"Being Called by Name" - a sermon for the community of Spring Garden Lutheran Church

Hello friends -

This morning I had the joy of preaching at my home congregation, Spring Garden Lutheran - about Mary meeting Jesus face to face after his resurrection from the dead. Without further ado - here's the manuscript. This was a hard sermon to write - but it finally came together.


Friends, Grace to you and Peace from God our Creator and God’s Resurrected Son, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

When I graduated college in 2012, I decided to pick up and move across the country – to do something different for a season before I began seminary. I moved to Washington State, where for a year I worked in the mountains at a Lutheran retreat center called Holden Village – what was once a rustic mining town in the 1930s. Even today – there’s no TV, no phone, and very limited Internet access. To go there for a time is to say goodbye to family, to friends, and largely to the “outside world” as you know it. I entered into the Holden community in the summer of 2012 knowing that I wouldn’t see my family for quite a time. I entered in the busy season – 500 guests per week that all needed to be fed. We joined in nightly worship together, hiked together, and ran around in the cold glacier water of Railroad Creek together. Summer soon turned to fall. The air got cooler, and the trees on the top of Buckskin Mountain turned a golden yellow.

My family – my mom, dad, two of my brothers and my dad’s parents – decided to come and stay for a week in October, after I had been there for five months. The journey to get to Holden is time consuming – a combination of train, plane, bus, boat, and another bus – so I wanted to meet them at the boat dock as sort of a “Welcome to Holden!” greeting. When I got down to the lakeshore, I saw the big “Lady of the Lake” boat come around the corner, hidden by another alpine mountain. Across the lake, my brother spotted me and yelled, “Dean!” I would recognize that voice anywhere – and he had called me by name. I hadn’t seen my family in months, and missed them terribly – and now all of a sudden – they were here!

Our Gospel text today is also concerned with calling people by name in a way that lays claim to and makes known.  Our names and titles are how we are known in the world – by our vocation, by our role in the family, and so on. Our names give us our own distinct identity. I am Dean. You are Carol or Scott or Dennis or Pauline. You are father, mother, brother, or a teacher, business owner, or homemaker. Collectively, we are Spring Garden Lutheran Church. Jesus who calls us by name encounters us all. It began with this story in our Gospel text. We meet followers of Jesus who are in mourning – who have been dedicated to following him, who identify with him, but are facing the harsh reality of a world without the Messiah.

We encounter three people in this narrative – Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter, and “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. They are running to the tomb. They are running to the tomb because Mary found the stone rolled away, and no one is sure what to make of it. It’s been a confusing, distraught, and schizophrenic week for Mary, Simon, the unnamed disciple, and the rest of Jesus’s followers. In a week, they have gone from seeing Jesus lauded and paraded into Jerusalem on a donkey’s back to Christ hanging on a cross drinking sour wine and calling out to God, saying it is finished. They by and large didn’t understand Jesus’s talk about resurrection. Mary, as expected, was surprised and horrified to find the stone moved early in the morning. A thief, she thought. Not only is Jesus dead but someone has come for the body. They eventually, after some hesitation, enter the tomb and find the linens Jesus was laid in neatly rolled up. The body was gone. Supposedly, there was nothing left to see. Simon Peter and the disciple return home, leaving Mary at the tomb. Alone. Alone, Mary waits and lingers.

Angels appear to Mary, but they tell her nothing. They act as signposts, really, for what is to come next, and it is arguably one of the most moving scenes in the whole of the Bible. In her mourning, Jesus appears to her. She didn’t recognize him at first, mistaking him for a gardener – and what she says to him demonstrates the ultimate mark of discipleship – “tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Then calling her by name, Mary, the ever-faithful disciple that she is, recognizes Christ face-to-face, as she exclaims “Teacher!” Filled with joy – she has seen Christ resurrected in the flesh – she returns to the disciples and tells them everything. Sorrow has been turned to joy. Mourning into gladness. Death into life. Come and see. Jesus is alive.

I like to think that in this moment, God is smiling on creation. Something’s in the air here. Something has changed. People are being called by name and believing is happening and the distance between God and the world has been closed. That moment was the first time that Jesus appeared to his followers after being laid in the tomb. At that moment the whole world was turned upside down, and the Christ’s earthly ministry was handed over to the disciples. Jesus instructs Mary not to hold on to him, for he ultimately knows that he will not be on earth much longer. The responsibilities have shifted. The ministry turns to the people, and that ministry begins when Mary starts running.

That’s the beauty of the church’s 2000-year existence; not much has changed. Since Mary first came to the disciples and told them about the risen Christ, we are doing much the same thing. We live in the hope of the resurrection today, and for 2000 years people have been called by name to carry out God’s work. We still live in the promises of Christ’s resurrection and ascension while things are being made new by God in the world around us. Through Christ’s resurrection, salvation is taken care of and all sins are forgiven. Through Christ’s resurrection, we each individually are called by name as children and beloved of God.

What does this mean for us? Here at Spring Garden, we see resurrection lived out in extraordinarily ordinary ways. We are all, in one way or another, Mary. We are searching and finding out what it means to be God’s people in this very place to only have our names called by Jesus himself. The gifts, talents, and ministry we each individually bring to this place testify to that calling. Whether you sing in our choir, help prepare and serve meals at a funeral, present your child for baptism, receive communion around the altar, or go on mission trips to Guatemala or Tanzania, we are all participating in the new life, the resurrection life, that God has invited us into through Christ’s rising. When Jesus called Mary by name and she noticed him for the first time clearly, so Jesus calls us by name as well to be disciples and participants in God’s justice being done on earth – whether it’s cooking a meal for a family or giving a friend a shoulder to lean on – believe me when I say that all of that counts.

In all of this, know that in resurrection you are claimed by your deepest identity. We celebrate the empty tomb in all that it means – death has been defeated and Christ has triumphed salvation for every single person in this room and undoubtedly the whole world. Christ was not only then, but he is also here and now and very much for each and every one of you. In God, we have been invited and welcomed into something that is nothing short of miraculous. Jesus is inviting you to come and see that resurrection is here and resurrection is now – and for that, I say, “Thanks be to God.” Amen.

God's Joy -
Dean

there's something about pastors and bread

Hello, friends - 

I turned off the oven at work one day, its loud hum and whirring finally coming to a stop. It was quiet, after four hours of baking. My fellow baker and I worked in silence for a few moments, enjoying the calm.

She was getting muffins ready to be put out on the tables. Loaves of bread sat cooling, and cookies were getting ready to be baked because next week it’s going to be a buy-one-get-one-free deal and it’s going to be crazy.

We were talking about our jobs, I think. She works as a cook at school, where she gets to see my little brother every day. I’m a seminarian, getting ready to go on internship this next year.

If I wasn’t supposed to be a pastor, I’d be a baker. I said, getting ready to assemble garlic bread.

She stopped, setting some pumpkin muffins down, and said, thoughtfully, you know, there’s something about pastors and bread.

There’s something about pastors and bread.

I let that phrase sit – it was so articulated, yet left shrouded in the unknown. I mean, beyond communion – beyond this is my body given for you, do this for the remembrance of me – what is it?

After I get off work at 12:30, I’ll often bake a loaf in the afternoon, for my family and I to have table bread to share at suppertime as we crowd around the kitchen island. It’s usually something simple – a plain tangy sourdough or sometimes an Italian herb round – but it’s nurturing and wholesome and from the earth and from my hands. There’s a piece of myself, and of every baker who bakes loaves, given with each loaf…in our own way, we are each saying this is my body given for you and for me and for everyone. Pieces are quickly torn and consumed and we know that others are being nourished and fed in a way that is holy and good and real. It's a micro-level feeding of the 5,000 - everyone eats and has their fill. 

It goes back to working with my hands. It’s kneading the dough and shaping and throwing flour and lifting heavy cast iron pots and holding hot, crusty, crackling loaves. It’s throwing my hands up in frustration when dough pancakes or is a complete failure, and it’s about rejoicing in those, too. It’s giving away to friends – passing into another’s hands. It’s an earthy, real joy.

One night in February, my girlfriend and I were having dinner at our pastors’ house. Homemade spaghetti and apple crisp and good bread. We don’t cut our loaves here, they said, we tear it with our hands. That way the fibers can tear and go how they want. Since then, I haven’t sliced my bread. After all, Jesus broke it with his hands. 

There’s something about bread and this pastor – about how it feeds community, and how it expresses genuine interest in the other in the name of Jesus the Christ.

Friends, as you go into this night, may you realize the Christ who comes to you in bread and wine and nourishes your faith – Amen.

Dean 

A sermon for the community of Spring Garden Lutheran Church - March 15 2015

Hello friends - 

I hope this finds you well. Today I had the privilege and joy of preaching at my home congregation of 25 years, Spring Garden Lutheran Church. I preached on Mark 8:31-38, talking about new discipleship, our call and commitment as a rural family in Christ, and reclaiming our identity as children of God. Without further ado, my sermon: 

          Friends, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and God’s Son Jesus the Christ. Amen. I invite you to think for a moment or two. What would be three things – family, material things, career, or a hobby – that you would say would best define your identity, or that you are most proud of? What are those? I have mine – I define my identity most deeply as a farm kid, a seminary student, and as someone who is deeply relational. Do you have yours? Hold those for a moment. Our Gospel text for today will take those identities and challenge them. In today’s Gospel reading, we are brought into a new reality: what it means to deeply, intentionally, and authentically follow Jesus Christ in a way that is starkly counterculture to the rural America we inhabit today. 

We open the text today and find Jesus teaching. This teaching, this telling of the next part of Christ’s life, isn’t pleasant. Christ tells his disciples that he is to undergo “great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Christ is telling his disciples that he is, ultimately, going to be rejected by the top authorities of the religious system. He must die. 

Peter, one of Christ’s disciples, is understandably concerned. He pulls Christ aside and talks to him in private. The passage doesn’t give us explicitly the exchange between Peter and Jesus, but I don’t think we need to know exactly what was said, for Jesus’s response was powerful: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” 

Let’s pause here, just for a moment. I can imagine if I was Peter, I would be hurt. Being called Satan is nothing to be taken lightly. It’s a serious accusation. What does it mean when Jesus states that we have our mind on human things? Correct me if I’m wrong, but most of the time I have my mind on human things, as I’m sure many of you do as well. These words have always left me unsure, and slightly unsettled. Most days, I don’t know what to make of them. Maybe they’re just meant to linger, and to sink in. Maybe it’s for a greater purpose. 

       Jesus uses these words as a catalyst to make his larger, overarching point. He draws the crowd together – those who were around him and his disciples – and begins to proclaim. Again, they are words that we are not used to hearing, and are hard to rationalize in our 21st century American culture. We are told we have to deny ourselves. We are told that we need to take up our crosses, to lose our lives for the sake of the gospel. Christ says that it won’t profit us anything to gain the world and lose our lives at the end. For those who are ashamed of Christ, he will be equally ashamed of them when he comes with his Father. 

      These words are seemingly so antiquated. How does this relate to us, little Spring Garden Lutheran Church? We live largely in a culture that is driven by consumerism. We live largely in a world that is telling us to be individual – to be ourselves. We live in a world now that is, more and more, not utilizing organized religion in it’s proper, life giving means. There is no doubt that, even as faithful followers of Christ, we are still influenced by the world in which we live. We are comparing ourselves to others in terms of our wealth, health, family, career, personal happiness – and the list goes on. We get caught up in the “human things” of life so often that it is easy to lose sight of the One who has welcomed us into faith. 

     Jesus’s words are a clarion call to us all. These words, while they appear difficult, distasteful, and backwards, are actually an invitation and welcome into something greater. I don’t think Jesus expects us to give up what we identify ourselves as – as hardworking, honest, good rural folk who love each other. I think immediately of the meal train set up for Beth Windhorst – families immediately showed up with food, hugs, and prayers. Those are good identifiers. This is precisely what it means to be a part of God’s activity in the world. What Jesus is talking about, I believe, is a more selfless devotion to his teaching, to himself, and ultimately to God. As I mentioned before, we get caught up in the negative things that can soon define us – broken relationships, a dead-end job, or whatever is weighing you down right now – we get thinking about those very human, real things and suddenly it becomes difficult to carry our cross, to show the love of God to our neighbor and ourselves.

     In the midst of this, we are invited to give up our identities – to give up the bad things that hold our thoughts captive and to move past our good identities into simply being what Christ has called us to – being children of God. When we fully carry our cross – when we love each other out of authentic good will  – that is when our identity as children of God, as disciples, takes full form. These words – losing our lives, all the rest – are a radical call to new discipleship – they explain how we can model our lives after Jesus. They’re just as applicable now in Cannon Falls, Minnesota as they were in 1st century Israel when Christ was about to be put to death. To fully follow Jesus, we are encouraged to let go of our identities and claim our status as God’s beloved. To lose our lives means becoming fully involved in God’s activity in the world for the sake of the gospel – through sharing meals, prayers, communion, and in countless other ways in how you treat others Monday through Saturday. This work, this new discipleship, begins at our baptism and is concluded when we join the saints triumphant. It’s as simple as that. I know – it’s easy for me to say, but it’s another thing to remember and embody it. 

     In short, yes, these words are what we are not used to hearing. We are so often defined by what the world’s standards are. Jesus calls us into something different. He calls us to abandon everything – to lose our life for the sake of the gospel – so that we might find our hope and new life in Christ as we discover together what we’re called to proclaim and do in God’s mission. In following Christ wholeheartedly and unashamedly, we indeed do gain everything – and that, my friends, is more than what the world could ever promise. As you go into this week, look for ways to more fully carry your cross as an example to this world. Look for ways to disciple. Look and see how God’s love, by your witness, is everywhere. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

Dean

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

"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

Clinical Pastoral Education

Hello, friends -

It is finished. My clinical pastoral education (CPE) experience this fall semester has come to it's conclusion. I thought I would post a poem that I wrote specifically for inclusion in my final evaluation.

This is the first piece I've written since I graduated college. I wrote this to hopefully capture some of the poignant and difficult moments that summed up the experience.

The road was flanked in green that day

as I drove in anxiety. I was missing things.

My dog, the way the corn stalks waved

in the hazy midafternoon light. I wanted

I wanted nothing more than a cup of coffee

on the porch and to listen to my brother’s laughter

as he says you bastard.

I don’t know what I have left, you know, to live for

she told me. Machines whirring, air hot and too stuffy.

I say something, what, I don’t remember.

I leave that day, shutting the door, face warm.

I’m not made for this.

How are things?

They were really shitty this week.

Yeah?

Yeah. Sat with a man who had chronic pancreatitis said his world was crashing

down around him and he doesn’t know what else to do and there’s nothing but

silence.

I’ve never known grace, at least not like this woman does:

I’ve got a year left. I wanna go plant a garden and sit in the sun

and be with my grandchildren because they can’t be without me

and I want them and my husband and we bought a house

and I have all these questions about God but in the end

I know that God does love us. Loves me.

A garden. Sun. Family. Despair. Liver cirrhosis. Grace.

The woman struggles to breathe.

Thank you for your presence.

I see her five more times. I’m joyful.

I guess I’m thankful you wanna be my friend.

Yeah, me too.

The road was flanked in orange that day,

as I went to class. Listen to voices on suffering,

Psalms. Lament. Crucifixion. My mind,

it wanders. I want to go home, to the cows

and fields and dusty hay.

They don’t carry sorrow.

Do you have any fresh words for us, chaplain?

Ragged breathing stopped, expectant eyes gaze.

I speak words of promise and hope and grief

but in the moment I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.

I stay later. Give more hugs. Drive the way home, in tears.

The road was flanked in brown that day,

a sign that winter is here but not yet.

I leave, I breathe, I rejoice. It’s all becoming clear:

I’m made for this. 

In other news - I've bought 10 pounds of flour and a giant jar of yeast. Time to begin Christmas break bread baking! 

God's peace, friends - 

Dean 

Waiting

Dear friends - 

Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and God's Son Jesus the Christ - 

It's been a whirlwind, these past few weeks. I haven't updated lately for the sake of finishing papers, completing classes, and being at the hospital. It's been busy. 

I hate that. I hate using that excuse, yet I do it all the time, as many of us do. As 21st century Americans who are working, in graduate school, invested in living our privileged lives as it is - we're busy. We're tired, we're overworked, we're exhausted, we're sick. We're tired of it all, and just are hoping for a break. 

I've been reflecting on Advent - on how Advent is supposed to be this season of hope and expectation and waiting and patiently waiting and waiting some more for the Christ child to come to Earth God incarnate - Emmanuel, God with us.

Let me ask – how many of you are actually waiting? How many of you are waiting in hopeful expectation? I’ll be the first to admit I’ve failed at this.

It’s difficult it is for us to do that. We can't wait. We can't sit. We have a really hard time dealing with expectation. We want things now; we’re rushing to get the next thing done or crossed off our to-do-list, we want instant gratification, because we're busy. 

I ask you to pause for a moment. Consider these:

My last weeks of my clinical pastoral education experience have been involved with a 21-year-old boy who is dying of bone cancer. I read psalms with him and held his hand for over an hour, have prayed with him, and have simply sat with him. The boy, who has become the adopted son of us staff at the hospital, has gotten every wish: friend plantains, Chinese food, a new computer. His family isn’t able to come from Nigeria as he passes, and it’s looking like he has a matter of days.

I read Psalm 6 to him the other day, and it puts his situation in a new light: where it talks about anguished bones and how long, how long O Lord?

How, in the season of Advent, do you think this boy is waiting? Where do you think Christ is breaking into his life?

I was called in to the hospital on Monday night to sit with a family of 9 people who had a woman dying – their daughter, mother, sister, friend – who was only 43 years old. I went into the room and was faced with expectant eyes. The room was warm, silent, except for the woman’s ragged, drawn breaths. They had a space for me right in the middle of the family. One by one, I went to each person, taking my time getting the background, learning stories. Memories were shared. Laughter went around, and doughnuts were passed. “Silent Night”, that old Christmas hymn, was played and tears formed as they sang “sleep in heavenly peace”. My heart broke as I reflected on the fact that a husband and wife had to bury their daughter, and that a girl who was about my age was about to lose her mother.

I stayed with the family through the advent of the woman’s death, leaving twice to give them space as a family as the time drew near. Upon her death, the family turned and looked to me, and after some deep sobs and tears and hugs, asked “Chaplain, do you have any fresh words?”

Thank God for the promise of the resurrection – I was able to bestow words of peace, allowance for grief, and promises of God’s safekeeping as the woman joined the church triumphant. I waited for a few more moments, exchanged hugs and words of consolation as deeply as I could, waited some more for any final conversation, and left, driving the way home in tears. 

In Advent, what does waiting look like for this family? Where do you think Christ is breaking into their lives?

In the midst of this season, I ask you to pause.

Breathe.

Stop for awhile.

It could be a hell of a lot worse.

I hope each of you these days to take some time to stop. To live into what Advent calls us to in preparation for the Christ child’s birth. To wait, and give thanks for the beautiful lives that surround and fulfill each and every one of you. To live more deeply and fully into the life that God has called you to. That’s been a blessing in my CPE experience – I am learning daily how to live more fully into the life that God has given me – as Dean, as friend, as brother, as son, as pastor, as chaplain.

With this, I leave you.

Where do you see Christ breaking into your lives? Where are you waiting? What is God calling you to in this season of your life?

Thanks be to God, my friends. Amen.

Dean