November 22, 2024

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Dear Friends,

I’ve got news for you—it’s the end.

The end of the Christian year, that is. This Sunday is Christ the King Sunday, which reminds us that “All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together,” and the holiday reminds us that before Christ all powers will fall, all countries will disappear, and in the end, God will be all in all.

So, it’s a celebration this Sunday, that our allegiance and our dedication and our loyalty are due, above all else, to the Triune God. More than country, party, race, or clan: we are God’s people, made members of the body of Christ.

Christ the King is the newest Christian holiday, when a pope decreed it in 1925. He saw the aftermath of a World War and the incipient rise of dictators and fascists and anti-religious political movements and wanted to remind the Church—well, the Catholics at least—that any who called on Christ’s name were to follow Christ’s rule first. It was a call to stop worshipping earthly rulers and parties and movements and to render to God our hearts.

That was met with mixed success. Even today so many people use the name of Jesus for political ends, some good and many bad. Even today there’s a nefarious alliance between some churches and the state, between some churches and the oligarchs that wish to run the state.

We celebrate Christ the King to reject those alliances and to remember that worship and ultimate loyalty belong to God alone. Christ alone is Lord. Christ alone is Savior. No one else.

This does not mean that we don’t participate in the earthly life—by all means our Lord asks us to clothe naked, welcome the stranger, visit the imprisoned, feed the hungry, and to do all of this without favor. Much of the time no one minds. But there do come times when Christ’s mission of uniting the world into one human family runs afoul of the projects of people who want to profit from division and suppression.

In these cases, we remember that the apostles and Christ himself, chose to follow God’s call rather than the state’s. Christ is King. No one else.

And it’s good news, too. Because Christ is not a king that dominates, extorts, or extracts from his subjects. Christ is a King that invites his people to become part of the royal family. He does not want us to remain lowly, but to lift us up to his level. He is not the king that comes to our home to be served, but rather comes to serve us. His glory is chiefly in making beautiful saints out of sinners, of healing and restoring creation. And that’s how you know his followers—by their love and service.

So I invite you to come this Sunday and celebrate this day with us and the church throughout the whole world—Christ is King. No one else.

Pastor John

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November 15, 2024

 

Dear Friends,

If you’ve been around OSA over the past month, you’ve discovered major work on the backside of the building. I’m sure there are a lot of puns to be made there, but the main thing I’d like to point out (no pun intended!) is that we’re doing a very major overhaul of the facade of the building. Masonry, pointing, stone replacement. Over the years the wrong kind of mortar was put in, and now we need to replace the mortar along with a good number of decayed stones. 

It’s not an easy or a cheap project. And it’s not quick, either. This is just the first of at least two, maybe more phases. Yet to be pointed are the south wall and the Bennett Avenue wall, both of which will bring their own problems. 

Why do we spend our money on this? Well, to be up front about it, we will need to spend more money than we have right now. We’re in the planning stages of a capital campaign to raise enough funds to do this work. But the other answer comes down to two things: safety and inclusion.

First, safety: at some point crumbling rocks don’t stay in the wall. They fall down. And we don’t want anyone to discover there’s a problem after they wake up in the ER. This house of God is home to many people from all over our neighborhood, from artists to musicians to writers to dancers. There is no immediate danger, but we want everyone to be safe and we’ll do what we need to do to make sure of it. 

Second, inclusion: our building is a home for beauty. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, the Psalm says. And for whatever reason, God has called us to make a place of beauty—not just things that look beautiful, but that are beautiful. A safe place for children to learn music is a beautiful place; the rooms hallowed by song and prayer and praise are beautiful because God has touched the souls of the people who gathered there. The kitchen and upper rooms where people learn sobriety are beautiful because lives change for the better. And all this beauty should say something to you: you can be beautiful. You have a place here. This building is for you because God has invited you here.

This stance is about to become—or perhaps always is—contrary to the powers that be. In place of separation and fear, we believe in uniting in beauty. In place of narrowness of thought, our faith allows us to explore the various ways we can praise God and love one another. It all happens here. 

So watch out for our capital campaign appeal. In the meantime, come on and visit us. Sunday’s coming and we hope you’ll be there. It’s a beautiful place to be.


Pastor John

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November 8, 2024

 

Dear Friends,

Weeping lasts the night, but joy comes in the morning. Have you ever heard that verse? It’s one of reassurance—that as long as we live, God’s invitations to doing good stands. The night ends, the morning comes. 

One of my favorite literature passages as a kid was when Bilbo Baggins found himself alone in the dark. His friends didn’t know he had been left behind. He looks around for resources, and he only has the sword he got from an earlier mistake. He couldn’t see, he didn’t know where he was, he had lost all his friends. "Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up he got and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter."

There are two things I love about this. First, he does not curse his fate. He doesn’t give up. He stands up and does his best. He is afraid, and he is confused, and he is lost. But nevertheless, he accepts it all and does what he can. And second, the sword—Tolkien often puts a few grace notes in his books. Bilbo only has this sword because he almost got himself and his companions eaten by trolls—but if he hadn’t gotten them all into that mess, they wouldn’t have found the troll’s treasure trove, and he wouldn’t have the resource he does. Bilbo’s not alone, and his past misfortunes serve to help him in his present ones. Some of this scene is in his control--standing up, thinking things through, walking despite his fear and with his fear—but most of it isn’t in his control at all. Even his sword is an accident. And yet he gets up and walks in the dark.

Tolkien believed in something he called the eucatastrophe, which is a good catastrophe. He believed Christ’s resurrection was the fundamental eucatastrophe that informed all of reality. The sudden turn, he called it. Bilbo’s standing up in the dark is a mini-eucatastrophe. But for Tolkien this was real — life is like this because God melds our stories into the good catastrophe. We don’t know how, and we can’t see how sometimes. But we know later.

By now you’ve figure out the metaphor here. But it’s something I believe with all my heart. "Go back? No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up we get, and we trot along, taking whatever help we have at hand, with fear, and despite the fear, because we trust in the goodness of God.

You’ll hear about this a bit on Sunday—Elijah is the eucatastrophic prophet par excellence. He’s often found in despair. But God says to him, let’s go. Let’s keep going.

Go back? No good at all. Go sideways? Impossible. Go forward? Only thing to do. Let’s go.


Pastor John

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November 1, 2024

 

Dear Friends,

If you’re reading this before Saturday night, you still have time to purchase discount tickets for the Fall Ball. Just click this link right HERE. You’ll note that we have slots for kids, too, who will be playing in the gym while the event is going on upstairs. There will be jazz music, a silent auction with everything from fine art to Le Creuset dishes, and great food and drink. We just learned we have to replace at least 75 stones on our façade, and we have three more sides of the building to go. So, when faced with a challenge, it’s good to try to have fun with it if you can—and the Fall Ball should be a fun time for a good cause—our community’s house. If you can’t come, you can go to the giving section of our website and make a donation there.

The day after our Fall Ball is All Saints' Sunday—but today, November 1st, is actually All Saints' Day. This day we remember all who have died before us and are celebrating at God’s eternal banquet. We don’t just remember the famous saints (some of whom probably had really good PR campaigns), but also people like my uncle Jeff, who recently died. Jeff was not a perfect man, but he was a faithful one, who did his best to live in trust and faith in God. In many ways, I find those examples more inspiring than the heroes we so often name. Most of us have no desire for fame, but for stability, love, friendship, and the sense that we are being useful. Jeff was like that. In all of our own complexities, many of us will find that we are like that.

In the Lutheran tradition, we believe that God makes us holy (or hallowed), which is the English version of the word ‘saint’. We are not holy because of some superhuman effort, so particular goodness. We are holy because God’s grace makes it so. We share in every human’s brokenness, but yet God’s grace can mend any human life, and bring all our broken edges into harmony. We call this communion of saints, the unity of the holy ones. It is not that we—whomever we mean when we say we—are holy, but that grace makes us holy. 

We receive that grace and trust that it does what God promises. One of the ways Protestants think about ethics is in a sort of risk-taking, experimental sense. We know and affirm that we are flawed creatures, with imperfect knowledge. We know we will make many mistakes and fall into many temptations. So what? We keep going, trusting not in our flaws but in the excellence of God’s grace. That means we keep trying, keep improving, keep going, keep loving our neighbor as best as we can. We are like toddlers learning to walk—a few steps, a fall, sometimes tears. But there is a loving parent with us every step of the way.

Like any child, we long for our parent’s embrace. But to be a saint, to be hallowed, means that God’s embrace and loving hand always surrounds us, always holds us. That’s what being a saint means. It means, like a child, turning in love and trust to God, and resting in God’s arms. 


See you soon,


Pastor John

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October 25, 2024

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Dear Friends,


Thank you for showing up on Sunday to hear the Bishop preach and listen to his presentation on the Holy Land. I’m sorry I was not able to be there—as many of you know my uncle died quite suddenly and I had to fly out for his funeral. We’re back to our regularly scheduled programming this week—except that it’s actually Reformation Sunday, when we celebrate the continuing reformation of the church by, uh, singing centuries old Lutheran hymns. 

I have spent a large portion of my ministry being very uncomfortable with Reformation Sunday. I’m congenitally, unfailingly, unflappably Lutheran and probably will be to the day I die, but I also know Martin Luther did not want to start a church in his name and would probably be absolutely horrified that over 89 million people across the world go to churches with his name on the sign. His whole life was trying to remind people that Jesus saves, not Luther. And as he was quick to recognize his own failings—at least the ones he noticed—so should we. And all of us mainline Protestant denominations face a new challenge, which is the kind of reform that we need to undergo so that our churches will thrive in the coming decades. 

My uncle was a pastor, like most of my mom’s side of the family, and he worked hard for the message and meaning of Jesus: loving your neighbor. He was especially passionate about loving your LGBTQIA+ neighbor, but his church in Honolulu was about as diverse and inclusive as it could be, given its location and context. I think so much of our faith boils down to that one command: love God, love your neighbor. To do those two things is to put your trust in God, to have faith. The Reformation—the one in in the 16th century—was an attempt to bend our attention away from ourselves and out to our neighbor and God. I think my uncle did that for many people—I hope we also do that here at OSA.

I also want to mention that we are having a neighborly gathering here on November 2nd: our annual Fall Ball. You can buy tickets HERE.  Please come and invite your friends, as many as you can. You’ll have good food, hear great music, and have the opportunity to bid on some pretty great silent auction items, from Pastor John’s Ugly Pie to Uptown Clay Pottery, and two movers for a day. All of this will benefit our ongoing repointing project, which is replacing some crumbling stone and mortar. We need you come in so that we can have fun and raise funds. Please don’t miss it.

See you soon,

Pastor John.

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