WHAT DO PASTORS DO AT THEIR ANNUAL PASTORS CONFERENCE?

"Lazarus, come out!"

Once a year, the pastors of our local Sierra Pacific Synod (some 200 congregations, from Yreka in the North to Visalia in the South, from Reno to the Pacific Ocean) meet for fellowship, rest, and spiritual renewal during the annual Professional Leaders Conference” (PLC).

The 2015 PLC, which Pr. Ben and I attended, took place this week in beautiful Monterey.  This year’s speaker was Dr. Shauna Hannan, Associate Professor of Homiletics (i.e., the study of preaching).  Under Dr. Hanna’s enthusiastic leadership, we got to explore new collaborative models of preaching.  There were play-acting sessions, there was brain storming, humor, creative writing, even (for the musically inclined) the option of beginning to set a passage to music.

I wholeheartedly wish to thank the Bethel community for making it possible for Pr. Ben and myself to attend this annual event.  Sometimes, it is just nice to not be anyone’s pastor for a few days, but to let one’s hair down, so to speak, and to reconnect with long-time friends and colleagues or to meet colleagues who have newly moved into our synod. 

The particular passage that we worked on was John 11:32-44, the story of how Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from death.  That story is found only in John’s gospel. In that gospel, this story marks the turning point when Jesus really got in trouble with the authorities and they decided, “no more of this!”  [Interestingly, in the other gospels a similar turning point is reached when Jesus overturns the tables of the money changers in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.]

John 11 is a text typically assigned to All Saints Sunday, which this year falls on November 1.  I invite you to read the passage prior to November 1 and to reflect on the strong emotions that are displayed in the story.  What do you hear? See? Smell? Feel?

Before we get to All Saints Sunday, though, we will celebrate the most beloved of all Lutheran festivals: Reformation Sunday.  Again, it is time to open our hymnals to the “battle hymn of the Reformation,” Martin Luther’s A Mighty Fortress is Our God. I look forward to singing it from the top of my lungs  with the rest of our congregation at both services. 

What else will happen this Sunday?  As during the last 2 years, we will also present first “grown-up” Bibles to the children who participated in our First Bible calls and we will confirm two 9^th-grade boys.  I hope that you will join your Bethel brothers and sisters in Christ for these special worship services.

Yours in Christ,

Pr. Gabi

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS & SOCIAL JUSTICE

2015 Adult M2M Participants

This Sunday, we will gratefully celebrate the ministry of our Adult Mission to Mexico.  Our M2M Sunday strangely coincides with two other occasions:

1. The lectionary preaching text assigned to this Sunday includes the version of the Ten Commandments from Deuteronomy 5.
2. October 17 is observed as International Day for the Eradication of Poverty calling attention to the inequality and social injustice that afflict our global community.

Mission to Mexico, Ten Commandments, and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty – they are all somehow inter-related, but how?  The common denominator, in my eyes, is God's preference for social justice.

Social justice is one of the important issues in the Bible. Ever since God created the world and humankind, the life and happiness of all of God’s people have been among God’s deepest desires. The Bible continually shines light those who are oppressed and who turn to God in prayer (e.g. Ps 9–10; 22). Prophets like Isaiah and Amos raise their voices on behalf of the poor and the marginalized, like the widows, orphans, and foreigners. In the New Testament, Jesus and Paul develop a Christian ethics of love.

To the people of Israel, the archetype of all social injustice was their slavery in Egypt. After raising up Moses as leader, God gave his people the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai and established Israel as a free people who were supposed to live according to a just social order.  In some way, the Ten Commandments form a kind of constitution for the people of Israel, a foundational set of rules for a society that respects the life and dignity of all its members. The institution of the Sabbath, for instance, is an instrument for the levelling of social differences, allowing servants and foreigners to rest, not just the employers and citizens.

Throughout the Old Testament, God backs vehemently those groups who are particularly vulnerable to suffering from social injustice. “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan... If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry” (Exodus 22:20,23).

We find that same levelling of social hierarchies in the New Testament, too. We find it in Jesus’ ministry and teaching: “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:42-44). And we find it in the letters of the Apostle Paul: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

So what does house-building in Tijuana have to do with the words of Jesus and the Apostle Paul? It should be obvious by now – in God’s eyes we are no better than our brothers and sisters in poorer parts of the world.  Whoever wishes to become great among us, must be servant to their disadvantaged brothers and sisters. In Christ, we all are one: US citizens, Mexicans, legal and illegal immigrants. 

As Lutherans, we like to look at the Gospel through the lenses of “Law” and “Gospel.”  According to Paul, the Law reveals to us our limitations, our inability to live up to the will of God (Romans 7).  But God has not only given us his Law, but also the Gospel of salvation in and through Jesus Christ.  The Good News of the Gospel reveal to us that first and foremost comes God’s love and God’s grace, not our good works.  God’s love precedes any of our deeds. 

The same principle of “grace first” was at work in Old Testament times. Think about it – first came the Exodus from Egypt and the liberation of the Hebrew people, then the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.  First the Gospel, then the Law. First redemption, then covenant.  First God, then religion.  First Christ, then Church.

I hope that you’ll be able to join us this Sunday to celebrate God’s goodness and gratefully acknowledge the ministry of our Adult Mission to Mexico participants.