Mount Olive Church

The Olive Branch, 2/26/12

2012-02-27T14:13:00.002-06:00

Accent on Worship

To [the LORD], indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. -- from Psalm 22

The psalmist says “I shall live for him.” What does that involve? Awe of God. Listening to, and helping, the afflicted. Feeding the hungry. Teaching children about God. All these are things which God does; but they are also things we may do as God’s baptized children as part of our lively faith. Different members of our community have different gifts, so some may teach and others may feed hungry people; still others may pray. Living for God in community will use the specific gifts God has given you to serve others, especially those in need. We are still awake, and able to do our part. All year long this is true; but we do have this special focus in Lent, a time of reflection and preparation. Service is our duty and delight. We may consider: For whom do we live?

Lent reminds us of our mortality and our limits as fallible human beings, not only on Ash Wednesday but in readings throughout the season. All of us will “sleep in the earth” when we die; all of us will “go down to the dust,” returning again to the elements of earth from which God made us. This is not meant to be depressing and macabre, but instead Lent should wake us up! We will sleep in the earth, but we’re not asleep yet. There is plenty to do as we prepare for the Paschal feast and for service in God’s world.

In Lent we look at our limits not so that we can be oh-so-pious, but so that we can re-focus our lives on God’s call to us.

- Vicar Erik Doughty

Sunday Readings

March 4, 2012 – Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 + Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25 + Mark 8:31-38

March 11, 2012 – Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 20:1-17 + Psalm 19
I Corinthians 1:18-25 + John 2:13-22

Midweek Lenten Worship
Wednesdays during Lent

Holy Eucharist at Noon, followed by soup luncheon
Evening Prayer at 7 p.m., preceded by soup supper
and Lenten discussion beginning at 6 pm.

Book Discussion Group

For the meeting on March 10, the Book Discussion Group will discuss A Passage to India, by E. M. Forster. For the April 14 meeting, they will read, The Birth of Venus, by Sarah Dunant.

March is Minnesota FoodShare Month!

Once again Mount Olive congregation is invited to participate in Minnesota FoodShare Month. Bring your non-perishable food donations any Sunday during the month of March and place them in the grocery cart in the cloak room. The goal this year is to collect a total of 12 million combined dollars and pounds of food from congregations, businesses, and individuals throughout Minnesota. This amount will stock food shelves around the state with more than half the food distribution needed annually. And remember, food shelves can stretch donations of cash further than donations of food, because of their access to discount products and programs. So your cash donations go much farther! If you would like to make a cash donation, make your check out to Mount Olive and in the memo line write "MN FoodShare," and place it in the offering plate.

Taste of Chile - This Sunday, March 4

Mount Olive’s annual “Taste of …” events are occasions to remind our congregation that we are part of a global community with connections throughout the world. This year on Sunday, March 4, we will focus on Chile. Our guest preacher at the 8:00 and 10:45 services, will be Jenny Mason. The Rev. Mason served as a missionary for the ELCA in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile from 1989 to 2001, working in both parish ministry and youth ministry.

The Education Hour will be an overview of Chile, the Lutheran church in Chile, and especially the work of the Lutheran Church’s partner in Chile, EPES (Educación Popular en Salud), which trains individuals and communities to identify the root causes of illness and fight for improved conditions and services, especially for women. Our speakers will be Karen Anderson, the founder of EPES, Valeria Garcia, a health educator from EPES, and Claudio Calcagni a resident of Chile living in the Twin Cities. Karen Anderson and Valeria Garcia are flying into the Twin Cities from Chile for multiple EPES events that are happening over the weekend.

After the second service, please join us for a lunch of Chilean food, prepared by the Global Missions Committee and by many other Mount Olive members. We will have vegetarian and meat options as well as coffee and wine. There is no charge but a free will donation will support the meal and a congregational donation to EPES. Our special guest will be Luisa Cabello Hansel, co-pastor at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, who is from Chile.

If you have questions or want more information about Taste of Chile, please contact Paul Schadewald at pschadew@yahoo.com or 612-237-8517.

A Note About Our Lenten Sunday Readings and Preaching

For the first five Sundays in Lent, the preaching at the Sunday liturgies will primarily focus on the Old Testament readings assigned for the day (though the other readings may sometimes be included.) For these Sundays, the first readings are a journey through major covenants God made with humanity.

Last Sunday was God’s covenant with Noah and all creatures never to destroy the earth with a flood again. This coming Sunday is the covenant with Abraham and Sarah. On Lent 3, the first reading is the covenant at Sinai and the gift of the Ten Commandments. On Lent 4, rather than a covenant, it’s an episode of disobedience which finally results in God’s healing grace. The Fifth Sunday of Lent gives us the promise from Jeremiah 31 that God will make a new covenant with us, written on our hearts.

Films of Faith in February (and early March!)

One last film scheduled. This Sunday, March 4, we will watch Into Temptation, beginning at 3:00 pm. Following the movie, we will talk about what the movie showed and said and how it speaks to us as we try to live our lives of faith. All are welcome!

Help Needed, This Saturday March 3

This Saturday, March 3, from 2-5 p.m. at Mount Olive, the Missions Committee will prepare for the "Taste of Chile" (which is the next day). We need help chopping vegetables for a salad, filling empanadas, and helping get a Chilean soup ready and doing some simple decorating. If you have just a couple of hours free that afternoon, your help would be greatly appreciated! You will have fun, help make the event a success, and even learn some new skills--we will have an empanada-making demonstration! What better way to spend a late Saturday afternoon! If you are able to help out, please let Paul Schadewald know that you will be stopping by to help (612-237-8517), or by email, schadewald@macalester.edu.

Thursday evening Bible Study Begins March 1

A new opportunity for Bible study and conversation will begin at Mount Olive this Thursday, Mar. 1, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. “Prayer and God’s People” will be led by Pr. Crippen and will examine the relationship of prayer between God and God’s people in the Scriptures. We will look at people of the Bible and how they prayed, and ask several questions: Does their conversation with God tell us anything? Does it teach us anything about our prayer life? Can they model prayer for us, or show us ways we should avoid? The hope is that through this conversation we might find our own way in our daily lives of prayer.

The group will meet Thursdays at 6:00 p.m. in the East Assembly room, pending the size of the group. We will have a light supper each night, and participants will be asked to sign up and bring this each week. (The first week will be provided.) This will be a very light and simple meal – bread and cheese and other such things to put on the bread, perhaps some fruit, but not anything fancy. There will be five Thursdays before Holy Week, and we’ll take a break for Holy Week and finish the next two weeks after Easter. After this series is complete, Vicar Doughty will lead a series on the Psalms.

“A Very Present Help” Midweek Lent at Mount Olive

For the Wednesday Lenten services this year we will focus on the presence of God in our lives, specifically the places where God’s healing grace is offered. We’ll be using as our starting point a section of Luther’s Smalcald Articles (from the Lutheran confessions) in which he describes the ways God’s grace and forgiveness are given us in concrete and knowable places.

The midweek schedule, beginning on Wednesday, Feb. 29, is Eucharist at 12:00 noon, followed by a soup lunch at 1:00 p.m. In the evening, there will be a soup supper at 6:00 p.m., and Evening Prayer at 7:00 p.m. The preaching at the noon Eucharist will be based on our theme, and the same meditation will be shared during the evening soup supper, with opportunity for further conversation at the meal.
Note: If you normally come to Evening Prayer in Lent but don’t come early for the supper, you’ll miss the conversation; consider coming early and concluding the evening with Evening Prayer.

Calling all Mount Olive Knitters and Crocheters!

If you knit or crochet and and enjoy the company of others while you work, please join us on the second Sunday afternoon of each month. We will have a yarn working bee from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. and our next one will be Sunday, March 11. Bring your own project or work for one of our charities. At the moment we are working on warm winter wear for Our Saviour’s Shelter (and English Learning Program students.) Or maybe you have a prayer shawl project in the works and you just want some company while you get it done. We'll also have extra yarn, needles and hooks, so if you want to learn how to knit or crochet or start a new project, just come as you are and we'll help you get started. Call Cha Posz or Kate Sterner if you have questions.

Mount Olive Yarn Working Bee, second Sunday of each month, 1:30-3:30 p.m. Join us!

Unburied Treasure

2012-02-22T20:30:00.000-06:00

Lent calls us to a true discipline, an unburying of the true treasures of our heart so that our lives are ordered by what truly matters, by living as the children of God our Lord has made us.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Ash Wednesday; texts: Psalm 51:1-17; Isaiah 58:1-12; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Have you ever found yourself wondering about Ash Wednesday practices while listening to the Gospel for Ash Wednesday? Every year I find it an awkward moment when I, with a dark cross of ashes newly implanted upon my forehead, read “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. . . . But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face . . .” So says our Lord.

The Old Testament readings aren’t any less awkward. We’re given two choices by the lectionary, either a reading from Joel 2 or one from Isaiah 58, the one we heard tonight. Joel urges the people to “rend their hearts, not their garments.” (Tearing one’s robes was a sign of mourning and fasting and repentance.) And Isaiah sounds a lot like Jesus: “Is such the fast that I choose,” says the Lord, “a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?” And Isaiah goes on to say that the acceptable fast is to end injustice, to stop oppression, and to welcome and care for the homeless poor.

Meanwhile we’re all sitting here with ashes on our foreheads, and perhaps even pondering what we’ll give up for Lent, what fast we will undergo. It all feels, as I’ve said, a little awkward. I’ve often preached about the ashes we receive today, about their importance; I did so last year. But throughout my ministry I’ve never quite faced in my preaching the sense of this disconnect between our readings for the day and our practices of the day, and of Lent.

What’s going on in these readings is actually well worth our exploring. Joel, Isaiah, Jesus, and most of the prophets seemed to criticize worship practices, and life practices, that the faithful, religious people did. We could take that as simply what it seems, a criticism of the practices themselves. But if we look deeper, we see that the problem isn’t the practices. The problem seems to be that the practices have become the only thing, and there is nothing flowing from them into the people’s lives, nothing life-giving, restoring, or justice-making coming out of them.

And that’s a real problem for Jesus and the others. We’re a congregation with a rich liturgical life, and a congregation which finds meaning and strength from our shared rituals here. If anyone needs to understand what concerns our Lord Jesus and the prophets, it might be we who worship here.

We don’t have time to look at all our practices, so let’s simply think about what we do today, and what we do or don’t do in Lent.

Lent is a time throughout the history of its practice in the Church where people gave things up for the duration of the season. This grew out of a practice of legitimate and serious fasting. In the Orthodox Church today it still is a pretty serious practice of fasting from a number of foods and life practices.
Lent also was often a time of preparing catechumens – new believers – for baptism, and correspondingly it was a time for the whole Church to practice a time of discipline and austerity in preparation for the Paschal feast.

In modern times in the Western Church, especially among non-Catholics, the “giving up” is not necessarily a fast, but it’s an abstaining from something for a time. In our family, since we had children, we’ve given up fast food for Lent. Some years we’ve given up desserts. But Hannah’s birthday always is in Lent, so we had to make accommodations.

For Catholics, it was and is often more serious. I remember growing up how the schools would serve fish on Fridays, and how my Catholic friends took that very seriously. Of course, in times past having fish on Fridays was a year-round discipline. And today even McDonald’s has Filet-o-Fish specials on Fridays in Lent. Even marketers find this an attractive option!

So we receive ashes today, remembering our mortality, we confess our sins, and last Sunday we put away Alleluia from our worship until we sing it again at Easter. And some of us might consider the notion of giving something up for Lent. That’s about it.

And when I put it that way, I think I start to understand the concern Jesus and the prophets have. This seems pretty light, not challenging at all, and it isn’t at all clear to me that any of this actually has an impact on our lives, changes us, or makes a difference in the world.

In a powerful statement, Jesus says that the question we should consider has to do with our hearts, what we truly love and value, what we treasure.

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” he says. In some ways all our practices I’ve described are outer observances. Jesus seems more interested in what happens inside, in the journey of faith we take in our hearts. Putting on ashes, giving up a food item for six weeks, these are things that we can do without having to think very hard at all. And certainly without changing in any significant way.
But Jesus invites us to a deeper observance.

The giving of alms quietly so the gift is given but no notice is taken of it by others.

Prayer that isn’t done so others can see it, but done for our connection with our Father in heaven.

And fasting that isn’t done in public, but in private. I remember a group at Gustavus held a fast for world hunger where people didn’t eat for a day and gave the money they’d have spent to world hunger. I did it, but I wouldn’t wear the sticker they handed out. It said, “Be nice to me, I’m fasting today.” It seemed ridiculous to advertise about it, to beg sympathy for a faith practice. Even more, it’s not what Jesus would have us do.

But when we consider Isaiah alongside Jesus’ admonitions, and consider the rest of Jesus’ teaching, what we’re invited to undertake is even deeper than private giving, prayer and fasting. For the prophets, worship and ritual without doing justice and working to restore God’s creation is worthless to God.

Listen again to Isaiah: “Is not this the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” Doesn’t that remind you of Matthew 25, where Jesus says that to care for him is to care for the least of his brothers and sisters, feeding, giving drink, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the prisoners?

So the problem the Triune God has with our worship and ritual isn’t with the worship and ritual themselves. The problem is if our worship of God doesn’t change how we then live. If what we do in Lent or at any time doesn’t profoundly shape our actions in the world, profoundly re-shape our hearts to be like the heart of God, profoundly shape our thinking and doing and being.

We sing David’s psalm of confession each Ash Wednesday. Presumably David didn’t say those words, “Create in me a clean heart,” just as words to say. Presumably he actually wanted to be given a clean heart, a renewed spirit, because his current heart and spirit were broken and sinful and not what God hoped to see and know.

So what we want to think about for our Lenten discipline is perhaps how it might truly be a Lenten discipline. How what we do from today until Easter might not only bring us closer to God’s grace but also begin to re-make us, disciple us.

In short, our Lenten discipline could conceivably unbury the treasure God has planted in our hearts and bring it to light so it guides our lives.

And fasting is the discipline that for centuries the Church has valued for its ability to turn us away from ourselves and toward God. But it’s only effective if we are fasting from things that our heart truly desires above God, things that draw us from God’s concern for the world, things that draw us to center on ourselves.

Food can do that, and the discipline of fasting for times from certain items, or even from all food, can be helpful reminders of our mortality, our need. When you hunger for something and consciously choose not to eat it, you force yourself to remember why you’re doing this.

But it might be helpful, in addition to possible food choices, to consider what fasting we might do that could help us even more in our discipline.

What attitudes or habits do we have and treasure that we know are not of God, that are self-centered or that lead us to forget the poor, forget to care for the vulnerable ones, or that lead us on paths away from love of God and love of neighbor? If you’re like me, thinking of changing such things for a lifetime is a daunting prospect. But what if we picked one, or two if we’re brave, and simply prayed that God help us commit to change this thing about us for the time of Lent? Six weeks, and no one needs to know except you and God. Six weeks, not a lifetime. But think of the change it could accomplish.

And what acts of justice and peace could we pick up just for this time, this season, that we currently do not do? Things which we put off, or don’t consider in the busy schedules of our lives, but that we might be able to try for six weeks. We could combine a giving up of food with an increase in giving to world hunger. We could give up time that we use for self-centered pursuits and use that time for being with or helping another.

There are endless possibilities, and again, if you’re like me, you’ve thought of some things you could be or do but just haven’t taken the time to start. Things that look very much like the “fast” Isaiah says God truly wants to see from us, and that Jesus preaches. Why wouldn’t we take these six weeks and pray that God help us in this one area, this one thing? Think of the change it could accomplish.

Of course, the six weeks will end, and we’ll celebrate Easter. But I suspect if we truly find some disciplines that actually discipline, we will be changed far beyond Easter day. We will find the Spirit has actually grown us more as disciples. We might even discover that we don’t want to stop doing what we began six weeks before, but even want to add other things.

Because if we unbury the real treasures of our heart and follow them, who knows what God will do with us.

That’s the real possibility of this Lenten journey, and really the only point in having a Lenten journey. That it becomes for us a life-changing walk with the Holy Spirit, and a transformation from a life focused on ourselves to a life lived in the rich and gracious love of God, and the transforming experience of loving our neighbor. A life that learns to model the self-giving love that led the Son of God to the cross, which looms ahead six weeks from now.

And that seems like a fast worth doing, with the help of God.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

The Olive Branch, 2/20/12

2012-02-22T10:54:00.002-06:00

Accent on Worship

The First Sunday in Lent

Mark’s Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent begins with Jesus’ baptism. The focus of Mark’s account is not so much the baptism itself, but the transformative power of this event in Jesus’ life.

The church has often emphasized the cleansing aspect of Holy Baptism, that through the grace of God and the waters of Baptism your sins are washed away. But Jesus had no sin to wash away, so what was he seeking by allowing John to baptize him? Jesus had to walk his own faith journey in his life. It started with his baptism and everything else followed. In his baptism what he found was a clear confirmation from his heavenly Father. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” We have been taught that this voice was meant for those who were present, but I believe that Jesus also needed to hear it. The Gospel writer connects this confirmation with Jesus’ willingness to be led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by Satan, in preparation for his mission to declare the good news.

Peter writes in the Second Lesson that Baptism is “an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Baptism is a beginning and a call for us to walk in the light and life of Jesus, to follow his example, and through his resurrection our appeals to God for a clean heart will be answered. The deep meaning of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism is a powerful confirmation from God that we are beloved. Like all Christian sacraments, Baptism is communal. Through it God first confirms God’s relationship with the baptized and by it the community of saints welcomes its new member. To grasp the deep meaning of Baptism is to know that we
are loved by God, to open our souls to God, to allow the Spirit to lead us into the wilderness, to be
transformed by the power of God’s love and grace, and to be willing to bring this love and grace into the world.

During this season of Lent let the waters of Baptism renew and refresh you every day as you live
your life and walk your faith journey in the resurrection of Jesus.

- Donna Pususta Neste

Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper (Tomorrow Evening!)
Tuesday, February 21 – 6:00 pm,
followed by the Burning of Palms for Palm Sunday.

Lent Procession Service
Sunday, February 26, 2012, 4:00 p.m.

Join Cantor David Cherwien and the Mount Olive Cantorei for another contemplative service of lessons and carols - for Lent! This service is offered as an opportunity to withdraw from the busyness of life to pray, sing, listen, smell- to fully enter into the season of Lent, a time to renew our baptism.

Sunday Readings

February 26, 2012 – First Sunday in Lent

Genesis 9:8-17 + Psalm 25:1-10
I Peter 3:18-22 + Mark 1:9-15

March 4, 2012 – Second Sunday in Lent

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 + Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25 + Mark 8:31-38

Ash Wednesday, February 22
Holy Eucharist with
the Imposition of Ashes
Noon and 7:00 p.m.

The Bread of Life

The LORD gives “wine to gladden human hearts, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen human hearts,” according to Psalm 104:15. Bread is the staff of life, and given by Jesus as part of the gift of the Eucharist. The one loaf symbolizes all the people of God gathered together and formed into one Body, fed by the bread which is itself the Body of Christ.

During Lent Mount Olive will be using real bread at the Eucharist to better connect to this powerful symbol and gift of Christ. We will try it for the period of Lent to explore whether this could be possible as our permanent way of sharing in the one bread and one cup of the Meal of our Lord. Several recipes will be tried as well, to best determine which works. Should we continue this into the future, members who are interested will be invited to bake bread for our weekly Eucharists as part of their way of serving.

If you have thoughts or comments on this, please don’t hesitate to contact Pastor Crippen, Vicar Doughty, Al Bipes (director of the Worship Committee), or any other members of the Worship Committee: Marcella Daehn, John Gidmark, Ro Griesse, Art Halbardier, Brian Jacobs, Kandi Jo Nelson, Paul Nixdorf, Tom Olsen, Dwight Penas, Rob Ruff, Cantor Cherwien.

Films of Faith in February
(and early March!)

Seen any good movies lately? It’s a good question, because film (like the other arts) can be a great way to be challenged, inspired, and guided to reflect on our lives of faith. And as with the other arts, one’s appreciation of a film can be enhanced by discussing it with others.

So on three of the four Sundays of February (including Super Bowl Sunday) and the first Sunday
of March, we will have the opportunity to gather at church at 3:00 pm to watch movies of substance and discuss them. The rest of the schedule is as follows:

Feb. 26: No film because of Lent Procession
Mar. 4: Into Temptation

We will watch the movie, munch (quietly, please) on popcorn, sip a little cider, and then, after the
movie, talk about what the movie showed and said and how it speaks to us as we try to live our lives of faith.

Taste of Chile

Mark your calendars for Sunday, March 4! The Missions Committee will host Taste of Chile to
celebrate Chilean food and culture and to learn about missions in Chile. If you are interested in making an authentic Chilean dish for the event (recipe provided), please contact Lisa Ruff at
jklmruff@msn.com or 651-636-4762.

“A Very Present Help”
Midweek Lent at Mount Olive

The forty days of Lent begin on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, with Eucharist and the Imposition of Ashes at noon and 7:00 p.m. (Celebrate Shrove Tuesday at Mount Olive on Feb. 21 – see separate announcement.)

For the other Wednesday Lenten services this year we will focus on the presence of God in our lives, specifically the places where God’s healing grace is offered. We’ll be using as our starting point a section of Luther’s Smalcald Articles (from the Lutheran confessions) in which he describes the ways God’s grace and forgiveness are given us in concrete and knowable places.

The midweek schedule, beginning on Wednesday, Feb. 29, is Eucharist at 12:00 noon, followed by a soup lunch at 1:00 p.m. In the evening, there will be a soup supper at 6:00 p.m., and Evening Prayer at 7:00 p.m. The preaching at the noon Eucharist will be based on our theme, and the same meditation will be shared during the evening soup supper, with opportunity for further conversation at the meal.

Note: If you normally come to Evening Prayer in Lent but don’t come early for the supper, you’ll miss the conversation; consider coming early and concluding the evening with Evening Prayer.

Thursday evening Bible Study Begins March 1

A new opportunity for Bible study and conversation will begin at Mount Olive on Thursday, Mar. 1, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. “Prayer and God’s People” will be led by Pr. Crippen and will examine the relationship of prayer between God and God’s people in the Scriptures. We will look at people of the Bible and how they prayed, and ask several questions: Does their conversation with God tell us anything? Does it teach us anything about our prayer life? Can they model prayer for us, or show us ways we should avoid? The hope is that through this conversation we might find our own way in our daily lives of prayer.

The group will meet Thursdays at 6:00 p.m. in the East Assembly room, pending the size of the group. We will have a light supper each night, and participants will be asked to sign up and bring this each week. (The first week will be provided.) This will be a very light and simple meal – bread and cheese and other such things to put on the bread, perhaps some fruit, but not anything fancy. There will be five Thursdays before Holy Week, and we’ll take a break for Holy Week and finish the next two weeks after Easter. After this series is complete, Vicar Doughty will lead a series on the Psalms.

Vestry Update, February 13, 2012

The Vestry met on Monday, February 13 to cover a variety of new and old business. In upcoming
weeks, President Adam Krueger and Pastor Crippen will begin working on a model to use in the Visioning Process during spring and summer of 2012. Also on the horizon is the formation of an ad hoc committee to discuss and brainstorm the formation of the newly approved PR Committee. Al Bipes will be helping with this development while Adam Krueger will be assisting in the formation of the Aesthetics/Building Usage Committee.

In other committee happenings, Doug Parish, Bob Lee, Tim Lindholm, and Kat Campbell-Johnson have all agreed to serve on the Audit Committee. The Nominating Committee will consist of Pastor Crippen, Adam Krueger, Gretchen Campbell-Johnson, Lisa Nordeen and two other members yet to be invited.

With the upcoming Synod Assembly, the Vestry approved Al Bostelmann, Dianna Hellerman and
Jessinia Ruff as the representatives from Mount Olive. Please keep them and all of the Assembly in your prayers.

The Mount Olive Foundation has given their largest gift to the church to date with a total of
$21,553.83. These funds will be apportioned to Bach Tage, the Baptismal Font and Lectern restoration, the Conference on Liturgy, an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED), the Lutheran World Relief Fair Trade Project, Neighborhood Ministries, new office technology, and worship space projects as recommended by the Foundation. We all thank them and those who have contributed to the Foundation for their generous gift.

Pastor Crippen moved that the 21 new members and 2 new associate members be approved and
welcomed into the congregation by the Vestry. Watch for pictures in the Parish House display case in coming weeks.

There is much to anticipate in upcoming weeks at Mount Olive. On Shrove Tuesday the Youth Group will be serving a pancake dinner at 6pm. On March 4 the Taste of Chile event will be held. We will be working with EPES to present dishes from Chile. And on March 21 and May 20 a choir of children from Mount Olive will sing during the second liturgies. Ann Becker Peterson will be working with Cantor Cherwien and the Godly Play teachers to work with the children on their singing.

The next Vestry meeting will be March 12, 2012 at 7:00pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Lisa Nordeen

Matching Grant for Bethania Kids

Bethania Kids, one of Mount Olive's Mission partners, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary. Several
supporters are offering $50,000 of matching grants for donations received by Bethnia before March 1. The Missions committee at Mount Olive has authorized a special gift of $500 to Bethania. If individual members of Mount Olive would like to give a special donation to Bethania during the matching grant period, please send donations directly to Bethania because of the short time frame. The address for Bethania is: Bethania Kids, PO Box 2140, Winchester, VA 22604-1340.

Bread for the World Workshops and Offering of Letters

The 2012 Bread for the World workshop, "Cut Hunger, Not Hunger Programs" will be held at three different locations and dates. On Thursday, February 23, 9a.m. -noon, at Guardian Angels Catholic Church, 8260 4th Street N, Oakdale; on Saturday, February 25, 9a.m.-noon, at St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, 8400 France Ave. S., Bloomington; and on Wednesday, February 29, 7-9 p.m. at Bethel University, Eastlund Room in Community Life Center, 3900 Bethel Dr., Arden Hills.

This year, Bread for the World members and advocates need to raise our voices more than ever.
The deficit-reduction proposals Congress is considering could result in the most severe cuts to
programs for hungry and poor people in Bread's history.

Bread's 2012 Offering of Letters overall campaign will work to create a circle of protection around those most vulnerable by working to protect the funding of programs for hungry and poor people. The focus will be on four mini-campaigns: domestic nutrition assistance, poverty-focused foreign assistance, tax credits for low-income families, and international food aid.

Help Needed, Saturday March 3

On Saturday, March 3, from 2-5 p.m. at Mount Olive, the Missions Committee will prepare for the "Taste of Chile" (which is the next day). We need help chopping vegetables for a salad, filling
empanadas, and helping get a Chilean soup ready and doing some simple decorating. If you have just a couple of hours free that afternoon, your help would be greatly appreciated! You will have fun, help make the event a success, and even learn some new skills-- we will have an empanada-making demonstration! What better way to spend a late Saturday afternoon!

If you are interested, please let Paul Schadewald know that you will be stopping by to help on Saturday March 3 (612-237-8517), or by email, schadewald@macalester.edu.

Book Discussion Group

For the meeting on March 10, the Book Discussion Group will discuss A Passage to India, by E. M. Forster. For the April 14 meeting, they will read, The Birth of Venus, by Sarah Dunant.

Listen to Jesus

2012-02-19T12:00:00.000-06:00

Jesus’ transfiguration shows us the glory of God in the body of Christ. We are part of this – both as disciples who are commanded to listen to Jesus, and as the baptized body of Christ, the Church. When God speaks to the disciples, “listen!” God is speaking to we who are becoming disciples. When God declares love for Christ’s body, God is also declaring love for you and I and the body of Christ, the Church. When have you listened to Jesus, and when have you heard God declare love for you? The light of God’s glory shines through Christ in transfiguration and on the cross; it shines through us, too.

Vicar Erik Doughty, the Transfiguration of Our Lord, year B; text: Mark 9:2-10

What a story we read today! Jesus goes up a mountain, two important people in the history of Israel appear and chat with him, the disciples babble in terror, the voice of God claims Jesus as God’s beloved son and then instructs, “Listen to him.” Then it all ends, they wander down the mountain. And, if I may add one verse, then the disciples obediently don’t mention it to anyone and they don’t even appear to discuss the fact that they just saw Moses and Elijah, but instead they start discussing among themselves, “So – what does ‘rising from the dead’ mean?”

We should note that this is AFTER the disciples have seen Jesus do one or two amazing things. Such as:
healing diseases
telling the powers of chaos – the wind and waves of a storm – to stop (and they did stop)
casting out demons
raising a little girl from the dead
giving the disciples themselves the authority to cast out demons
feeding five thousand and then again feeding four thousand
and so on.

Peter, for his part, has already confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. (Peter has had trouble thinking the Messiah is going to suffer and die, instead of maybe kicking out the Romans or whatever his expectations were.)

So it’s at this point that Jesus goes up the mountain, this mountain at the cusp of our Lenten season. Lent will end with Jesus on another mountain called Calvary or Golgotha, we know. On this mountain, with Peter, James, and John watching, Jesus’ clothes glisten like the light which goes into, through, and off an ice rink lit up at night in the park; like lightning, or glitter, or a disco ball, only more so. Whiter than white, “it-hurts-to-look-at-it” white. Whiter than my polyester alb will ever be in this world (which is not saying much, I know). Jesus’ clothes shine with the divine light of God, the shine that was on Moses’ face after he received the law; and possibly the shine of the chariots of fire that took Elijah into heaven. Visually we have God saying, TAKE NOTE: WHEN YOU SEE JESUS, YOU SEE GOD’S GLORY!

Then for good measure, in case the disciples didn’t figure it out, the Voice of God says THIS IS MY BELOVED SON; LISTEN TO HIM!

(That is the same sort of thing God said just to Jesus at his baptism, but now God’s making it known in public. We will hear the final version of this phrase during Holy Week, when the centurion who witnesses Jesus’ death says, “Truly this man was the Son of God.”)

So where we are at today in the life of Jesus and in the church year is a pivot point; a cusp between the spreading light of Epiphany and the dark-purple, ash-dusted penitential, introspective, catechetical season of Lent, which ends with the Christ-light, the glory of God, extinguished, the smoking wick on the rough cross, all on the mountain of Calvary nicknamed “the Skull.” That’s what Jesus sees ahead even as he walks up this mountain to show forth the Glory of God – that glory will show next in darkness and death, Christ dead for us, a glory which looks like defeat but in which death itself is defeated.

So, what of today’s text for us?

We can rejoice that we are present twice in this text: we see in ourselves the terrified, babbling disciples, for one thing. We are the people who say one day, “You, Lord, are the Christ,” then protest at the next opportunity that we don’t want Jesus to die. We are the people who have a fantastic experience of God’s presence and want to freeze that moment in time, to stay there in happy-terrified awe.

We are pretty reliably and predictably fools when in the presence of God. (My seminary classmate Michael, a pastor in Fort Collins, noted that he wished HE had a narrator who would follow him around and, whenever he said something foolish, would say, “He did not know what he was saying.”) One bit of good news there is that, when we do put our foot in our mouth or do something idiotic here at church– at least we know we’ve all been there. Even the disciples themselves had that experience. And we can forgive one another, and often we can laugh about it and move on.

As I said, there’s another place we are present in this text: in Christ. It matters that we, the Church, are baptized into the body of Christ. We are not fully human and fully divine, but we, in some mysterious way, lay claim to Christ’s body. We, in some faithful way, ARE Christ’s body: The body that gets transfigured. The body God declares love for. And yes, the body that is crucified, dies, and is raised. Somehow you and I participate in that by virtue of our baptism, and by virtue of Holy Communion.

Do I know how it all works? No. And I would be a fool to try to explain it! But it matters that the Church – you and I and all others baptized into Christ, over all the centuries – are the body of Christ.

This transfiguration of Christ – we’re affected. God loves you and me! God shines through us. And this is at the same time that the presence of God – and the command to listen to Jesus – makes us both want to stay forever AND to run away to where it seems more comfortable, more dim.

I invite you to consider what it means for God’s light to shine out from you. I invite you to consider what is the place you feel comfortably out of God’s light. I invite you to consider what you hear when God is speaking. When did God last declare God’s love for you? To what journey are you being called as we head toward that other mountain, Golgotha, over the next 40 days of Lent?

Let us listen to Jesus, who loves, who teaches still, who feeds thousands of thousands, who dies and rises from the dead for foolish disciples, for you and me; Jesus who, right after this liturgy ends, leads us down the mountain to serve and love all people, as he and we begin to walk toward Calvary’s cross.

Olive Branch, 2/14/12

2012-02-15T09:19:00.002-06:00

Accent on Worship

A Clean Heart

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” King David, Psalm 51:10.

In most years, the month of February is a month of transition in the Church Year because in most years Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent are in this month. What this means is that our worship and the texts for our worship will undergo a great change during the next few weeks.

We began February in the season of Epiphany, still hearing the story of the light of Christ sent to the world, still carrying memories of our recent Christmas celebration. Epiphany’s green season closes, as it always does, with the awe-filled story of Jesus’ transfiguration and the revelation of his divine glory to three of the disciples, our worship next Sunday. During the season we were called by Scripture to mission, to spreading the Good News.

But this Sunday with the help of our children, we will put away our Alleluia banner until our Easter celebration, and we will turn our eyes toward Lent, and the journey of faith and life those six weeks bring us. With Lent we begin a forty day pilgrimage which is less focused our mission in the world and more focused on our own lives, faith, and hearts. And the hinge-pin of this shift is Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday is a day when we hear God’s call to us to repent and seek forgiveness. Ash Wednesday is the day when we sing the song of King David as he asked forgiveness from God: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Our prayer to God, as we shift from celebrating God’s light in the world to looking at our own sin and our need for that light, is that God make us new inside, that God clean us inside and out.

In fact, that is why Ash Wednesday is such a good transition point to move us from Epiphany to Lent. Whether we are trying to live in our call as missionaries and witnesses of God’s love in the world, or are looking inward and seeing the sin of our hearts and lives and wanting God’s forgiveness, we need God to make our hearts clean. With our inmost being clean and looking to God, not only are our lives lived as the children of light we are, but we are able to witness to God’s grace as well.

Pray David’s prayer with me this month, as we make our great transition in worship and in focus. Ask God to clean your heart so you are the person God has called you to be both inwardly and outwardly. God grant us all clean hearts in Christ Jesus our Lord.

- Joseph

Lent Begins
Ash Wednesday
February 22
Holy Eucharist with the Imposition of Ashes
Noon and 7:00 p.m.

Sunday Readings

February 19, 2012 – Transfiguration of Our Lord
2 Kings 2:1-12 + Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6 + Mark 9:2-9

February 26, 2012 – First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 9:8-17 + Psalm 25:1-10
I Peter 3:18-22 + Mark 1:9-15

This Sunday’s Adult Forum

February 19: Art Halbardier will lead a presentation on the development of the Nicene Creed.

Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper
Tuesday, February 21 – 6:00 pm

We Need Your Palms

It’s time to bring in any palm branches you have from last year’s Palm Sunday liturgy. These branches may be placed in the designated basket in the narthex. They will be burned on Shrove Tuesday, and their ashes used for the Imposition of Ashes on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22.

The Bread of Life

The LORD gives “wine to gladden human hearts, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen human hearts,” according to Psalm 104:15. Bread is the staff of life, and given by Jesus as part of the gift of the Eucharist. The one loaf symbolizes all the people of God gathered together and formed into one Body, fed by the bread which is itself the Body of Christ.

During Lent Mount Olive will be using real bread at the Eucharist to better connect to this powerful symbol and gift of Christ. We will try it for the period of Lent to explore whether this could be possible as our permanent way of sharing in the one bread and one cup of the Meal of our Lord. Several recipes will be tried as well, to best determine which works. Should we continue this into the future, members who are interested will be invited to bake bread for our weekly Eucharists as part of their way of serving. If you have thoughts or comments on this, please don’t hesitate to contact Pastor Crippen, Vicar Doughty, Al Bipes (director of the Worship Committee), or any other members of the Worship Committee: Marcella Daehn, John Gidmark, Ro Griesse, Art Halbardier, Brian Jacobs, Kandi Jo Nelson, Paul Nixdorf, Tom Olsen, Dwight Penas, Rob Ruff, Cantor Cherwien.

Films of Faith in February(and early March!)

Seen any good movies lately? It’s a good question, because film (like the other arts) can be a great way to be challenged, inspired, and guided to reflect on our lives of faith. And as with the other arts, one’s appreciation of a film can be enhanced by discussing it with others.

So on three of the four Sundays of February (including Super Bowl Sunday) and the first Sunday of March, we will have the opportunity to gather at church at 3:00 pm to watch movies of substance and discuss them. The rest of the schedule is as follows:

Feb. 19: Joyeux Noelle
Feb. 26: (No film because of Lent Procession)
Mar. 4: Into Temptation

We will watch the movie, munch (quietly, please) on popcorn, sip a little cider, and then, after the movie, talk about what the movie showed and said and how it speaks to us as we try to live our lives of faith.

Taste of Chile

Mark your calendars for Sunday, March 4! The Missions Committee will host Taste of Chile to celebrate Chilean food and culture and to learn about missions in Chile. If you are interested in making an authentic Chilean dish for the event (recipe provided), please contact Lisa Ruff at jklmruff@msn.com or 651-636-4762.

Lent Procession Service
Sunday, February 26, 2012, 4:00 p.m.

Join Cantor David Cherwien and the Mount Olive Cantorei for another contemplative service of lessons and carols - for Lent! Designed especially for those who serve churches as leaders of such events, this is offered as an opportunity to withdraw from the busyness of life to pray, sing, listen, smell- to fully enter into the season of Lent, a time to renew our baptism.

“A Very Present Help”
Midweek Lent at Mount Olive

The forty days of Lent begin on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, with Eucharist and the Imposition of Ashes at noon and 7:00 p.m. (Celebrate Shrove Tuesday at Mount Olive on Feb. 21 – see separate announcement.) For the other Wednesday Lenten services this year we will focus on the presence of God in our lives, specifically the places where God’s healing grace is offered. We’ll be using as our starting point a section of Luther’s Smalcald Articles (from the Lutheran confessions) in which he describes the ways God’s grace and forgiveness are given us in concrete and knowable places.

The midweek schedule, beginning on Wednesday, Feb. 29, is Eucharist at 12:00 noon, followed by a soup lunch at 1:00 p.m. In the evening, there will be a soup supper at 6:00 p.m., and Evening Prayer at 7:00 p.m. The preaching at the noon Eucharist will be based on our theme, and the same meditation will be shared during the evening soup supper, with opportunity for further conversation at the meal.

Note: If you normally come to Evening Prayer in Lent but don’t come early for the supper, you’ll miss the conversation; consider coming early and concluding the evening with Evening Prayer.

Thursday evening Bible Studybegins March 1

A new opportunity for Bible study and conversation will begin at Mount Olive on Thursday, Mar. 1, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. “Prayer and God’s People” will be led by Pr. Crippen and will examine the relationship of prayer between God and God’s people in the Scriptures. We will look at people of the Bible and how they prayed, and ask several questions: Does their conversation with God tell us anything? Does it teach us anything about our prayer life? Can they model prayer for us, or show us ways we should avoid? The hope is that through this conversation we might find our own way in our daily lives of prayer.

The group will meet Thursdays at 6:00 p.m. in the East Assembly room, pending the size of the group. We will have a light supper each night, and participants will be asked to sign up and bring this each week. (The first week will be provided.) This will be a very light and simple meal – bread and cheese and other such things to put on the bread, perhaps some fruit, but not anything fancy. There will be five Thursdays before Holy Week, and we’ll take a break for Holy Week and finish the next two weeks after Easter. After this series is complete, Vicar Doughty will lead a series on the Psalms.

Church Library News

How great to see the new members welcomed into Mount Olive membership on Sunday, and we would also like to welcome you to visit our two church libraries very soon. For those with toddlers, you may find it convenient to stop into the Courtyard Library to find what is available in the children's book browser bin, but our main library, the Louise Schroedel Memorial Library, is located at the very end of the north corridor, past the church staff offices. This library can also be reached via two walkways from the East Assembly room, in case that seems more convenient for you. We can assure you that the main library also has many wonderful books for adults and children, and an excellent reference section as well.

One of the current displays in the main library at the present time includes these books:

 A Savior For All Seasons, by William P. Barker
 Banishing Fear From Your Life (How to live at peace in a world of anxiety and tension), by Charles D, Baer
 Godly Play (an imaginative approach to religious education), by Jerome W. Berryman Different Children, Different Needs (the art of adjustable parenting), by Charles F. Boyd
 A Time for Fitness (a daily exercise guide for the Christian) by Fran Carlton
 Creative Teaching in the Church, by Eleanor Shelton Morrison and Virgil E. Foster
 How To Grow a Young Reader (a parent's guide to kids and books) by John and Kay Lindskoog
 All God’s People Are Ministers, by Patricia N. Page
 Christ’s Kids Create! (craft ideas for children 4-14 years), by Deborah Stroh
 Prime Time: The Middle Years, by Carl T. Uehling

Three new books added to our Reference section include:

 The New Interpreter’s Bible (a commentary in 12 volumes - Volume II and Volume VIII - filling out ten volumes we now have)
 Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament – Mark. by Donald H. Juel

Many in our congregation already use the library resources with some frequency, but others have not availed themselves of the opportunity to dip into the rich treasure that awaits them inside the library doors. We encourage everyone to come into the library often -- browsers are always welcome!

As has been my custom, I end with a quotation that is worthy of sharing with you: Years ago, a man named Gilliman wrote a poem which ends: "You may have tangible wealth untold, caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I, you could never be, for I had a Mother who read to me!" (from What's So Great About Books).

- Leanna Kloempken

Matching Grant for Bethania Kids

Bethania Kids, one of Mount Olive's Mission partners, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary. Several supporters are offering $50,000 of matching grants for donations received by Bethnia before March 1. The Missions committee at Mount Olive has authorized a special gift of $500 to Bethania. If individual members of Mount Olive would like to give a special donation to Bethania during the matching grant period, please send donations directly to Bethania because of the short time frame. The address for Bethania is: Bethania Kids, PO Box 2140, Winchester, VA 22604-1340.

Former Vicar in the News

The year 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. A religious, political, social and economic movement, it began when Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses at the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Through these theses, he proposed the theological discussion of the nature of God’s infinite grace and the forgiveness of sins. Wittenberg is often referred to as the cradle of the Reformation. In the German language it is known as the “city of Luther” or Lutherstadt-Wittenberg.

Unfortunately, 40 years of communism and oppression of Christians took its toll on the church in East Germany. Today, one in five people in Wittenberg claims to be Christian. Martin Luther, for some, is simply the statue of the man who stands on a pedestal in the city’s market square.

In preparation for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the German churches have invited Pastor Arden Haug (Mount Olive Vicar from 1991-1992) to accompany the Lutheran Church in Wittenberg. He will be working with The Lutheran World Federation in creating a welcoming place for Lutherans from around the world to renew their faith through visit, study and worship. He will also have oversight of the activities of the ELCA Wittenberg Center.

Part of Pastor Haug’s work will also be to introduce the city of Wittenberg and the work of Martin Luther to the ELCA. Resources will be available soon making it possible to glimpse the activities of a city reclaiming the heritage of the Lutheran tradition.

Minnesota FoodShare Cordially Invites You to Their Kick-Off Event

The Westminster Town Hall Forum, on Thursday, February 23, at 12 noon, will be the kick-off event for the 30th Minnesota FoodShare. Rick Steves, host to the popular travel show on Minnesota Public Television, will speak about hunger from a global and local perspective. Further details can be found on www.westminsterforum.org.

Ins and Outs

2012-02-12T12:00:00.000-06:00

In Jesus Christ, God makes all outsiders insiders, calling us through each other to become people who in turn see no boundaries, no obstructions, to others, rather who welcome with God’s arms. This is the healing, the grace, the salvation of God at its core.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, year B; texts: 2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Mark 1:40-45

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

There’s a nasty part of the broken human condition that seems to occur across cultures and societies, a flaw in how we live as social beings which is shared by rich and poor, young and old, east and west, and is lived and practiced by just about any kind of group of people we can imagine. Actually, it’s all about those groups: human beings like to classify, divide, distinguish, and clarify which people belong to which group, and by extension which group is better than which group. That we do this with everything we study is considered good science, ordering, naming, classifying, to better understand. But our constant need to evaluate some groups as better than others, especially when applied to how we live with others, leads to painful results. War, genocide, bullying, prejudice, oppression, religious hatred come immediately to mind.

Simply put, we like classifying groups and types of people because we want to be insiders, not outsiders. If we believe something politically, we’re the “right” kind of people, and those who disagree with us, of course, are not. If we have a certain status, we’re in and others aren’t. If we’re a certain race, or nationality, or gender, or faith, we cling to the idea that ours is best. Though some of us are so proud to be among those who are truly enlightened (as opposed to all those whom we know to be ignorant) that we take great pains not to speak our prejudices and our insider dreams aloud because we know how wrong it would sound, because we know we ought to be ashamed.

This is not how God created us to be. If God’s hope for humanity is that we love God completely and love our neighbors as ourselves, having insiders and outsiders clearly is not in God’s plan. Today’s Scripture points this out as well, but perhaps in a more subtle way.

Today we have two stories of lepers being healed by the power of God, which on their surface might seem simply more in our series of reflections on God’s healing we’ve had in these latter three weeks of the Epiphany season. But these two were lepers, which meant these two were also outcasts, relegated to the fringes of their respective societies. By any insider/outsider metrics, these two were clearly outsiders. Unfit to mingle even with the social groups to which they did formerly belong, Naaman and the unnamed leper of Jesus’ encounter were marginalized in the extreme (though in Naaman’s case, perhaps that remained in his future, as he still seems to be interacting with his people.)

I want to suggest that in fact all healing by God is best understood as bringing the outsider in, breaking down walls that divide, and creating a new community of God’s shaping. Leprosy will help us see it in one way, but this is the definition of the grace the Son of God brought to the world. Reiterated in multiple ways by the apostle Paul in his letters, and lived and breathed by the Son of God himself in his earthly ministry, to be given the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is to be brought into life, where there are no groups, no us v. them, no insiders or outsiders. This is the life we are offered, the life the whole world is offered. And we see it clearly today.

Today healing is defined by God’s grace reaching the outcast.

It’s hard to read Naaman as an outcast because in the story he looks and acts like the great commander of the Syrian army that he is. He is beloved to his king, and seems to have a household who loves him, even the slaves. But his days at court are numbered. Leprosy’s not just a life-threatening disease to fear in these days. Its contagion means for Naaman that he will have to live apart from all he loves, outcast, unable to see and be seen. And his days as a valuable general are certainly over.

In that context, we can see why his king is willing to pay so much for him to be healed. And Naaman’s healing is a gift of life – he is restored to all he holds dear. He is brought back in.

Jesus’ leper is in a similar situation, but less so if we care about status. No one even thought to remark upon his name, this is no arrogant general demanding a certain way of healing. But he and Naaman have more in common than anyone else, for this leper’s life is lived on the outskirts of his village, away from everyone he loves, left to die in pain. Worse than the pain of leprosy must have been the social loss, the absence of loving, caring friends and family.

And he demands nothing, only offers Jesus a choice, “If you choose.” It’s a choice of faith, however: he believes Jesus can restore him not only to physical health but to his life, his community. And so the enemy general and the common Israelite Jew are restored by God’s healing to their lives and their loved ones.

And this is what Jesus does again and again, whether physically healing or simply welcoming and loving and caring: he bridges gaps, crosses boundaries, reaches out with God’s love and creates a new community.
His whole ministry focuses on outsiders coming in: Poor people with no status, despised tax collectors, those everyone knew to be “sinners,” people with disease (even those who weren’t literally outcast but for whom disease separated them from abundant life), those people on the fringes believed to be possessed by demons. Even Jesus’ Galilean disciples, who were considered ignorant, hillbilly rubes by the sophisticated Judeans of the cities to the south.

And Jesus’ ministry challenged the insiders more than anyone else he encountered: Both the social insiders like the elite and wealthy Sadducees, and the religious insiders like the pious and faithful Pharisees, who should have seen God’s Messiah in their midst, couldn’t get past Jesus’ inclusive vision of God’s kingdom. The tragedy is, they were welcome too, though without their status; and some, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, heard that good news.

This, then, is our chief experience of healing and grace as well, that we who were far off have been brought near, we who were outsiders are welcome.

Think about the times you have not felt welcome, not a part of a group, an outsider. There are so many ways we exclude others, I have yet to meet someone who hasn’t had that experience of not belonging, of being outside.

Sometimes it’s at school when we’re growing up, from playgrounds at recess to middle school lunch rooms (which might be as clear a foretaste of what hell might be like as we get). Sometimes it’s at work or college as young adults, when it seems that we don’t have a place, where we’re longing to belong, to find a group. Sometimes it’s like our people today: things we suffer separate us from others. For millions around the world, it’s all those social ways, and then added to that are the constraints of poverty, of minority status, of different abilities, of oppression, of lack of education.

And sadly, even the Church of Christ is a place of exclusion, of insiders. Horrible things have been done to people by the very Body of Christ who was created and called to welcome them.

And to a certain extent, our sense of unworthiness can make us feel separate from God. Perhaps that was behind the leper saying “If you choose”: we aren’t sure, knowing what we know about ourselves, that even God truly ought to welcome us.

So the powerful good news that in Christ we are welcome, forgiven, loved, embraced, we belong – there is hardly anything we could hear that is better news. The experience of the Christian community offering the welcoming embrace of the loving, Triune God is a powerful one that has transformed billions. This is why we sing words like that of the psalmist today, “You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy!” This is certainly the way I experience grace more than any other way: both in knowing God still loves me and says I’m worthy, and in knowing that in this place others say and feel the same thing.

But like the Pharisees and Sadducees, here is where that nasty piece of human nature arises: once in, we want it to be ours alone. This is the horrible truth: we who are made welcome often refuse it to others: Those who come to us for love and grace but who are somehow not seen as worthy. Those who believe other than we, whom we then relegate to outside our attention (and presumably God’s as well). And those who struggle to live every day but about whom we can’t be bothered to care.

Our sense of not being worthy ourselves is somehow lost when we’re “in.” I know, for example, that I don’t mind waiting in a long line as long as there are lots of people behind me. And once welcomed into a group, it’s hard to remember those who don’t feel that welcome.

But on a day when we’re welcoming people into membership in our congregation, we’d best pay attention to this. One of the things which delights me about Mount Olive is that we say to people often that they are welcome to sojourn with us without joining as members – that this is and must be a place where all who need to come can come. We also delight, as today, when people choose to engage with us in this ministry more fully by joining our work as fellow members.

But the true community of Christ is far broader than this congregation, and we would do well to remember that. (Especially when we’re tempted to congratulate ourselves on how well we think of ourselves.)

Which brings us to an important character in Naaman’s story today. Or characters. His servants who speak the truth.

Naaman is fiercely proud, even if he’s now outcast – he won’t do what is simple because it’s beneath him. He’s still got enough insider to disparage the river of Israel, the Jordan, and the dismissive healing he’s offered. The prophet of the LORD doesn’t even deign to come outside and talk to him, for goodness’ sake. He sends his messenger, and tells him to get into the filthy Jordan to be clean.

His servants are lovely here. We can almost hear the gentle cough, the “With respect, my lord . . .” And they say that had he been asked to do something hard, he’d have done it. They know their lord, they know his spirit, his courage. And his pride. And their truth-telling changes the day. Naaman listens, bathes, and is healed.

This is what we need in our lives, this is what I urge you to pray for, and to cultivate in your lives: truth-tellers who speak to us in love and help us see what we won’t see.

Because the healing welcome of God for us is the same as for Naaman: we are welcomed freely and lovingly. But there might be things we need to let go of. God could have healed Naaman without the Jordan. But perhaps he needed to be healed of his pride and arrogance, too. And his ethnocentricity.

We are forgiven and blessed by God – and asked to let go of the things for which we needed forgiveness. We are welcomed in, and asked to let go of our need to foul that welcome by shutting the door behind us so that others also cannot be welcomed in. There are few things more disgusting than hearing a Christian who has been welcomed and loved and forgiven of all, denying the same to someone else.

And truth-tellers in our lives can help us with that. Those who know us and love us well enough to gently cough and say “With all due respect . . .” Those who can remind us when we’re falling into our old habits, or when we’re dishonoring our welcome by not welcoming others. Those who can call us to account, like Naaman, so we can let go and truly receive God’s grace and love.

Because it’s not hard to argue that if we aren’t welcoming of others, if we’re trying to keep all our sinful habits while claiming to be forgiven, if we’re denying God’s grace to others, we likely haven’t truly experienced or received it yet, and there’s something in us blocking it.

I have come to believe that this is a vital need in my life, and I cherish the people I trust who speak truth to me in love. Who can help me see myself as who I am, someone desperately in need of God’s grace. And can help me learn to let go of whatever is blocking me, making me not of Christ, so that the healing, welcoming grace of God in Christ can truly bring me in and change me.

It doesn’t take a great deal of thought to realize what’s next.

We who have received the welcoming grace, the healing welcome of our Lord Jesus Christ, are sent to be that welcome, that grace. We have no business treating Christ’s community as an insider’s club. And the easiest way for us to understand our mission in life is to look and try to see anyone, anyone, who might believe themselves to be outside. They won’t be hard to find.

Because God in Christ is reconciling the world to himself, Paul says. There are no more outsiders, no more insiders. Just the loving embrace of the grace of God known in the healing power of the risen Son of God.
And all are welcome, all are offered healing. Thanks be to God.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

The Olive Branch, 2/6/12

2012-02-09T13:18:00.002-06:00

Accent on Worship

We are coming to the end of Epiphany, and to our last Epiphany texts -- since next Sunday is the festival of the Transfiguration -- which are about washing and cleaning. On Transfiguration we’ll have a Sunday when Jesus shines with the purity of God’s bright light, and then we’ll move into Lent, remembering we are dust.

But for now we meet Naaman, the crabby pagan army general, grumpy that all God tells him to do, through the prophet Elisha, is wash in the muddy stream that is the Jordan river. Go look up some pictures of the Jordan; “Clean” is not necessarily what one would experience after washing in it!

Nevertheless, Naaman eventually does wash in the muddy Jordan, and the disease which had afflicted him is washed away by God. Namaan comes to believe in God through this washing, and immediately is moved to share his wealth in thanks.

In our reading from Mark, Jesus, having just slipped away from the crowds at Capernaum, encounters an already-faithful man who has a disease. In this case, Christ touches the man (interestingly for our Epiphany season, the word for “touch” is also the the word “ignite”) and says, “I will it: Be clean!” And it happens. The man, cleaned (and “lit up”, perhaps?) goes off, telling everyone what has happened-- he is clean, he is restored to community, and it happened when he encountered Jesus.

Not all of us have such dramatic stories as Naaman or the man healed by Jesus’ will and touch. But we are all washed in Baptism, and we are ignited by faith through the work of the Holy Spirit. In what way, this week, will we give thanks? In what way will we spread the Good News of what God has done for us and the whole world in Christ Jesus?

- Vicar Erik Doughty

The Bread of Life

The LORD gives “wine to gladden human hearts, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen human hearts,” according to Psalm 104:15. Bread is the staff of life, and given by Jesus as part of the gift of the Eucharist. The one loaf symbolizes all the people of God gathered together and formed into one Body, fed by the bread which is itself the Body of Christ. During Lent Mount Olive will be using real bread at the Eucharist to better connect to this powerful symbol and gift of Christ. We will try it for the period of Lent to explore whether this could be possible as our permanent way of sharing in the one bread and one cup of the Meal of our Lord. Several recipes will be tried as well, to best determine which works. Should we continue this into the future, members who are interested will be invited to bake bread for our weekly Eucharists as part of their way of serving.

If you have thoughts or comments on this, please don’t hesitate to contact Pastor Crippen, Vicar Doughty, Al Bipes (director of the Worship Committee), or any other members of the Worship Committee: Marcella Daehn, John Gidmark, Ro Griesse, Art Halbardier, Brian Jacobs, Kandi Jo Nelson, Paul Nixdorf, Tom Olsen, Dwight Penas, Rob Ruff, Cantor Cherwien.

Book Discussion Group

For its meeting this Saturday, February 11, the Book Discussion Group will read Native Son, by Richard Wright, and for the March 10 session A Passage to India, by E. M. Forster.

Book Discussion meets on the second Saturday of each month at 10:00 a.m. at the church. All readers welcome!

Heart Healthy Food and Fun Event

Set aside this Sunday, February 12 for a not-to-be-missed dinner at Mount Olive, with “hearts” as its theme. Sponsored by the Neighborhood Ministries Committee, this fundraiser promises to be deliciously “heart healthy,” as well as fun. Hans Tisberger will provide games and prizes. Tickets for the event will are $12 for adults, $5 for children aged 5 to 12. Children under 5 are free, and will be available at the door. Join the fun and support the raising of funds to acquire additional needed kitchen equipment.

This Sunday’s Adult Forum

February 12: Dr. Terence Nichols of St. Thomas University will offer the second of a 2-part presentation, “What Christians Should Know About Isalm.”

Films of Faith in February
(and early March!)

Seen any good movies lately? It’s a good question, because film (like the other arts) can be a great way to be challenged, inspired, and guided to reflect on our lives of faith. And as with the other arts, one’s appreciation of a film can be enhanced by discussing it with others.

So on three of the four Sundays of February and the first Sunday of March, we will have the opportunity to gather at church at 3:00 pm to watch movies of substance and discuss them.

The schedule is as follows:
Feb. 12: Babette's Feast
Feb. 19: Joyeux Noelle
Feb. 26: No film because of Lent Procession
Mar. 4: Into Temptation

We will watch the movie, munch (quietly, please) on popcorn, sip a little cider, and then, after the movie, talk about what the movie showed and said and how it speaks to us as we try to live our lives of faith.

We Need Your Palms

It’s time to bring in any palm branches you have from last year’s Palm Sunday liturgy. These branches may be placed in the designated basket in the narthex. They will be burned on Shrove Tuesday, and their ashes used for the Imposition of Ashes on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22.

Knitters and Crocheters Wanted!

Yarnworkers, your talents are needed - again!

During Lent, we will collect donations of hand-knit or crocheted hats, scarves, mittens, and socks for donation to Our Saviour’s Community Services. These items will benefit those served in their homeless shelter and in their English Learning Center. All sizes are needed, and they request especially that our donations be designed for warmth – for a REAL Minnesota winter (unlike this year’s unusually mild Minnesota winter). If you like to knit or crochet and are able to make a winter thing or two to donate to this effort, simply bring your items to the church office before Easter. We already have a box filled and have started a second box!

For those who like to knit or crochet with others, plan to come to a knitting bee in the West Assembly Area this Sunday, February 12, from 1:30-3:30 (following the Neighborhood Ministries fundraiser luncheon), at church. We’ll put a pot of coffee or tea on and visit while we work. Those who wish to attend the Films of Faith event that day can knit for awhile after the luncheon while awaiting the movie.

If you have any questions about this project or if you are in need of supplies or patterns, please contact either Kate Sterner (katesterner@gmail.com) or Cha Posz (chaposz@gmail.com, or at the church office, M-F, 612-827-5919).

"Greetings" is Hot Off the Press

The winter issue of "Greetings from Mount Olive Neighborhood Ministries" will be distributed by the greeters after both liturgies on Sunday, February 12th. Extra copies will be available at the church.

Taste of Chile

Mark your calendars for Sunday, March 4! The Missions Committee will host Taste of Chile to celebrate Chilean food and culture and to learn about missions in Chile. If you are interested in making an authentic Chilean dish for the event (recipe provided), please contact Lisa Ruff at jklmruff@msn.com or 651-636-4762.

Attention Worship Assistants!

All of the server’s albs and hangers have now been labeled with numbers. Please choose an alb and write the alb number next to your name on the list which is posted on the bulletin board. Once the list is complete, a new roster with alb assignments will be posted.

What Are You Waiting For?

2012-02-05T12:00:00.001-06:00

Today’s readings are filled with dramatic calls to turn to God, to follow the Son of God. For us, focusing on the drama of these calls might cause us to miss our everyday calls to serve God, to do justice, to bring in God’s kingdom.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year B; texts: Isaiah 40:21-31; Mark 1:29-39

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Sometimes we don’t know what we really need, only what we really want. But there’s a big difference. Good parents know the distinction and don’t give their children everything they want. That would spoil them, and sometimes hurt them, as children often want things that aren’t good for them. A good parent is measured rather by their ability to meet their children’s needs, real needs, such as love, shelter, clothing, food.

I’ve found that in my life if I can distinguish between what I really need and what I only want, I can find peace and contentment a lot more easily.

Isaiah makes promises today, promises to those who “wait for the LORD.” Those who wait for the LORD will receive amazing things. Jesus’ ministry of healing looks a great deal like a fulfillment of such promises. But Jesus does healings in our reading today, and then disappears to another town when people start looking for him. So some who waited for him received healing, many did not. And surely this happened all the time.
But it makes me wonder: what are we waiting for from God? Are we waiting for something we really need, or something we really want? Do we know the difference? And if we do, are we satisfied with what we receive when God does answer us, does provide for us?

There’s an awful lot of waiting and searching going on surrounding Jesus as he begins his ministry, teaching, calling, and probably most importantly to the people, healing.

I find myself wondering about the people that were searching for Jesus. Most who sought him out were waiting for healing. As we join the story today, Jesus does a lot of healing in Capernaum, and then it was night. He went off to a lonely, quiet place, to pray. The next morning a big crowd is looking for him. They’d seen healings the day before and run home to get Aunt Betty who was paralyzed, or Cousin Larry who was blind – but Jesus was gone. The disciples seem to want him to go back to town, to the crowds – but Jesus says they have to go on, to the next village, so that he can “proclaim the message” there as well.
But what about the people waiting for him at Capernaum? Were they disappointed that he’d gone? They must have been. Had they missed their chance for healing? Why would he leave when there was more to do? Was he worth following, worth believing, if they or their loved ones didn’t receive healing like the others?

The people wanted more from Jesus in that town – but maybe it wasn’t the reason he came. I’ve talked about this before, that Jesus couldn’t walk past a sick person and not do anything, but that his mission was far more important than simply miracle-working. So today physical healings are clearly what the people want from Jesus, but they aren’t necessarily what they really need.

What is clear is that Jesus had and has more healing to offer than physical healing, much more. “The message” he says he needs to proclaim to the next town is what he began saying a few verses earlier in Mark’s Gospel: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Repent – turn to God – and believe in the good news, the good news that the time is fulfilled, God’s time is now, the time of waiting is over, and God’s kingdom has come near. As marvelous as it was for him to heal the sick and cast out demons, it’s rather this fulfillment he came to do. To fulfill God’s promises of life and bring God’s reign back to this earth. To call people to live in the rule and reign of God, to repent and love God and neighbor as we were made to do.

Those who were waiting for Jesus to heal their lameness, their blindness, their possessions – some received it, some did not. Just like us today. But all who wanted it, all, received the good news, the message that the God of the universe loves them and has come to be with them and give them life. All who wanted it, all, received the call to turn to God in love and to their neighbor in love and to find real life.

And that message was enough. In fact, for 2,000 years even if the physical difficulties are not removed, this promise, this good news, has been enough to satisfy and bring joy to believers. Because this presence of God is exactly what Isaiah promises – Jesus delivers on Isaiah’s promise.

Isaiah promises a powerful gift – power to the faint, strength to the powerless. But not necessarily healing, at least not physical healing. What seems to be promised here is simply what Isaiah says – strength to overcome difficulties, renewal of the spirit. “Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

My sisters and brothers, this is what Jesus came to offer. Not removal of all difficulties, but strength to endure, and even to thrive and be joyful. That doesn’t mean we should never pray for healing, or for pains or suffering to be taken from us. God loves us and we’re to ask for what we want.

But we never want to mistake the fact that the immediate relief we want is not necessarily what we need. If we get that immediate relief, that particular healing we’ve prayed for, we can rejoice. But even then, we have not received what we ultimately need.

What we need is for God to destroy death, to make the reality that all of us face not be a reality anymore. That’s the healing we really need. That is exactly what God does. In effect, what God says to us in Jesus is this: “Whether or not I cure you physically or solve your difficulty or take away your suffering, do you see that it’s enough for you that I love you with a love beyond death, a love that will carry you through death into life, a love that makes your life worthwhile now and always?”

This is the promise of Isaiah. This is the reason Jesus went on to the next town – to continue to carry the message of God’s love and to call people to return to God and God’s love.

But there’s more, isn’t there? Jesus goes on to the next town because that message needs telling.

And now you and I are called to tell. So the question must be asked again: what are we waiting for? Not “what are we waiting for from God?” this time. No, “what are we waiting for?” The urgency of Jesus is this: the whole world needs to know this good news, that the time is fulfilled, that God’s rule has come to the world. And we who have received this healing are the ones called to carry the message. And if the world is to be saved, all are needed to live in love toward God and love toward neighbor.

Maybe Peter’s mother-in-law should be our model. It bothers some people that immediately after being healed by Jesus she gets up and serves them. I don’t know why it should surprise or bother anyone. It’s not like Jesus healed her and sat back and said “where’s dinner?” She’s just acting like lots of women I know and some I’ve been related to (like my grandmother), who would serve coffee and lunch no matter how they felt, and who would be distraught if they weren’t permitted to do it. I’m sure as soon as she felt better she said, “now go sit down and I’ll find some cookies and get the coffee pot going. And after that we’ll have some dinner.” Or words to that effect.

But more to the point, having been healed, she began to serve. And I think we would do well to emulate that giving. And that begs the question: What are you waiting for? Think about it:

You and I have been given gifts beyond telling, gifts unique to you, gifts unique to me, as well as gifts we all have received of wealth and possessions. We know the truth about God: that God loved the world so much that God became one of us, and died and rose to give us eternal life, life that begins now richly and fully, and will continue for eternity. And Jesus has said our only job is to use the gifts we have to tell others about it. To serve God by serving others with this good news.

If you and I don’t think about this every day and pray that God open our eyes to our mission field and get us into it, then I ask you again, What are we waiting for?

And this is where we stop for now, with questions.

What will you do with the healing you’ve received, the gifts you’ve been given, the Good News you hold in your heart? Have you found ministries that use your gifts, for the good of the Lord’s ministry here at Mount Olive, or in other places in your world and life? Or is that only for other people? Have you committed to growing your giving of money into a tithe, or more, since you are blessed with overwhelming wealth in a world filled with poverty and despair? Or is that only something others need to do? Have you shared God’s love with others in your actions, like Peter’s mother-in-law, or in your words, like Jesus? Or is that only someone else’s job?

Far too often we Christians live as if our faith is only for our own benefit, and we let others do the serving, the loving, the giving. But the ministry of Christ Jesus only works when the people of Christ Jesus work. When the death-defeating love which we have from God inspires us to love of God and neighbor in such a way that in our own ways we become part of God’s changing and healing of the world.

When God renews our strength and lifts us up on eagle’s wings, as God does every day, what will we do with that strength, that energy? That’s our question today.

Waiting for the Lord is a rich thing, which leads to life and joy and satisfaction of our deepest needs, even in the midst of affliction. But our Lord is also waiting for you, for me, to go and share this joy. God give us the courage and the will to do this.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

The Light of Christ

2012-02-02T07:00:00.000-06:00

Presentation of Our Lord is an ancient festival of the church, with many layers of tradition. What are we actually celebrating? We celebrate the vision and perception of Anna and Simeon, who knew Jesus as Messiah before his ministry even began. The light of Christ, sparked in the manger, goes with us out into our life every day.

Vicar Erik Doughty, The Presentation of Our Lord; text: Luke 2:22-40

Welcome to a rather quirky festival of the Church! Candles blessed, prophets canticle-ing, processions, and other interesting stuff. Tonight you get a religious-history lesson, and then some Gospel, because we need to hear both.

First, some history. Why exactly are we here tonight? What are we having this little festival FOR?

We are not commemorating Jesus’ circumcision and naming-- that was last month. We are not commemorating Jesus’ bar mitzvah -- for one thing, he was way too young; for another, this is in the Jerusalem Temple, not a synagogue. Here’s the reason Joseph and Mary went to the temple in the first place:

Leviticus. 12:1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. 3 On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. 4 Then the woman must wait thirty–three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. 5 If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty–six days to be purified from her bleeding.

Lev. 12:6 “‘When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting a year–old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering.a 7 He shall offer them before the LORD to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood.

“‘These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl. 8 If she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’”

What all that means is this: in part, this worship service we’re having is about MARY’s ritual purity, now restored by the sacrifice of two pigeons, which she had formerly lost after giving birth to a son. And the date of this festival is 40 days after Christmas-- 7 days plus 33 days is 40.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

In the book of Numbers, just after a whole lot of death and unpleasantness, due to Israelites who grumbled against Aaron and Moses and God -- go read Numbers chapter 17 and 18 if you want a sample-- the tribe of Levi is chosen to be priests in the temple, and they are given the first of everything -- crops, animals, and children. All firstborn are to be dedicated to God-- and if you’re not going to donate your child to be raised by the temple Levites, you pay money to the Levite tribe as “ransom” or “redemption”. Here’s what God tells the Levites:

Num. 18:14 “Everything in Israel that is devoted to the LORD is yours. 15 The first offspring of every womb, both human and animal, that is offered to the LORD is yours. But you must redeem [ransom] every firstborn son and every firstborn male of unclean animals. 16 When they are a month old, you must redeem them at the redemption price set at five shekels of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs.

Aren’t you glad you came to church tonight? Look how much you’re learning! Maybe some of you still owe some shekels! Except, well, we’re not Jews living in the time of the temple, are we? No.

Ok, so anyway, those two readings are from the first books of the Bible.

But what about the candles? No one really knows for sure. It could be a Christianization of pagan practices (which a Pope in the 1600s believed, among others). In any case, blessing of candles on this day is a pious tradition which WE choose to keep as a remembrance of Christ’s Epiphany light going out into the world. Armenian Christians have a similar practice, carrying lit candles home from this festival, light overcoming darkness. So now you know. But why the French eat crepes on this festival, I have no idea. You can research by eating lots of crepes.

But what on earth does this have to do with Good News for you and me? We’re not Jews; I hope we’re not pagans; we’re (mostly) not French (maybe a little). How does this all apply?

Here’s the good news, of that Epiphany light we celebrate this evening: It was not merely young zealous hotheaded 20-something Essenes and first-century fishermen who thought there was something special about Jesus. Even this early in his life, before his ministry started at all, before his baptism and before he called his very first disciple, the grizzled, blind, dedicated prophets in the Temple-- Simeon and Anna -- met Jesus in the course of their usual workday-- and old, blind Simeon burst into song, praising God for sending the Messiah; and Anna, who knew the Holy when she saw it-- Anna, who lived her life in the Temple day and night-- saw this small child and knew the redemption of Jerusalem had arrived, and she gave thanks.

Our Mount Olive member, Laila Malm, died this week after some time in memory-care and hospice; her funeral will be next Thursday, in this holy place. Already, other of our members rest in the columbarium in our side chapel in the transept. We mourn the loss of our beloved dead and yet we sing Alleluia, for Simeon and Anna were right. They did recognize the Messiah, the savior not only of Israel but also of you and me. A sword did pierce Mary’s heart, at Jesus’ crucifixion, and yet we rejoice that Christ, dying, destroyed death. And in Christ’s resurrection is the resurrection hope of all the baptized-- you, me, Laila too.

Our good news is that Christ came to be with Simeon and with Anna AND WITH US, to love us, to die for us, to be raised for us; our good news is that when the time comes for us to go to the heart of God and for our baptism to be completed in death, we may go in peace just like Simeon, with song on our lips, having seen the Lord; and still seeing the Lord calling us home. Until then, when we light these candles, we remember the light of Christ with us, first sparking from a manger in Bethlehem, and with us still. We give thanks for Simeon and Anna, old and faithful, and among the first to point to Jesus and see the light of salvation. This is the light we all bear with us out the church doors tonight. This is the light we praise as we light all the candles blessed tonight. This is the light shining into our lives and homes, all year: the light of Christ. Thanks be to God!

The Olive Branch, 1/30/12

2012-02-01T10:29:00.002-06:00

Accent on Worship

The gods of the ancient world were often perceived as powerful and ruthless, at best indifferent to mortals. However, Isaiah, in the First Lesson for the Fifth Sunday After Epiphany, gives the Judeans, who are returning from exile, a true vision of who and what God is to them. God is the infinite Creator of all, who has no equal even among the great and powerful on earth. God “brings princes to naught and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.” Yet, unlike the ancient gods of Isaiah’s time, the true God is concerned about the creation and involved in the lives of God’s people, especially those who are weak and vulnerable. “He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.”

Psalm 147, the Psalm for the day, continues with this theme, which is one of hope for those who are returning to rebuild, for those who are overwhelmed by the destruction of their home country, and those who are broken hearted. The Judeans are reminded of the power of their God and God’s concern for them.

This power and concern is no more manifested than in the Word Made Flesh, in Jesus. In this season the Gospel is all about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the people he chooses, and the excitement he generates in every town he enters. “Everyone is searching for you,” said Simon to the Lord when he slipped away to pray. No truer words could have been spoken. Jesus was what everyone had been searching for, perhaps the Messiah, but if not that, someone who embodied the power and concern of the God who was proclaimed by the prophets. Jesus’ first actions in this exciting new ministry were healing all who came to him. In Mark 1:29-39, Sunday’s Gospel, we are told that the whole city came to the door for Jesus’ healing touch. And even though the people had not figured out who Jesus was, the demons already knew, “but he would not permit them to speak, because they knew him.” Such was the power of Jesus, the Son of God.

The interesting insight that I got out of Mark’s Gospel was that Jesus did not separate his actions from his words. When Simon found him in prayer, Jesus said to him, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” As followers of Jesus we, too, are called to proclaim our message of God’s love, by our actions.

- Donna Neste

This Sunday’s Adult Forum

February 5: Dr. Terence Nichols of St. Thomas University will offer the first of a 2-part presentation, “What Christians Should Know About Isalm.”

Book Discussion Group

For its meeting on February 11, the Book Discussion Group will read Native Son, by Richard Wright, and for the March 10 session A Passage to India, by E. M. Forster.

Book Discussion meets on the second Saturday of each month at 10:00 a.m. at the church. All readers welcome!

2011 Year-End Statements

Contribution statements for the year ending December 31, 2011 will be available on a table near the coat area for contributors to pick up.

If you cannot be at church in the coming weeks and would like your statement mailed to you, please call the church office.

Welcoming!

On Sunday, February 12, 2012 at the 10:45 a.m. liturgy, we will welcome those who have indicated that they want to become "official" members at Mount Olive. If you are interested in membership at Mount Olive, please speak with Pastor Crippen, contact the office at 612-827-5919, or speak with Andrew Andersen, the Director of Evangelism.

Sign Up for Altar Flowers

The Altar Flowers Chart for 2012 is now posted in the church office. If you would like to sign up to provide flowers for worship to commemorate a special day, in memory of a loved one, in honor of a special event, or simply to help beautify our sanctuary for worship, please sign up on the chart for the date you want, and be sure to include your designation. The cost of the altar flowers this year is $50 a Sunday for two bouquets. You may sign up to purchase both bouquets by signing on both lines, or purchase just one bouquet ($25) by signing on only one line.

Heart Healthy Food and Fun Event

Set aside February 12 for a not-to-be-missed dinner at Mount Olive, with “hearts” as its theme. Sponsored by the Neighborhood Ministries Committee, this fundraiser promises to be deliciously “heart healthy,” as well as fun. Hans Tisberger will provide games and prizes. Tickets for the event will are $12 for adults, $5 for children aged 5 to 12. Children under 5 are free. Join the fun and support the raising of funds to acquire additional needed kitchen equipment.

Call for Palms

It’s time to bring in any palm branches you have from last year’s Palm Sunday liturgy. These branches may be placed in the designated basket in the narthex. They will be burned on Shrove Tuesday, and their ashes used for the Imposition of Ashes on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22.

Taste of Chile

Mark your calendars for Sunday, March 4! The Missions Committee will be hosting the Taste of Chile to celebrate Chilean food and culture and to learn about missions in Chile. If you are interested in making an authentic Chilean dish for the event (recipe provided), please contact Lisa Ruff at jklmruff@msn.com or 651-636-4762.

Attention Worship Assistants!

All of the server’s albs and hangers have now been labeled with numbers. Please choose an alb and write the alb number next to your name on the list which is posted on the bulletin board. Once the list is complete, a new roster with alb assignments will be posted.

Films of Faith in February

Seen any good movies lately? It’s a good question, because film (like the other arts) can be a great way to be challenged, inspired, and guided to reflect on our lives of faith. And as with the other arts, one’s appreciation of a film can be enhanced by discussing it with others. So on the four Sundays of February (including Super Bowl Sunday), we will have the opportunity to gather at church to watch movies of substance and discuss then. We kick off at 3 p.m. on 5 February (in the chapel lounge) with Of Gods and Men, a powerful film that focuses on the decision of a group of Trappist monks to stay in the ministries in Muslim Algeria, despite threats and the urging of those “in the know” to flee to safety.

We will watch the movie, munch (quietly, please) on popcorn, sip a little cider, and then, after the movie, talk about what the movie showed and said and how it speaks to us as we try to live our lives of faith.

Future films will be Babette’s Feast, Joyeaux Noelle, and Into Temptation (which was filmed in Minneapolis and Saint Paul).

Minnesota FoodShare Cordially Invites You to Their Kick-Off Event

The Westminster Town Hall Forum, on Thursday, February 23, at 12 noon will be the kick-off event for the 30th Minnesota FoodShare. Rick Steves, host to the popular travel show on Minnesota Public Television, will speak about hunger from a global and local perspective. Further details can be found on www.westminsterforum.org.

South Minneapolis Coalition for Grief Support
2012 Winter / Spring Series

This series will be held on Thursday evenings, January 19 – March 29, 2012, at Diamond Lake Lutheran Church, 5760 Portland Avenue S. Minneapolis, MN 55347 (612-827-5931).

Weekly Schedule
 6:15 pm Registration and refreshments
 6:30 pm Speaker
 7:00 - 8:00 pm Facilitated Small Groups

Individuals may join the group at any time. For further information, contact the coordinator, Norine Larson at 952-925-2437.

Bread for the World Workshops and Offering of Letters

The 2012 Bread for the World workshop, "Cut Hunger, Not Hunger Programs" will be held at three different locations and dates. On Thursday, February 23, 9a.m. -noon, at Guardian Angels Catholic Church, 8260 4th Street N, Oakdale; on Saturday, February 25, 9a.m.-noon, at St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, 8400 France Ave. S., Bloomington; and on Wednesday, February 29, 7-9 p.m. at Bethel University, Eastlund Room in Community Life Center, 3900 Bethel Dr., Arden Hills.

This year, Bread for the World members and advocates need to raise our voices more than ever. The deficit-reduction proposals Congress is considering could result in the most severe cuts to programs for hungry and poor people in Bread's history.

Bread's 2012 Offering of Letters overall campaign will work to create a circle of protection around those most vulnerable by working to protect the funding of programs for hungry and poor people. The focus will be on four mini-campaigns: domestic nutrition assistance, poverty-focused foreign assistance, tax credits for low-income families, and international food aid.

Plan Ahead!
March is Minnesota FoodShare Month

From 2008 to 2010 visits to the food shelves increased by 62%. During that time in the Twin Cities it increase by 97%! But the suburbs are suffering too. Since 2008, Second Harvest reported a 70% increase by seniors to suburban food programs. There were more than three million visits altogether to Minnesota food shelves in 2010. More hunger facts are posted on the Neighborhood Ministries bulletin board.

Once again Mount Olive congregation is invited to participate in Minnesota FoodShare Month. Bring your non-perishable food donations any Sunday during the month of March and place them in the grocery cart in the cloak room.

The goal this year is to collect a total of 12 million combined dollars and pounds of food from congregations, businesses, and individuals throughout Minnesota. This amount will stock food shelves around the state with more than half the food distribution needed annually. And remember, food shelves can stretch donations of cash further than donations of food, because of their access to discount products and programs. So your cash donations go much farther! If you would like to make a cash donation, make your check out to Mount Olive and in the memo line write "MN FoodShare," and place it in the offering plate.

Claimed by Christ

2012-01-29T12:00:00.000-06:00

In today's readings, Christ teaches with authority, and casts out demons. Because through Baptism the Holy Spirit dwells in us, there is no room in us for whatever tries to possess us. We are claimed by Christ, and freed to love and serve God and our neighbor.

Vicar Erik Doughty, Fourth Sunday after Epiphany; texts: Mark 1:21-28

So, when was the last exorcism you attended?

We in the rational, Enlightenment-affected, Science-friendly, Western church like to think, in daily life, that we are logical and self-controlled and sensible. We don’t often talk about things like unclean spirits, or how to get rid of them. But in liturgy and practice . . .

“We confess that we are in bondage to [or, “captive to”] sin, and cannot free ourselves.”

“Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God? Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God? Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God?”

“Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” Our last exorcism was on January 8, the baptism of the newest member of the Spalding family; and before that, another on December 18, the baptism of the youngest Berka.

Our usual entry to Christian life and faith includes exorcism . . . and possession by Christ, into whose body the Holy Spirit enters at his baptism. (The Holy Spirit comes to us, too, in baptism.)

And in Affirmation of Baptism --what used to be called “Confirmation” -- those same renunciations are spoken again-- with the addition of this prayer: Stir up in (name) the gift of your Holy Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding; the spirit of counsel and might; the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord; the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever. Amen.”

You see, in baptism the Triune God takes possession of us. The Holy Spirit enters in, lives in us. We are not our own. We belong as part of Christ’s body, the Church.

. . . and so, we speak Christ’s words, not our own.
. . . and so, we act in ways that build up community, not tearing down community.
. . . and so, we fear and love God. Perhaps you recall Luther’s small-catechism explanation of the eighth commandment? We should so fear and love God that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the kindest way.

And no, this isn’t a sermon about the commandments-- but you can see the connections; you’re a smart bunch. In baptism, the Holy Spirit kicks out whatever unclean spirits are in us, and then the Holy Spirit lives within us, creating faith, allowing us to build community in ways we couldn’t before. It gives us a healthy fear of the Creator of All That Is; we see God and are awestruck.

And baptism, with its exorcism of other spirits and invocation of the Holy Spirit, also gives us love for God and for one another--and the neighbor Luther speaks about-- because God dwells not only in us, but also in places beyond us-- which we signify here at Mount Olive by reverencing the cross, and the Gospel book, and the altar, and the blessed communion bread and wine-- and God dwells in this congregation, too, each one of us, and so we bow to one another, forgiven sinner-to-forgiven sinner, one temple of the Holy Spirit to another Temple of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps we should reverence the neighborhood as we exit the church building? Perhaps. God is present in the world, too.

And the peace of God comes from God AND dwells with each one of us, so that when we say “The peace of the Lord be with you,” it is not a symbolic formality but it is something actually happening, changing, transacting from one member of the body of Christ to another, in those words, at that moment. As Susan said last week during education hour, words are not just words; words have effects; and these are holy words; and they have holy effects. We do not say them idly. We should so fear and love God that we recognize the reality we create with our words (and with God’s words).

I’m going to preach to the choir a little now (not literally). Because you know this, but in a little while you’ll go out the church doors and others NEED to know this:

I have been reading an ongoing discussion about words, where one person used the word “homo”, reasoning that it was a logical abbreviation for a longer word referring to gay and lesbian people. Well-- we should so fear and love God that we do not call fellow members of the body of Christ -- or of our general human family -- names. We should so fear and love God that we build up the body of Christ in every way we can think of. We should so fear and love God that we acknowledge and encourage love when we find it.

And we should so fear and love God AND ONE ANOTHER that we do not use these texts today to hurt people. If we are going to name those things which draw us from God, those sins to which we are in bondage, let us say clearly that being gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender is not the same as having an unclean spirit. Being gay or lesbian, bisexual or transgender, does not draw us away from God any more than being heterosexual does.

By contrast, what becomes demonic are those things which take hold in us which we cannot control, and which clearly does harm to us, to others, to the community, to the church. Abuse- sexual or physical or emotional -- is demonic. Addiction-- to whatever we cannot shake, which takes control of us and will not let go of its own accord-- is demonic. For some, jealousy. For some, envy. For some, gluttony. For some, racism. There’s a pretty long list, actually.

You might know some of your own demons. And sometimes they will not go away completely in this life. I’ve actually given a name one of mine, a name for my tendency to sometimes be overly cautious and overly critical of myself, and to see everything in the most pessimistic way. Having a name for it allows me to realize it is not really *me*.

And I am convinced that it is the Holy Spirit residing within me that allowed me to see that personal demon for what it is-- and, in naming it, to have the authority to toss it out when I recognize it. “Oh hi-- I recognize you. Yes, I know what you’re going to say. Now shoo!” And you know, it no longer has the power over me that it had before. It stops in every now and then; and I say hello --and shoo it back out the door.

The same Jesus Christ who today exemplifies teaching with authority will, by the end of the Gospel according to Mark, lose every bit of authority and power we’ve heard today, stripped from him by our human desire for power and control and order. So I am not telling you “be like Jesus,” no, not quite. But, too, at the end of this Gospel we’re beginning now, Jesus has been raised from death, does not live in the tomb, but is out in the world again, alive, at work, living and acting now with authority granted by God, Christ who has utterly destroyed the power of sin and death. It is the risen Christ we worship today.

In the name of the risen Christ, whose light is spreading through the world, you and I are called to recognize and name chaos and darkness for what it is. And we are given the authority, as children of the Father, as members of the body of the risen Christ, and as temples of the Holy Spirit, to evict the demons we encounter. “Shoo, get out, I belong to Christ, not to you,” is a good start. I know that may sound glib. But we don’t need fancy language; we need to remember that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is already with us and in us, and in this faith community at Mount Olive.

Christ has claimed each person here. And Christ has no space to spare, no patience for unclean spirits; Christ washes us in baptism and says, “Come eat the bread of life; drink the cup of salvation, this is my body broken, my blood shed, for you-- a new covenant, for forgiveness of sin”.

The Holy Spirit is already in us, in residence; there is no vacancy for the unclean spirits. And so we are set free, you and I; set free to go out those doors and model in the world how incredibly amazing it is to belong to Christ, to love one another, to live without fear of sin but to live IN the awe and love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-- and to live out confident love of God and neighbor, each day of the week.

The Olive Branch, 1/24/12

2012-01-25T14:39:00.002-06:00

Accent on Worship

We are called to be Christ

The season of Epiphany usually has a shift mid-season between readings for our Eucharist which focus on call and discipleship to Gospels about the early ministry of Jesus, along with complementary readings from the rest of Scripture. That shift happens this week, as we leave behind two weeks of focus on calls of God and begin looking at the ministry of Jesus, specifically his healing.

But there is a connection between these themes. Jesus did several things throughout his earthly ministry. He taught, often using parables. He healed people of disease and possession, even doing several resurrections. He did other miracles or signs which showed his divine power. And he gathered a group of followers, disciples, who stayed with him throughout his ministry. Of this large group of perhaps more than 100, twelve were chosen as an inner circle of disciples.

At one level, the gathering of disciples was not uncommon. Itinerant teachers of the day often had their own followers, as well as teachers who lived in one place and drew people to them. John the Baptist had disciples, some of whom left him to follow Jesus. In the past two weeks we’ve heard Jesus’ call to Philip, Nathanael, Andrew, Simon Peter, James, and John – six of the inner twelve. In this Jesus is just acting like a teacher is expected to act.

However, for Jesus there is something more. These disciples, whom we famously remember as awkward, often confused, less than brilliant followers, were a vital part of Jesus’ mission. He healed, yes. But he also sent his disciples out to heal. He taught, yes. But he also sent his disciples out to teach. He gathered people to himself, yes. But he also sent his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God and bring people to know God’s love in Jesus.

All this was preparing the disciples, all of them (not just the twelve), to do something crucial. They became the ministry of Jesus themselves after Pentecost. Jesus, in fact, was a prelude to what the big plan was. Rather than being the best part, something to be looked back at with nostalgia and longing, the ministry of Jesus was the first course, leading to a feast which only his disciples could spread to the entire world. Yes, we still read of Jesus’ ministry today. But we are mistaken if we think that it was the main point of his coming.

The main point of his coming was to call disciples, and now us, to do what he did, to be who he is, to continue, expand, deepen and spread his ministry. The profound truth of his death and resurrection, the celebration of which is starting to come closer with the advent of Lent in mid-February, is that by dying and rising and defeating the powers of evil and death, Jesus is able to fill all his disciples with the power of the Spirit of God to become him, to be the anointed ones of God in the world. Freed from our fears of all that can harm us, we are empowered in the risen life of Jesus to continue the healing of the world.

As we move into a focus on those first days of Jesus’ ministry in these next weeks, let us keep in mind our own calls to follow, to learn, to be discipled, to be Christ. God grant us the Spirit that we might answer our call and continue God’s healing of the world.

- Joseph

This Sunday’s Adult Forum

Jan. 29: Susan Cherwien will offer the second in a 2-part series on Hymns and Worship.

2011 Year-End Statements

Contribution statements for the year ending December 31, 2011 will be available on a table near the coat area for contributors to pick up.

If you cannot be at church in the coming weeks and would like your statement mailed to you, please call the church office.

Welcoming!

At Mount Olive we identify ourselves as Musical, Liturgical and Welcoming. Each of these descriptive terms has a number of facets.

On Sunday, February 12, 2012 at the 10:45 a.m. liturgy, we will welcome those who have indicated that they want to become "official" members at Mount Olive. If you are interested in membership at Mount Olive, please speak with Pastor Crippen, contact the office at 612-827-5919, or speak with Andrew Andersen, the Director of Evangelism.

Sign Up for Altar Flowers

The Altar Flowers Chart for 2012 is now posted in the church office. If you would like to sign up to provide flowers for worship to commemorate a special day, in memory of a loved one, in honor of a special event, or simply to help beautify our sanctuary for worship, please sign up on the chart for the date you want, and be sure to include your designation. The cost of the altar flowers this year is $50 a Sunday for two bouquets. You may sign up to purchase both bouquets by signing on both lines, or purchase just one bouquet ($25) by signing on only one line.

Book Discussion Group

For its meeting on February 11, the Book Discussion Group will read Native Son, by Richard Wright, and for the March 10 session A Passage to India, by E. M. Forster. Book Discussion meets on the second Saturday of each month at 10:00 a.m. at the church. All readers welcome!

Heart Healthy Food and Fun Event

Set aside February 12 for a not-to-be-missed dinner at Mount Olive, with “hearts” as its theme. Sponsored by the Neighborhood Ministries Committee, this fundraiser promises to be deliciously “heart healthy,” as well as fun. Hans Tisberger will provide games and prizes. Tickets for the event will are $12 for adults, $5 for children aged 5 to 12. Children under 5 are free. Join the fun and support the raising of funds to acquire additional needed kitchen equipment.

Meals On Wheels

Mount Olive left the South Minneapolis Meals on Wheels program last January. In order to continue in this vital neighborhood ministry, we joined TRUST, Inc. One of TRUST’s many programs is that of Meals on Wheels.

The list of Meals on Wheels driver/deliverers at Mount Olive was given to TRUST, Inc. They have scheduled the following Mount Olive members to drive/deliver Meals on Wheels: Nancy and Gary Flatgard, Elaine and Art Halbardier, Karen Johnson, Mary and Bob Lee and Connie and Rod Olson. Others from the list of driver/deliverers at Mount Olive could be recruited by TRUST, Inc. We are thankful to those who continue to drive and deliver Meals on Wheels. Gary Flatgard has represented Mount Olive on the TRUST, Inc. board of directors.

TRUST, Inc. has many other neighborhood ministry programs in which Mount Olive could participate. Their wide range of programs will be described at a future adult forum by a TRUST, Inc. representative. All are encouraged to watch for this forum and attend. We need to be well informed and supportive of these neighborhood ministries

Minnesota FoodShare Cordially Invites You to Their Kick-Off Event

The Westminster Town Hall Forum, on Thursday, February 23, at 12 noon will be the kick-off event for the 30th Minnesota FoodShare. Rick Steves, host to the popular travel show on Minnesota Public Television, will speak about hunger from a global and local perspective. Further details can be found on http://www.westminsterforum.org/.

2012 RIC Festival Worship
January 28, 4:30 p.m.

This seventh annual festival worship service celebrates the Metro area ministry of Reconciling in Christ congregations at Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church, 1509 27th Ave. NE., Minneapolis this Saturday, January 28 at 4:30 p.m.

The Rev. Justin Lind-Ayres of Bethany Lutheran Church will preach. Freewill offering to benefit the RIC Program. Light supper (no cost) & fellowship to follow. Over supper, debuting a Readers Theater play by William Randall Beard, "Families Valued."

Bread for the World
Workshops and Offering of Letters

The 2012 Bread for the World workshop, "Cut Hunger, Not Hunger Programs" will be held at three different locations and dates. On Thursday, February 23, 9a.m. -noon, at Guardian Angels Catholic Church, 8260 4th Street N, Oakdale; on Saturday, February 25, 9a.m.-noon, at St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, 8400 France Ave. S., Bloomington; and on Wednesday, February 29, 7-9 p.m. at Bethel University, Eastlund Room in Community Life Center, 3900 Bethel Dr., Arden Hills.

This year, Bread for the World members and advocates need to raise our voices more than ever. The deficit-reduction proposals Congress is considering could result in the most severe cuts to programs for hungry and poor people in Bread's history.

Bread's 2012 Offering of Letters overall campaign will work to create a circle of protection around those most vulnerable by working to protect the funding of programs for hungry and poor people. The focus will be on four mini-campaigns: domestic nutrition assistance, poverty-focused foreign assistance, tax credits for low-income families, and international food aid.

South Minneapolis Coalition
for Grief Support
2012 Winter / Spring Series

This series will be held on Thursday evenings, January 19 – March 29, 2012, at Diamond Lake Lutheran Church, 5760 Portland Avenue S. Minneapolis, MN 55347 (612-827-5931).Weekly

Schedule
 6:15 pm Registration and refreshments
 6:30 pm Speaker
 7:00 - 8:00 pm Facilitated Small Groups

Individuals may join the group at any time. For further information, contact the coordinator, Norine Larson at 952-925-2437.

Plan Ahead!

March is Minnesota FoodShare Month!

From 2008 to 2010 visits to the food shelves increased by 62%. During that time in the Twin Cities it increase by 97%! But the suburbs are suffering too. Since 2008, Second Harvest reported a 70% increase by seniors to suburban food programs. There were more than three million visits altogether to Minnesota food shelves in 2010. More hunger facts are posted on the Neighborhood Ministries bulletin board.

Once again Mount Olive congregation is invited to participate in Minnesota FoodShare Month. Bring your non-perishable food donations any Sunday during the month of March and place them in the grocery cart in the cloak room. The goal this year is to collect a total of 12 million combined dollars and pounds of food from congregations, businesses, and individuals throughout Minnesota. This amount will stock food shelves around the state with more than half the food distribution needed annually. And remember, food shelves can stretch donations of cash further than donations of food, because of their access to discount products and programs. So your cash donations go much farther! If you would like to make a cash donation, make your check out to Mount Olive and in the memo line write "MN FoodShare," and place it in the offering plate.

How Clear?

2012-01-22T12:00:00.000-06:00

Today’s readings are filled with dramatic calls to turn to God, to follow the Son of God. For us, focusing on the drama of these calls might cause us to miss our everyday calls to serve God, to do justice, to bring in God’s kingdom.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Third Sunday after Epiphany, year B; texts: Mark 1:14-20; Jonah 3:1-5; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

I am amazed by the people in today’s readings. They have unbelievable clarity of vision and they act with urgency. Jonah walks into a city of over 100,000, cries out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” And “the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.”

Then Paul, former persecutor of the Church, today tells his hearers that there is very little time to act, that the days of this world are almost over, and urges them to follow his example after his conversion, and completely change their lives.

In our Gospel, Mark uses the word “immediately” twice. That’s not unusual for him, “immediately” is his common transition word throughout the Gospel, but what happens “immediately” today is eye-opening. Jesus shows up on the lakeshore, calls the brothers Andrew and Simon to follow him and fish for people. “And immediately they left their nets and followed him,” Mark says. “Immediately” after they follow, Jesus calls James and John and they also leap, leaving Mark to describe this sad little scene: “And they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.”

These people are convicted somehow, changed somehow, moved somehow, and they follow, they repent, they live life as if each day was their last day.

It’s almost tiring just to think about. Why aren’t we that way? Have any of us ever completely changed the way we live to begin to live in God’s ways? Have any of us ever dropped anything to follow God’s call?
And what would happen if we did? Because the other powerful image that sticks with me from our readings today is the sight of poor old Zebedee, standing in the boat with his hired hands, helplessly watching his two sons – his future, his business, his life – walk away after an itinerant preacher.

This whole “all or nothing” drama in our readings today seems foreign to us, and if anything, it is concern for our lives, for our own Zebedees, which perhaps prevents us from dropping everything in response to God. Or maybe the problem is that we just don’t think experiences like this, calls like these, actually happen to us.

These are dramatic, compelling stories.

The people of Nineveh’s wickedness is so great God sends special warning in the person of Jonah. And they listen, they believe, they repent! Their immediate and complete turnaround is astonishing. Think how long it would take most of us to change our lives so completely and radically, to re-do our way of being.
And Paul’s call to the Corinthians to put aside anything which distracts them from their following of Jesus comes directly from his “drop everything” experience on the road to Damascus.

The first disciples’ response is at least as compelling. It’s hard not to worry about their families, including poor Zebedee. But how can we not admire them? They saw the Son of God, they felt his love, and they said, “I need to be a part of that.” And they left everything with that clarity, and followed Jesus.

While we might admire these people, our difficulty is that even if we were to sense such a dramatic call from God, we’d struggle to act on it as they did.

These people, these stories, are easy to admire from a distance – they’re ancient, they’re in a book.

When it comes down to our own lives, though, we’d rather not change in a way that total repentance calls for. The disruption to our sense of who we are, our “normal” way of being, would be profound. And we’d rather avoid that. So we pretend it’s not so bad, our lives don’t require a radical shift of focus.

And, we’d rather not drop everything, leave all that we love, and follow. This one’s easier to understand – we have people who depend on us, lives which require our attention, details which only we can do. What mentally healthy person would simply uproot at a moment’s notice and leave everything? Paul seems to suggest these things are distractions, but to us they are life, and even though there are a couple places where Jesus himself suggests we need to let go of anything which prevents us following him, even family, it’s a move we actually don’t feel justified making. After all, aren’t we serving God by caring for those who surround us? So we argue ourselves out of following in this way.

And third, we’d rather assume we’ve got years to live instead of living as if we were on our last day. In part, Paul’s urgency is muted for us because 2,000 years later we’re still here – it’s hard to get excited about this being the end of time, as perhaps the early believers did. So we act as if we have all the time in the world.

But at the heart of our problem perhaps is that believing in the Triune God has become comfortable for us. We live in a society which allows us freedom to believe. So we don’t have persecution, we don’t have risk in coming to church. We can be active in a congregation if we want, or not.

And unlike Nineveh, Paul, or the disciples, we’ve heard this message our whole lives. There’s nothing new to us here.

And we live 2,000 years after the person of Jesus, God’s Son, walked, taught, lived, died, and rose. He’s not, after all, standing in front of us on some beach, looking directly into our eyes, saying, “Come, follow me.” And mostly we like that. We can serve God with our lives, or we can serve ourselves, and not really have to fret about the repercussions or consequences.

Human nature often prefers order, predictability, planning. Nothing disrupts all that like a voice from God, be it prophet, preacher, or Jesus himself, that calls us to see the world differently, live in the world differently, look at our lives differently.

So there are two questions: first, does God still call us to follow, to repent, to live as if the time were short, or not? And second, would we respond like these folks if God did?

First question: is God calling to us today?

It would be hard to argue the negative here. Our Biblical examples have clear needs that must be addressed: Nineveh’s wickedness cannot continue. And they need to hear of God’s forgiveness as well. And Jesus has people that need to be fished for, people who need the Good News.

The same reality exists today. There is still great evil and injustice and wickedness in the world that needs addressing, not couch sitting. Many people don’t have the option to sit back and do nothing. Death and hate and pain force them to act, to live. Doesn’t God need those of us who are comfortable and free to use all our power and wealth to do something? And not just for the sufferers, but also for the evil-doers? After all, God loved the Ninevites.

And there are still many in this world who have not been reached with the message of God’s love in Jesus, about the life that is ours in Christ. Doesn’t Jesus still need people-fishers, good-news-tellers?
And our lives still aren’t close to perfected, they aren’t lived as Christ, so surely a call to repent like Nineveh isn’t out of order?

It seems that God’s love for this broken world still reveals a lot that we are uniquely capable of doing or need to do. So why is it that we too often take our faith as a comfort rather than a challenge? Or that we see such calls as in our readings today as relics of the past, not our present reality?

I wonder if our focus on these dramatic calls leads us to miss the ways we could follow God today.

This will get us to the second question, but first, I think that we make a mistake in admiring the dramatic shifts for these people. Yes, these are dramatic stories, with apparent tremendous life-changes attending.
But in fact for all of them, the hard part was living after these events, and daily making changes and answering God’s call. The Ninevites surely didn’t instantly become good. If they truly were repentant, it was going to be a day-to-day effort, with regular attention to old patterns and choosing new ones. Paul apparently converted all at once, but it still had to be a constant effort to hear God’s call, to make decisions based on his new reality, to follow where God led.

And the four fishermen? Well, evidence within the Gospels suggests that they got home from time to time, and probably helped out with the business occasionally. But the deeper evidence is that this was for them the beginning of a new life, not the achievement. Their bumbling and lack of understanding eventually transformed in the light of Jesus’ resurrection into fearless preaching and martyrdom. But it was a daily, if not hourly change.

So we might think we’ve not received such powerful life-changing calls to be different, to follow, to turn to God. But if we look at our lives, and at the way our Lord Jesus is calling us to live, we can see plenty of room for turning around, for change, for new life.

It may not be a call to sell everything and move to the mission field. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less dramatic a change. Even if we stay with our lives, and care for our families and our neighbors and our community, we are called to repent, to serve, to follow with our all.

And that’s where the rub comes, the second question: if God is calling us just as with the people of the Scriptures, are we at all interested in following?

And I’m not sure I’m capable of answering that here – that becomes something for each one of us to take home and ponder. The needs for God’s world are still there, and the call of the Scriptures, through whom the Holy Spirit speaks to us and shapes us, applies to us as much as Peter or Andrew, Jonah or Paul. And so we have to ask: are we willing to face the changes it will mean in our everyday lives, our personality, our way of living, our interaction with others, to be followers, disciples of Jesus? Or not?

We may find ourselves with a clarity of call which we try to confuse or obfuscate simply to avoid its clarity.

We may hide behind the excuse that no such dramatic events have ever challenged or called us, and therefore we’re perfectly fine living our lives as we want, without worry about what God might need from us.
But I think we know now that isn’t true. And that just as God reached out to these people of the past, God is reaching out to us. We’d do well to listen, to seek counsel from each other, and to pray for the courage to follow.

Because you are needed. I am needed. And our Lord is waiting to see and hear what we do.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

The Olive Branch, 1/17/12

2012-01-17T13:28:00.002-06:00

Accent on Worship

We are Called

In the lessons for last and this coming Sundays Jesus invites Philip, Simon, and Andrew to follow him, calling them to form his community of followers. Gordon Lathrop, our guest lecturer and preacher at this past weekend’s Conference on Liturgy thanked us for responding to the unique and important calling to serve the role of being a community that cares deeply for things liturgical. He has noticed that many metropolitan areas have one or at best a very small number of communities where these values provide a very important place for those in need of this kind of faith life in community. The combination of all these things gave cause for some thoughts which I share here.

First of all, we can understand that to be unique, and embracing that in and of itself, is unique. It’s not the way of the world in these days of the “consistency of commercial chains.” We can stand out as NOT being the same. In our role, God is blessed and proclaimed, we are blessed, and we are strengthened each week to return to that same culture to live in the world loving and serving our neighbor as God’s people.

As a “liturgical” people, there is responsibility, or a further calling to even deeper things.

I tell choirs I direct this: composers provide instructions for “how” to sing what we are singing. Loud here, soft here, crescendo here, accent here, long or short notes there. Simply observing them is one thing, but it is not enough. We need to explore “why” those instructions are there. The musical phrase needs to crescendo because it can do nothing else! The text in order to carry meaning needs staccato (short) notes and not legato (longer and deeply connected from note to note)! These instructions, in fact, are relatively recent in the grand scheme of music history – only included in the past couple of hundred years. Prior to that, musicians just “knew what was needed,” and composers presumed that and did not provide those instructions.

The same could be said for being called to be “liturgical.” It’s not really enough to simply observe the rubrical rules or instructions, or to be merely fascinated by them. We need to consider getting “under them” to know why they are what they are. Why do we process? Why do we not have announcements and constant verbal instructions? Why do many bow? Why do we observe the church year? Why do we stand? Why do we sing? Why do we process to the center for the reading of the Gospel lesson? Why do we adhere to using the lectionary? WE could just do these things – and indeed – even be fascinated by them (everyone loves a parade - processions are fun to watch, aren’t they?) but with thought, perhaps even personal research, we can get “underneath” why those things are practiced. And how do they become of the rest of our daily lives? Does doing anything “liturgical” mean anything to you outside of this community? I knew of one household that instead of band-aids to make a child feel better after getting a scratch, kept a small amount of “holy oil” to “anoint a wound” which probably addressed a deeper kind of healing for a crying child.

And, as I have often said, and will probably continue to say until I join the saints in the walls of the columbarium, what people who join us will notice is not so much “what” we do, but “how” we are doing it, and to what level we are “underneath” the meaningfulness of what we do. We do not need to presume our calling as community needs to be everyone’s, nor that ours is THE right one, nor that we can be critical of other’s calling. It can mean that we embrace that calling with joy and responsibility, and that it is meaningful and from a deep place is enough.

We do play an important role. We are unique. We are called to this unique ministry. Let’s get UNDER it!

- Cantor David Cherwien

Meals On Wheels

Mount Olive left the South Minneapolis Meals on Wheels program last January. In order to continue in this vital neighborhood ministry, we joined TRUST, Inc. One of TRUST’s many programs is that of Meals on Wheels.

The list of Meals on Wheels driver/deliverers at Mount Olive was given to TRUST, Inc. They have scheduled the following Mount Olive members to drive/deliver Meals on Wheels: Nancy and Gary Flatgard, Elaine and Art Halbardier, Karen Johnson, Mary and Bob Lee and Connie and Rod Olson. Others from the list of driver/deliverers at Mount Olive could be recruited by TRUST, Inc. We are thankful to those who continue to drive and deliver Meals on Wheels. Gary Flatgard has represented Mount Olive on the TRUST, Inc. board of directors.

TRUST, Inc. has many other neighborhood ministry programs in which Mount Olive could participate. Their wide range of programs will be described at a future adult forum by a TRUST, Inc. representative. All are encouraged to watch for this forum and attend. We need to be well informed and supportive of these neighborhood ministries

Foundation Gift Requests

Mount Olive Lutheran Church Foundation's Board of Directors will meet on Tuesday, January 24, to recommend program and project recipients from its annual gift to the Church. Board members are seeking from staff, Vestry, and congregation members gift designation ideas that will move Mount Olive's ministries forward in a variety of ways. In the past, the Foundation has benefited among other things: musical events, youth trips, capital improvements, Neighborhood Ministries, church anniversary celebrations and Diaper Depot.

If you have an idea for a program or project, please speak with the Vestry member who oversees the area of your interest. Together, you can decide whether to submit a brief one-page request to the Foundation for consideration. Please contact Keith Bartz at albsinmpls@yahoo.com or (612) 823-3572 with questions or to obtain a gift request form.

Adult Forum Topics for January

Jan. 22 & 29: Susan Cherwien will offer a 2-part series on Hymns and Worship.

Book Discussion Group

For it's meeting on January 21 (postponed one week this month due to the annual Conference on Liturgy), the Book Discussion Group we will read William Faulkner's A Light in August. And for the February 11 meeting the selection will be Native Son, by Richard Wright.

Welcoming!

At Mount Olive we identify ourselves as Musical, Liturgical and Welcoming. Each of these descriptive terms has a number of facets.

On Sunday, February 12, 2012 at the 10:45 a.m. liturgy, we will welcome those who have indicated that they want to become "official" members at Mount Olive. If you are interested in membership at Mount Olive, please speak with Pastor Crippen, contact the office at 612-827-5919, or speak with Andrew Andersen, the Director of Evangelism.

Sign Up for Altar Flowers

The Altar Flowers Chart for 2012 is now posted in the church office. If you would like to sign up to provide flowers for worship to commemorate a special day, in memory of a loved one, in honor of a special event, or simply to help beautify our sanctuary for worship, please sign up on the chart for the date you want, and be sure to include your designation. The cost of the altar flowers this year is $50 a Sunday for two bouquets. You may sign up to purchase both bouquets by signing on both lines, or purchase just one bouquet ($25) by signing on only one line.

Hymn Festival Reflections

Due to some technical difficulties at last Friday evening’s Conference on Liturgy Hymn Festival, Susan Cherwien’s reflections may not have been completely audible to all in attendance.

Susan has graciously made these reflections available in written form to any who may want them. They are located on the ledge just outside the church office, next to extra programs from the hymn festival.

2011 Year-End Statements

Contribution statements for the year ending December 31, 2011 will be available on a table near the coat area for contributors to pick up beginning this Sunday, January 22.

If you cannot be at church in the coming weeks and would like your statement mailed to you, please call the church office.

Church Library News

Thanks to our Mount Olive furnishings committee of 2010-11 for the addition of a new child-sized table and two chairs placed in the Crossroads Library area recently. The attractive table is even glass-topped and when I checked all the tiny fingerprints on it prior to our second liturgy on Sunday, I agreed that whoever made that decision, did so wisely. That also testifies that many little ones visit the popular children's browser bin quite regularly before, after or even during our liturgies.

In my usual helter-skelter method of perusing the articles in each Sunday's Star Tribune, imagine my surprise to find in yesterday's paper an article entitled "Decor By the Books," written by Sandra Barerra of the Los Angeles Daily News. The article includes details of interior designers who are installing whole walls of either real or fake books to create a library-look that is meant only to impress their client's friends or colleagues. You can read the article for yourself but one Minneapolis designer supposedly "loves his books, keeping many leather-bound antiques that have been in his family for generations, and also that he hopes the day will never come when books are eliminated from the home as they add so much ambience."

Well, with part of the above, I might agree, however, pondering the last sentence further and the continuation of the entire article, soon left me completely frustrated and frankly a bit angry. How sad that the books in use in the article are only there for "window dressing" so to speak. As an admitted "bookaholic," I struggle to find enough appropriate space in my apartment for all my many books. Keeping my books nearby is a necessity for most of them are my long-time "friends" you see, and it has very little to do with only adding decor to my home!

All of the above comes back to the congregation's use of our Louise Schroedel Memorial Library. Granted that the decor of our room may be enhanced by the books lining the shelves, but much more important is the "treasure trove" of good reading to be found there. In short, there is sure to be something there for everyone, if you will just come and take the time to explore it. Have you visited our church library recently? Let your New Year's resolutions include one that brings you (and your children) into our library soon to spend some time finding numerous "friends" of your own choosing, and plan to do so at least once a month all year long!

In my next article I will tell you about three new reference books to be added to our collection (plus some other newer books) that will soon be available for your use. I will close this time with the following quote from Joseph Howe: "My books are very few, but then the world is before me --- a Library open to all --- from which poverty of purse cannot exclude me ---- and in which the meanest and most paltry volume is sure to furnish something to amuse, if not to instruct and improve."

- Leanna Kloempken

Cultivating Respect, Creating Safe Schools for All Students

Twin Cities PFLAG announces the “Cultivating Respect, Creating Safe Schools for All Students” Conference, a day-long conference for 250 to be held on January 20, 2012 at Hamline University, St. Paul.

We invite all educators, social workers, psychologists, school nurses, school board members, administrators, parents, of GLBTQ individuals, students middle school through college, GLBTQ youth and allies, GSA leaders or anyone invested in creating healthy and safe schools for our children. Please encourage your neighbors, your child’s teacher or principal to attend as this is a great opportunity for learning and creating a new dialogue in which our children and their well being is placed front and center in our schools and communities.

There will be a number of break-out sessions on important topics such as how to create safe spaces, the impact of bullying on mental and physical health, understanding what is at the heart of bullying, prevention, and many more. Jamie Nabozny, the subject of the Southern Poverty Law Center documentary “Bullied,” will be the keynote speaker, along with a panel of youth from the Anoka-Hennepin School District. In the evening, we will host an awards dinner (which can be attended separately from the conference) where PFLAG will honor members of the community who have been committed to creating safer schools for our children.

To register for the conference, please visit: https://www.blacktie-innesota.com/tickets/index.cfm. For more information, visit www.pflagtc.com, or email: conference2012@pflagtc.com.

2012 RIC Festival Worship to be Held
January 28, 4:30 p.m.

This seventh annual festival worship service celebrates the Metro area ministry of Reconciling in Christ congregations at Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church, 1509 27th Ave. NE., Minneapolis on Saturday, January 28 at 4:30 p.m.

The Rev. Justin Lind-Ayres of Bethany Lutheran Church will preach. Freewill offering to benefit the RIC Program. Light supper (no cost) & fellowship to follow. Over supper, debuting a Readers Theater play by William Randall Beard, "Families Valued."

Bread for the World Workshops and Offering of Letters

The 2012 Bread for the World workshop, "Cut Hunger, Not Hunger Programs" will be held at three different locations and dates. On Thursday, February 23, 9a.m. -noon, at Guardian Angels Catholic Church, 8260 4th Street N, Oakdale; on Saturday, February 25, 9a.m.-noon, at St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, 8400 France Ave. S., Bloomington; and on Wednesday, February 29, 7-9 p.m. at Bethel University, Eastlund Room in Community Life Center, 3900 Bethel Dr., Arden Hills.

This year, Bread for the World members and advocates need to raise our voices more than ever. The deficit-reduction proposals Congress is considering could result in the most severe cuts to programs for hungry and poor people in Bread's history.

Bread's 2012 Offering of Letters overall campaign will work to create a circle of protection around those most vulnerable by working to protect the funding of programs for hungry and poor people. The focus will be on four mini-campaigns: domestic nutrition assistance, poverty-focused foreign assistance, tax credits for low-income families, and international food aid.

The Olive Branch, 1/10/12

2012-01-10T13:05:00.003-06:00

Accent on Worship

As we move into Epiphany, we realize the surprising places where the light of Christ is shining, where the Word made flesh is dwelling. This Sunday the Word comes to Eli the prophet . . . through his servant boy, Samuel, who is not yet of age, but who sleeps in the temple near the Ark, where the presence of God dwells. And the Word that comes to Eli through Samuel is judgment -- not good news for Samuel, but Samuel does not drop the Word; he conveys it faithfully. And Eli, though his sight is dim, still “sees” this is the word from God.

Our Psalm proclaims that we are fearfully, wonderfully made, that God knows even our thoughts, and that there is no place we can go where God is not. God is everywhere we go. What do we do with that?

The Word comes through Paul to the Church at Corinth, where the members have become fond of saying, “All things are lawful for me,” -- and then doing, presumably, whatever they want to do. Paul’s word for them is, “You belong to Christ, and your body (body of believers? physical body? Yes.) is not your own; it’s a temple of the Holy Spirit.” Our freedom isn’t limited by a long list of “don’ts” but, because the Word and the Spirit are in our actual bodies, it matters what we do. There are things we should choose not to do for the sake of the body and the sake of the Holy Spirit; and, on the Gospel side, we are able to do amazing things and live graciously because God is present in the Church and in us. God no longer dwells in the Ark of the Covenant; you and I and the body of the Church is where God now chooses to dwell. What does THAT mean for us?

Finally, the Messiah comes from a little backwater town, Nazareth, of all places.

Where will the judging and saving, law and gospel presence of God show up for us this week?

- Vicar Erik Doughty

Tenth Annual Conference on Liturgy
Liturgy Shapes
January 13-14, 2012

The conference begins this Friday evening, January 13, at 7:30 p.m. with a hymn festival, “Liturgy Shapes.” Leadership will be provided by Mount Olive Cantor David Cherwien, The National Lutheran Choir, and author and poet, Susan Palo Cherwien.

On Saturday, hear keynote speaker Gordon Lathrop discuss how liturgy shapes our believing and how liturgy shapes our sending. Participants will be invited to choose from four workshops which will explore this topic further. Senator John Marty will lead a workshop on the ways in which liturgy influences our public lives. Susan Palo Cherwien will offer a session on worship and language. Joseph Crippen, pastor of Mount Olive, will offer a presentation on children and the liturgy. The fourth session is continued conversation with Gordon Lathrop.

The day will open with Morning Prayer at 9:00 a.m. and close with Evening Prayer at 4:00 p.m. Gordon Lathrop will be the guest preacher on Sunday, January 15.

Cost for Mount Olive members is $35/person.

Cultivating Respect, Creating Safe Schools for All Students

As some of you may know, I am on the Board of Twin Cities PFLAG and we are very excited to sponsor the “Cultivating Respect, Creating Safe Schools for All Students” Conference, a day-long conference for 250 to be held on January 20, 2012 at Hamline University, St. Paul.

We invite all educators, social workers, psychologists, school nurses, school board members, administrators, parents, of GLBTQ individuals, students middle school through college, GLBTQ youth and allies, GSA leaders or anyone invested in creating healthy and safe schools for our children. Please encourage your neighbors, your child’s teacher or principal to attend as this is a great opportunity for learning and creating a new dialogue in which our children and their well being is placed front and center in our schools and communities.

There will be a number of great break-out sessions on important topics such as how to creating safe spaces, the impact of bullying on mental and physical health, understanding what is at the heart of bullying, prevention, and many more. Jamie Nabozny, the subject of the Southern Poverty Law Center documentary “Bullied,” will be the keynote speaker along with a panel of youth from the Anoka-Hennepin School District. In the evening, we will host an awards dinner (which can be attended separately from the conference) where PFLAG will honor members of the community who have been committed to creating safer schools for our children.

To register for the conference: https://www.blacktie-innesota.com/tickets/index.cfm. For more information, visit www.pflagtc.com, or email: conference2012@pflagtc.com.

Please feel free to call me directly if you have any questions at 612-696-4117 or 360-319-8888. - Gretchen Campbell-Johnson

Thank You!

Mount Olive's chancel, nave and narthex were again beautifully decorated for the Christmas season. This was accomplished through the efforts of many: those who brought in and placed the trees, the volunteers that participated in "Hanging the Greens" and the special crew that hung the lights and Chrismons on the trees.

Also, kudos to those who removed the greens and trees and cleaned up after. We are grateful and wish to thank all of you for your time and willing hands.

Foundation Gift Requests

Mount Olive Lutheran Church Foundation's Board of Directors will meet on Tuesday, January 24, to recommend program and project recipients from its annual gift to the Church. Board members are seeking from staff, Vestry, and congregation members gift designation ideas that will move Mount Olive's ministries forward in a variety of ways. In the past, the Foundation has benefited among other things: musical events, youth trips, capital improvements, Neighborhood Ministries, church anniversary celebrations and Diaper Depot.

If you have an idea for a program or project, please speak with the Vestry member who oversees the area of your interest. Together, you can decide whether to submit a brief one-page request to the Foundation for consideration. Please contact Keith Bartz at albsinmpls@yahoo.com or (612) 823-3572 with questions or to obtain a gift request form.

Adult Forum Topics for January

Jan. 15: Art Halbardier will lead a presentation on the Development of the Nicene Creed
Jan. 22 & 29: Susan Cherwien will offer a 2-part series on Hymns and Worship.

Book Discussion Group

For it's meeting on January 21 (postponed one week this month due to the annual Conference on Liturgy), the Book Discussion Group we will read William Faulkner's A Light in August. And for the February 11 meeting the selection will be Native Son, by Richard Wright.

Welcoming!

At Mount Olive we identify ourselves as Musical, Liturgical and Welcoming. Each of these descriptive terms has a number of facets.

On Sunday, February 12, 2012 at the 10:45 a.m. liturgy, we will welcome those who have indicated that they want to become "official" members at Mount Olive.

If you are interested in membership at Mount Olive, please speak with Pastor Crippen, contact the office at 612-827-5919, or speak with Andrew Andersen, the Director of Evangelism.

2012 RIC Festival Worship
January 28, 4:30 p.m.

This seventh annual festival worship service celebrates the Metro area ministry of Reconciling in Christ congregations at Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church, 1509 27th Ave. NE., Minneapolis on Saturday, January 28 at 4:30 p.m.

The Rev. Justin Lind-Ayres of Bethany Lutheran Church will preach. Freewill offering to benefit the RIC Program. Light supper (no cost) & fellowship to follow. Over supper, debuting a Readers Theater play by William Randall Beard, "Families Valued."

Please gather with members of more than 30 RIC congregations and organizations from across the metro area to celebrate the welcome we extend to the whole people of God!

Enter: the Holy Spirit

2012-01-08T12:00:00.000-06:00

At this point in the Church Year, the Holy Spirit enters the stage, present at Jesus’ baptism but also given all of us in our own baptisms, which are for us our Pentecost. So we should expect the Spirit’s call and empowerment for our lives of discipleship.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, the Baptism of Our Lord; texts: Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11; Genesis 1:1-5

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The Church Year begins with a lot of dramatic scenes from Scripture which are always compelling to us. In fact, the whole cycle of Christian festivals are a series of dramatic moments for us to see, experience, and reflect on. So we’ve had angels visiting a young woman, telling of her son’s impending arrival, and angels visiting shepherds nine months later to tell them of this birth. We’ve got this young couple traveling as the baby is about to arrive, and struggling to find room. And then there’s the birth itself, with animals and wondering visitors, concluding Friday night with the star-gazers from the East arriving with exotic gifts. And even today in this familiar story of Jesus’ baptism, there is drama – the baptizer-prophet standing up to his waist in the waters of the Jordan, and Jesus and all Jerusalem comes to him.

There’s a lot of human interest in all these dramas. But it’s more than that. The Evangelists who tell these stories to us are actually also telling the story of God in the world, along with these powerful human dramas. So John, who tells little of the human elements of Jesus’ birth, powerfully evokes Genesis 1 and the creation story by claiming that Jesus is the Word of God and Son of God, present at the creation and creating with the Father. The angelic announcements always tie this child to God’s coming to the world.

What we sometimes don’t notice is who enters the drama in a significant way today, and what that means. At Jesus’ baptism the heavens are torn open, Mark says, and the Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove. And thanks to our lectionary, we hear the connections to Genesis 1 again by reading the first verses of that chapter. And like John’s claim, we find that this “Spirit” – who to this point hasn’t been a big part of the story, though was mentioned by the angel to Mary as part of how this Son would be born – we find that this Spirit was also present at creation. The NRSV translates v. 2 that a “wind” from God swept over the waters, but that word can also be, and has often been, translated “the Spirit” of God swept over the waters. This is the festival of the Baptism of our Lord Jesus, but in fact, a central character is the Holy Spirit.

And as we leave the Christmas season and begin the season after Epiphany, it is in fact the Spirit whose entry into the story begins to shape our lives through the work of Jesus. And it’s important for us as Lutherans to remember this. Though we confess the Triune God, and invoke God’s name in our worship, in our casual conversation my observation over the years is that we too often fall into an odd, probably unintentional, dualism. We speak of God, and we speak of Jesus, and the implication is that they’re separate somehow. And we don’t really know where to fit the Spirit in, or at least we don’t mention her work in any consistent way.

What is clear from events like the story we heard from Acts this morning is that while at this point in the life of the early Church full-fledged Trinitarian theology isn’t yet a part of the believers’ language, nonetheless the presence of the Holy Spirit was a very real experience of the early Church. Which makes sense since the life of the early Church in Acts all flows post-Pentecost, and that momentous drama of the entrance of the Holy Spirit had to have powerfully shaped the theology and life of those early believers.

But today isn’t Pentecost, you say. And you’re right. And yet, it seems to me that critical to Jesus’ baptism, and therefore to our own baptisms, and John the Baptist himself suggests this today, is that at this point in our story, this point in the drama, the Holy Spirit enters. And we need to pay attention to this entrance.

We begin by remembering that while the practice of Baptism clearly evolved in the early Church, understanding the work of the Spirit in Baptism was of high importance.

We saw this in another drama today, which is kind of funny. Paul finds a rather strange group of believers in Ephesus. What kind of believers they are is a little unclear. Somehow they’ve heard of John the Baptist, and somehow, far away in Asia Minor, they’ve received a baptism of sorts. But as Paul talks to them it becomes apparent that they really haven’t heard of Jesus, just a call to repentance and turning to God. And remarkably, when asked if they received the Spirit when they became believers, they say, ‘We have not even heard that there was a Holy Spirit.”

The reason Paul is examining them a little is that the Spirit sometimes wasn’t waiting for the apostles to act, and the believers learned to watch for this.

The pattern of baptism in the early life in Acts was that evangelists would baptize “in the name of Jesus” – so it’s not completely clear at this point in the Church’s life if the Triune Name was being used. And then the apostles would come, lay hands on them, and pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the believers. We see both of these things done by Paul to these Ephesian believers today. So in Acts 8, Philip preaches to Samaritans who “accept the word of God,” according to Luke, and are baptized by Philip. But then Peter and John come and lay hands on them so that they can receive the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes it doesn’t work that way, however. In Acts 10, the Spirit comes upon a group of Gentiles before anybody does anything, and Peter wisely recognizes that if the Holy Spirit has come, there can be no reason for withholding baptism from Gentiles.

But in general the pattern holds: Baptism with water, followed by prayers invoking the Holy Spirit. Baptism, therefore, was and is the entry point into the community of believers. But subsequent to that, and clearly as important, was joining those new believers to the Pentecost experience. Recognizing that the life of the Holy Spirit is a gift of God to disciples of Jesus, and an important one, and taking the time to ask God for this gift for each believer.

This may seem obvious, but it makes Jesus’ baptism look more and more like an event where we should pay attention to what the Spirit is doing – for Jesus’ sake and for ours.

The mystery of the Incarnate Son of God and what we understand as his full divinity and full humanity means that we can’t truly understand what this event means. If the Holy Spirit was present at his conception, why is the Spirit coming now, and why the form of a dove? But I don’t think it’s necessary that we understand how all this works, and how the Triune God is working in Jesus. Because of course it is beyond us.

What is important to us is that the presence of the Holy Spirit – whom Jesus would later call “his” Spirit – is tangibly a part of Jesus’ baptism. What is interesting is that John foretells the importance of the Holy Spirit to Christian baptism. At least he says that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

As far as we know, Jesus didn’t actually baptize anyone. But John’s point is that baptism – for Jesus, and now for us – is the entrance of the Holy Spirit into the lives of the believers. It’s not just a sign of repentance: it’s literally a new birth, as Jesus himself will say in John chapter 3.

And all of this can be seen in our baptismal rite. This morning, Tate will be washed in the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And after that baptism, he will have hands laid upon him and the Holy Spirit will be invoked, just as in the book of Acts.

We lost our way on this over the centuries, and these two actions had become separated for various reasons, and led to a practice of baptizing infants, and then at confirmation praying for the Holy Spirit. Though the Church believed the Spirit was present at baptism, for a long time the action of laying on of hands was removed from that rite.

With the Lutheran Book of Worship, thankfully, in our Lutheran tradition this laying on of hands was restored to the baptismal rite. At confirmation, the prayer at the laying on of hands asks that the Holy Spirit be stirred up in the believer – because of course the Spirit’s been in that person’s life since baptism.

Here’s the point: clearly the gift we receive in our Baptism, after being claimed into the community of the faithful, is the outpouring of the Spirit – which makes our baptism, according to John, and to Paul, our Pentecost. We weren’t there for that powerful day in Jerusalem where tongues of fire came upon the believers’ heads. But that’s not important. Because the Spirit comes to us in Baptism. And like the first believers, things will change.

So what does that mean? If our baptism is our Pentecost – what can we expect?

Well, Jesus went from here into his ministry. He went into the wilderness for forty days, then began his preaching and teaching and healing. So did the disciples, post-Pentecost. They went from being frightened, cowed people in closed rooms to bold proclaimers of the Good News of God in Jesus.

So it doesn’t seem such a stretch for us to expect the same empowerment and sending. This is a time of year when people are still thinking about New Year’s resolutions – though the paper yesterday said that most people have already abandoned theirs by now. I guess the idea is that if you are feeling the need for transformation, or new starts, now’s as good a time as any.

But what if we really believed that the Spirit is given us for transformation, holiness, obedience, new life? What if our Baptism truly began our ministry? Paul says in Philippians, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” What if we actually believed this and lived this?

I suggest that today we begin to take this very seriously, that each of us, and soon Tate as well, have been given the gift of the presence of God in our lives through the Holy Spirit. And that there is absolutely no reason why we should expect things to be the same. In fact, we should begin to expect that God is calling us to serve, and to do ministry, and to become holy children of God, and also to expect that God will give us the ability to do this.

The call is clear, and has been for 2,000 years. And now the Holy Spirit has come to make it possible with us.

It’s time we Lutherans started remembering that we worship a Triune God.

And that we start believing not only in God the Father, and God the Son, but God the Spirit, who breathed over the waters of creation and brought forth a universe, who came to a young woman and through her gave the world the Son of God, who blew through a group of frightened disciples and changed them, and the world, forever.

That’s the gift of our baptism. That’s what we can and should expect. That the Holy Spirit is working in us to perfect us and transform us, and to empower us to be the grace and love of God in the world for the sake of the world.

If that’s a little frightening to you, well, it is to me, too. But it’s also a little exciting. I can’t wait to see where we are being led.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

Too Many Epiphanies?

2012-01-06T19:00:00.000-06:00

In the midst of a clamor of people claiming to speak for God, know God, be God, God’s Epiphany in Jesus is the true appearance, shown in his life, death and resurrection, and now appearing in our lives.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, the Epiphany of Our Lord; texts: Matthew 2:1-12; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14 (with reference to John 1)

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Our confirmands have been working through Joshua, Judges, and Ruth for daily devotional readings over the Christmas break, and tomorrow we’ll be discussing what they’ve read. Central to the experience of the story of the book of Judges is this verse, repeated several times: “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” (17:6) What a wonderfully succinct way to summarize the problems of Israel at the time.

We sometimes hear the same thing about God today – people wish that God would appear and speak to us as in days of old, since no one seems to be hearing God anymore, and everyone does “what is right in their own eyes.” But on this feast of the Epiphany of our Lord, it seems to me that our real difficulty is that there are too many so-called appearances of God, and we don’t know what to do about them.

Epiphany is about literally a manifestation of God in the world, the appearance of God in our lives. For Christians, Jesus is God’s self-revelation – no one knows God except through Jesus the Son of God, who makes God’s love, God’s will, and God’s plan known to us.

But as I said, there are so many people who are claiming to speak for God, or to know what God wants or desires, or even to be God. If we are to celebrate that the real God, the true God, creator of heaven and earth, has been revealed in the world, we want to know if we’re on the right track. How do we know if this Epiphany – God revealed to us in Jesus – is a true epiphany, and not one of thousands of impostors?

It is all Antiochus’ fault that I’m thinking about this.

He’s the wonderful guy who brought us Hanukkah. Antiochus IV was a king in the Seleucid line of Greek rulers of the eastern remnants of Alexander the Great’s empire – they ruled over Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine. Antiochus IV ruled from 175 BCE to 164 BCE.

Now, Antiochus IV was rather full of himself. His predecessors and successors often chose second names to distinguish themselves from the others, or were nicknamed those second names by others. After all, over time one Antiochus can be confused with another, and there were eventually 13 rulers of that name who were numbered, and five others without number.

His immediate predecessors had impressive nicknames: Antiochus I was called “Soter” – “Savior” – by people whom he saved in battle. Antiochus II was called “Theos” – “God” – again, by a people who regarded him as such for his saving of their nation in war. And Antiochus III – father of IV – called himself “The Great.” A classic favorite, that one. Unfortunately, not so exalted a nickname was given to poor Antiochus VIII “Grypus” – “grypus” means “Hook-Nose.” For, we have to assume, obvious reasons.

But back to Antiochus IV. He chose to name himself Epiphanes – that is, the manifestation of God in the world, Epiphany. He was the first Hellenistic king to assume divine attributes for himself – his predecessors had their titles given them by others. He was also so eccentric and capricious that some of his enemies called him “Epimanes,” a play on his self-made title, a word which means “the Mad One.”

Of course, as he thought was truly God, when he entered Jerusalem in 169 BCE he insisted upon entering the holy of holies in the Temple. In December of 167, as part of his attempt to Hellenize Palestine, he had Temple sacrifices banned and erected a Greek altar in the Temple and sacrificed a pig to Zeus on it.

Not the most brilliant of political moves, to be sure. Jewish revolt in reaction to this enormous sacrilege, led by Judas Maccabeus and his family, resulted in the restoration of a Jewish state for about 100 years, until General Pompey and the Romans conquered Palestine again in 63 B.C.

If this sounds familiar, it should. The festival of Hanukkah celebrates the story that when the Temple was being cleansed and rededicated after this sacrilege, there was only enough non-desecrated oil to burn for one day instead of the eight days needed for the purification. But miraculously, the oil lasted all eight days.
However, on Epiphany it isn’t Hanukkah that interests me. It is Antiochus the Fourth, Epiphanes. Because he is only one of many to claim to be a revelation of God.

And of course, that raises the question: can we distinguish true epiphanies from false?

The problem is that not all who claim to be God or know God are as obviously unhinged as Antiochus. Octavian, the grandnephew and heir to Julius Caesar, took the name Augustus when he became emperor. “Augustus” is Latin for “revered, most holy, excellent.” And with that name he followed the idea that he, like his uncle Julius, was divine, and really cemented for the Romans the custom of believing the emperor to be a divine manifestation. He wasn’t out of his mind as a ruler, though. In fact, he presided over a reign of peace in the whole Roman empire that lasted over 50 years.

And in our time, there are many. Some outlandish, some not. Some claim divinity for themselves, like Antiochus. People like David Koresh, Sun Myung Moon, or Jim Jones, in recent American history. Now, we might want to dismiss them, and other cult leaders of our current time. But many follow such charismatic leaders. And many believe they are the real thing.

Others have divinity claimed for them, like the five-year-old boy in the Twin Cities who is believed to be the eighth reincarnation of a Tibetan Buddhist lama. Strictly speaking, Buddhists don’t understand divinity and God the way we do, but still, these are exalted claims to be made for a human being. When he’s ten, he’ll move to India to develop and grow into the divine spiritual leader he’s believed to be.

But far more prevalent is the New Age tendency simply to claim the divine within. God is manifest in me – as I think and believe, so is God. Which leads of course to this postulation: God’s law is what I decide – therefore what I want is right simply because I want it. So there is not one God, there are potentially seven billion manifestations of the divine, for each of us can create God ourselves.

And again, we Christians scoff. But what makes us any different, we who worship a first century Jewish teacher as God? We who say that Magi from the East followed a star and worshipped a baby born to poor folks as the Savior of the world? We who say that the festival of the Epiphany of Our Lord celebrates that the one, true God is manifest in the world in this baby? How are we different?

Perhaps the Magi can help us. They followed signs, investigated the truth, and eventually worshipped.

For the Magi, I am sometimes amazed they saw this baby as an epiphany. What faith they had, to believe God was present in that place! They believed that this baby was the Savior of the world.

But they did this after their study, after their following of the signs, and after their investigating. And though they knew little of what we know about Jesus, the Magi did their best to discover the truth. And then they fell down and worshipped.

For us, we know so much more about Jesus. How he lived a life of love and taught about God’s grace. Unlike Antiochus, Augustus, Koresh, or any others, he didn’t build himself up. He lived for others. He healed, taught, loved, and said this was the way of God. And that makes sense to us. Not manipulation and self-enhancement. But servanthood and love.

In fact, the psalm chosen for Epiphany – and it was chosen most likely because of its reference to kings bearing gifts to the King’s Son – the psalm describes the true king, the son of God, as the one who has compassion on the poor, who preserves the lives of the needy, who delivers those who are oppressed. Check the claims, and check the evidence of Jesus, the Magi would say. Does he look to be the Son of God or not?

And of course it is his death and resurrection which make us clear that today we truly are celebrating the Epiphany of the true God. Again, this is unlike any other humans claiming to be god whom we’ve mentioned. There is a great story I heard long ago about a man who was trying to develop a religion of his own in France during the Enlightenment. I wish I could remember where this came from, or even if it’s true, but as I heard the story, this man was frustrated that not many followed him or became dedicated to what he saw as truth and as divinity. Expressing these frustrations to a friend, his friend suggested that if he really wanted to start a religion and be believed, he might consider getting himself killed, and then rise on the third day.

Because for us, there is this reality: that the child whom the wise men worshipped as God manifest to the world, grew up and died and rose from the dead for us. He revealed God in a way no phony or impostor could – because no impostor could have such power and love.

And lastly, because we know Jesus specifically, we are prevented from seeking the divine in our own minds. We do not believe that each of us can make God. Or even be God. For us, there is one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, revealed in Jesus, whose life, death and resurrection confirm that Jesus is the Epiphany, the revelation of God in the world for us, and for all people. And in fact, the truth of this Epiphany is that God is with us – so we’re not God, but the Spirit of God comes to us and fills our lives and hearts with faith and life.

“No one has ever seen God,” says the Evangelist John.

“It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” That is the truth that we know and in which we rejoice on this night of the Epiphany. Jesus has truly made God known to us.
May we joyfully believe that this is the real thing, the one Epiphany that really matters, because we know and believe and love this Jesus, who shows us the truth about God.

And may we let the light of God shine through us – not because we are divine, but because in coming to be with us, God has given us the gift to carry this Epiphany into the world, and be God’s light, God’s star, leading people to Jesus. So that Jesus can reveal God’s love to them, too. So they can experience a real Epiphany as we do.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

The Olive Branch, 1/3/12

2012-01-04T08:58:00.002-06:00

Accent on Worship

“Rise Up, and Follow”

“They set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.” Matthew 2:9-10

My grandma used to have a Christmas album, an LP (what we used to have before CDs, for you younger folk) by the Harry Simeone Chorale. Harry Simeone is most famous for “The Little Drummer Boy,” and that was a song on this album. But the one I loved to hear all the time was an arrangement of the spiritual “Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow.” I’ve never heard a better one – it was simple, with a deep bass singing the opening call. Beautiful arrangement.

And what was so compelling for me was the invitation – “There’s a star in the east on Christmas morn; rise up, shepherd, and follow! It will lead to the place where the Savior’s born; rise up, shepherd, and follow!” “Rise up, shepherd, and follow!” This simple spiritual gives the angel’s invitation as if to all of us – go, get up, see what God has done! Now, to be fair, the spiritual conflates two of the stories of Jesus’ birth. There’s no Biblical record that the shepherds saw the star in the East; it was the wise men, the Magi, who followed the star. But the point is the same. (And the shepherds did get up at the angel’s invitation and go to Bethlehem themselves.) As we enter the season of Epiphany this Friday, Jan. 6, the season begun by a celebration of the star-followers who found the infant Jesus, we hear the same invitation both shepherds and Magi heard: rise up, follow!

As it turns out, Epiphany, the season of light, is also a season of invitations to follow. We hear stories in our Sunday worship of Jesus calling disciples at the beginning of his ministry. We celebrate God’s light in the world, and are invited to follow the light, not the darkness. God is saying to us, follow my light, come see what I’ve done for the world in my Son, and then go and tell others. The spiritual says, “leave your ewes and leave your lambs,” and the first disciples were called to leave parts of their lives as well. And so are we. We’re called to follow our Lord’s light, and leave behind the things that would hold us back. This is a hard thing, but it’s a call that points to the light we desperately need in the darkness of our world.

So rise up, look to the East, and find the star God has placed before us, the light of Christ in the world. And then follow! It will lead to light in darkness, life in the midst of death, and joy in the depths of our world. May we, like Magi and shepherds, find our Lord and then tell the world.

- Joseph

Our Saviour’s Needs

Our Saviour's Lutheran Church on Chicago Avenue (up the street toward downtown from Mount Olive) serves the homeless by providing emergency shelter, transitional housing, and a permanent supportive housing program, serving over 650 people annually. They are asking us to partner with them in this ministry. We hope that Mount Olive members will, with their usual generosity, provide some of the needs of the people Our Saviour's serves. Some of these needs are:

 General needs: laundry and dish soap, underwear, linens and pillows, hygiene items, cleaning supplies, microwaves, vacuums, fans, and kitchen items. Some gently used items are also welcome, contact Our Saviour's for details.

 Financial donations are needed to help provide staffing, warm and comfortable facilities, and year-round service to those experiencing homelessness.

 Gift cards: These give residents the dignity of choosing their own purchases. Most needed are Target, grocery stores and Metro Transit.

 Day Planners are crucial to the residents' ability to keep their commitments and gain independence.

For details, contact Colleen O'Connor Toberman at 612-872-4193 X25 or volunteer@oshousing.org Please bring your donations to Mount Olive and place them in the designated receptacle. Gift cards should be taken to the office for security. Your participation in and support for this ministry is sure to be greatly appreciated.
Book Discussion Group

For it's meeting on January 21 (postponed one week this month due to the annual Conference on Liturgy), the Book Discussion Group we will read William Faulkner's A Light in August. And for the February 11 meeting the selection will be Native Son, by Richard Wright.

Tenth Annual Conference on Liturgy
Liturgy Shapes
January 13-14, 2012

The conference begins Friday evening, January 13, at 7:30 p.m. with a hymn festival, “Liturgy Shapes.” Leadership will be provided by Mount Olive Cantor David Cherwien, The National Lutheran Choir, and author and poet, Susan Palo Cherwien.

On Saturday, hear keynote speaker Gordon Lathrop discuss how liturgy shapes our believing and how liturgy shapes our sending. Participants will be invited to choose from four workshops which will explore this topic further. Senator John Marty will lead a workshop on the ways in which liturgy influences our public lives. Susan Palo Cherwien will offer a session on worship and language. Joseph Crippen, pastor of Mount Olive, will offer a presentation on children and the liturgy. The fourth session is continued conversation with Gordon Lathrop.

The day will open with Morning Prayer at 9:00 a.m. and close with Evening Prayer at 4:00 p.m. Gordon Lathrop will be the guest preacher on Sunday, January 15.

Cost for Mount Olive members is $35/person.

Adult Forum Topics for January

Jan. 8 Dwight Penas will lead a presentation on the Baptism of JesusJan. 15 Art Halbardier will lead a presentation on Development of the Nicene CreedJan. 22 & 29: Susan Cherwien will offer a 2-part series on Hymns and Worship.

A Familiar Story

One cool, quiet night, many, many years ago, in Bethlehem, a baby boy was born in a stable, kept warm by animals living there.

The mother, Mary, held the baby in her loving arms, as Joseph proudly gazed at his beautiful son.

Mary had a dream previously and God told her, “His name will be called Jesus. He is my Son in whom I am well pleased.” A

ngels appeared in the sky to shepherds in the fields tending their flocks, saying, “Do not be afraid. Go and see the miraculous baby born in a stable, The large star you see in the sky will guide you.”

The huge chorus of angels went away singing, “He will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God and Prince of Peace.”

The large star the angels sang of was so brilliant in the sky that many countries away, wisemen were curious about this new star. They mounted their camels and followed where the huge star led them.

Their journey was long, eventually bringing them to the manger in Bethlehem, where they saw Mary, Joseph, and the new baby, Jesus.

They bowed down to worship this Holy Child and offered their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

On that quiet night many years ago, the stage was set for the coming of God’s Son, who will love us, save us from our sins and teach us about God’s grace and kindness, forgiveness and love for us all.

And now, all these years later, each Christmas we follow the star, shepherds, and wisemen to the manger where the Christ Child is waiting for us.

At God’s beckoning, we follow him, bask in his love, and know that we are truly God’s children.

Blessed Christmas to all, as we renew our relationship with God and his only Son, Jesus Christ, our beloved Savior. Share joy, laughter, smiles and love to all you meet. Best wishes and blessings for your 2012.

- Pariann Schenk, Mount Olive member

What's In a Name?

2012-01-01T12:00:00.000-06:00

We’re given the name of the Triune God in our baptism, marked with “Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” and, adopted as God’s children, we are called to live into that name in the world and be a part of God’s saving work in Jesus.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Feast of the Name of Jesus; texts: Luke 2:15-21; Galatians 4:4-7; Numbers 6:22-27

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

So here’s a little test on New Year’s Day, the feast day celebrating the name of Jesus. Do you know what your name means? Question two: do you know if your parents chose that name for its meaning or for other reasons? We spent a lot of time thinking about names for our children. We wanted Biblical names, but not just any Biblical names. I mean, I’ve always loved the name “Maher-shalal-hash-baz” (Is. 8:1), which means “the spoil speeds, the prey hastens,” but that’s a lot for a kindergartener to learn how to spell. And actually, part of our choosing was that we wanted the people in the Bible whose names we used to be good people, too, possible role models, as well as having their names mean something special. With their middle names, we weren’t as concerned about the meaning of the names as much as the people for whom they were named – we used family names in the middle, and again, we had lots of reasons why we chose the ones we did. There is much to a name.

And so in our world, there is much to a name, especially last names. In many places in the past, though our nation is supposedly a melting pot, if the name you bore was of a different immigrant nationality than your beloved, his or her parents would not approve of the match. (My mother’s mother was suspicious of Swedes, among others. Maybe you have stories from back in your family’s history, too.) It’s probably less so today, at least in some circles. But your name still matters. Who you are, where you came from, what name you bear, is very important. And your name is also your reputation – especially in small towns. If your family name somehow was associated with scandal or with some shame, it could be very hard to be taken seriously or respected in certain communities. And even today there are now websites devoted to making sure your online reputation, your “name,” is kept clean.

Today is eight days after Christmas. Eight days after birth, Jewish boys are circumcised and named. So today we celebrate that momentous event in the life of the Son of God: he is claimed as a part of the covenant people, and he is named with the name the angel gave his parents before his birth. “Jesus,” or in Aramaic, “Yeshua.” The Hebrew is also familiar, “Joshua.” Little Yeshi. It was a common name, a name of a hero of the people. But it also had a meaning of its own: “Yahweh saves.” “The LORD saves” – that’s the name this little boy gets.

For us, the equivalent of Jesus’ circumcision and naming happens at our baptism, especially if we are baptized as babies. We have to wait a week to celebrate Jesus’ baptism, and another naming, this time as he is an adult, beginning his ministry. At eight days old, it’s not clear that anyone would have read anything into Jesus’ name other than that it was familiar and well-loved. But that’s the interesting thing: this little boy is named “the LORD saves,” and he will come to live that name in the world. Even if at this point in his life, it’s more a secret identity. For us, as we are baptized into the very name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Paul reminds us today we, too, were adopted as children of God and heirs of the promise, we, too, are brought into the covenant people. The question is, is this also a secret identity for us? Or will we bear God’s name into the world in a significant way?

The idea of one’s true identity being somewhat hidden is a classic one in literature.

I love fairy tales; I love to read them still. And naming is very important to a fairy tale. Who you are, what your true identity is. There are lots of stories of children of kings and queens being raised in a poor home, who then come into their identity, their true reality, their true name.

But this flows throughout literature. Think of Dickens’ Great Expectations. The whole book deals with how the main character, Pip, discovers who he truly is. He tries to be different things, but he has to discover his true identity, the person he really is, not the image he wishes he could be.

The thing about fairy tales is that, whether anyone else ever knows the true identity of the person, that person often does. And it affects how they live in the world, even with a hidden identity. Snow White lives as a princess with grace and kindness, though exiled to a cottage in the forest. Cinderella is a lovely, kind girl, like the noble-born child she is, even though she is reduced to slavery by her stepmother and stepsisters. They all live according to their true identity.

This is what Jesus models for us: he lives his identity, his reality, his name in the world. He embodies “the LORD saves.”

The Jewish man Yeshua, as we will hear next week, is identified in his baptism as the beloved Son of God. Whatever he did in his first decades of life, from that point he goes on to do the ministry of a child of God – bringing God’s love into the world in his own person. He was a poor, wandering preacher. But he was the Son of God. And it affected all he was, all he did, all he said.

And in dying and rising from death, he fulfilled the promise of this day, of his naming: as the Son of God, named Jesus, he saved the world. Which makes our calling on this day pretty important, too: we claim to follow this Yeshua, this “LORD saves,” this Jesus. And so we’re called to live up to our name.

It’s interesting to me that the Numbers 6 passage giving us our benediction is chosen for this day. But it’s no accident: here the LORD calls Aaron to place the very name of God in blessing on the people. In doing this, the LORD God is claiming the people, marking them with his name as a blessing, but also as a call.

It’s exactly our reality in our baptism – we are also linked forever to the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And if we, too, like Jesus, are children of God, named for God, we, too, like Jesus, are called to live that identity.

Christian life turns out not to be about trying to be like somebody, copying Jesus – it’s actually about being somebody: children of the King of the universe. Whatever name your parents gave you, this name is on your brow, the name of the LORD God. That is what living your name is all about: living in the joy of knowing you are God’s child, as Paul shares. Living with the hope that this Jesus not only saves the world, but saves you, loves you. And living with the reality that your true identity is “child of God.” You are marked with the name of the Triune God, and for good or for ill you bear that name as a witness in the world.

Ultimately, Jesus lived out his name. It no longer was a secret, if it ever was when he was a child. For us, that’s our challenge, to live up to the name given us in such a way that it’s no secret we’ve been adopted by God and given God’s call to love the world through our Lord Jesus. So that in all we do and all we say, in all we are, we are known to be children of the God who loves the world with an undying love.

Some names seem too big for children to carry.

So we shorten them (although in my family, we never did): At first a big name like Catherine, or Elizabeth, or William, might sound strange when put on a tiny infant. Of course, it could be Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Or one of my favorites, Zaphenath-paneah. (That was the patriarch Joseph’s Egyptian name.)

But they grow into it, until you can’t imagine them being anything else. And you and I have been given the name Christian. Child of God. We bear the Triune God’s name into the world. It’s too big for us, perhaps. But we’re all growing into that name, that precious name which is ours in baptism. And through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we will grow into the name until it fits us, or we fit it. In the meantime, more and more, God will help us to live as the children of God that we really are.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

This Word Is for You

2011-12-25T12:00:00.000-06:00

The Word, the light of the world, comes to Earth and takes on flesh in Christ. This Word is for you.

Vicar Erik Doughty, Christmas Day, the Nativity of Our Lord; texts: Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-4; John 1:1-14

Some of you are here because you come to every liturgy Mount Olive Lutheran Church offers – weekday Vespers, Saint’s-day Eucharist, whatever. Welcome. This Word is for you.

Others of you are here because every so often, about twice a year, you need to be here, with the pipe organ and the incense, the choir, the festival Eucharist. Welcome. This Word is for you.

And there are some of you who are here with relatives, who are not quite sure what this is all about, or who are here because the relatives do this on Christmas Day and you care about them. And maybe you are from a different faith tradition, or no particular faith tradition. Welcome. This Word is for you.

Last night, if you got here early, you heard stunning choral and instrumental music. Last night, during the liturgy, we heard from Isaiah about the Wonderful Counselor and Prince of Peace; and in the Gospel according to Luke, we heard the evocative story of Jesus’ birth, shepherds and all – you know, on “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” it’s Linus’ monologue, “Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.” And then you listen to the King James Version, you get a lump in your throat and you hug the dog as you feel sappy and warm and you cry a little into your hot cocoa, right? (Maybe I’m projecting.)

Well, today if you got here early, you got – brunch. In today’s readings, Isaiah gives us – feet. And John gives us the LOGOS, the Word, the light of the world, which becomes flesh and lives among us. Luke gave us the messy birth narrative; John gives us the cosmic creative Word come down on earth.

This Word judges all sin.
This Word throws down the mighty, and lifts up the lowly.
This Word feeds the hungry and sends the rich away empty.
This Word is mercy.
This Word is forgiveness.
This Word is light which enlightens everyone.
Through this Word, every single thing was created; and this Word holds all things together.
This Word brings life, even to the dead.
This Word comes to earth to take on flesh, to know us and love us as we are.
This Word, eternal, will die because we will kill it.
This Word, light from light, will be extinguished for our darkness, on Good Friday.

And yet, that is not the end of the story.

The Word which we silence; the enlightening light which we extinguish, re-lights, sounds anew, at the will of God on Easter.

The Word chooses to speak through, to be spoken by, us to one another when we baptize, when we forgive one another, when we advocate for care of creation, for justice, for peace. The Word speaks when we speak out for the lowly, the poor, the abused and neglected, the oppressed. And the light shines, always, but when we share that light it shines far brighter than the Xenon headlights on your VW Passat or your MINI Cooper. Work to end bullying? The light shines. Help someone out of addiction? The light shines. Volunteer your time at Our Saviour’s shelter? The light shines. Even giving a cough drop to a miserable fellow-worshipper, the light shines. The Word, the Light, the Cosmic Christ inspires our awe . . . and shows us, speaks to us, of the many little things we can do for our neighbor.

I know you are in darkness. For one thing, on June 25, we will have over 7 more hours of daylight than we do today! But also, I know the darkness surrounds our lives. LaVella Krona, a member of our community at Mount Olive, died last week. Karen Slingsby, my partner Scott’s aunt, died in the middle of this week. Thursday, our sexton William’s car was stolen. (And though it’s been found, it may or may not be driveable.) I am sure these same sorts of things happen in all of our lives – we know the darkness; we recognize it everywhere. We get sick, we suffer anxiety, bad things happen.

And the darkness insinuates itself into our brains. The darkness says:
You are useless.
You are worthless.
You make no sense.
You’re too fat. Too rich. Too old.
You’re too skinny. Too poor. Too young.
You’re too stupid.
You’re too smart.
That person who dumped you once was right.
Women are hysterical.
Blondes have no brains.
Gay and lesbian people will destroy marriage.
People of color are lazy.
All the worst things about you define you.
You’ll feel better if you buy a few things, if you eat a few things, if you have a few drinks, if you take a few drugs.
You do not fit in. You belong nowhere.

But the darkness cannot silence the Word. And the darkness cannot understand or overcome hope, or love, or faith. Today, the Word comes among us, as one of us, for us, for all people; and we will always have hope. Today, the Word comes among us, as one of us, for us, for all people, and we will always have faith. Today, the Word comes among us, as one of us, for us for all people, and we will always have love.

And the Word says:
I claim you; fear not; you are mine. You belong to me. You are a beloved part of me. Through me, you were created. You are priceless, you are perfect, you are one-of-a-kind, you are precious. You are beautiful; you are smart, and even if you are not, I love you.

The Word says, “I define you. All that the darkness whispers – poison in your ear – I will heal, I will undo, I will re-create, I will wash away in baptismal rain. I forgive you all your sins. I free you to live in grace. I call you to do justice. I empower you to build community. I am light, and before me the darkness flees away. I will feed you with my own body and blood; I, the Word, sound all this into reality, and it is good. You are mine, you are lovely, you are priceless, you are forgiven, you are free.”

Beloved, today this Word comes down on earth in Christ for you and for the whole world. I invite you to trust the Word; and I invite you to share the Word, because the darkness will give way before it this Christmas and every day. This Word is for you.

Amen.

Divine Intervention

2011-12-24T22:00:00.000-06:00

God’s intervention into our world which we celebrate at Christmas is the opposite of what most expect from a god: God comes without our knowing, in a way we’d never guess, and that is the source of all our hope.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord; texts: Luke 2:1-20; Isaiah 9:2-7

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The Roman poet Horace in the first century BCE warned playwrights not to use deus ex machina to resolve problematic plot impasses. Deus ex machina means “God out of the machine,” and it refers to having some miraculous or surprising or divinely-created event happen at the end of a play which resolves all conflicts and solves any problems in the plot. (The “machine” part comes from the ancient practice of lowering actors on a crane when they portrayed gods.) And it doesn’t have to be divine intervention – any unrealistic and convenient plot device that serves this purpose is considered to be deus ex machina. Yet even with this warning, to this day far too often a story in a book, movie, or play has been resolved in this unbelievable manner. The advent of the 22 minute sitcom in U.S. television, where every plot difficulty needed to be resolved before the final commercial break, pretty much guaranteed a lot of this cheap kind of writing.

The reason for avoiding this plot device is not necessarily based on its entertainment value. There are enough movies and books and plays written which attract a wide audience because of their convoluted yet manipulatively satisfying endings. It’s just that when one does this, one isn’t telling a true story. Rarely in reality do complicated twists and turns of the lives of people on this earth resolve themselves simply and cleanly.

The odd thing is that quite often we expect the true God to act in this way anyway. When people wonder “where God is” or ask “why doesn’t God do something?” it usually is in a context where God’s intervention is desired for a particularly difficult problem, where God could come down, as it were, and make all things right. It’s a little like a child plaintively asking if something they inadvertently broke into hundreds of pieces might be fixed. Unrealistic, yes. But to a child, a parent has powers beyond knowledge and miracles can happen.

The wonder of Christmas for me is that it is the anti-deus ex machina in almost every way you can look at it. If the Jewish people were looking for a true Messiah, an anointed one from God, who would rid them of oppression and restore the rule of King David, restore the kingdom of God’s chosen people, if they were hoping for God to intervene and make all things right, well, they wouldn’t have chosen the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

But in fact, we proclaim that this event of 2,000 years ago, this simple birth of a human child in impoverished circumstances in an occupied nation to two people of a long-defeated race was divine intervention of the highest order. Not “God out of the machine” intervention, God dramatically moving in and fixing all things. Rather, divine intervention in a way perhaps even old Horace would have approved: God enters the story, joins the plot, and walks with the people of God. All the complications of our lives, all the twists and turns and difficulties of our journey, God undertakes. Including the tricky and often life-threatening event of being born.

So how do we learn to appreciate this? If we want the flashy, fix-it-all approach, and God chooses another? I actually think that we often find ourselves in a third option, that we are living our lives the best we can, and whatever God was doing in Bethlehem two millennia ago we tend to think it isn’t likely going to change our reality – not in a flashy deus ex machina, but not in any other way either.

But I wonder, then, if we don’t have compatriots in this familiar story from Luke, companions on our journey in life, from whom we might learn to see this wonder that God is doing, this wonder we’ve come to celebrate tonight.

I find myself drawn to the shepherds this year. Because they seem to me to look like us more than the others in the story.

If you’ve heard a lot of Christmas preaching, you likely know the reality of these folks. You’ve heard about their lowly status. While an important part of the economy and the faith life of the people, providing lambs for the Temple sacrifices, these were lower class people, rough, not acceptable in polite society. You know the routine. The fact that Luke tells us they receive the benefit of the angel’s announcement and not the nobility of Jerusalem is a significant point.

But what I kept coming back to this week was Luke’s simple words: “There were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night.” See, these folks weren’t looking for God to do anything. They were just about their work.

When this happened they were probably sitting around a fire, most likely passing a bottle around, and telling stories about life, talking about their problems. If they ever thought about what God could or couldn’t do for them, or what God would or wouldn’t do for the world, it would be remarkable. It’s likely that if they ever contemplated the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob acting on behalf of the people they would have assumed it wouldn’t have helped them or changed their lives very much.

And yet, an angel comes to them, a messenger of God, and tells them some pretty fantastic news. The angel tells them not to fear, that the Savior of the World has been born in nearby Bethlehem – and not only born, but born for them.

Most days, I think that’s our situation. We go about our work and lives, and we really don’t expect that God will do much in the way of miraculous. And maybe that’s good – if we’re hoping for the big flashy fix-it, I’ve already said that’s not usually how God operates.

But here’s the amazing thing: God still comes to us, too, even when we don’t expect it. God has come to be with us, even when we didn’t think it was possible.

For us, like the shepherds, God’s answer turns out to be the thing we really needed.

And like them, perhaps, we didn’t know that. We didn’t know that if God came in a different way it would make such a difference. We who like our gods coming from machines and fixing everything, or better yet, like our own ingenuity and strength and prowess to be the answer to the world’s problems. We who believe that only power can truly get things done. We thought our way was the only way. We thought we knew best what God needed to do.

And what we hear tonight is completely different: God has come, God has intervened – but as one of us. One who understands how we get distracted by our lives, by our world. Who understands how we begin to believe that nothing can be made right, that peace cannot come. One who enters our existence, and joins our story – who enters the very plot of the life of the world.

This is what we can say about God’s intervention at Bethlehem from our distance of 2,000 years of time: it tells us God’s true hope for saving the world. The reason God doesn’t come with a big rescue, a power move that makes all things right, is that God’s way is the only way to be true to our story, to the life God has given us. By entering our story and living with us, God is able to show us a way of life that leads to life, a way of being that brings justice, a way of loving that makes peace.

For God, the only real outcome worth hoping for in coming to be with us is that we all find our way back to love of God and love of neighbor by our encounter with this Child who is born.

So even the announcement to the shepherds is significant to God: whatever the rest of their society thought of them, God’s way of life had to include even those on the fringes. Good News for all people. And this Child, when grown, spent most of his time on the same fringes, reaching those who had no right to hope for anything from God, those who had been told by others that they were of little or no worth. That very fact of God’s coming is part of how God is reshaping the story of the world from within, beginning with this birth. The triune God is declaring all of God’s children worthy of God becoming one of us. That’s the miraculous divine intervention we experience here.

Like the shepherds, we had no idea that we even needed this from God, or wanted it from God. But it turns out that the marvel is there is no other way we could have known God. As much as we long for an intervention from God which cuts through all the complications of our lives and fixes everything, God’s wisdom for us is that such an intervention would not satisfy.

Nor would it achieve what God hoped. Using power and force to achieve the love God hopes to see between us wouldn’t create such love. It would only force us to behave as if we loved. It’s the difference between a parent forcing a child to make up with another child, and a parent modeling forgiveness and grace in such a way that a child learns it and acts it in the world.

Or think of it this way: In Isaiah’s great declaration we just heard, that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, the prophet declares that the boots of the tramping warriors and the garments rolled in blood will be turned into fuel for the fire. This is at least as powerful a promise as swords being turned into plowshares, yet somehow this verse is often the overlooked part of this beautiful passage we hear each Christmas Eve. We go quickly from the light in darkness to “Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace,” and pass this one over.

The power of this promise is that it seems to me that the only way that all army boots of all warriors would be turned into fuel to warm people, along with all their uniforms, is if the armies of the world themselves disband. If they take off their boots and give them for burning. And that can’t happen by force, but only by willing participation.

So if God’s ultimate desire is a loving relationship with all the people of this world, the people God has made, where we all are a part of God’s plan of justice and peace, the only way God could see that happening was by actually becoming one of us and showing us the way.
That means that only by having God walking with us as one of us could we truly know the face and voice of God, hear the words of love and grace that came from the mouth of this Child who grew up to teach us the truth about God, the truth about us.

Only by experiencing the transforming love of this One whose birth we celebrate can we even dare contemplate the love of God. A love which is so committed to loving us that this Child ultimately faces death at our hands, only to rise from death in love and continue to call us to his side. There is no other way God could have shown us such love.

Only by experiencing the touch of this Son could we learn what it means to be enfolded in the arms of God. An embrace which is embodied in the gift that this Child gives in his resurrection that we are now his Body, his arms, his love. So we are touched by God by the love the Spirit creates in our hearts, and we not only become part of God’s saving and healing of the world, we literally become God’s loving embrace to each other.

Ultimately, what we know tonight is that God in fact has done something.

For all our prayers and all the cries to God to intervene, this is God’s answer: I have come to be with you. To love you, to lead you to a new life, and to empower you to be my life in the world.
It’s a way of intervention that takes more time than a magical wave of the wand, or an explosion of divine power. But if the healing God is seeking for the world is to happen, it has to happen in its own way, and time.

And so like the shepherds, we come to see for ourselves what God has done. We gather in the midst of this Body our Lord has created with our bodies and lives, and we come to the Table this Child has set for us, to see for ourselves. To be fed with life and grace and forgiveness. To be changed by the love God gives us. And to be filled with wonder at what we have seen and heard, what the Lord has made known to us: God is truly with us. And everything will be changed.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

The Olive Branch, 12/19/11

2011-12-19T14:39:00.002-06:00

Accent on Worship

What annoys me the most about the Christmas season is the way some Christians tend to romanticize the birth of Jesus. They want to make it as soft and twinkly as a department store window. In reality, it was as dirty and gritty as any birth would be in a stable full of farm animals. The night was probably cold and the barn was most likely drafty. We would like to make it magical, but there was nothing magical about it. The angels came to the shepherds, not to the birth, and there is nothing in the Bible about angels singing and playing harps. They were probably quite scary, which is why an angel’s greeting before making an announcement is almost always, “Fear not.”

With that said, I love John’s Christmas Gospel. The deep mystery is in the Cosmic Christ, the Word of God made flesh. “All things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being…He was in the world, and the world came into being through him.” Within these passages we read that Christ’s hand was in the creation of a universe so full of deep mysteries that man will never be able to solve them all, because they cannot even be measured. Quantum Physicists are today’s mystics for good reasons.

“Yet the world did not know him,” states John. This is just another mystery of the Cosmic Christ. The coming of the One who created all that is was not as profound as his being. His coming was a birth to a poor and temporarily homeless couple in a desperate situation. It is no wonder that the world did not know him. His birth was both a common everyday occurrence and the deeply profound mystery of which John writes.

This is not the whole story, though. Through this incredible vision given to John the reason for Christ’s coming was made clear. For those who believe are also born into the mystery of God, to become God’s children. John called Jesus “The true light that enlightens everyone.” He wrote, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus and the mystery of the Incarnation, but we must also celebrate our own births into the mystery of God. For, because of the coming of Christ, we too, are made to be lights into the darkness.

- Donna Pususta Neste

Wednesdays During Advent
Evening Prayer - 7:00 pm
(One more week, December 21)

Our Saviour’s Needs

Our Saviour's Lutheran Church on Chicago Avenue (up the street toward downtown from Mount Olive) serves the homeless by providing emergency shelter, transitional housing, and a permanent supportive housing program, serving over 650 people annually. They are asking us to partner with them in this ministry.

Although the pre-holiday time is short, we are confident that Mount Olive members will, with their usual generosity, provide some of the needs of the people Our Saviour's serves. Some of these needs are:

 General needs: laundry and dish soap, underwear, linens and pillows, hygiene items, cleaning supplies, microwaves, vacuums, fans, and kitchen items. Some gently used items are also welcome, contact Our Saviour's for details.

 Financial donations are needed to help provide staffing, warm and comfortable facilities, and year-round service to those experiencing homelessness.

 Gift cards: These give residents the dignity of choosing their own purchases. Most needed are Target, grocery stores and Metro Transit.

 Day Planners are crucial to the residents' ability to keep their commitments and gain independence.

For details, contact Colleen O'Connor Toberman at 612-872-4193 X25 or volunteer@oshousing.org

Please bring your donations to Mount Olive and place them in the designated receptacle. Gift cards should be taken to the office for security. Your participation in and support for this ministry is sure to be greatly appreciated.

Vestry Update, Dec. 12, 2011

The December 12 Vestry meeting opened with a meditation and prayer lead by President Adam Krueger. After the prayer the group started with on-going business. It is with great thankfulness that Mount Olive expects to receive a check from the Juhl estate in the upcoming week.

Adam Krueger brought up that there has been interest in having an Aesthetics (and Building Use) Committee. This will be explored as a sub-committee under Properties.

Pastor Crippen announced that updated and edited copies of the recently amended constitution and by-laws will be available in printed and electronic formats, hopefully by the end of the year.Jan. 29, 2012 is Reconciling in Christ Sunday. Mount Olive does not devote Sunday worship to special initiatives, but in an Olive Branch around that Sunday special recognition will be made of this emphasis.

A concern was raised that the two back parking spaces on the east side have often been full with neighborhood vehicles when there have been Mount Olive events. We are hoping to find a way to be good neighbors but also to convey our needs for those spaces, especially on days when food preparation is happening and supplies need to be carried in from vehicles. Our sexton, William Pratley, has already been in contact with the neighbors about these spaces, and we hope he can help in furthering this conversation.

Neighborhood Ministries has had a busy month with Donna attending several activities with Bread for the World and Way to Goals. Jobs After School and Diaper Depot are both doing well.

Vicar Doughty has also had a busy November with preaching twice and leading Vespers. He is happy to report that after this week he will be able to return to driving which will help with his flexibility of home visits, not to mention shortening his daily commute.

Pastor Crippen reported that the past month was filled with the usual November festivals and events, but that going through that stretch for the second time was far smoother. He was also able to take a week’s vacation in early December.

Cantor Cherwien reports that the choir is going extremely well and is holding at around 40 members. The Advent Procession and the NLC were both successes as well, and attended by many. Currently he plans to take his sabbatical in the Fall of 2013.

For Congregational Life, Carla Manuel reported that the Advent Lunch for our seniors went very well. There were 70+ guests in attendance and the committee will plan for a similar event next year.

There has been much updating of the website going on as reported by Andrew Anderson of the Evangelism Committee. Look for this to continue throughout the upcoming weeks.

Paul Schadewald of the Missions Committee reported that the fair trade sale is going well and things are cooking up for the ‘Taste Of Chile’ event which is scheduled for March 4, 2012.

Neighborhood Ministries is collecting donations for Our Saviour’s Shelter. Please contribute. The Art Shoppe at Midtown is planning to become a LLC. In the near future, a series of bylaws will be presented to the Vestry for our approval. This is a joint partnership between Mount Olive, the Jewish Community Relations Council, and A Minnesota Without Poverty.

David Molvik has reported that Room 12 is almost ready for the Diaper Depot. He also has been working with the elevator company to bring ours up to code with new door sensors and emergency telephone.

Dennis Bidwell shared the list of individuals interested in volunteering for different responsibilities at Mount Olive. He encouraged the Committee Directors to peruse the list and contact the people that are on the list this week. He also announced that as of Dec. 2, 2011, 114 members have pledged $411,803.00 for the upcoming year.

Al Bipes reports that the hanging of the greens will take place on Dec. 18 and the trees will in place on the 19th. We also rejoice to host the ordination of Matthew Tingler to the ministry of Word and Sacrament on Sunday, Dec. 18, at 4:00 p.m. The next Vestry meeting will take place on Jan. 9, 2012, at 7:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,Lisa Nordeen

Knitters and Crocheters Wanted!

Do you love to knit or crochet? Then your talents are needed!

The Minnesota Council of Churches has a program that provides hats, mittens, scarves, socks and other winter wear to new immigrants who come to be resettled in Minnesota. Many immigrants arrive with nothing but the clothes they were wearing when they left the refugee camps, and those are often in warmer climates. Case workers often meet them at the airport with coats, hats, mittens and other warm gear!

We are collecting donations of hand-knit or crocheted hats, scarves, mittens, and socks for this effort - all sizes are needed! If you like to do yarn work and are able to make a winter thing or two to donate to this effort, simply bring your items to the church office before the end of the year. We have already filled two boxes and have a third box started!

If your December is too busy to give extra time to this particular effort, we will start another push for knits after the first of the year.

If you have any questions about this project or if you are in need of supplies or patterns, please contact either Kate Sterner (katesterner@gmail.com) or Cha Posz (chaposz@gmail.com, or at the church office, M-F, 612-827-5919).

Book Discussion Group

For it's meeting on January 21 (postponed one week this month due to the annual Conference on Liturgy), the Book Discussion Group we will read William Faulkner's A Light in August. And for the February 11 meeting the selection will be Native Son, by Richard Wright.

With God, All Things

2011-12-18T12:00:00.000-06:00

Too often we feel that it is impossible for God to bring salvation, to change the world, our lives – but as Gabriel reminds, with God, nothing is impossible. Our lives are therefore Advent lives, waiting with hope for what we know God will do.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Fourth Sunday of Advent, year B; texts: Luke 1:26-38, Magnificat, Luke 1:47-55 (today’s psalm)

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“This is impossible,” she must have thought. “There is no way God can make this happen.”
Well, you can imagine the shock for this young woman, really, a girl. Fourteen years old, engaged to be married, with her whole life before her. Suddenly this shining, heavenly being is standing in her room, claiming to be the angel Gabriel. And he’s telling her that she’s found favor with God and will conceive a child, and her son will be born in nine months. He will be great, the Son of God, and will rule on King David’s throne forever.
Well, that’s a lot to take in at once, isn’t it? What’s interesting is that Luke doesn’t tell us that Mary’s troubled by the idea that she might be the mother of the Son of God, or all of the attributes of Jesus the angel claims. She says “how can this be?” – in effect, “this is impossible” – but what she means is that she can’t figure out how she would have a baby. She may not know much about divine rule, and Sons of God, but she knows that she’s a virgin. She might be a peasant girl, uneducated, but she at least knows it takes two to make a baby. It’s kind of touching to me that her only concern is over the basic human issue of how children are conceived. How can God make this happen?
And Gabriel said, “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

“This is impossible,” he must have thought. “There is no way God can make this happen.”
Well, you can imagine the shock for this old man. He’d served God faithfully his whole life as a priest, he had a loving wife, but sadly, no children. Now, when he’s serving in the Temple, this shining, heavenly being is standing before him. An angel named Gabriel, he calls himself. And he’s telling Zechariah that his wife Elizabeth will become pregnant, and bear a son. This son will be a source of great joy and gladness. That he could believe. But the angel said he would not be an ordinary son. He would be like the prophet Elijah, going before Israel to turn them to the Lord, and prepare people for the Lord’s coming.
Well, that’s a lot to take in at once, isn’t it? Even if you’ve longed for a child for fifty years, how was this old man supposed to deal with this? And again, like Mary, he doesn’t focus on the challenge of the idea that his son would be a great prophet of God. Again, it’s biology. Even in his fear and shock, he recognized the chief problem with the angel’s announcement: he and his wife were very old. Only young people have children. “How can this be so?” How could God make this happen?
And Gabriel said to Mary, “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

“This is impossible,” he must have thought. “There is no way God can make this happen.”
Well, you can imagine the shock for this man. From the shock of God speaking from a bush that burned but wasn’t consumed, to the terror of standing up to the Pharaoh of Egypt, whom he knew from his time growing up in the palace, to the wonder of their release from slavery, Moses had indeed seen a lot of amazing things from God. But now the people were trapped, facing water on one side, and the armies of Egypt on the other. There was no way out, no direction for them to go. The laws of physics were immutable, and if they couldn’t cross the water or defeat the armies – neither of which were possible – they would die.
Well, it was a lot to take in, a lot to grasp, wasn’t it? After so much, to be at an absolute impasse. And if Moses didn’t find the words to say, “This is impossible,” the people certainly did. “Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt for us, so you wanted us to die in this wilderness?” And Moses felt the pain of that accusation. Yes, he thought God had led them this far. But surely there was nothing God could do now – how could God fix this?
And Gabriel said to Mary, “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

“This is impossible,” she must have thought. “There is no way God can make this happen.”
Well, you can imagine the shock for this woman, really for all the disciples. Three years in the company of someone whom they believed to be God’s Son, blessed by his grace, his presence, his love, Mary of Magdala thought that she had found the source of life from God. And now this horrible week had come, and he had done nothing to prevent it. Many of the people she trusted among his followers had run away, and there were rumors that some had denied him, even betrayed him. Now he was dead, and all her hopes that God was coming to heal the world in this Savior were dashed. So Mary, with nothing else to do, comes to the place he was buried, a garden of sorts, on Sunday morning. And finds it worse than she thought it could be: the cave is open, the stone rolled away, and his body is gone.
Well, that’s a lot to take in at once, isn’t it? A week like that would shatter the best of us. Even had there been a body in the tomb, Mary knew the laws of the world. Dead people stay dead. Well, not always – Jesus had himself raised three people, she had witnessed that. But when the one who raises the dead is dead himself, well, who will raise him? What can God do to change this now?
And Gabriel said to Mary, the mother of our Lord, “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

“This is impossible,” we think. “There is no way God can truly make this happen.”

Oh, it sounds pretty impressive, what Mary says God is doing in Jesus. It’s beautiful poetry, and we love to sing it. God has looked with favor on his lowly servant. God has shown strength, and will scatter the proud. God will bring down the powerful, and lift up the lowly. God will fill the hungry with good things, and send the rich away empty.

The song resonates with our hopes for peace and justice in the world, our dreams that Jesus has actually come as our Savior and the Savior of the world. At this time of year more than any we hear again and again the promises that God is doing something, bringing about a new creation.

But those promises, on many days, seem impossible, as impossible as the promises seemed to Mary, and Zechariah, and Moses, and Mary Magdalene. Because we simply don’t ever get to a point where we see a world at peace, where even enemies are reconciled.

We read and hear the promise of wolves and lambs lying down together, of paths forged through the wilderness, of life in the midst of a world of death. But we know what is possible and what isn’t. We know the laws of physics, and the laws of human nature, and the laws of inertia. And we know – things just stay the same, and the mess continues.

And it isn’t just out there in the world that we fear God might not be able to keep these promises. In our lives, when we face difficulties and concerns, how often do we truly believe God can help?

We say, “I’m stuck in my sin, my habits. I can’t change. Impossible.” We say, “I’m unhappy with my life and who I am. There’s no way to make it better. Impossible.” We say, “I want to get along better with others, with my family, but it doesn’t ever seem to change. Impossible.” We say, “I’m afraid of the terrible things that could happen. I can’t hope or expect for better. Impossible.”

But Gabriel said to Mary, “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

And don’t we know that to be true? Haven’t we heard, don’t we realize?

The Israelites went into the midst of the sea on dry land and were saved. An old man and an old woman had a son who grew up to proclaim and even baptize the Messiah. A virgin had a baby boy who grew up and was executed for preaching the Good News of God’s grace for the world, and in that garden on Sunday morning he called Mary Magdalene by name, and was alive, risen from the dead.

This is not a message of “possibility thinking.” If we just think good thoughts things will happen. No, this is about what God can do. Gabriel is clear: With God nothing is impossible.” God can and will and has done the impossible. And it is a marvel in our eyes.

But here is what Mary would learn: God’s way of doing the impossible isn’t necessarily our way. With marvelous grace and courage, Mary agreed to be a part of God’s salvation. And it was hard. She had no idea.

Not just the obvious hard things were ahead – telling her parents, her fiancé about this unexpected baby, which risked her being stoned to death. But also just what it would be to be the mother of the Son of God – to struggle with how he grew, to worry about him and even disagree with him about how he was doing his ministry. To have to be at the foot of the horror of a Roman cross and see her first-born die a brutal death.
Mary had no idea how God would save the world or her through her son, who was also God’s Son. Nor do we. But the clue might be in the presence of this angel Gabriel himself, who says that nothing is impossible with God.

Gabriel shows up to ask something of Mary. Of Zechariah. And interestingly, an angel spoke to Moses from the burning bush before God did, and an angel spoke to Mary in the garden. But the point is not that a heavenly messenger is needed – in those cases there was apparently extra need for God to speak clearly. The point is, in all those cases, and in every way God is saving the world through the risen Jesus, God needs our help.

The reason things seem to be healing slowly, the reason that peace seems to be coming in such fits and starts, the reason that our lives don’t instantly and miraculously improve and become perfect, much less the world itself, is that God, for better or for worse, prefers to bring about healing and life through us.

The people of Israel would come out of slavery with a leader, a person, Moses, who was asked to say “yes” to doing this. The parents – Mary and Elizabeth, and their husbands, Joseph and Zechariah – needed to be a part of these two boys, raising them, agreeing to be a part of God’s plan to bring Good News to the world through them. And Mary Magdalene didn’t get to see the risen Jesus just for her own joy – immediately he sent her to tell the others, and she became the first apostle.

That’s what Mary the mother of Jesus and the others have to say to us today: God can do the impossible, but be ready to be a part of that. Watch for what God needs you to do to bring God’s grace and healing to the world. Be ready for your chance to say “yes” to bearing Christ into the world, to holding out your arm and staff over whatever sea spreads before you, to telling the world that he is risen.

With God, nothing is impossible – but we’ll be a part of that possible, that healing.

And in the end, that means we learn that most of our lives are lived in Advent.

Most of our lives are lived waiting to see the fulfillment of all God’s promises, waiting to see where God will do the impossible. Until we are brought to the life prepared for us after this life, we live in Advent times, and it can be easy to be discouraged, to be afraid, to say, “This is impossible.”

But we live in Advent not as people lost in the wilderness, but as Mary after her yes. We live within God’s pregnant life in the world – because that’s what the coming of Jesus was. It was the beginning of the Good News, as Mark says. It was the beginning of God’s healing of the world. It was the beginning of the end of death. It was the beginning of the reign of the Prince of Peace. This life is all about that pregnancy, that life of God growing in the world which is not always seen, and often misunderstood. But the birth will come.
That we know. Because Gabriel told us, “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

In the name of Jesus. Amen

The Olive Branch, 12/12/11

2011-12-13T08:53:00.002-06:00

Accent on Worship

Pregnant Waiting

Mary was pregnant during three Christmases. (That would be my Mary, my wife, not Mary the mother of Jesus!) Hannah was six months along at the Christmas of 1988. And Peter was nine-plus months along at the Christmas of 1996, born on Dec. 30 that year. (Rachel was one month along in 1993, so not very obvious.) Being Joseph and Mary, we got our share of ribbing, especially during Hannah’s pregnancy – the first-born child, Mary great with child at Christmas, you know the routine!

This year during Advent we spend a little time with the other Mary, the more famous one, this coming Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Advent. We will once again sing her song, the Magnificat, and hear the promise of the angel Gabriel to her that she will bear God’s Son to the world. As it turns out, pregnancy is a very helpful image for not only the coming of God into the world in person, but also the whole way God intends to save the world in Jesus.

Think about human gestation for a moment. Nine months of waiting for a birth, and then we still really don’t know what this life will be in the world. There’s joy at all the stages, including the nine months. But the birth doesn’t instantly answer everything. As I have watched and helped our children grow, every day is a new day of discovery, of vision of what they will become, of living with who they are. I have no doubt that they are gifts of God and through them God will do good things in the world. But what that will fully look like will not be known for a very long time. Now, as with each of us for that matter, all we see are glimpses of the impact each of us makes.
And so it is with God’s coming. It’s not only significant that God chose to come as a helpless infant, risking everything on human kindness and compassion, and on the idea that someone would care for this baby until he grew up. It’s deeper than that. God’s salvation of the world in Jesus is very much like a pregnancy, birth, and growing up: we know that Jesus is the life of the world, but we’re still waiting to see the fullness of that reality, the completion of that gift. Mary’s song speaks of God transforming the world order, casting down the proud, feeding the hungry, changing everything. And as in pregnancy and childhood, we’ve passed a lot of stages in this plan of God in Jesus, but there’s still more to come, more to see, more to have done. In part because it’s God’s chosen way not to come in power but to come among us and to effect this salvation from the ground up. But also in part because God is also doing this salvation in and through us, and that takes time. Lifetimes of time, lifetimes of love and grace, lifetimes of working for justice and peace on God’s behalf. For 2,000 years of lifetimes God’s been doing this, and now through us. We cannot see the full picture, only glimpses. But the glimpses are what gives us hope.

And so we wait, now. We wait for the fulfilling of God’s promise of life for the world. But we wait with hope, because even now we see the fulfilling happening, bit by bit, person by person. We wait with hope because we know that the baby born to that Mary long ago did marvelous things, defeating even the power of death. And we wait with hope because that child, that Son of God, now calls us to be a part of God’s plan of transforming.

Come, Lord Jesus! Continue to live in us, and strengthen us to act while we wait, until you return!
- Joseph

Sunday Readings

December 18, 2011 – Fourth Sunday of Advent
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 + Psalmody: Luke 1:46b-55
2 Romans 16:25-27 + Luke 1:26-38

December 25, 2011 – Christmas Day
Isaiah 52:7-10 + Psalm 97
Titus 3:4-7 + Luke 2:1-20

Wednesdays During Advent
Evening Prayer - 7:00 pm
(November 30 - December 21)

This Week’s Adult Education

Sunday, December 18
“Hymns of Justice for Advent,” presented by The Rev. Dr. Paul Westermeyer, from Luther Seminary.

Hanging the Greens

Part of our Christmas preparation at Mount Olive is to gather following the second liturgy on the Fourth Sunday of Advent to hang garlands and wreaths in the nave and narthex. This year the date is Sunday, December 18. Please plan to stay and help on that Sunday, beginning at about noon. You will experience good fellowship as we prepare to commemorate the birth of Jesus, the Messiah.

Sunday, December 25, 2011 (Christmas Day)
and Sunday, January 1, 2012 (The Name of Jesus)

Mount Olive will celebrate a single liturgy on each of these Sunday mornings, at 10:00 a.m.

Fair Trade Craft Sale – One More Week

Plan to do some of your Christmas shopping at the Missions Committee Fair Trade Craft Sale. Purchase beautiful and unique Fair Trade items handmade by disadvantaged artisans in developing regions. With each purchase, you help artisans maintain steady work and a sustainable income so they can provide for their families. Lutheran World Relief works in partnership with SERRV, a nonprofit Fair Trade organization, to bring you the LWR Handcraft Project.

The crafts will be available for purchase after both services for two more weeks, December 11 and 18 (cash and check only). Fair trade coffee, tea, cocoa, and chocolate from Equal Exchange will also be available. Check out the attachment/insert for additional gift items for sale.
This is not a fund-raiser, just an opportunity to buy good products for a good cause.

Matthew Tingler to Be Ordained Dec. 18

Matthew Tingler has received a call to serve as pastor at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Nashua, New Hampshire. All are cordially invited to attend his ordination on Sunday, Dec. 18, 4:00 p.m. at Mount Olive.

Rostered leaders are invited to process. The color for this liturgy is red.

Knitters and Crocheters Wanted!

Do you love to knit or crochet? Then your talents are needed!

The Minnesota Council of Churches has a program that provides hats, mittens, scarves, socks and other winter wear to new immigrants who come to be resettled in Minnesota. Many immigrants arrive with nothing but the clothes they were wearing when they left the refugee camps, and those are often in warmer climates. Case workers often meet them at the airport with coats, hats, mittens and other warm gear!

We are collecting donations of hand-knit or crocheted hats, scarves, mittens, and socks for this effort - all sizes are needed! If you like to do yarn work and are able to make a winter thing or two to donate to this effort, simply bring your items to the church office before the end of the year. We have already filled one box and have a second box started!

If your December is too busy to give extra time to this particular effort, we will start another push for knits after the first of the year.
If you have any questions about this project or if you are in need of supplies or patterns, please contact either Kate Sterner (katesterner@gmail.com) or Cha Posz (chaposz@gmail.com, or at the church office, M-F, 612-827-5919).

Our Saviour’s Needs

Our Saviour's Lutheran Church on Chicago Avenue (up the street toward downtown from Mount Olive) serves the homeless by providing emergency shelter, transitional housing, and a permanent supportive housing program, serving over 650 people annually. They are asking us to partner with them in this ministry.

Although the pre-holiday time is short, we are confident that Mount Olive members will, with their usual generosity, provide some of the needs of the people Our Saviour's serves. Some of these needs are:

 General needs: laundry and dish soap, underwear, linens and pillows, hygiene items, cleaning supplies, microwaves, vacuums, fans, and kitchen items. Some gently used items are also welcome, contact Our Saviour's for details.

 Financial donations are needed to help provide staffing, warm and comfortable facilities, and year-round service to those experiencing homelessness.

 Gift cards: These give residents the dignity of choosing their own purchases. Most needed are Target, grocery stores and Metro Transit.

 Day Planners are crucial to the residents' ability to keep their commitments and gain independence.

For details, contact Colleen O'Connor Toberman at 612-872-4193 X25 or volunteer@oshousing.org

Please bring your donations to Mount Olive and place them in the designated receptacle. Gift cards should be taken to the office for security.

Your participation in and support for this ministry is sure to be greatly appreciated.

Who Do You Think You Are?

2011-12-11T12:00:00.001-06:00

Christ's coming incarnation is a scandal; the Holy One will become one of us, even while we are muddy and stuck, un-holy with sin. The light of Christ dawns and we see Jesus, embodied in the baptized people of God, the Church, and in the people we meet every day, whom we serve as Christ. We rejoice in the light of Christ as we are forgiven and freed to serve others.

Vicar Erik Doughty, Third Sunday of Advent, year B; texts: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; John 1:6-8, 19-28

In the name of God, the beginning and the end, our salvation + and our hope.

First, a brief liturgical-historical note. If your advent wreath at home looks like THIS, with three purple candles and a rose-pink candle. . . today’s the day you get to light the pink one. For full details about why, ask Dwight. (He knows!)

Now:

Who do you think you are?

That was a question posed to me when I first entered the process of becoming a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Part of our process is to sit with non-ordained and ordained members of what’s called a “candidacy committee”. And these folks are asked to begin speaking with a candidate about their life, their sense of vocation, their theology, and other stuff like that.

So the bishop’s assistant, Jane, said, “Tell us about your sense of call.” And I quoted this Isaiah text from today. She stopped me midway through it, and another member of the committee, scandalized, gasped, “Who do you think you ARE? Jesus?!??”

I have to say I was surprised. I knew that Jesus quoted this text about himself - but it just never crossed my mind that this was not the vocation of all the baptized. In baptism, the spirit of the Lord IS upon us - moving us to do all those things Isaiah talks about!

John the Baptist scandalized his own “candidacy committee”, the priests and levites - the crowd his own father was from. They come to him wanting details about his identity, and what he’s up to - Who do you think you are? Moses? The Prophet? The Messiah?

And John says “no, no, no” - he points beyond himself to “one who stands among you,” one greater than he, One whom he does not name, the light which is coming into the world. We do not get the impression that the religious powers of the day are less scandalized after speaking with John than before the conversation begins.

The scandal, though, is not really about John himself. Nor was it about me! It’s really the scandal of the incarnation that freaks people out. It is that WE are one way Christ is coming into the world - and Christ is also coming into the world through those we serve.

In Christ, God becomes one of us; which is bad enough, say these horrified observers. But then Christ goes on, through crucifixion and resurrection, sending the Holy Spirit to constantly be with us, to guide the community of the Church. And Christ starts being present all OVER the place, especially in *ordinary* people and things.

We even speak of Christ present in such mundane things as bread and wine; or even, Christ in that scruffy homeless fellow on the street. And Christ addicted to meth, attending N.A. meetings in our undercroft. Christ within other Christians with whom we vehemently disagree. Christ within atheists (wouldn’t it make them grumpy to know it?)!

It IS scandalous. It IS a little crazy. It is prodigal, meaning ridiculously generous; it is radical; whoever heard of one whose title and being is Holy, getting the Divine fingernails dirty? Our Holy God is so concerned for the life of the world, our Holy God jumped (and jumps) right into the mud where we live our lives.

So when John the Baptist is bearing witness to the light that is coming into the world, and when John speaks about the one among you . . . yes, he was talking about Jesus the Christ. And remember where Christ is?

In you.

In the poor person, living in a shelter.

In the one who can’t pay the mortgage.

In the depressed person, who feels especially low during the holidays.

In the wealthy person, too. The One Percent, even.

In the single person whose friends are their family of choice.

In the employed people and the unemployed.

In all the baptized, for sure.

In all who have need of any kind. When we serve those in need, we serve Christ, remember?

So . . . the light of Christ dwells in all the baptized for whom Christ died. That’s where Jesus chooses to be. And even in those not-baptized - Christ is there for us to serve, and respect, and love.

Maybe that light is dim. Maybe Christ’s light in some looks like one of the blue candles along the side aisles; you can just barely make out a flickering light in there - but it’s there. Yes! It’s in there. Stronger than you think, it just keeps burning.

So when we bear witness, like John, to the light of Christ, we are not just talking about academics and we are not talking about something utterly ethereal. We are talking about Christ whose light and image and presence is with, and for, every person who ever lived.

We point, along with John, to Christ and we say to our struggling neighbor, “this light gives life. This light changes what it touches; it heals and gives strength and hope, for this life and beyond. And this life is already present *within you*. Christ is already working to bring holy, life-giving, redeeming light to YOU, messy muddy mixed-up human.”

So who do you think you are? And who ARE you? You are a mess, dear friend. So am I. Muddy with sin, fallible, prone to pride or perhaps to self-effacing humility (just as bad). You (and I) are in bondage to all sorts of things, stuck in so many ways. We need to know a way out - but knowing will not save us, either.

And so, seeing us in all our helpless flailing, Christ the Word becomes one of us. Christ’s light is beginning now, on the Third Sunday in Advent, to dawn over the horizon, that we may look east, see it and rejoice, with new hope. We will stand in our muddy shackles of sin and sing anyway, because this is light we recognize as salvation - our king, the Christ child, the daystar and light of lights eternal, is on the way for us.

But that word “us” is important. Christ the light of the world is not coming only for “us” in this beautiful church at the corner of 31st and Chicago. Rather, Christ the scandalous incarnate One is coming to save *ALL* of us - for those of us here, for those of us in the surrounding neighborhood, for all people in all times and places, for the living and the dead. Including the drug dealer over at the bus stop, in whom Christ is present.

THAT’s the scandal of the Incarnation. That the Holy One loves all people so deeply, Christ chose to be Emmanuel, God With Us, even while we are as un-holy as we get.

That’s also wonderful news. It means that anytime we need Christ, Christ is already present in us and in other people who will help and heal and care for us. When we have opportunities, ourselves, to serve and listen and care, we may be able to feed that flame, and hold up the light of Christ within us, to better light someone’s path. We bear the light of Christ; we share the light of Christ. We embody Christ to others, and when we serve others we serve Christ in them.

Who do you think you are? I will tell you good news, news to rejoice about. You are free to be scandalously, incarnationally, Christlike; prodigally gracious, ridiculously welcoming, hospitable beyond all reason; to live out justice, peace, mercy, love.

So when we chant “The light of Christ,” and respond, “Thanks be to God,” we are rejoicing in Christ’s presence in the world, and in the opportunity and freedom we have to serve others - all of which is graced to us by God in Christ.

And when in Vespers we sing “Joyous light of glory” we are praising the light which sets all people free, which we see in one another, the light to whom John pointed - “among you stands one whom you do not know.”

All of us, in daily life, get to bear witness to this joyous light of glory. Especially as we process through Advent toward the East, the darkness fades and we can see that others around us embody Christ to us, and that we may - knowingly or not - embody Christ to others, letting our light - and Christ’s light - shine.

Who do you think you are?

You are a person Christ came to earth FOR.

You are forgiven and freed by Christ, Emmanuel, the light coming into the world.

And you are a member of Christ’s body on earth right now. It is with your love, your hands, your actions and words that Christ will reach out to a world unused to rejoicing.