Monday, January 26, 2015

where you come from & where you go: reflections on transition

Hello friends -

I hope you've all been well this month. Things have been busy since I've wrapped up my January term course, working at the bakery primarily. This weekend I had the opportunity to go to Marcell and spend time with my grandparents, visit my St. Andrew's family, and see good friends. It was a refreshing two days in the midst of life's busyness. My girlfriend, Lauren, came along with me.

It was a chance to laugh, to play "Spit" the card game, to drink bad coffee and make messy pizza dough. It was time for Nancy Raymond's amazing apple pie, for the love between us prayer, for asking the same question five times and for honest conversation. It was a time to give away bread, to hug good friends, and to wish for big things as I enjoyed the silence.

I was surrounded today not by cars and tall buildings and busy people but by birds, trees, and silence that hung like a cloak around us but I soaked in every second. I took the time to listen to how the snow crunched under our feet as we walked along the lake, and how the snow fell on the ground and covered the cabin deck.

We went to church yesterday at my old ministry internship site, St. Andrew's Lutheran in Grand Rapids. Got to hear the timely words - while we may be ordinary people, with God we are super (it was Camp Sunday at St. A's, the camp's theme being "superheroes") and catch up with Myrna and Pastor David and Pastor Megan and know that I was welcome. It is such a refreshing congregation to be a part of. Afterwards we went to brunch with my great-aunt and got to catch up briefly on what they were up to. How Florida was fun and life was good.

We made homemade pizza for dinner and I messed up the dough and had milk running all over the counter. Turned out nonetheless. Lauren and I later mixed ourselves E&J and Coke and watched Despicable Me 2 and laughed at the minions.

I left this morning thankful for those places and spaces and people in Marcell and Grand Rapids who have woven themselves into the fabric of my life. I returned to the Cities to drop off Lauren, and was surrounded, once again, by loud cars and houses and concrete. I have to remind myself that this life in the Cities will last just a few more months. Then I'm out - doing ministry and being among God's people in smaller places, where the silence is too big and not enough and the hardships are all too well remembered. My pastor always told me to remember how I felt leaving and place and returning somewhere else - for there lies my call.

I ask you this night - what are you thankful for? Who are the people, places, and spaces that have come into your life? Where and what is your God-given calling?

Joy, my friends - thanks be to God.

Dean


Sunday, January 11, 2015

"You Are My Son, the Beloved" - a sermon for the community of Bethel Lutheran Church, Herman, MN

Hello friends -

Today at preached at Bethel Lutheran, in Herman, Minnesota - a small town in the northwest part of the state of about 400 people. I went with my classmate Jon Rundquist, who led worship. Adventures were had along the way - stopping to see the prairie views, and stopping at the local haunts - namely the local convenience store, for breakfast. The saints at Bethel Lutheran are wonderful people, and it was a privilege that they welcomed us for worship this morning. Here's the sermon I gave for the community:


You are my Son, the Beloved

Friends, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and God’s beloved Son, Jesus the Christ. Amen. It is a joy to be with you today. I bring you greetings from Luther Seminary and sincere thanks that you have welcomed us to join you in worship this morning. My name is Dean Safe, and I’m joined by my classmate Jon Rundquist. We’re second year students at Luther Seminary both preparing to be pastors.

Jon and I both grew up in small town and rural contexts. I’m the son of a seventh generation farming family, who was raised on a 30-head Holstein dairy farm. My parents, when we were farming, never had much money. We lived lives of scarcity and hope for much of my first 16 years. Farm equipment was unpredictable, crop and milk prices always going up and down and crashing. My parents were consistently making choices between buying medicine and buying food. One memory I vividly recall is going to town with my dad in his ’85 Chevy Silverado. It was in the coldest days of winter, and there was snow flying through the back window. We were bundled up and the heat was on, but it didn’t make much of a difference. My dad couldn’t afford to fix it, as we needed groceries for the week. He attempted to make a joke – “Isn’t it cool, son? It’s not too often you get to ride in a truck with it’s own personal snow globe!” Life on the prairie wasn’t easy, but it indeed came with blessing. I was taught to live in communion with family – how to work with a team. How to trust friends. How to trust God. There was joy amidst the hardships. There were moments of clarity in the wilderness.

`When I found out from Pastor David that I would be preaching here, particularly on this text, I was delighted. There’s so much to say, and much to consider. In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, we begin with John the Baptist. We have seen John in earlier texts this month proclaiming the One who is to come among us. His work, primarily, is as a forerunner and baptizer of the people. With this understanding, this is where we first encounter John in this text. John is baptizing at the Jordan, and throngs of people are coming to him. There’s energy here – the gathered community of people is being baptized and sins are being forgiven. People are being washed anew and given life. There aren’t any rules. That’s my favorite part. There’s wilderness, there’s no exclusions. Everyone – regardless of belief, social order, and family status – is being baptized. It’s by no means tame or orderly or restrictive.

It would be easy for John to take credit for all of this. It would be easy for John to point to himself as something greater. But instead, he doesn’t. John stands on the banks of the Jordan and says that “Indeed, there is someone more powerful than I coming after me.” If anyone knows humility, it’s this man. John wears camel’s hair, eats wild honey and locusts and baptizes people but does it in the name of God. He speaks of the One who is coming as he says, “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” John does this to be clear. His is not the one to be followed, adored, or commemorated. It’s interesting to note, too, that in Mark’s Gospel John does not explicitly name Christ, but I believe it can be inferred. Jesus, the savior of the whole world, the one who is just about to begin his public ministry, is the one who will baptize with the Spirit and seal us as children of God.

This crossroads moment in the latter half of the text has always inspired me – because it’s still applicable today as when it was written. Jesus, after being baptized by John, hears the words of God – “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.” This authorizes Jesus’s earthly ministry and is the send-off for his roughly three years of work in the public arena – healing, teaching, preaching, eating, and throwing over tables. This baptism is the beginning of a religious and political revolution where the marginalized are included and the dead are raised and the poor are given something to eat. This baptism by John with the Holy Spirit show how God uses humanity to complete God’s work. This baptism is where God calls Christ God’s Beloved. This baptism of Christ is the clarion call for us all to participate. Even now in 2015. And what a beautiful and frightening call this is.

You may be thinking, what does this mean? My friends, our baptism into Christ’s Church and into this family is only the beginning. Our journey in the Christian story doesn’t end after we’re sprinkled with water, by no means. Baptism is where we are named, called, and claimed as children of God. Our baptism is where God says that each and every one of us is God’s beloved. Our baptism gives us an invitation to live into all of what God has promised – to live lives of mercy, justice, and hope for the whole world and for ourselves in our everyday lives. We are invited to live lives rooted in community – to be exactly what American culture says we should not be. We are called to be authentic and honest with each other as we work out of our Christian understanding. We are, indeed, to be the face of Christ to our friends, to our neighbors, to strangers, to the poor, and to those who make us uncomfortable. We can live fully into what Mark is promoting here – community that is inclusive, joyful, and anything but tame.

I realize that all of that sounds nice and ideal, but we know better. This passage doesn’t preclude that things will be easy, either. Jesus’s baptism is in the wilderness. The heavens are torn open. It’s real, and it’s honest. We all know what awaits Christ – the eventuality of the cross. Jesus baptism in this passage is, yes, an ordaining of public ministry and an acknowledgement of status as God’s son – but it is so much more than that. This washing in the Jordan seals what Christ is to fulfill. Living as a servant-king, Jesus is eventually to be condemned to death for the sake of the world.  There are parallels to be drawn here. Our baptism in Christ doesn’t promise us an easy life. We live with proverbial wilderness in our own lives. We’re human. We fight, we disagree, and we bicker. We get hurt, and it becomes all too easy to hurt others back. We deal with relationship strain, financial problems, depression, job loss, and a host of other things that life just seems to throw our way sometimes. Our lives on the prairie and in small towns are sometimes filled with hardships that seemingly have no answers. Our baptism calls us and claims us, yes, but we are still faced with the everyday unpleasant realities we face in our humanness. This is where our baptism changes the story, however. We wander through the wilderness for some seasons of our lives – but we live with the expectation and hope that God has the final say.

That’s the beauty of it all. We are baptized into Christ with water and the Holy Spirit, called and claimed by God for community. We are called into participation. We are called to be promise. We are called in baptism to practice resurrection, dying and rising, every single moment of the day. We can live with this hope that no matter what hardships we endure, God has the final say. God gives reconciliation in our brokenness, and joy in our fear. Our baptisms are made complete in death when God actively reconciles every person to God’s self. We are assured that death has no power. In baptism, when we die, it is finished. Christ has won. And what a beautiful promise that is in our Christian story.

I leave you today with this: I encourage you throughout the week to notice where you see baptism in your life; where you see Christ’s promise at work in your day to day being. How does God call you God’s Beloved? For I promise you – God’s love is alive and fresh and real. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Dean