February 28,2025

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Dear Friends,


This Sunday we celebrate the Transfiguration, when Jesus goes up to a mountain before his final journey to Jerusalem and his appearance changes in front of his disciples. He is still there, but instead of a Jewish peasant from Galilee, he stands in heavenly raiment, dazzling white. I believe the implication is that he was clothed in light itself, so bring it hurts to see. And he begins talking to Moses and Elijah, sent by God from beyond death to speak with him. What did they say? We don’t know—in my mind, I think they were there to encourage Jesus, to tell him they wait for him at God’s side, that the way of faithfulness leads to God. 

It’s disorienting, unbelievable. Peter, James, and John panic. It is so beautiful to see they want to stay and preserve the moment forever; it is so unnerving and terrifying they don’t speak of it when they come down the mountain. How to describe it, who would believe it—how to put terror and awe into words?

I’ve been thinking about this story quite a bit this week, and it occurs to me that Jesus was always bathed in light. And all of us are bathed in light. We are all clothed in God’s love—we are, each of us, surrounded by light and love. One of the demands of faith is for us to see that, to believe that, and to be changed by knowing it.

Luther, in his treatise on the Mary’s song, wrote, “It is vain, therefore, to teach men to be humble by teaching them to set their eyes on lowly things, nor does anyone become proud by setting his eyes on lofty things. Not the things but our eyes must be changed; for we spend our life here in the midst of things both lowly and lofty…It is thus not the things but we that must be changed in heart and mind.” I have not thought about this insight for a long time, but once in my life I thought about it a lot. And I have returned to it as I have thought about the Transfiguration, and the transformation that grace makes inside of us.

The Christian way of life the changing of our eyes—the changing of our heart and mind until we see the light and love and that clothes all things. This is hatred and anger passing away, with patience and compassion filling us. It’s the tearing away of prejudice and the growth of understanding. It is the desire to defend and guard the weak and vulnerable, to tend the struggling, replacing the urge to dominate and control. 

In other words, it is grace sanctifying us. That is what the good life feels like. If you are so accustomed to acting from fear and hatred and desiring control and domination, that way of life is going to feel very scary indeed. 

So many of us are scared now, looking for hope. I think the Transfiguration speaks to us and says, let your eyes be changed. See the light and love around us, and act knowing that God loves you. The way of faithfulness leads to God—walk on.


See you soon,


Pastor John

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February 7, 2025

 

Dear Friends,


A large portion of our church community will be on a retreat this weekend, so if you’re coming to OSA, you’ll see a small crowd. Please take extra time to welcome any visitors you may see, including the substitute pastor, Matthew Zemanick. It’s always nice to hear a new voice from the pulpit, and I’m sure he’ll do an excellent job.

There’s a lot of fish in the Gospel text this Sunday—fish and boats. It included a great pun Jesus made, who tells Simon, Andrew, James, and John that he will make fishermen fishers of men. That is, people who seek out other people to join a new way of life with Jesus. But under all the texts is God’s steady voice calling us to patient work, steady work. There’s polarity at work in the texts—on one side there’s hope and trust that God will take care of his people. And on the other, there’s the daily work done with that hope in mind. Jesus’ call to make disciples is a call for a daily work with a view toward eternity. And Paul, in his letter, talks about his own conversion, from a persecutor to a preacher, who now in hope shares the good news of Jesus.

Early on in the pandemic, just as everything was shutting down, Ed Yong in The Atlantic wrote a very insightful article that has stood up well over the intervening years. In it he quoted James Stockdale, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for almost eight years. Every day he resisted his captors and suffered torture. How did he hang on? "I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life…” he said. But he also knew he had daily work with a view toward hope, which was not an easy optimism, because that kind of optimism was a fantasy. He watched them fall. “Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart … This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

This became known as the Stockdale paradox, and I’ve thought about it a lot. 

Jesus and the disciples did this. Jesus entered our world of pain and sin and disappointment and indeed suffered all those things. At his death he even cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But the daily work of healing, teaching, and celebrating life with his friends and the people that took him in as he wandered, this was daily work done in the hope of God’s power to overcome the world of sin and death. And he did overcome it and gives us that overcoming as well. 

It may feel today that evil is winning—evil is often winning in this world. But it cannot win, because the victory has already been won in the resurrection of Jesus. We hold firmly, as Paul said, to this victory. We hold firmly by living every day to follow in Jesus’ path of kindness, healing, care, and compassion. Goodness and truth will prevail in the end. And the beauty of daily work, of daily struggle, is what we will see, over and over again, every day, the truth of this, as every little victory echoes the final victory of the resurrection.

So do not confuse this life, with its darkness, with the life of Christ. One has overcome the other. The way of the cross is the way of beauty and life, and it will overcome. Strive along that path, and you will see the glory of God.


See you soon,


Pastor John

 

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January 31, 2025

 

Dear Friends,

Today, there are new names in the American pantheon of heroes. One of them is Nicholas Gottlieb, former director of employee and labor relations at USAID, who refused to comply with illegal orders to immediately terminate employees at USAID and lost his job because of it. He wrote, “Today, representatives from the Agency’s front office and DOGE instructed me to violate the due process of our employees by issuing immediate termination notices to a group of employees without due process. I refused and have provided Acting Administrator Gray with written notification of my refusal. I have included in my written notification that his office cease and desist from illegal activity.”

That’s a great line written by a man with great integrity. Predictably, he lost his job in two hours.

The notion of law and illegality matters in many ways, but only if they are enforceable. What happens when a moment like ours arrives, when power decides that what is legal is nothing but a construct, and chooses to do whatever it wants? That’s what’s happening across our nation right now: post-docs researching cancer and physics aren’t getting paid, illegally. The CDC, which should be strapping up and sending out workers to Uganda to help track and subdue an Ebola outbreak and to Tanzania to track and restrain a Marburg virus outbreak, or publish the weekly mortality and morbidity report, as it has for every week since 1960 until January 23rd—can do nothing, another illegal order.

We are seeing a massive arrogation of power from the law, which provides the guidance and authority and money for the US Government, to the people in the Executive Branch. This is illegal—but the question is, who has the power to stop it? Who will claim and use that power?

Our system of government is based on the fundamental conviction of the separation of powers, that the consolidating power leads to tyranny. We need more heroes like Nicholas Gottlieb—and perhaps some of those heroes will be people that read this. You can be a light in the darkness—you do not have to give in.

This Sunday is Candlemas—or what is also known as the Presentation of Our Lord. This is when the baby Jesus is brought to the temple for a ritual presentation and sacrifice. But while he’s there two old prophets rejoice over him, Simeon and Anna. Simeon sings, “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled. My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of every people; a light for the revelation of the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

A light in the darkness, a comforting light, an inviting light. A light for those under the oppressor’s yoke, those without hope, the light promised from long ago—the Light, Jesus. That light has come and shines, and the darkness will not overcome it.

I think of last Sunday’s annual meeting, and all the meetings we have around here. We do the work of democracy at this church. The power here is held in community. There is sharing, there is accountability, there is purpose. As I grow older, I think of all the minutes I’ve read, the public records, and of all the minutes stacked in files, from 1920s onward, all the records. That is the work of a people who seek to serve one another, to govern themselves by rules, to hold themselves accountable. It’s not a big light, but it is a bright light.

May that flame of hope flicker and fight forever.


Pastor John

 

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January 24, 2025

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Dear Friends,


Do you remember Dolores Umbridge, the fanatical teacher at Hogwarts? She replaced Albus Dumbledore because he tried telling the truth about Voldemort, and of course, she began a reign of terror, primarily based on control. She needed to control everything. I think Book 5 of Harry Potter has a lot of good stuff in it, but perhaps the best is Umbridge, her psychology and her rationale. There are plenty of scenes where she punishes Harry Potter for telling the truth by making him write the lines: I must not tell lies. These are such great scenes: Harry gets punished for doing the right thing, for telling the truth, and the irony of it becomes burned into his hand. Hogwarts quickly descends into a totalitarian hellscape: where Dumbledore was first among equals, relying on the expertise of his staff and entrusting them with their own authority, Umbridge wants to consolidate everything under her authority. No one else can be trusted: everyone must be surveilled, punished, subjected. 

I would say this is a good explanation for what’s happening in our government now, and to a lesser extent, our media. I wish I could say it’s been shocking, but unfortunately the Project 2025 plan is to consolidate the government under the president for the purposes of an authoritarian government. You may have noticed the price of eggs skyrocket: that’s because the bird flu is running like mad in our chicken stock. "The US is in a critical period in responding to H5N1. Any actions that slow or prevent the ability of US scientists to collect, analyze and disseminate data will weaken our abilities to track and protect ourselves from this virus.” That’s epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo in The Guardian today, talking about the gag order and travel ban on all the Department of Health and Human Services activities, including the weekly morbidity report and traveling to outbreak centers to investigate potential threats. The H5N1 bird flu is a real problem, and Delores Umbridge tactics of silence and control will not help. But if you want authoritarianism, silence and control through fear and intimidation is exactly what you want. But besides creating an environment of fear, it also reveals the deep well of fear in those that wish to implement these things. They are scared of what they cannot control.

Back in the day, you used to hear a lot about values. I think one of the most important values leaders must have is the willingness to receive bad news. That means, of course, giving up control, allowing others to use their expertise, to rely on the best judgments and hard work of other people. Dumbledore leadership, in other words. That allows thriving and new leadership to develop. Some leaders see that sentence and recoil—who can replace me? Like the Snow White’s wicked stepmother, they cannot bear the thought that they may not be the fairest in the land, or that their time to step down will someday come.

This Sunday, Jesus sits in the synagogue, pulls out the scroll for Isaiah, and says, “Today the Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Jesus thereby claims that he is God’s anointed, sent to liberate, heal, and teach. He is sent primarily to serve, not be be served, to empower others, not arrogate power to himself. You may have seen the sermon Bishop Budde preached, which was so effective because she did not harangue or yell, or do anything out of her own sense of righteousness or entitlement, but instead simply asked as a Christian should: have mercy. 

I don’t think it merely angered her audience. I think it scared them, because they are fundamentally frightened people. 

I hope that we can be people of courage, people who are not scared of our neighbor, whoever they may be, but rather people of lovingkindness. 

Finally, I just have two reminders. First, had our first 1st Samuel bible study this afternoon at 1: if you want to see where Mary got the idea for the Magnificat, or a poignant story about family and sacrifice, or just a really good tale, 1st Samuel’s first three chapters are an excellent bet. So come on and join us on zoom next Friday! HERE

Second, that we are having our annual meeting this Sunday. If you want some extra time to go over the budget, our Finance Team will be setting up in the chapel at 10 am so you can look it and ask questions before the meeting.

See you soon,

Pastor John

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January 17, 2025

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Hey all,


I wanted to bring your attention to two things: first, we are going on retreat to Koinonia! We still have space, and we’d love to get as many people there as possible. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but there will be childcare for Saturday morning, when the adults will be meeting. There’s plenty of room for exploration and relaxation, so I hope we’ll see you there. Please e-mail me to reserve a spot.

Second, do you remember the story of David and Goliath—or any of David’s stories? What makes David so great? (Hint: same reason as Hamlet or King Lear—his story is a tragedy). I’d like to invite you to our next weekly Bible Study of 1 Samuel, starting FRIDAY, January 22nd at 12:30. 1 Samuel is easy to read, and fun—it’s almost like historical fiction. But just because it’s fun, that doesn't mean it’s not sacred. It’s both fun and sacred. So come have some sacred fun on Fridays at 12:30—on Zoom or in my office, if you’d like.

This week we’ve got the Wedding at Cana—Jesus’s first miracle, or sign, according to John. You probably know the story—Jesus and his family and even some of his disciples were at a wedding, where, perhaps due to Jesus inviting all his friends to crash the wedding, they hosts ran out of wine. Big party fail. But Mary talked to her son, and he turned giant cisterns of water into wine. And boom, the party took off again. The steward then went to his master and said, “Why did you keep the good wine for later? Most people serve the good wine first and then the lesser wine.” Implication: offense to the Union of Stewards, since the professional way to steward vis to serve the good wine while the palate can appreciate it. Keeping it in reserve is a waste.

There’s a lot made of the symbolism here, and rightly so, because John is primarily a symbolic writer. What does it mean that the cisterns were for ritual cleansing? What does it mean that the wine is better? Why does Jesus believe it’s not the right time to do the miracle? As usual, did the sign change anything? Did anyone besides Jesus, Mary, and his little clique notice? 

I’m not sure I have the answers to any of those questions. But I do know something—you can often find Jesus at a party. Wedding party, symposium, potlucks—Jesus likes a party. He invites people to parties. And I know that folks who read this fall into a few camps: those that love parties, and those that really don’t ever want to go to a party again. Before I got long Covid, I was hoping that once the pandemic is over, I’d be able to go to a giant party where I didn’t know anybody and stay for hours. That’s still not a very good idea for me, but I’m happy that there’s another party I get to go to every week: our worship.

The biggest compliment I ever got after a worship service was, “That felt like a party!” I think I know what that meant: the sense of elation, of being with fun people, of seeing fun and surprising things, of laughter, maybe even tears. That’s what good parties do. Good parties even have room for introverts, little comers and alcoves where those folks can have long, intense, and quiet conversations with a few people. A good liturgy makes space for silence, but also joyful noise. When people walk by, a good worship service will make them feel curious, or even like they’re they wish they had gotten invited to do something so cool on a Sunday morning.

We don’t always get that right here. But we try. And the good news is that you are invited. You are invited to this party. And following Jesus’s example, you should definitely bring some party crashers with you. They’re welcome, too. 


See you soon,


Pastor John

 

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