I hope this post finds you well. I apologize that it's been almost a month since I've last put something in this space - Lent has taken up a lot of time and energy, Hebrew class is in full swing, and we've had a funeral as well. Life is always "full" in the parish! :)
I preached several times this past week - Wednesday night at our last midweek Lenten prayer and song service, Saturday morning at a beloved parishioner's funeral, and this Palm Sunday morning. For kicks and giggles, I'll post all three manuscripts!
Wednesday Night, Zion's Prayer Around the Cross:
When I was
little, I remember some long summer days at my great-grandma’s lake home just
west of Cannon Falls. She was in her eighties at the time, and would watch my
mother and my brothers and I from the bay window in her living room. After a
long day of swimming and cooling off from summer’s heat, we’d always go up to
the house and my mom would visit with her grandmother. We had family gatherings
there on the lake, until one year we didn’t – when she started getting ill and
later left her home, moving in with one of her daughters. She died at the age
of ninety-six, and all of us great-grandchildren sang at her funeral. I
remember the days afterward – my mother’s tears, attempting to provide some
sort of comfort, while knowing at the same time grief needed to take it’s own
time. I realize, that in my short twenty-six year existence so far on this
earth, that I have been extraordinarily fortunate. In my childhood years, I
only lost two close family members that I can remember – both of my
great-grandmothers – and, since then, my life has been relatively untouched by
death, something that some families and members of our congregation know all
too well. That being said, I’ve nonetheless experienced the price of having
loved – grief and pain itself at the loss of a loved dear one. Having
experienced suffering and death, it has taught me the importance of relying
upon the promises of God’s grace and love.
We’ve spent the past five weeks
wandering and journeying together through Lent – a walk that ultimately arrives
at the foot of Christ’s cross on Good Friday in anticipation of the Easter
resurrection celebration. In our contemplation, remembrance, and prayers the
past five weeks, we have given thanks for all that God does among us – while at
the same time remembering the very reality of Christ’s sacrifice for our sakes.
I hope this has done your soul well – as it has mine – to have time
intentionally set aside to ponder God’s work in the midst of life and all that
it entails – all of the joy, all of the grief, all of the exuberance, all of
the suffering – and to know that even when we face times of death physically
and otherwise, God is working for new life.
This new life, however, can’t happen
without death. We can’t celebrate Easter before sitting in the somber reality
of Good Friday where we hear Jesus proclaim “It is finished”, and “Father,
Father, why have you forsaken me?” – words of finality and finitude spoken
against a world that had rejected Christ and his teachings to overthrow
ecclesial and political understandings. On Good Friday until early Easter
morning, we will experience what it is like to not have Christ in our midst –
where he lays in a tomb, and when most people thought they had taken care of
the root of the problem. Not so, however, as we know that God has other plans.
That is what makes Easter so
important – that in the face of death, we know that death ultimately doesn’t
win. Rather, God shows us that God has the final word, the final say, on
bringing about new life and resurrection. Because of God’s promises in our
lives, on our own Good Fridays we get to look forward to our own Easters,
living always as people of the cross and resurrection. On Easter, we see Christ
risen and for each and every one of us, proclaiming our salvation for the sake
of God’s reign brought about here and now. Take these words this night, my
brothers and sisters – when we walk through our own journeys of suffering and
death, know that you are not alone – that God is absolutely with you in your
grieving and mourning and questions and shouting. Even though we face our Good
Fridays, we always can look forward with expectant hope to the promises of the
resurrection, given to you and given to me. Friends, we’ve been given a lot to
contemplate over this season of Lent – may you continue this day and always to
ponder God’s work anew, bringing resurrection out of death in God’s love for
God’s creation. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Saturday Morning, Funeral:
Today we gather to celebrate the life of a
truly amazing woman, a beloved child of God, Deloris Soland. Her life’s story
is one of hard work, dedication, and faithfulness in everything she did. She
adored her family, always making time to have coffee, watch her grandchildren,
go fishing with them, play bocce ball or croquet, a round of cards, and always
made a point to attend family reunions. Deloris was a woman of deep faith, and
a longstanding member here at Zion Lutheran Church – confirmed here in 1944, and
married at the parsonage of the church in 1948. Growing up she cut wood with
her dad. She worked at the Pelican Rapids turkey plant for 16 years, and then
also at a resort cleaning cabins and fixing up boats. She was a baker of bread,
canned produce, and loved to garden. I believe her motto was something along
the lines of “the dishes can wait” – Deloris would always rather be outside
than be inside doing housework – she fished and hunted deer well into her 60s. She
baked over 300 angel food cakes during the course of her life, for family
birthdays and gatherings, oftentimes making two because if one didn’t turn out,
she had to perfect it – that was just the kind of woman she was – always
wanting the best for those around her.
In
sharing stories and in visiting with Deloris, it was made readily apparent that
in living what most would consider an ordinary life, she turned it into
something extraordinary. Everything she did was out of love for others, and I
firmly believe that she embodied the love of God to all she met and cared for
and cherished. Now, after 87 years of hard work, of giving love to others and
seeing that love reciprocated and multiplied, her sojourn on this earth is
completed. Deloris has fought the good fight and ran her race with perseverance
and is now rejoicing in the love of God and the fulfillment of God’s promises
to her.
It
is appropriate that the Soland family chose today to hold Deloris’ funeral –
because tomorrow we begin Holy Week, a week-long journey as we follow Jesus to
the cross on Good Friday and then ultimately to Easter, a day of celebrating
resurrection and new life and the stomping of death underfoot, when Christ
conquered the world for our very salvation. This is exactly what Deloris is
living into in this very moment. It’s not excusing the fact, however, that
there is grief. There are holy tears today in this sanctuary and there will be
in the days, weeks, and months ahead as we mourn the acute loss of this amazing
mother, grandmother, child of God. There are tears, but these tears are grief,
which is the price of having loved deeply and truly and authentically – and what
a treasure it is to have experienced such love. Deloris loved well, and I know
that she was loved in return by all those she encountered.
“Death
has been swallowed up in victory – where, O death, is your victory? Where, O
death, is your sting?” – we hear these words from 1st Corinthians
and we are reminded that even as we mourn, we know that death is not the end.
In Christ, God has conquered the world so that all will experience new life and
God’s saving grace. One day, when the world is reconciled unto God, all will be
as it should be. Deloris is living into that new life as we speak – free of
pain, free of sickness, free of all of the things in this life that weighed
upon her. Deloris has traded mortality for immortality, a perishable body for
an imperishable one. She has been made whole, and is celebrating in Christ’s
love for her. I firmly believe she heard the words, “Well done, good and faithful
servant”, because that is what Deloris was – a loving and faithful servant to
others in the ways she lived her life.
Friends,
today we give thanks and celebrate Deloris’ life, a life fully and richly
lived. But we also mourn – and know that God is with us in that. As we mourn,
so also does God grieve. In our times of sorrow, God is with us to meet us
where we are, because the God who encounters us is one of extravagant love for
each of us called and claimed and marked with the Spirit forever. Go this day
knowing that the promises of God are ours forever, from now until we see Deloris
again. As Deloris would say, “So be it.” Thanks be to God. Amen.
Sunday Morning, Palm Sunday:
But
wait just a second. I thought just a few moments ago we gave thanks to God with
a triumphal procession with palms as Jesus comes into Jerusalem – I thought he
had been lauded and that shouts of hosanna had rang out in a city that was
expecting him. In this scene in Jerusalem Jesus is greeted as the Davidic king,
the fulfillment of God’s promises brought into hand. The arrival into Jerusalem
is triumphant, jubilant, and joyful. Jesus comes into town, cleanses the
temple, and continues to teach his disciples, followers, and crowds around him
for the next week. Jesus started off in Jerusalem so well. And then it comes to
this, what we just finished reading – his crucifixion. What is going on? In the
span of a week, Jesus is welcomed and then killed. Rejoiced over and then
buried in a tomb.
Throughout
the week, chief priests, leaders and officials have been looking for a way to
stop Jesus, a role given to Judas Iscariot who betrays his teacher with a kiss
in the garden. Finally, the time has come, and the Son of Man is delivered to
be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Our passion narrative for today recounts
the events after that moment of betrayal – Jesus mocked by soldiers in word and
in dress, his crucifixion at nine o’clock in the morning, his death at three
o’clock that afternoon as he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?”, and then his burial in the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. The scene closes
with Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of Joses finding out where the body is
laid.
This
day we celebrate Palm Sunday, which in its totality is sort of a mixed bag, so
to speak – we begin with a joyful triumphal entry and end with a burial. We
experience all of the emotions present in these stories, in this last week of
Christ’s earthly existence – and we see the fulfillment of Christ’s mission and
work among us come into hand at his death when the curtain is torn in two and
the barrier between man and God is removed. We are reminded that in the midst
of suffering and death there come new life and renewal.
How
much of life is like that, though? A mixed bag, with hardships and good times,
with joy and sorrow? I think it’s worth asking as we walk this last week, this
Holy Week, with Christ from the entry into Jerusalem unto his death at the
cross – how do our very lives mirror this movement from joy and elation to
sorrow and grief? Where, in those experiences and moments and emotions, do we
place our hope and trust? We see in Palm Sunday a God who is about to bring
something to completion – the ministry of Christ – in order to make a world
changing revolution happen – the possibility and realization of salvation won
for each and every one of us – and that in our own lives, as we encounter the
ups and downs of our own Holy Weeks, we can place our trust and faith in God’s
promises that are never ending. The entry into Jerusalem on the colt was just
the beginning. The cross, in all of its finality, was truly only the beginning.
What we celebrate on Palm Sunday is an entry into new life – new life in Christ
that was made complete in his death.
My
friends, as we enter into Holy Week, I invite you to continue your process of
reflection, contemplation, and discernment. To what is God calling you in your
time and your space? Where do you notice Christ in your midst – working in you,
in loved ones, in your neighbors? How, as we move towards Good Friday and
prepare to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, might we continually find
ways to live into our lives as Easter people together? Sisters and brothers, celebrating
the triumphal entry with palms is really the invitation to a much greater call
– to praise God for the work of God’s Son among us, and to live in his service.
Let us sing hosanna in the highest. Amen.
I hope this Holy Week finds you well, friends.
From Pelican Rapids -
Dean
