at what we don’t have: not enough money or people or young people. Our sights focus on change for the sake of change, or the next great innovation that promises to get people in the door. Our sight lines are directed toward disagreements and power struggles or inward on ourselves.

If we are not careful, over time we drift away from our core mission to simply be the body of Christ in the world, to shine the light of Jesus, to make Christ known. Without even noticing it we “major in minors” and focus our attention and energy on non-central (even if alluringly important) concerns that simply cannot bring life to us or the world if Jesus crucified and risen is not right smack dab in the center of them.

Just as each baptized person is called to turn away from – to repent of – unhealthy, sinful, or otherwise life-snatching sight lines, so is every congregation. Every gathering of the baptized is called to realign its sight lines in order to participate more fully and faithfully in God’s cross-shaped mission of healing and hope in the world.

This Lent, dear sisters and brothers, may God’s Spirit grant that we, the body of Christ, will turn away from distracting and destructive sight lines “and the sin that clings so closely, and run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” [Hebrews 12:1-2]

How Silently the Gift is Given

The sky was clear, crisp and studded with stars as I walked across the campus of St. Olaf College toward my dormitory. It was early December in Minnesota, back in the day when winter was really winter and a walk across campus after midnight could be sheer agony. Breath clung as hoar frost on my free range 1970s collegiate beard. I was sure the water in my eyes was turning to ice.

Something else hovered in the air with the cold. This was the weekend of the annual St. Olaf Christmas Festival. I had worked the late shift in my work-study position as night security supervisor for the student union. I had spent hours on my feet making sure everything was okay for the Norwegian food buffet, pointing alums and visitors toward the beloved concert, helping folks find restrooms and coatracks and wandering family members, making my way each hour through the bustling hoards of excited folk to make sure the right doors were open and the others ones closed. Finally, well after midnight, after the last of the yuletide revelers had left, I made my final rounds, turned off the lights, locked up the big, now silent building, and made my way across the wind-swept campus toward bed.

I caught myself humming “Beautiful Savior” as I walked. Although I had not been at the concert that weekend, I knew this hymn had been sung by candlelight as the closing piece, as it had since, well, since forever. My shivering body begged me to hurry through the cold toward the top berth of our triple-bunked dorm room. My spirit implored me to slow down, look around, and take in the luminous winter world crafted by the beautiful Savior of whom I sang like an echo of the concert ended hours ago.

Neither of my roommates was in our room when I arrived. The glimmering lights of our little desk-borne Christmas tree drew me in. I sat at my desk, thawing hands nestled in my coat pockets, basking in the graceful light shining softly in the dark room.

In the shadows under the tree I noticed a small wrapped package bearing my name. It had not been there when I left earlier in the day. I picked it up and noticed an electrical cord running from it like a long, slithery tail to the wall outlet. What gadget did my roomies give me for Christmas? I tore off the paper to discover that it was…my alarm clock, the one that roused me from sleep every day. They wrapped my alarm clock?!

Now I saw another wrapped gift pulling low a branch of the tree by a duct-taped hook. Round and heavy…unhooked and unwrapped it was a prized baseball from my high school career. Then, on my pillow a long, thin, carefully wrapped pretzel stick from the big plastic jar of them I brought and shared from home.

My eyes thawed and I wept at the goofy love of my roommates. I took a deep breath of the room’s warm air and whispered a prayer of wonder and thanks, blinking at the soft light glistening in the prism of my tears.

Isn’t this what the manger-borne Jesus reveals for us, the giftedness of our every day? Doesn’t God in Christ carefully wrap with goodness and love the very things and people we take for granted day by day and give them back to us glistening with grace? Isn’t it so that this Jesus, this Emmanuel, makes holy what we think is merely mundane?

Yes. Yes. Yes. It is so. How silently the wondrous gift is given!